“Why are we in Africa?,” former President Donald Trump reportedly privately noted to then-National Security Advisor John Bolton in 2018. “I want out of Africa.”[1]

After a tumultuous post-election period, what questions should most inform the Biden administration’s approach to the African continent within the U.S. National Security Strategy?

President Biden’s Africa team will face three dilemmas that would be recognizable to any American statesman responsible for Africa policy in the post 1945 period. The answers to these three foundational questions, set out in key strategic documents like the National Security Strategy, provide the intellectual framework that foreshadows subsequent resource allocations and shapes the policies through which the United States engages the African continent. While often unseen in the day-to-day tumult of crises and diplomacy, the answers to these first-order questions provide the logic that animates American foriegn policy in Africa.

The foremost question for any American National Security Strategy’s approach to this region is: why does Africa matter to the United States?

The first dilemma regards the age-old question of why and how Africa matters to the United States. Is the continent important to the U.S. in the context of larger strategic and transnational priorities, such as combating China and fighting terrorism, or does it hold intrinsic strategic value in its own right? With its December 2018 “Africa Strategy,” which outlined combating Chinese interests as the unmistakable priority for U.S.-Africa policy, the Trump administration firmly chose the former.

The answer to this first question closely informs the second evergreen dilemma: “how much is enough” to advance U.S. interests in Africa? Africa is rarely an administration’s top foreign policy priority, leaving policymakers consistently strapped for resources. Available resources may be even more limited for the Biden administration as it wrestles with the colossal domestic tasks of suppressing the COVID-19 pandemic and jump-starting an economic recovery.

The third and final dilemma—and perhaps the thorniest to untangle in any official strategy—is the unmistakable nexus between America’s own domestic travails—particularly around questions of race and democracy—and its foreign policy in Africa. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, American diplomacy faces a steep reputational challenge.

This article examines each of three dilemmas outlined above within a broad historical context, highlighting the continuities and changes in the strategic choices faced by American policymakers. Each section also briefly evaluates the Trump administration’s approach to these three dilemmas to illuminate the immediate legacy that the Biden team will confront as it endeavors to develop a National Security Strategy that advances American interests in Africa.

The First Dilemma: Why Does Africa Matter to the United States?

The foremost question for any American National Security Strategy’s approach to this region is: why does Africa matter to the United States? American administrations have historically faced a tough choice: should they frame Africa policy within broader transnational goals or emphasize the inherent strategic importance of Africa to American interests? Of course, both these options represent ideal types. Nevertheless, this choice—often framed in the beginning of an administration within strategic planning documents—typically augers subsequent approaches.[2]

The first option is to focus Africa policy on transnational concerns. This approach holds deep historical roots and was perhaps best articulated by a 1957 National Security Council Assessment, which labeled the African continent as “both a prize and a battlefield in the worldwide strategic contest.”[3] However, this strategy risks ignoring local nuances and alienating African states—who are not eager to be seen as pawns in a new Cold War.[4] Nevertheless, this approach provides some measure of strategic coherence by integrating U.S.-Africa policy within the broader national approach to address specific global challenges such as terrorism or great power competition. Typically, this approach also elevates the profile of African issues within the national security bureaucracy and enhances the resources available to advance American interest in the region.

Absent a larger geo-strategic framing, African issues can easily slip into the background for senior policy makers, rendering major investments or policy initiatives impossible.

The second choice—focusing on Africa’s inherent strategic value to the United States—unsurprisingly has historically received a much warmer welcome on the continent. This strategy does not ignore realpolitik considerations, but emphasizes Africa’s own strategic value, based on its growing economic and demographic heft, as well as its valuable geographic position amidst global shipping chokepoints like the Gulf of Aden.[5] Engaging the region “on its own merits” may also translate into increased support within international organizations, where African nations comprise a powerful voting bloc. However, this approach holds risks of its own. Most notably, it can lead to dangerous adhockery and incoherence, as global concerns inevitably intrude into African politics and force seat-of-the-pants strategic re-adjustments.[6] It also risks indifference. Absent a larger geo-strategic framing, African issues can easily slip into the background for senior policy makers, rendering major investments or policy initiatives impossible.

