View / A ‘myopic’ approach to Africa in new US security strategy

The White House’s newly published National Security Strategy, an attempt to lay out the Trump administration’s foreign policy priorities in 30 pages, devotes just over half a page to Africa. Both the brevity and the content offer few surprises.

In line with US President Donald Trump’s America First approach, the strategy document stresses the need to adopt an “investment and growth paradigm” instead of one centered on foreign aid. It also emphasizes the opportunity Africa presents for US companies to access critical minerals and energy supply deals, while nodding to a potential role for engagement in ending conflicts.

One Washington-based policy adviser on Africa issues called the strategy “myopic,” while another described the administration’s approach as showing an “aggressive disinterest” in Africa. The issue, as the first person explained, is that the new US strategy lacks the kind of long-term coherent approach which is necessary to ensure the US has a foot in the door to partner with a continent which will account for one in four of all workers by 2050. It’s heavy on the transactional approach in that it touts how US companies can benefit from operating in Africa but not as much on how the US will be a partner beyond that.

But there was also a broader consensus that reshaping the previous US-Africa relationship was necessary.

“It’s the most honest statement of US interest in Africa we have seen in a while,” said Cameron Hudson, a former White House official in the George W. Bush administration. “Like all strategies it is as much a response to the previous administration’s strategy as a statement of their own. They’re saying ‘we don’t care about everything under the sun.’”