Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: The continent responds to unprecedented U.S. tariffs, the Democratic Republic of the Congo seeks a minerals-for-security deal with the United States, and a Kenyan court greenlights a landmark case against Meta.
Trump’s Tariffs Rattle Africa
Since U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners last week, a tiny country that rarely makes headlines has gotten an unusual amount of attention: Lesotho, which was hit with a 50 percent tariff—the highest on any single nation.
The tariffs are a foreign-policy own-goal for Washington, which is punishing one of the few African countries that relies much more on trade with the United States than with China. China-Africa trade reached $295 billion last year—more than four times that of U.S.-Africa trade.
The impact will be devastating for Lesotho, an export-reliant economy that in 2024 imported $2.8 million in goods from the United States and exported $237 million. But Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, which start at a baseline 10 percent and grow steeper for countries with larger trade deficits with Washington, have rattled the entire continent.
Trump’s executive order effectively ends the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a 2000 law that provided more than 30 countries duty-free access to the U.S. market. AGOA, which sought to bolster economic relations between the United States and Africa, was set to expire in September amid fears that Trump would not renew it.
Economists warn that Trump’s tariffs on African countries make little sense and will harm U.S. consumers. Because the continent exports mostly raw materials instead of finished products, tariffs will drive up the costs of goods in the United States, including jeans, ice cream, and chocolate.
Lesotho’s main exports are uncut diamonds and denim sold to U.S. clothing giants such as Levi’s and Wrangler. Madagascar, which faces a 47 percent tariff, produces 80 percent of the world’s vanilla. And Ivory Coast, hit with a 21 percent tariff, is the world’s largest cocoa producer.
Ironically, the African countries that Trump listed among the “worst offenders” in trade relations will likely be shielded from the full blow of tariffs because the policy currently exempts exports of oil and gas, as well as many critical minerals.
These include the two economies that account for more than half of all U.S. imports from the continent, South Africa and Nigeria. Although they face tariffs of 31 percent and 14 percent, respectively, nearly half of South Africa’s exports to the United States are critical minerals, while crude petroleum, mineral fuels, and gas products account for more than 90 percent of Nigeria’s exports to the country.
So far, African leaders have not threatened retaliation, hoping to negotiate exemptions instead. Zimbabwe, for instance, has offered to scrap all tariffs on U.S. goods, and South Africa is seeking talks with Trump. “We want to engage the Trump administration. In fact, even before this issue of tariffs, the president was going to send the delegation to the U.S.,” South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile said.
Nigeria’s central bank, meanwhile, has sold nearly $200 million in recent days to stabilize its currency, the naira, as market reactions caused oil prices to plunge.
There is also talk of accelerating intra-African trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area, established in 2018. “Now more than ever we should be focusing as African countries on how do we trade more together, how do we create an easier framework,” Jeremy Awori, the CEO of African conglomerate Ecobank, told Bloomberg TV.
Ultimately, Trump’s tariffs will push African nations to form new alliances as well as deepen established trade with countries including China, India, and the United Arab Emirates. Nigerian Trade Minister Jumoke Oduwole said the country would look to new markets to “reduce and mitigate trade risks.”
China in particular stands to gain. Last year, Beijing eliminated tariffs for goods from 33 African countries as it seeks to deepen its strong trade relationship with the continent. Under Trump’s global trade war, the gap between Africa’s U.S. and China trade will only grow, leaving the continent even more vulnerable to contractions in China’s economy.
The Week Ahead
Wednesday, April 9: The Congolese government and Rwanda-backed M23 armed group are set to hold direct talks in Doha, Qatar.
The United Nations Security Council discusses Somalia.
Thursday, April 10: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits South Africa.
The International Court of Justice hears a case brought by Sudan’s de facto military government accusing the United Arab Emirates of violating the U.N. Genocide Convention.
Saturday, April 12: Gabon is set to hold presidential elections for the first time since its 2023 military coup.
Tuesday, April 15, to Wednesday, April 16: The U.N. Security Council discusses its mission in South Sudan.
What We’re Watching
Congo minerals deal. Three U.S. citizens jailed for their role in a botched coup attempt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year had their death sentences reduced to life imprisonment ahead of Trump advisor Massad Boulos’s visit to the capital, Kinshasa, last week. On Tuesday, the Americans were repatriated to the United States, where they will serve out their sentences.
