Trump's Arrogance Towards Africa & Why It Matters

We all know that U.S president Donald Trump is not one to hold back when making statements about perceived friends or foes and I daresay he doesn't always seem to have much regard for the truth or actual facts.  

So his attitude towards African countries is probably not surprising given his past infamous description of countries from that continent as $***holes. More recently in 2025 he seems to have continued his  arrogant and dismissive behavior towards Africa: as illustrated in the examples below.

1. “Country nobody has ever heard of” — Lesotho (March 2025)

While addressing.S. Congress, Trump singled out Lesotho—one of Africa’s AGOA beneficiaries mocking its significance by calling it a country “nobody has ever heard of” as justification for cutting aid. The government called the remarks “shocking” and offensive.

2. White House “mini‑summit” of only five African leaders (July 9, 2025)

Trump hosted presidents from Liberia, Senegal, Mauritania, Gabon, and Guinea‑Bissau—excluding major economies like Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya. He then opened the summit by framing them as representatives of the entire African continent, emphasizing their countries’ natural resources and treating them like transactional partners, not equals  .

At one point, he complimented Liberian President Boakai “beautiful English”—an apparent surprise given that English is Liberia’s official language since its founding. This remark was widely criticized as colonial, condescending, and ignorant.

3. Oval Office confrontation with South African President Ramaphosa (May 21, 2025)

• In a highly publicised bilateral meeting Trump dimmed the lights and showed manipulated imagery, claiming “white genocide” in South Africa. Many clips actually came from conflicts in the DRC.
• Accused Ramaphosa of endorsing violence against white farmers during a land reform debate, ignoring constitutional context and data showing equal violence rates across racial lines. Trump interrupted Ramaphosa and dismissed his rebuttal on facts.
• Followed up by cutting all U.S. aid to South Africa, offering fast‑track U.S. citizenship to white Afrikaners only, and imposing punitive tariffs on South African exports (31 %) while undermining the AGOA framework.

Critics described the meeting as a “diplomatic ambush,” noting it was orchestrated for dramatic effect rather than mutual understanding, and judged the rhetoric biased and disrespectful.

4. Africa policy pivot: from “aid to trade” with double standards

Starting summer 2025, Trump proclaimed a policy shift from humanitarian aid to “commercial diplomacy.” However, he simultaneously:

• Closed USAID and reduced aid to critical programs like HIV treatment.
• Imposed steep tariffs on South African goods and other African exports.
• Gave preferential refugee status to Afrikaners while de-prioritizing other vulnerable groups. These actions were widely viewed as transactional rather than transformative engagement  .

Analysts argue that this rhetoric cast Africa not as a continent of sovereign nations, but as a commodity pool to serve U.S geopolitical and economic needs.

↪ Why this matters

These examples highlight a consistent pattern in early 2025: a U.S. leader addressing African nations with disregard for their sovereignty, contextual nuance, or diplomatic parity. This culminates into controversial refugee policies, rhetorical confrontations, punitive trade actions, and optics clearly favouring U.S. interests over mutual respect.

 However some Africans are actually beginning to see Trump's behaviour as a possible blessing in disguise, due to the fact that Africa is a continent blessed with an abundance of resources, mineral wealth and manpower, his dismissive and arrogant behaviour could serve as a wake up call to the continent and encourage self development and self reliance and control of its own resources rather than an over reliance and dependence on the West.  

And of course there are other major players like China, Russia Turkey, India etc which means African now has other partnerships options, who so far have been more than willing to step into any gaps left by Western Powers.  

So while Trump continues to see  his sh***hole countries the others major players are seeing  goldmines boundless resources and endless opportunities. and above all maybe this is the time for the sleeping giant to wake up.