Op-Ed: As U.S. ‘America First’ Policies Threaten Africa, Who Stands up for Its Citizens?
Trump’s visa bans, aid cuts, and trade restrictions are closing doors for African countries and citizens.
A general view of the flags of the AU's 55 member states inside the lobby of the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.
When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in April that President Donald Trump's administration had revoked visas for all South Sudanese citizens, citing South Sudan’s failure to accept deportees “in a timely manner,” it sounded like South Sudan was being punished for refusing to cooperate.
But the reality was far more ridiculous and unfair.
The problem centered on a single passenger: a man on a U.S. deportation flight whom South Sudan refused to accept because he was Congolese, not South Sudanese. Yet America didn’t care.
Even after South Sudan capitulated days later and agreed to take in the Congolese man, “in the spirit of friendly relations,” the U.S. has kept the visa revocation in place. Friendly relations, it seems, are one-sided.
Across social media, South Sudanese described it as American bullying. South Sudan’s Information Minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, told the media that the U.S. was “attempting to find faults with the tense situation” in the country.
“No sovereign nation would accept foreign deportees,” he said.
South Sudan is the world’s youngest country and is on the brink of renewed civil war, threatening over 11 million people.
And yet, from the African Union and other African heads of state? Silence.
That silence is telling and extremely dangerous.
South Sudan’s visa crisis came amid rumors of a draft U.S. travel ban list in which most of the countries are African.
This is just one example of how Trump’s second-term “America First” agenda has hurt Africa, with little pushback from leaders. Since returning to office, he has frozen billions of dollars in aid, ended Power Africa, and imposed new tariffs that threaten African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade and jobs across the continent. His policies are also threatening African students studying in the U.S.
Even South Africa, already punished after Trump suspended aid and controversially offered asylum to white Afrikaners, stood alone as it expelled the U.S. ambassador. There is no solidarity from neighbors. No AU statement.
Some may see America stepping back as a push toward self-reliance or simply wish to avoid Washington’s ire. And the African Union may still be adjusting under new leadership. The newly elected AU Commission Chairperson and commissioners took office in March.
But history shows the AU can speak up. In 2017, then-AU Commission Chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zumacondemned Trump’s travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.
“The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries,” she told the AU summit in Addis Ababa. “What do we do about this? Indeed, this is one of the greatest challenges to our unity and solidarity.”
Today, the challenge remains, but unity and solidarity seem missing.
If Africa’s institutions won’t stand up for their citizens, who will?
