CNN — The White House hosted an “African leaders” summit of sorts this week. But only five countries from the continent of more than 50 nations were welcome to join.
US President Donald Trump hosted a working lunch in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, bringing together the presidents of Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Senegal, and Gabon for a discussion focused on “commercial opportunities,” a White House official told CNN.
“This discussion and lunch dialog with African heads of state was arranged because President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the American people and our African partners,” the White House official said. The multilateral lunch is scheduled for noon in the State Dining Room of the White House.
Going into the meeting, Liberia said that the “high-level summit” intends “to deepen diplomatic ties, advance shared economic goals, and enhance security cooperation” between Washington and “select African nations.”
However, none of Africa’s big players, such as its largest economies South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia, were asked to attend. These nations are allied to BRICS, a group of emerging economies founded by Brazil, India, and America’s adversaries, Russia and China. BRICS members face the threat of being hit with new tariffs from Trump for supporting “anti-American” policies.
During the meeting, the five African leaders heaped praise on Trump as they encouraged him to invest in their countries and develop their plentiful natural resources.
The leaders joined the US president for lunch in the State Dining Room, where each leader went around the table thanking Trump for his invitation.
“I didn’t know I’d be treated this nicely. This is great. We could do this all day long,” Trump said in response to the flattery.
What does Trump want?
Christopher Afoke Isike, a professor of African politics and international relations at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, describes Trump’s handpicked guests for his US summit as “low-hanging fruit” in his quest to counter Chinese and Russian influence in Africa.
“On one hand, Trump is desperate for some deal to show to his base that he is getting results for America. But some of these also align with his focus on countering Chinese influence in Africa and malign Russian activity which undermines US interests on the continent,” he told CNN.
“Most of the regional powers in Africa are either in BRICS as key members or are aspiring to join as key partners,” Isike said, adding that “these five countries (attending the US summit) do not fall into that category and as such are a kind of low-hanging fruit.”
China is Africa’s largest bilateral trading partner while its ally Russia has expanded its footprint on the continent, emerging as a major supplier of military hardware.
This is not the first time Trump has hosted a small group of African leaders in the US, deviating from the approach of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who hosted fuller gatherings of African heads of government while in the White House.
During his first term in office — viewed by some as “dismissive toward Africa” — Trump hosted a “working lunch” in 2017 with nine African heads of state, whom he described as “partners for promoting prosperity and peace on a range of economic, humanitarian, and security issues.”
“Africa has tremendous business potential,” Trump said in that meeting, which included the leaders of Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa.
Now in his second term, Trump has kept an eye on Africa’s mineral wealth, with the US keen to challenge China’s access to critical minerals in the region. However, he advocates a transactional policy that swaps charity for strategic US investment.
When a peace deal brokered by Trump was signed last month by Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which harbors large deposits of minerals critical to the production of electronics, Trump told reporters that the accord allows the US to get “a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo.”
While the signed peace agreement does not specifically forfeit any mineral rights to the US, the document includes a framework “to expand foreign trade and investment derived from regional critical mineral supply chains,” specifically to “link both countries, in partnership, as appropriate, with the US government and US investors.”
In a statement July 1, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the end of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which delivered US humanitarian aid overseas, saying that “the countries that benefit the most from our generosity usually fail to reciprocate” and that future US aid and investment “must be in furtherance of an America First foreign policy.”
The Trump administration had previously canceled more than 80% of programs at USAID and has imposed “reciprocal” tariffs on several countries, including many in Africa which Trump said had trade deficits with the US. South Africa has described the “reciprocal” tariff which is due to take effect on August 1 as not based on “an accurate representation of available trade data.”
Trump has also banned travel for 12 mostly African and Middle Eastern nations – citing security risks – amid an aggressive clampdown on immigration by his administration. A mooted expansion of the travel restrictions would halt travel to the US for swathes of West Africa, if implemented.
