American Policy in Africa: US Retreats as China Advances
Foreign Policy Brief #199 | Damian DeSola | May 1, 2025
On 22 April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed plans to reorganize the State Department with the justification of increasing efficiency, rooting out ‘radical political ideology’, and delivering Trump’s foreign policy agenda. The details of the plan focus on reducing the size of the State Department and its budget over time: consolidating regional bureaus and embassies, shutting down redundant offices, and ending non-statutory programs that the administration determines to be irrelevant to American interests.
This has become another step in the isolationist doctrine of the administration, and in real terms is a major retreat of the United States from the world stage. Vast implications of this policy and the realities it will induce can be discussed, but this article will focus on how the retreat will alter one of the current great power struggle’s battlegrounds, Africa.
Battleground Africa
From a grand strategy perspective, the United States is in retreat from the continent, as an autocratic China aggressively advances into the position of altering neo-colonial order over Africa. Meanwhile, the people of Africa suffer. The reignition of great power tensions has once again placed African people and land at the center of the conflict.
The United States is removing its commitments to developing democracy and providing aid. As gray as much of American policy in Africa was, the reductions in malaria, HIV, and famine were undeniable positive impacts coordinated by US international aid. Without this aid coupled with foreign policy that drops all pretense of promoting human rights and democracy, African nations and peoples will come to expect a hardnosed and indifferent United States as the current administration’s policies develop. Furthermore, the disappearance of the complex infrastructure used to prevent famine and disease will be difficult to immediately replace even by China, leaving hundreds of thousands in extremely dangerous living conditions.
China
Countering the United States as the other major player in this modern scramble for Africa is China. For decades, the Chinese have implemented a long-term strategy to assert their influence over the continent. Once a silent actor in the Cold War, they now openly pursue an aggressive agenda of debt traps and coerced concessions. Under the auspices of foreign development and economic partnerships, China has succeeded in accumulating massive amounts of debt from African governments. By providing loans, material, manpower and more to develop nation-changing infrastructure for countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zambia, China negotiates the rights to African mines, natural resources, and access to infrastructure to pay off the accumulated debts. China has also invested educational, military, and political resources to achieve influence over the targeted nations.
To conclude, it is becoming increasing certain that the conditions of stability, sovereignty, and security across Africa will deteriorate in the near and mid-term future. It is still uncertain what the US administration’s definable policy in Africa will look like. Perhaps what has been said here and much more has been considered and the State Department and US military will take steps to implement a complex and informed strategy. However, it suffices to say that the consolidation and reduction of funds for projects and diplomatic outposts won’t create a conducive environment for nuanced African policy.