Boulos, Trump’s new Africa czar, met with Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi to discuss a possible Ukraine-style minerals-for-security deal. After reviewing Congo’s proposal, Boulos said that the two had “agreed on a path forward for its development.”
The Lebanon-born Boulos is the father of Michael Boulos, Trump’s son-in-law. He has minimal foreign-policy experience and was previously chief executive of a truck dealership. (Boulos’s other son Fares lives in Lagos, Nigeria, and raps in Nigerian Pidgin and Yoruba.)
South Africa’s dual economic hit. The South African rand has declined further against the U.S. dollar, and the country’s 10-party coalition government looks increasingly shaky amid the Trump administration’s announcement of high tariffs on South Africa.
Last Wednesday, South Africa’s Parliament passed a budget that will see value-added tax increase by 1 percent over two years starting on May 1. The budget was opposed by the governing African National Congress’s biggest coalition partner, the center-right Democratic Alliance, which filed a court case to challenge the budget process.
Protests in CAR. Last Friday, thousands of people protested in the Central African Republic’s capital of Bangui against President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s rumored plans to run for a third term and his government’s reliance on Russian mercenaries to stay in power.
A demonstration on this scale “hasn’t happened in more than 20 to 25 years,” opposition leader and former Prime Minister Martin Ziguélé said. In 2023, Touadéra succeeded in changing the constitution to remove presidential term limits and expanded terms from five to seven years.
Meanwhile, in the Sahel, Russia agreed to provide weapons and training to a newly formed military alliance of the junta-led nations of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso on Thursday. The deal followed talks hosted in Moscow.
U.S. cancels visas for South Sudan. Over the weekend, the United States canceled visas for South Sudanese citizens, effectively instating the first travel ban on a country in Trump’s second term. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the measure came in response to South Sudan’s “failure” to accept deportations of its citizens in a “timely manner.”
Under U.S. President Joe Biden, the United States granted temporary protected status to South Sudanese, shielding them from deportation—a designation that is due to expire on May 3.
Washington’s announcement comes amid concerns that the world’s youngest country may soon return to civil war. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 but has floundered amid a power struggle between its leaders.
Last month, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir put First Vice President Riek Machar under house arrest and accused Machar’s party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition, and its armed wing of attempting to incite a rebellion.
This Week in Tech
A landmark case against Meta. Kenya’s High Court ruled last week that it has the jurisdiction to hear a $2.4 billion lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, accusing the platform of promoting hate speech during Ethiopia’s 2020-22 civil war.
One of the claimants says his father, a professor in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, was shot dead in 2021 after Facebook posts targeted him as a member of the Tigrayan ethnic group. The posts falsely said he supported the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front and shared his photo and address. Facebook’s Ethiopia moderators were based in Kenya at the time.
Meta faces another lawsuit in Kenya from content moderators who say the company fired them after attempting to unionize. Meta denies its responsibility in the matter.
Drone warfare on the rise. The indiscriminate use of drones has led to mounting civilian casualties across Africa—particularly in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan—according to a new report from Drone Wars UK.
The report, “Death on Delivery,” noted that African governments have acquired relatively cheap drones from manufacturers in China, Iran, and Turkey without having to agree to strict conditions on their use.
What We’re Reading
Tunisia’s two-tier migration. In 2023, Tunisian President Kais Saied said the arrival of thousands of Black African migrants looking to cross the sea to Europe was a “conspiracy to change the country’s demographic makeup.” That year, Saied signed a deal with the European Union to curb migration.
Since then, smuggling strategies have become more sophisticated, especially for Tunisian nationals trying to make it to Europe. As Zeïneb Ben Ismail and Malek Khadhraoui report in Inkyfada, gangs trafficking Tunisians have struck deals with local authorities to allow migrant departures.
“Similar to tactics used by particular criminal groups in Libya, smugglers employ specific markings—painted on boats or inscribed on life jackets—to help corrupt coastguards identify and allow ‘protected’ vessels to pass unchecked,” Ben Ismail and Khadhraoui write.
Uganda’s Polish refugees. Uganda is one of the largest host countries in the world today for refugees. Between 1942 and 1948, amid World War II and its aftermath, the country hosted more than 7,000 refugees from Poland. “Today, their churches and graveyards remain, though their presence is largely forgotten,” Anna Adima recounts in New Lines magazine.
