Former US diplomat discusses Trump’s Africa policy and more

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his second term as president of the United States, questions arise about what this means for U.S.-Africa relations. In this interview with VOA English to Africa’s Paul Ndiho, former diplomat Tibor Nagy, who served as Trump’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2018 to 2021, shares insights into the administration’s past approach. Nagy shares his perspective on U.S. competition with China and Russia, trade policies, including the extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, commonly known as AGOA, which provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to U.S. markets and the ongoing crises in the Sahel and other regions on the continent.
This interview, which aired on VOA’s Africa 54 TV program on November 27, from VOA headquarters in Washington, D.C., has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Paul Ndiho: As the former top diplomat for African affairs, what should we expect when it comes to President-elect Donald Trump’s second term for Africa?
Tibor Nagy: I’m very optimistic. I don’t think people should worry about the slogan “America First” because that doesn’t mean “America only.” There are many areas where interests between the U.S. and Africa intersect. China, we very much see as a long-term existential threat, and so I think we’ll be a little bit more honest in saying that part of our Africa relations is about China. Then there’s the very important issue of critical minerals. Why should China monopolize all the critical minerals in Africa when it would do much better if Western, i.e., American companies were also involved? So, I think Africans should be optimistic — I think they’ll have a lot more deals and a lot fewer lectures.
VOA: Many argue that China and Russia have an edge over the U.S. in Africa. What can the incoming Trump administration do better to compete with those two countries?
Nagy: I think you would agree that what Africans want more than anything else, especially young Africans, and everyone knows that there are millions and millions and millions of young Africans, are jobs. Frankly, yes, China has done an awful lot of infrastructure projects, but how many jobs did the African young people get out of that? I think the truth is that American and Western types of investments, do lead to the kind of jobs that young Africans are looking for. And I think that will be a successful foreign policy. And I think that that will be the true kind of win-win for both sides.
VOA: President-elect Trump is proposing a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the United States, obviously with AGOA, Africans are supposed to bring goods to the United States free of tariffs. What should we expect?
Nagy: What we should expect is to see what happens, aside from during campaigns, a lot of things are said, and then what the actual policy is might be a little bit different. I mean, AGOA is a law passed by Congress and I’m sure that the United States of America will comply with that law. And as you also well know that law will be going out soon and everybody’s kind of looking forward and wondering what kind of a new AGOA there will be.
VOA: How about the issue of the Sahel? There is a crisis in the Sahel. There are wars in Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. How can the incoming Trump administration do better on this front?
Nagy: The “three Cs” — crises, conflicts, and coups — have been really horrible. Again, here, U.S. engagement needs to be different. Lecturing, for example, the military government in Niger, I think had a lot to do with us being kicked out of some very valuable air bases that where we had agreements with and the whole issue of coups, I think it’s important for the United States to look at coups individually. When a coup happens and we say it’s a coup, then we have to cut certain ties and engagements. What we do is we call some coups, coups, and other coups, not coups, as it happened, for example, in Gabon, we didn’t call it a coup. We just need to be a little bit more honest and say we really need to be much more flexible in how we engage with those governments because often the military government really needs engagement more to kind of help them see the way forward, especially those that are very popular with the people when they happen.
VOA: What would you do differently if you got your old job back?
Nagy: I’m not looking to get my old job back because being Assistant Secretary once — is enough. I would look differently to be a little bit less hypocritical, to drop the megaphone, to engage with African governments where they are, not where we want them to be, and to see the world as it is and especially put so much more energy into Sudan, Ethiopia, Sahel, those kinds of conflicts.
This Q&A originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.