With the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House in November, African policy makers should brace themselves for the possibly stricter migration policies and the return for a purely transactional relationship that would mean less cooperation with the continent, according to experts.
Opinion polls indicate and political pundits concur that former US President Donald Trump has a real chance of winning back the White House after he has emerged as the Republican front-runner for November’s 2024 US presidential election.
“Africa should be concerned about the possible return of Donald Trump to the presidency,” says Etse Sikanku, a senior lecturer at Accra’s University of Media, Arts and Communication. Above all, because of the fundamental ideology at the heart of Donald Trump’s policies, Sikanku added. “Because this is someone who believes in isolationism in every respect. He looks more inwards,” in contrast to Biden who is more global and stands more for cooperation and partnership.
“If Trump won the next election, we would see a kind of reversion back to that earlier period of US foreign policy under Trump, and that is weakening the global multilateral system,” Priyal Singh, an analyst from the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, echoes the general sentiment among experts and observers. Trump’s ascendency to the White House “is dispiriting news” for Africa, writes David Thomas, an editor in African Business. According to Thomas, Trump’s ”disengagement went beyond tactless comments. While Trump saw Africa as an arena for US competition with China, key diplomatic posts in Africa went unfilled and he failed to visit the continent. His attempts to limit Muslim immigration into the US discriminated against several African nations.”