On his first day in office, Trump set about establishing the framework of a new and muscular American nationalism and expansionism, moving to strip from migrants even such constitutional guarantees as birthright citizenship, rename the Gulf of Mexico for America, and take back the Panama Canal––always, for its name, a part of Panama––from Panama. He has set about establishing an External Revenue Service, to tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich American citizens—an explicit return to imperial tribute, and has since weaponized sanctions to strong-arm the Columbian government into conceding the dignity of that country’s migrants to the US. 

In his first term, Trump made clear his thoughts about the countries and citizenry of Africa, ‘shithole’ countries and their unfortunate residents, respectively. Beyond this, African countries received little, if any interest, from the US in Trump’s first term. This was often to the detriment of non-governmental and international agencies, many of whom had previously relied on American funding, and to the detriment of American influence, where, when America looked unable or unwilling to assist African governments, those governments found willing partners elsewhere. 

In a second Trump term, African countries may expect more of the same. On Trump’s first day in office, he announced his intention to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization (WHO)—a move that would sever many of the agency’s African programmes from key funds. He has since disrupted much of America’s African aid outflows, placing large swathes of government funding under review, and even going as far as shuttering agencies as important to African and international development efforts as the United States Agency for International Development.  

Continued American withdrawal from African commitments also creates space for others to compete for continental influence. In the Sahel, the new allied military juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have replaced close ties to France with growing partnerships with the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary outfit. The Central African Republic has used its ties to Wagner to wage a brutal war of oppression against its opposition, where Wager forces have been accused of crimes including the torture and killing of civilians. On the easternmost fringe of the Sahel, Sudan remains divided by conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), where the latter party is thought to have found crucial support in the largesse of the United Arab Emirates, whose government has provided the RSF with funds, arms and even advanced drone technology with which to wage war against the government of an erstwhile ally.  

While many continue to debate the relative risks and merits of the Sahel’s adventures with Wagner, the experience of foreign influence in Sudan should caution us against the assumption that new external actors in African political power will always be benign, or that global frameworks to protect against malign external influence will always be effective. This is increasingly true in the emerging world of international aggression, self-interest, and justification through might, where appeals to morality and even to international norms are increasingly less effective, and so are less likely to be used.  

We can look to our neighbours in the Levant to demonstrate this further. Israel’s horrific conduct in Gaza, which Israel claims is a response to the tragedy of massacre of 7 October 2023, has drawn near universal condemnation. A broad swathe of international organizations, including the International Federation for Human Rights, Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International and even some agents of the United Nations have called this conduct a genocide. Despite this, and even despite an officially announced ceasefire, Israeli aggressions towards Palestinians continue, and Palestinians remain targets of hostile fire—even as they return to their homes in the Gaza Strip. Humanitarian outcry has done little to change facts on the ground for oppressed Palestinians, or to set limits to the extent of Israeli warfare. It is an incredible metaphor that, in December 2024, the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, would narrowly escape death in an Israeli airstrike on a Yemeni airport where he had been having a meeting. Israel would continue bombing Yemen in under two weeks after this incident.