While there is danger in recent history, available evidence suggests that the Trump administration saw Africa principally as a battlefield for the larger geostrategic competition with China. The most senior-level statement on Africa policy emerged from National Security Advisor John Bolton in a speech to the Heritage Foundation in December 2018.[7] Bolton made clear that competition with China represented the Trump administration’s top interest in Africa. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed this prioritization when he noted that “my Ambassadors, no matter where they are in the world, have China at the top of their list. So if you’re an ambassador in the Democratic Republic of the Congo…you know that the Chinese Communist Party’s intent on impacting that country, and we are determined to make sure that we use our capacity to push back against that challenge.”[8]

This zero-sum, binary approach, which warned of Chinese debt trap diplomacy, landed with a predictable thud in African capitals, where many leaders perceived American chidings as paternalistic.[9] African states, unsurprisingly, resented being cast as pawns in a new Cold War, and preferred to continue trade and relationships with both super-power rivals. [10]

The Trump administration threw down the gauntlet with Beijing in Africa, but failed to offer African states a credible and compelling alternative to Chinese investment.

Despite framing U.S. Africa policy as a key region to compete against Chinese influence, the region remained on the backburner for most of the Trump administration. While the administration was correct to be concerned about the scope, scale, and limited transparency around Chinese activity in Africa, it failed to put forward a credible alternative to China’s powerful economic investments and sustained diplomatic engagement on the continent. For example, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired during his first trip to the continent, an event that would be unthinkable during a sojourn to Europe or the Asia-Pacific. Moreover, unlike his two predecessors in the Oval Office, who traveled to the continent for fifteen and eighteen days, respectively, President Trump never set foot in Africa. In contrast, Chinese President Xi Jinping has visited the continent three separate times, including a seven-day trip during Mr. Trump’s tenure in the White House.[11]

Economically, the story is much of the same. Prosper Africa, the Trump administration’s signature Africa policy initiative, has yet to take off. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has lent approximately five billion dollars per year since 2013 to a total of 39 African countries, continues to dwarf American involvement.[12] Meanwhile, in a trend that began in 2008, U.S. Foreign Direct Investment in Africa continued to slip. In fact, U.S. Foreign Direct Investment flows have been negative since mid-2017.[13] The Trump administration threw down the gauntlet with Beijing in Africa, but failed to offer African states a credible and compelling alternative to Chinese investment.

The Second Dilemma: How Much is Enough?

The Biden administration faces a similar dilemma as it considers how to resource its desired approach to the continent. Limited means—senior leader time, military assets, and financial commitments—have historically constrained American strategy on the continent in practice. However, this essential element of means is often under-examined in regionally focused studies of U.S.-Africa policy.[14] Consequently, policy-recommendations and strategies for Africa frequently resemble Christmas trees—ornamented wish-lists divorced from practical attempts to pair objectives to resources.[15]

Africa will likely continue to be what military planners call an “economy of force” theater.

The Biden team will feel this pressure acutely as it attempts to manage the converging domestic crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resultant economic downturn, and continued domestic unrest — to say nothing of foreign policy. Africa will likely continue to be what military planners call an “economy of force” theater. As one Johnson-era National Security Council Africa staffer once bemoaned, “our most nagging problem in Africa is that we have to make do with words in place of money.”[16]

This resource dilemma begets serious dangers. In the past as the U.S. attempted to limit its financial commitments and political risk in Africa, it has instead relied upon partners whose interests and values sometimes diverged from those held by American policymakers and citizens.[17] During the Cold War, working by, with, and through despotic leaders like Zaire’s Joseph Mobutu brought America a few Cold War wins on the cheap, but wrought deep harm to America’s soft power appeal.[18] Consequently, Nelson Mandela noted at the height of the Cold War that most Africans “equate[d] freedom with Communism.”[19]

Managing this resource dilemma and calibrating “how much is enough” in Africa also proved vexing for the Trump Administration. After initially adding forces to U.S. Africa Command, the Trump administration subsequently undertook a series of troop reductions. The first of these withdrawals, the Orwellianly titled “optimization” of 2018, reduced the Special Operations Forces presence in West Africa by a reported ten percent.[20] A second attempted cutback of U.S. support to French efforts in West Africa in early 2020 under Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s “blank slate review,” however, ultimately faltered amidst strong bi-partisan congressional opposition.[21] Finally, in the waning weeks of the Trump administration, most U.S. troops reportedly withdrew from Somalia, fulfilling—at least superficially—Mr. Trump’s wish to “get out of Africa” and “end endless wars.”[22] The abrupt withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia illustrates the third and final dilemma of U.S.-Africa strategy—vulnerability to domestic politics.

