At nearly every global business event I attend, my American friends eventually pull me aside and ask the same thing: How can the US compete with China in Africa?
As a Nigerian founder-turned-investor who manages American capital across the continent — and as a husband and father to US citizens — I feel a duty to answer clearly: If the US wants to win in Africa, it needs to back its greatest weapon, American business.
Right now, American companies are losing ground. Meanwhile, China is everywhere — building roads, ports, and especially digital infrastructure. Huawei now powers a significant share of Africa’s advanced mobile networks. Chinese smartphones, apps like TikTok, and AI tools are already dominant. And that’s not just a commercial problem. It’s a strategic one.
The good news? American private enterprise has already shown what’s possible. US venture capital helped build African tech companies like Flutterwave, Moove, M-KOPA, and Paystack. Google, Meta, Microsoft, Visa, and Mastercard have invested in cloud infrastructure, payments, and talent development. These partnerships have created jobs, trust, and goodwill — all while exporting American values.
Still, these efforts remain too small and too scattered. Chinese firms operate with full state support. American businesses often go it alone. That must change.
Today, US foreign tax credits help avoid double taxation when American companies repatriate foreign profits — but they don’t encourage long-term investment. In fact, they can discourage it in emerging markets like Africa’s, which require patient capital for infrastructure, talent, and financial systems.
Instead of routing investments through slow, bureaucratic US government development finance agencies — which often lack the speed or commercial context to close deals quickly — we need a bold, business-led solution.
The US should offer enhanced foreign investment tax credits to American companies that invest directly in Africa’s special economic or free trade zones — especially in countries with active and enforced bilateral investment treaties with the United States. For every dollar invested, firms could claim an additional dollar in tax credits, provided the host country also offers favorable local incentives. This would make it easier for US companies to commit capital to long-term projects that build African capacity while opening fast-growing markets to American innovation.
This isn’t aid, it’s smart policy. It opens up new markets for US products, strengthens allies, and helps counter China’s growing influence. America doesn’t need to copy China’s model. It can win by doing what it does best: empowering business, backing innovation, and staying true to its values.
As Ronald Reagan once said, America is a shining city on a hill. But today, instead of bombs or bans, it must lead with business. If it doesn’t, China will.
Iyinoluwa “E” Aboyeji, OON is the founding partner of Future Africa, an Africa-focused seed stage investor domiciled in the United States. He previously co-founded two of African unicorns; Andela and Flutterwave.