What the U.S. Election Means for Africa, Part II: Biden

In my previous article, I analyzed President Trump’s influence on U.S.-Africa relations and what a second Trump term could yield. One point of focus was Trump’s flagship Prosper Africa program, which has the potential to be the most significant U.S.-Africa policy initiative since the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) nearly 20 years ago. This increase of attention paid to Africa has not gone unnoticed by the Biden campaign. In late July, Biden hosted a virtual fundraiser event dedicated to U.S. foreign policy priorities in Africa, reportedly the first ever pre-election event dedicated to Africa in U.S. election history. Biden also has his own interests in promoting good U.S.-Africa relations—to start, his administration will be compelled to present itself as undoing the damage done by Trump’s insulting comments towards developing countries and his general rejection of internationalism. Furthermore, Biden can leverage his association with the Obama administration on the continent for purposes of public diplomacy, as President Obama’s popularity on the continent is still significant.  This moment in the United States also provides a unique opportunity to confront the troubled legacy of U.S.-Africa relations. The explosive racial tensions in the United States over the last several months have reverberated across the world, with Africans themselves using the moment to question lingering structures of colonialism and U.S.-Africa relations in general. Biden’s running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, herself a woman of African heritage, has the potential to be a powerful public figure and influential diplomat in African countries.

At the same time, there are reasons why a Biden administration might be less involved in Africa than a second Trump administration. Regardless of what executive officials might say, there is no doubt that Trump’s recent focus on doing business in Africa is rooted in his administration’s hawkish stance towards China as an economic competitor. Biden is decisively less hawkish; being a neoliberal cut from the same cloth as Obama, he, and the people he surrounds himself with, will almost certainly attempt to work more cooperatively with China and restore previous trade relations. Yet, a decrease in antagonism towards China may inadvertently decrease the overall political will to facilitate investments in Africa, potentially undermining the future of Prosper Africa on the continent. In terms of security, while there is no reason to think that Biden would follow through on Trump’s proposals of pulling military personnel out of Africa (or even that Trump himself would), he may also be reluctant to condone any increase in military involvement. The U.S.-led intervention in Libya is described by President Obama as his “biggest foreign policy regret,” and the perceived failures of the Obama administration during the Libya crisis were a prominent point of criticism during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. 

Strategic security aside, if the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has already made significant progress in establishing its new Africa team by the time Biden takes office, there is no reason to suspect that a Biden administration will not embrace stronger U.S.-Africa business relations as President Obama attempted to do. In fact, if a Biden administration does maintain a focus on African affairs, then it will undoubtedly accomplish much more in a shorter time on the continent than the Trump administration has in nearly four years due to its approach to multilateralism. A key aspect of the Trump administration’s ‘America First’ outlook is a high-level rejection of multilateralism, whether it be in the form of withdrawing from international agreements, cutting funding to international organizations, or conducting negotiations on a strictly bilateral basis. In contrast, Biden has a decades-long record of championing U.S.-led multilateralism while sitting on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His campaign features a team of more than 2,000 foreign policy advisors with 20 working groups, including a dedicated Africa team. In the case of partnering with Africa, there is only so much that the United States can accomplish on the continent through the kind of bilateral relationships preferred by the Trump administration.  Economically, Africa has been moving in the direction of multilateral integration, with the well-established regional economic communities serving a key role as conduits for development. These communities can also handle matters of regional security, which is especially critical given the transnational nature of armed groups on the continent. Biden may be reluctant to have the United States lead a military operation in Africa, but he will likely have no problems supporting a regional coalition against an insurgent group. More significant is the issue of trade. While Trump’s Prosper Africa initiative shows promise, it is discouraging that his administration has not yet clarified its position on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It is estimated that AfCFTA could increase intra-African trade by as much as 52% by 2022. It is questionable how much a broad initiative like Prosper Africa will actually be able to accomplish if it entirely ignores the AfCFTA in favor of bilateral negotiations, as is currently happening with Kenya. 

U.S. engagement with multilateral initiatives in Africa will become even more critical in the future, for two major reasons. First, the global economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing many developing countries into defaulting on their debts, all at once, with little chance of an economic rebound in the near future. Without substantial international cooperation between major lending countries and organizations like the International Monetary Fund, the African continent, with its heavy indebtedness, could experience a broad economic collapse. Second, the increasing severity of climate change across the continent has the potential to create a humanitarian crisis on a terrifying scale. General instability, regional famine, and mass migration are likely to become common in the drier northern and southern parts of the continent. Besides creating a massive outflow of refugees and displaced people seeking refuge in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, the chaos of the situation may lead to a political internationalization of the crisis, similar to what occurred in Syria. This scenario is already menacing, but it becomes truly dire without the kind of comprehensive multilateral cooperation that a Biden administration would likely attempt to lead. 

Given these observations, a general picture of either administration’s approach to Africa emerges. A Biden administration will be reluctant to feed into a narrative of great power rivalry on the continent and will instead pursue greater U.S.-Africa relations that may not be dependent on economic competition with China, potentially with less zeal than Trump would. However, a Biden-led outreach to Africa will almost certainly be more productive in whatever it pursues given Biden’s openness to multilateralism. Trump’s primary Africa initiative, Prosper Africa, will face serious obstacles in his second term if he continues to negotiate bilaterally. In the area of security, a Trump administration is more likely to engage in a direct military intervention on the continent, especially if it is against Islamic terrorism and American military or commercial assets are on the line. In contrast, a Biden administration would be hesitant to initiate military operations in Africa if they are direct, but much more eager than the Trump administration to serve as auxiliary support to regional security initiatives. 

Finally, it should be noted that while the president wields enormous power and influence over U.S. foreign policy in the short term, Congress is ultimately the final arbiter on what the country directs its resources towards. In all likelihood, if there is enough support for Biden to win the electoral college in November, then the Senate will also turn to the Democrats, meaning that any new initiative by Biden in Africa—such as comprehensive debt relief for developing nations or immigration and asylum reform—will be significantly easier to fund and implement. Should the Senate remain in control of Republicans, enough of a bipartisan foreign policy consensus exists that any drastic change to U.S.-Africa relations championed by Trump, especially concerning non-military aid, will face considerable challenges. With that being said, 2020 has been a year of unexpected change, and the traditional U.S. foreign policy platform upheld by Congress, while strong, is not immune from the influence of the media and the sway of public opinion. Regardless of the outcome, with the African continent receiving more reconsideration from U.S. presidential candidates than at any other time in recent memory, a change in U.S.-Africa relations is sure to come.