The Third Dilemma: U.S. Domestic Politics and Africa Policy

This last dilemma—which often goes unstated in official strategies—entails managing the junction of America’s own domestic politics and its foreign policy in Africa. While domestic politics intertwines with U.S. foreign policy in every region, America’s unique legacy of slavery and systemic racism make its impact particularly sharp in Africa.[23] As Secretary of State Dean Rusk noted at the height of the Cold War, American racism represented “the biggest single burden that we carry on our backs in foreign relations.”[24]

During the Cold War, issues of race tangled with America’s strategic interests in often unpredictable ways. Competition for influence with the Soviets in the so-called “Third World” compelled some American politicians to advocate for Civil Rights for Black Americans at home.[25] On the whole, however, America’s troublesome legacy of race represented an albatross for America’s Cold War diplomacy in Africa.[26] In a resource-strapped environment, the damage to America’s reputation and soft power influence proved especially harmful.

The racist sentiments and belief systems of American policymakers also led to deeply flawed assumptions and policies towards the continent. Skewed geopolitical outlooks emerged from these racial prejudices. This phenomenon is best illustrated by President Richard Nixon, who told Henry Kissinger, then serving as his national security advisor: “Henry, let’s leave the n****** to Bill and we’ll take care of the rest of the world.”[27] Bill referred to Bill Rogers, Nixon’s oft-sidelined Secretary of State. Unsurprisingly, Nixon’s team aligned American policy closely with apartheid South Africa, to the detriment of America’s relationships with newly-liberated African states.

America’s domestic tumult around race and policing—highlighted by the murder of George Floyd and the June 1, 2020 violence against peaceful protestors in Lafayette square—further diminished America’s soft power influence in Africa…

These long-standing issues take special form in this moment of cascading domestic crises. Over the previous four years, barely disguised racialized decision-making badly skewed U.S.-Africa policy. The 2017 “Muslim Ban” banning immigration and refugees from Somalia, Sudan, and Libya represented the most egregious example, but degrading comments from the 45th President referring to African states as “shithole countries,” and follow-on visa bans on key African states like Nigeria as late as 2020 demonstrated the breadth of this animosity.[28] These actions signaled a fundamental indifference to African perspectives and torpedoed the administration’s official rhetoric around Africa’s importance to the U.S.[29]

America’s domestic tumult around race and policing—highlighted by the murder of George Floyd and the June 1, 2020 violence against peaceful protestors in Lafayette square—further diminished America’s soft power influence in Africa and undermined ongoing diplomatic efforts to promote accountable governance.[30] The African Union officially condemned the murder of George Floyd and police brutality towards Black Americans, while authoritarian leaders in Zimbabwe took to Twitter to use the Lafayette square incident to justify their own brutality against their citizens.[31] Meanwhile, Uganda’s ruling regime quickly pointed to the January 6, 2021 insurrection as evidence that America has no right to speak out on issues of democracy in Africa.[32]

In an era of diminishing resources, getting the big ideas wrong is a luxury the United States can no longer afford.

America’s power to persuade and to lead by example—often its most powerful tool in a resource-scarce environment—finds itself badly damaged at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise on the continent.[33] Paradoxically, however, while leaders like Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Tanzania’s John Magufuli continue to consolidate their power and erode electoral norms, popular support for democracy remains resilient. According to Afrobarometer polling, most Africans remain “strongly committed to democracy and opposed to authoritarian rule” and nearly 70 percent say “democracy is their preferred form of government.” [34]

How the Biden team approaches the challenges of systemic racism and repairing American democracy at home will perhaps represent the most consequential component of his administration’s Africa strategy. Dean Rusk’s warning from 1963 remains apt today: "Our voice is muted, our friends are embarrassed, our enemies are gleeful."[35]

The Troublesome Trinity and the Future of American Statecraft in Africa

Biden’s team will likely confront the three dilemmas of U.S.-Africa policy immediately. There are no perfect answers to this troublesome trinity. Nevertheless, this process of strategy-making remains critical. In an era of diminishing resources, getting the big ideas wrong is a luxury the United States can no longer afford.

