What US elections could mean for Africa’s trade and investment

The upcoming high-stakes presidential election in the United States will be consequential to every region of the world, not least Africa, as its result will determine the nature of future interactions between this leading global power and African countries, according to experts and observers.

While Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump are yet to outline any specific multilateral or economic strategies for Africa, the former “could present opportunities for inclusive and productive collaboration with Africa – but she needs to do better than Biden,” writes Al Jazeera columnist, Tafi Mhaka. The election outcome will have ripple effects across the world, particularly in Africa’s trade and investment sphere, according to Eden Harris, a former Presidential Aide from the US House Financial Services Committee. The looming question is how the next administration will approach trade and tariffs, and what it means for African nations, Harris notes, as he juxtaposes the specter of protectionist policies under a Trump presidency with Harris who signaled a shift towards partnership and collaboration.

Meanwhile, a recent report published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) argues that historically, US presidential elections “have mattered less in Africa, on which a bipartisan policy consensus in Washington has largely prevailed.” Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow in the CSIS’s Africa Program, writes that when new US administration comes into office, it will immediately have to grapple with a host of security and political challenges gripping African states, from the civil war in Sudan to spreading extremism in the Sahel to instability in the Great Lakes region. “Addressing these challenges will require local partners and local knowledge to craft a response tailored to the specific circumstances driving each issue,” Hudson says while warning that “if the long-term bipartisanship in Washington erodes further, the US risks ceding even more influence to its competitors, notably China and also Russia, and further alienating a continent that already sees it as unreliable.”