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 at the very least, not the half the general public was meant to see.
A White Home official claimed on July 3 that “President Trump believes that African nations supply unbelievable industrial alternatives which profit each the American individuals and our African companions.”
Whether or not by coincidence or calculated design, the assembly befell on the identical day the Trump administration escalated its commerce warfare, slapping new tariffs on eight nations, together with the North African nations of Libya and Algeria. It was a telling distinction: At the same time as 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 in which he claimed the 5 invited leaders had been representing your entire African continent. By no means thoughts that their nations 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 invaluable land, nice minerals, nice oil deposits, and fantastic individuals”.
He then introduced that the US was “shifting from AID to commerce” as a result of “this might 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, now not merely internet hosting however asserting management. The summit rapidly descended into a cringe-inducing show, the place Africa was offered not as a continent of sovereign nations however as a wealthy expanse of assets, fronted by compliant leaders performing for the cameras. This was not a dialogue however a show of domination: A stage-managed manufacturing in which Trump scripted the scene and African heads of state had been forged in subordinate roles.
Trump was in his aspect, 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 few feedback to the media” in what turned a choreographed present of deference.
President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania led the best way, each bodily and symbolically, by praising Trump’s “dedication” to Africa. The declare was as deceptive because it was surreal, given Washington’s current support 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 help 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 conscious of the tariffs looming over his personal nation, Ghazouani, who served as AU Chair in 2024, slipped into the function of a prepared 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 doable by the very weapons Trump supplies.
This tone would outline your entire sit-down. One after the other, the African leaders supplied Trump glowing reward and entry to their nations’ pure assets – 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 an alternative 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 “stunning” 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 stunning than the colonial tone of his query. His astonishment that an African president may communicate English properly 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 stunning – and you’re stunning inside.”
Whether or not or not Veras is “stunning” is fully irrelevant. Trump’s behaviour was inappropriate and unprofessional, lowering a revered journalist to her appears in the center of a diplomatic milestone. The sexualisation of Black girls – treating them as vessels of white male want relatively 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 matches a lengthy imperial sample. Africans who “grasp” the coloniser’s language are sometimes seen not as complicated, 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 lowering 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 may signify your entire continent stays baffling, except, in fact, this wasn’t about illustration in any respect, however management. Trump didn’t need engagement; he wished 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 probably the most brazen imperialist of all of them. Just like the others, he didn’t problem Trump, to say equality, or to defend the sovereignty he so publicly champions at house.
In a second when African leaders had the possibility to push again in opposition to a resurgent colonial mindset, they as an alternative bowed – giving Trump house to revive a Sixteenth-century fantasy of Western mastery.
For this, he supplied a reward: He may not impose new tariffs on their nations, he mentioned, “as a result of they’re buddies of mine now”.
Trump, the “grasp”, triumphed.
All of the Africans needed to do was bow at his ft.
The views expressed in this text are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