As they approach these three dilemmas, however, the Biden administration can take heart that America’s current generation of foreign policy professionals are up to the challenge.[36] In the wake of the U.S. Capitol attack, with what appeared to be flawed elections upcoming in Uganda, Ambassador Natalie Brown, one of only three Black Ambassadors currently serving overseas at the time of this writing, noted that:

When we speak out against human rights abuses, we do so not because such abuses do not occur in America…On the contrary, we do so because we are mindful of the work still to be done in the American experiment with democracy and because our history has taught us that democracy must be defended if it is to endure.[37]  

Ambassador Brown’s leadership represents the best of America’s foreign policy in Africa and serves a symbol of hope for its future. In an environment where “we have to make do with words in place of money,” such messages—and the messengers who deliver them—are critical.[38] While skilled diplomacy alone cannot substitute for flawed strategy or inadequate resourcing, President Biden should take some measure of comfort in the professionalism and expertise his administration inherits as it develops the Africa-facing components of the next National Security Strategy.

Sam Wilkins is a U.S. Army officer and a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The author’s views do not reflect the position of the United States Military Academy, Johns Hopkins SAIS, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

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Header Image: Amboseli National Park, Kenya. (Sergey Pesterev)

Notes:

[1] John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), 427.

[2] While Cold War considerations doubtlessly dominated American policy towards the continent, the Presidency of John F. Kennedy saw perhaps the most genuine commitment to address Africa as important on its own merits. See Phillip Muehlenbeck, Betting on the Africans: JFK’s Courting of African Nationalist Leaders (Oxford University Press, 2012, Richard Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa (Oxford University Press, 1983) and Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume XX, Congo Crisis (Office of the Historian, 1994).

Perhaps the clearest example of framing Africa’s value within transnational concerns comes from the Nixon administration’s approach outlined in NSSM-39. National Security Study Memorandum 39,” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXVIII, Southern Africa.

[3] Sergey Mazov, A Distant Front in the Cold War: The USSR in West Africa and the Congo, 1954-1964 (Stanford University Press, 2010), 29.

[4] Guide Moore, “A New Cold War is Coming, Africa Should Not Pick Sides,” Mail and Guardian, August 21, 2020, https://mg.co.za/africa/2020-08-21-a-new-cold-war-is-coming-africa-should-not-pick-sides/.

[5] Supporters of this line of thinking highlight that African states hold a combined Gross Domestic Product of over $3.4 trillion, a total that is higher than India, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia and that by 2050, one in every four persons in the world will be African.World Bank, “Africa Overview,” https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/overview. Landry Signe, “Africa’s Consumer and Market Potential,” Brookings, 12 December 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/research/africas-consumer-market-potential/.

[6] Chester Crocker, President Ronald Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, wisely saw this challenge as “to identify strategies that were both credible and relevant to the region itself. Neither the globalists – who saw a Soviet hand behind every Cold War problem area – nor the Africanists – who imagined that slogans like “African solutions to African problems” could war off Soviet interventionism – had the answer.” Chester Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood (New York: WW Norton and Company, 1992), 28.

[7] John Bolton, “A New Africa Strategy: Expanding Economic and Security Ties on the Basis of Mutual Respect,” February 20, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/new-africa-strategy-expanding-economic-and-security-ties-the-basis-mutual.

[8] Mike Pompeo, “Comments to Reagan Foundation,” Transcript, 14 November 2020, https://directsourcenews.org/2020/11/10/the-promise-of-america-united-states-department-of-state/.

[9] See Caleb Slayton, “Africa: The First Casualty of the New Information Warfare Against China,” War on the Rocks, February 3, 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/02/africa-the-first-u-s-casualty-of-the-new-information-warfare-against-china/, Salem Solomon, “As US Debt Trap Diplomacy Rhetoric Heats Up, China-Africa Relations Hold Fast,” VOA News, December 19, 2018, https://www.voanews.com/africa/us-debt-trap-diplomacy-rhetoric-heats-china-africa-relations-hold-fast.

[10] Judd Devermont, “Haven’t We Done This Before,” Lawfare, April 15, 2019, https://www.lawfareblog.com/havent-we-done-lessons-and-recommendations-strategic-competition-sub-saharan-africa.

[11] Tim Cocks, “In Senegal, China’s President Xi Pledges Stronger Africa Ties,” Reuters, July 21, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-senegal-china/in-senegal-chinas-president-xi-pledges-stronger-africa-ties-idUSKBN1KB0PL. Stephen Jiang and Ben Westcott, “Xi Jinping heads to Africa to clinch China's hold over the continent,” CNN, July 20, 2018 (https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/asia/xi-jinping-africa-visit-intl/index.html.