China, meanwhile, is softening the impact of US tariffs on Africa, announcing last month it would halt charges on imports for nearly all its African partners, except Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) which is friendly toward Taiwan — which China’s ruling Communist Party claims as its own, despite never having controlled it.
Why were five African countries chosen?
Although small economies, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Liberia are rich in mineral resources including oil and gas, gold, iron ore, and rare earth elements.
At the White House meeting, Gabon’s President Brice Oligui Nguema underscored the mineral wealth of their countries and encouraged the US to partner with them to develop their resources.
“We are not poor countries. We are rich countries when it comes to raw materials. But we need partners to support us and help us develop those resources with win-win partnerships,” he said.
Nguema also pushed Trump to purchase from Gabon rather than through companies.
“I’m sure that it’s more expensive compared to when you can come and buy directly from us,” he said.
Discussions at the Trump-hosted summit extended beyond commerce.
Nguema addressed his country’s efforts to curb piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
“We can’t do it alone. We need a reliable and strong partner that is committed and that takes real action,” he added.
An aerial view show trucks loading sand from a quarry on the outskirts of Nouakchott, Mauritania, on March 14, 2023. Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
The West and Central African nations are also a common departure point for would-be migrants to the US.
“There may be other stakes: migratory trends from West Africa to Nicaragua and then the US,” as well as “security, as all of those (five) countries have an opening on the Atlantic Ocean,” Ousmane Sene, who heads the Senegal-based research organization, the West African Research Center (WARC), told CNN.
Last year, the New York Times reported, citing government data, that the US was seeing an increasing number of African migrants at its southern border — rising from just over 13,000 in 2022 to 58,462 in 2023. Nationals from Mauritania and Senegal were top of the list, the report said.
What is in it for the chosen five?
For Dakar-based journalist and political analyst Mamadou Thior, who covered the first US–Africa Leaders’ Summit hosted by Obama in 2014, the leaders of the five African nations must “be as clever as Donald Trump” in talks with the White House.
“Trump is a businessman. So only the interests of America interest him,” Thior said. “The USAID, which was a key partner for countries like Senegal, no longer exists. It’s up to them to talk to Trump, to see what new cooperation they can put forward.”
In Isike’s view, “this meeting is going to inaugurate a new US diplomatic model — one that is transactionally tied to economic reform (and) trade outcomes for the US.”
Nonetheless, the five African nations “can expect to leverage private sector partnerships, investment, infrastructural development, and security cooperation with the US,” he said.
These nations are not new to high-stakes relations with global powers. They have each been courted by China, which has boosted trade volumes between them and funded infrastructure in Gabon and Senegal.
When Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embaló met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing in September, the former had kind words for the host nation.
“For Africa,” Embaló said, according to a statement by Chinese foreign ministry, “China represents the future and is a brother.”
“Guinea-Bissau is willing to be a trustworthy friend and partner of China,” he added.
A local man is seen sitting at the port of Bissau as daily life continues in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, on October 5, 2023. Annika Hammerschlag/Anadolu/Getty Images
Last month, Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko was also full of praise for China, thanking it for awarding dozens “of preparation scholarships” to his nation’s athletes and coaches ahead of next year’s Summer Youth Olympics.
In the same statement, Sonko expressed frustration with the US decision to deny visas to “several members of the Senegal women’s national basketball team” — a leading force in African women’s basketball — forcing them to cancel a training camp they had scheduled in the US.
With a wider African leaders’ summit mooted by the White House for later in the year, Trump has made one thing clear, according to Isike: an urgent shift “from traditional aid to strategic commerce-driven engagement.”
However, the shift is “a high-stakes gamble that aligns with America’s goal to reset its influence in Africa through investment but also to counter China and foster economically self-reliant African partners,” Isike added.
“Enabling Africa to be self-reliant is not because he (Trump) loves Africa, but because he doesn’t have patience with countries that only want handouts from the US,” Isike said, adding that “these trade deals and the meeting (this week) aligns with the US’ priority to favor countries that are able to help themselves.”
CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.
