On July 9, United States President Donald Trump opened a three-day mini summit on the White Home with the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – by subjecting his distinguished visitors to a fastidiously staged public humiliation.
This was not the plan – or not less than, not the half the general public was meant to see.
A White Home official claimed on July 3 that “President Trump believes that African international locations provide unbelievable industrial alternatives which profit each the American folks and our African companions.”
Whether or not by coincidence or calculated design, the assembly came about on the identical day the Trump administration escalated its commerce warfare, slapping new tariffs on eight international locations, together with the North African nations of Libya and Algeria. It was a telling distinction: Whilst Trump claimed to be “strengthening ties with Africa”, his administration was penalising African nations. The optics revealed the incoherence – or maybe the honesty – of Trump’s Africa coverage, the place partnership is conditional and infrequently indistinguishable from punishment.
Trump opened the summit with a four-minute speech during which he claimed the 5 invited leaders had been representing your entire African continent. By no means thoughts that their international locations barely register in US-Africa commerce figures; what mattered was the gold, oil, and minerals buried beneath their soil. He thanked “these nice leaders… all from very vibrant locations with very worthwhile land, nice minerals, nice oil deposits, and fantastic folks”.
He then introduced that the US was “shifting from AID to commerce” as a result of “this will probably be far simpler and sustainable and useful than anything that we may very well be doing collectively.”
At that second, the phantasm of diplomacy collapsed, and the true nature of the assembly was revealed. Trump shifted from statesman to showman, not merely internet hosting however asserting management. The summit shortly descended right into a cringe-inducing show, the place Africa was introduced not as a continent of sovereign nations however as a wealthy expanse of sources, fronted by compliant leaders performing for the cameras. This was not a dialogue however a show of domination: A stage-managed manufacturing during which Trump scripted the scene and African heads of state had been forged in subordinate roles.
Trump was in his factor, orchestrating the occasion like a puppet grasp, directing every African visitor to play his half and reply favourably. He “invited” (in impact, instructed) them to make “a couple of feedback to the media” in what turned a choreographed present of deference.
President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania led the way in which, each bodily and symbolically, by praising Trump’s “dedication” to Africa. The declare was as deceptive because it was surreal, given Washington’s latest assist cuts, punitive tariffs, and tightened visa restrictions on African nations.
In a single particularly embarrassing second, Ghazouani described Trump because the world’s prime peacemaker – crediting him, amongst different issues, with stopping “the warfare between Iran and Israel”. This reward got here with no point out of the US’s continued army and diplomatic assist for Israel’s warfare on Gaza, which the African Union has firmly condemned. The silence amounted to complicity, a calculated erasure of Palestinian struggling for the sake of American favour.
Maybe aware of the tariffs looming over his personal nation, Ghazouani, who served as AU Chair in 2024, slipped into the position of a keen supplicant. He all however invited Trump to take advantage of Mauritania’s uncommon minerals, praised him and declared him a peacemaker whereas ignoring the massacres of tens of 1000’s of innocents in Gaza made potential by the very weapons Trump offers.
This tone would outline your entire sit-down. One after the other, the African leaders provided Trump glowing reward and entry to their international locations’ pure sources – a disturbing reminder of how simply energy can script compliance.
Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye even requested Trump to construct a golf course in his nation. Trump declined, opting as a substitute to go with Faye’s youthful look. Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema talked of “win-win partnerships” with the US, however acquired solely a lukewarm response.
What did seize Trump’s consideration was the English fluency of Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai. Ignoring the content material of Boakai’s remarks, Trump marvelled at his “lovely” English and requested, “The place did you study to talk so superbly? The place had been you educated? The place? In Liberia?”
That Trump appeared unaware English is Liberia’s official language, and has been since its founding in 1822 as a haven for freed American slaves, was maybe much less surprising than the colonial tone of his query. His astonishment that an African president might communicate English nicely betrayed a deeply racist, imperial mindset.
It was not an remoted slip. At a White Home peace ceremony on June 29 involving the DRC and Rwanda, Trump publicly commented on the looks of Angolan journalist and White Home correspondent Hariana Veras, telling her, “You’re lovely – and you might be lovely inside.”
Whether or not or not Veras is “lovely” is completely inappropriate. Trump’s behaviour was inappropriate and unprofessional, decreasing a revered journalist to her seems to be in the midst of a diplomatic milestone. The sexualisation of Black girls – treating them as vessels of white male need moderately than mental equals – was central to each the transatlantic slave commerce and European colonisation. Trump’s remark prolonged that legacy into the current.
Likewise, his shock at Boakai’s English suits a protracted imperial sample. Africans who “grasp” the coloniser’s language are sometimes seen not as advanced, multilingual intellectuals, however as subordinates who’ve absorbed the dominant tradition. They’re rewarded for proximity to whiteness, not for mind or independence.
Trump’s remarks revealed his perception that articulate and visually interesting Africans are an anomaly, a novelty deserving momentary admiration. By decreasing each Boakai and Veras to aesthetic curiosities, he erased their company, dismissed their achievements, and gratified his colonial ego.
Greater than something, Trump’s feedback on Boakai mirrored his deeper indifference to Africa. They stripped away any phantasm that this summit was about real partnership.
Distinction this with the US-Africa Leaders Summit held by President Joe Biden in December 2022. That occasion welcomed greater than 40 African heads of state, in addition to the African Union, civil society, and personal sector leaders. It prioritised peer-to-peer dialogue and the AU’s Agenda 2063 – a far cry from Trump’s choreographed spectacle.
How the Trump administration concluded that 5 males might characterize your entire continent stays baffling, until, after all, this wasn’t about illustration in any respect, however management. Trump didn’t need engagement; he needed efficiency. And sadly, his visitors obliged.
In distinction to the tightly managed assembly Trump held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 8, the lunch with African leaders resembled a chaotic, tone-deaf sideshow.
Faye was particularly disappointing. He got here to energy on the again of an anti-imperialist platform, pledging to interrupt with neocolonial politics and restore African dignity. But on the White Home, he bent the knee to essentially the most brazen imperialist of all of them. Just like the others, he did not problem Trump, to claim equality, or to defend the sovereignty he so publicly champions at residence.
In a second when African leaders had the possibility to push again in opposition to a resurgent colonial mindset, they as a substitute bowed – giving Trump house to revive a Sixteenth-century fantasy of Western mastery.
For this, he provided a reward: He may not impose new tariffs on their international locations, he mentioned, “as a result of they’re associates of mine now”.
Trump, the “grasp”, triumphed.
All of the Africans needed to do was bow at his toes.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.