“How will Africa Remember Barack Obama?” BBC News, January 18, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38649362. Gardiner Harris, “Bush Steps Back Into Spotlight to Help Africa Fight Epidemics,” The New York Times, April 8, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/world/africa/george-bush-africa-epidemics-pepfar.html. The White House, “Trip to Africa,” 2008, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/africa/trip2008/.

[12] “Unlocking the Gates of Eurasia: China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its Implications for US Grand Strategy,” TNSR, (JUL 2019), https://tnsr.org/2019/07/unlocking-the-gates-of-eurasia-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-and-its-implications-for-u-s-grand-strategy/. Christopher Johnson, “President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative,” CSIS, 28 March, 2016 https://www.csis.org/analysis/president-xi-jinping%E2%80%99s-belt-and-road-initiative

[13] SAIS China in Africa Research Initiative, “CARI Interactive Database,” July 1 2020, http://www.sais-cari.org/.

[14] The counter-terrorism field is perhaps the most culpable, as regional analyses often call for expansions of U.S. military partnerships absent top-line studies of the strain of such operations on scare military capabilities such as unmanned aerial surveillance and Special Operations Forces. I have personally been guilty of such narrow recommendations: Sam Wilkins, “From Security to Reconciliation: How Nigeria can Win its War with Boko Haram,” War on the Rocks, December, 2017, www.warontherocks.com/2017/12/from-security-to-reconciliation-how-nigeria-can-win-its-bloody-war-with-boko-haram. See also:Jessica Trisko Darden and Emily Estelle, “Combating the Islamic State’s Spread in Africa,” AEI, February 2021. Other fields such as diplomacy and development are also culpable. For example, there are frequent calls the “re-invigorate American diplomacy” in Africa that eschew serious analysis of what such an approach would cost. In the development space, some experts have called for funding the next generation of electrical power, internet services, or traditional infrastructure for the continent, despite America’s comparative weaknesses in those fields. While these accurately diagnose opportunities, and highlight genuine African needs, the hard budgetary work is often lacking. See Howard French, “How to fix America’s Absentee Diplomacy in Africa,” World Politics Review, 17 July 2019.

[15] Marcus Hicks, Kyle Atwell, and Dan Collini, “Great Power Competition is Coming to Africa: The United States Needs to Think Regionally to Win,” Foregin Affairs, 4 March, 20201.

[16] Quoted in Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 383. To put the paltry level of American Cold War aid to Africa in context, South Korea received more American assistance than the entire African continent from 1946-1978. “Statement of the Honorable Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Security Assistance,” November 19, 1975, Box 15 Robert Anderson Papers, Gerald Ford Presidential Library. See also Westad, The Cold War, 402.

[17] In this period, the CIA ran three major paramilitary operations, one to fight and win the Simba rebellion in Zaire (1964-1965), IAFEATURE, the effort during the Ford Administration in 1975 to aid Angolan rebel groups, and the subsequent Reagan-era resuscitation of U.S. covert aid to Jonas Savimbi’s Angolan rebels after 1986. See: “National Security Study Memorandum 39,” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXVIII, Southern Africa. Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 400. “Intelligence Memorandum: The Present Military Situation in Angola,” 26 January, 1976, Declassified on 1 April, 2003, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00353R000100240009-1.pdf, Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 231. Jeffrey Michaels, “Breaking the Rules,” Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence (December, 2011), pp. 133.

[18] Mobutu’s brutal rule in the Congo served American purposes as an anti-communist bastion as his army supressed a series of Soviet assisted efforts in Eastern Congo. Mobutu also provided a safe haven for U.S.-sponsored anti-communist Angolan groups during the Angolan Civil War, as well as critical airfields used by CIA aircraft to resupply rebels within Angola itself. The wisdom of this approach to Angola is beyond the scope of this essay. However, Mobutu looted the Congo, stunted its development, and unleashed dangerous conflicts in the great lakes region. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, African Affairs Directorate, RAC Box 15, “National Security Decision Directive 212, U.S. Policy Towards Angola,” February 10, 1986. Available at: https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/23-2730a.gif. Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987 (Simon and Schuster: New York, 1987), 269. Lou Cannon, “Reagan Isn’t Wimping Out,” The Washington Post, 29 September, 1986, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/09/29/reagan-isnt-wimping-out/454423f1-e24e-4cad-88f4-05c3d4e0e167/.

[19] Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line (Harvard University Press, 2003), 156.

[20] Alice Hunt Friend, “The Evolution of U.S. Defense Posture in North and West Africa,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 15, 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/evolution-us-defense-posture-north-and-west-africa.

