President Trump’s United States of American Trade Wars and African Countries

Abstract

This study examines the long-run consequences of the America First trade agenda by President Trump to the United States Africa trade nexus and questions the ways that African states can attune their strategies in the face of an increasingly competitive and transactional world economy to reap the accruing benefits of good economic performance. The paper attempts to assess the impact of reduced U.S involvement on the trade relations of Africa as it plots feasible course of action towards strategic change. The analysis is anchored in the theoretical perspective of International Political Economy (IPE) in that it preempts the intersection of political power relations, general economic policies, and the Africa position in the world trades fabric. A qualitative methodology was used, and a corpus of secondary sources was used as a basis of the research, including peer-reviewed academic literature, policy documents, and authentic international news reports, which were later subjected to a systematic content-analysis perspective. The empirical evidence shows that the safety nets established during the Trump regime created an air of uncertainty, reduced foreign aid, and broke the chain of investments into Africa. African countries, in turn, have been increasing their interaction with the newcomers in the economic arena, including China and Russia, but have also been strengthening their regional integration strategies, perhaps most notably with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The paper reiterates the need of African states to strengthen intra-regional cooperation, upgrade infrastructure, and diversify economic base and increased export drive to ensure sustainable economic development. To conclude, the need to adapt to a more competitive global trade environment requires the establishment of sound trade policies, the enhanced industrialisation processes, and the development of strategic relationships with partners beyond the traditional Western partners. In line with these findings, the paper recommends economic reforms,fortification of the AfCFTA to increase intra-African trade, investment in infrastructure and in Information and Communications Technology in order to increase ease of trade and global competitiveness, diversification of the exports as well as prioritization of industrialisation in order to reduce reliance on the export of the raw materials and vulnerability to the global economy. Best practices, due processes and anticorruption should be prioritized.