Africa may profit from Trump presidency

The African priorities for the new Trump administration will have short and longer-term challenges. In the immediate term, there is the need to work with African partners in finding a solution to the overturning of the democratic election result in The Gambia by the incumbent Yahya Jammeh. Similarly, there is a need to ensure that President Joseph Kabila does not undo the considerable investment made by the UN among many others in the Congo by hanging onto power in disregard of the constitution.

The carrot of soft landings for both might help, where Washington could constructively assist, but probably not before the stick of personal sanctions and isolation has been wielded.

Over the longer term, the US’s policy concerns should centre on Africa’s demographic explosion, especially in its cities, and jobs. Given that investors require the rule of law to make investment, and this security is questionable in many African jurisdictions, bolstering the judiciary would be a good place to start with donor assistance.

A Trump-led shake-up of US foreign policy towards Africa could be a good thing. But Africa will have to work hard to gain positive attention beyond just a source of problems to be solved: including the threat of terrorism to the prospect of failing regions (and not just states) hyper-stressed as they are likely to be by demographic and climate change.

And although it is unlikely President-elect Trump will cut Agoa (which runs out in 2025) in accordance with his promised freetrade reversal, again the case for doing business with the continent will have to be made foremost by African leaders.

The brutal US election campaign was not always the best advert for democracy, or indeed at times for the US itself.

But the outcome should remind politicians everywhere, smug in prognostication and power, and the pundocracy that the electorate can be, if it chooses, all-powerful.

That is a lesson to African leaders and electorates as much as Americans.

Mills heads the Johannesburgbased Brenthurst Foundation and is the co-author of the forthcoming Making Africa Work (Tafelberg).