[21] Katie Bo Williams, “Graham Denies Threatening to Make Esper’s Life Hell if he Cuts AFRICOM Troops,” Defense One, January 26, 2020, https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/02/graham-denies-threatening-make-espers-life-hell-if-he-cuts-africom-troops/163170/.

[22] Steve Holland, “Trump to West Point Grads: We are ending the era of endless wars,” Reuters, June 13, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-wars/trump-to-west-point-grads-we-are-ending-the-era-of-endless-wars-idUSKBN23K0PR.

[23] Travis Adkins and Judd Devermont, “The Legacy of American Racism at Home and Abroad,” Foreign Policy, 19 June, 2020, www.foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/19/american-racism-foreign-policy-impact.

[24] Quoted in Thomas Borstelmann, “Hedging our Bets and Buying Time” JFK and Racial Revolutions in the American South and Southern Africa, Diplomatic History (Summer 2000).

[25] See Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2011).

[26] Nancy Mitchell, Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2016).

[27] Bortelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line, 234.

[28] Josh Dawsey, “Trump Derides Protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries,” The Washington Post, January 12, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-protections-for-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-in-oval-office-meeting/2018/01/11/bfc0725c-f711-11e7-91af-31ac729add94_story.html, Stephanie Busari, “Nigerians shocked after trump extends travel ban,” CNN, February 3, 2020 https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/01/africa/nigeria-travel-ban-intl/index.html, Glenn Thrush, “Trump’s New Trabel Ban Blocks Migrants from Six Nations, Sparing Iraq,” The New York Times, March 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/travel-ban-muslim-trump.html.

[29] It is also unclear how, if it all, these visa and travel restrictions were coordinated with America’s diplomatic outreach to the continent. For example, the 2020 Visa Ban that included Nigeria debuted a mere days before a long-planned bilateral dialogue with Nigeria. Chis Olaoluwa Ogunmodede, “Biden’s Low Bar for Improving Ties with Nigeria,” World Politics Review, January 26, 2020, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29377/biden-s-low-bar-for-improving-nigeria-us-relations.

[30] Romain Houeix, “After the death of George Floyd, Africa mobilizes against police violence,” France 24, June 13, 2020, https://www.france24.com/en/20200613-after-the-death-of-george-floyd-africa-mobilises-against-police-violence.

[31] “Statement of the Chairperson following the murder of George Floyd in the USA,” African Union Press Statement, May 29, 2020, https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20200529/statement-chairperson-following-murder-george-floyd-usa, Judd Devermont and Travis Adkins, “The Legacy of American Racism at Home and Abroad,” Foreign Policy, June 19, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/19/american-racism-foreign-policy-impact/, and “Africa Reacts to George Floyd’s Death and U.S. Protests,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 4, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/africa-reacts-george-floyds-death-and-us-protests.

[32] Max Bearak, “”In Uganda, Mouseveni Steamrolls to a sixth term. Billions in U.S. aid help him stay in power,” The Washington Post, January 16, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/uganda-election-museveni-bobi-wine/2021/01/16/9c7945ca-55c9-11eb-acc5-92d2819a1ccb_story.html.

[33] Freedom House, “Democratic Trends in Africa in Four Charts,” https://freedomhouse.org/article/democratic-trends-africa-four-charts.

[34] Afrobarometer, “Democracy Demand, Supply, and Dissatisfied Democrats,” https://www.afrobarometer.org/publications/pp54-democracy-africa-demand-supply-and-dissatisfied-democrat.

[35] Dean Rusk, quoted in New York Herald Tribune, 28 May 1963, 1.

[36] Video, The Washington Post, March 23, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-makes-deep-state-department-joke/2020/03/23/aaf8d7d3-53e7-4e77-83ff-964ee8ccff86_video.html.

[37] U.S. Embassy in Uganda, “Statement by U.S. Ambassador Natalie Brown on the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol and the Nurturing of Democracy,” January 8, 2021, https://ug.usembassy.gov/statement-by-u-s-ambassador-natalie-e-brown-on-the-january-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol-building-and-the-nurturing-of-democracy. Robbie Gramer, “Fighting for U.S. Values Abroad, Black Diplomats Struggle with Challenges at Home,” Foreign Policy, June 11, 2020, (https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/11/u-s-black-diplomats-state-department-george-floyd-protests-trump-pompeo-state-department-diversity-racial-injustice-police-violence-soft-power).

[38] Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 383.