A $99.6mn US government loan to Africell in Angola would be unremarkable beside the sums being spent on Africa’s telecoms infrastructure were it not for what Washington wants the money to buy.
The Export-Import Bank of the United States announced this month that it would finance American and European network technology for the US-owned mobile operator. Reuters described the loan as part of the Trump administration’s effort to counter Huawei overseas, citing an estimate from Counterpoint Research that the Chinese company supplies about 52% of Africa’s 5G infrastructure.
Five days later, another arm of the US government widened the picture. The US International Development Finance Corporation approved an equity investment in WIOCC Group, whose fibre networks, wholesale connectivity and data-centre infrastructure span 30 African countries. DFC said the investment would support US technology companies and advance American strategic interests on the continent.
The two transactions fit a broader US approach to competing with Huawei despite lacking an American equivalent. Rather than trying to replace the Chinese group with a single US supplier, Washington is using public finance to support an alternative ecosystem built around European network equipment, American technology and non-Chinese digital infrastructure.
The Africell loan addresses the equipment side of that approach by financing Africell’s purchase of alternative network technology. The WIOCC investment suggests that the same strategic logic is extending to fibre, data centres and wholesale connectivity, infrastructure on which US technology companies depend. Neither deal amounts to an African telecoms strategy on its own, but together they show how Washington’s long confrontation with Huawei is acquiring a more financial dimension.
From pressure to finance
Donald Trump’s campaign against the Chinese group began much earlier. During his first term, the administration restricted Huawei’s access to US technology and launched the Clean Network initiative, pressing governments and operators to exclude suppliers Washington considered security risks. Eswatini became the first African country to join the programme in early 2021.
US officials argued that Huawei’s presence in critical communications networks created espionage and data-security risks because of the company’s relationship with Beijing and its obligations under Chinese law. Huawei has consistently rejected allegations that its equipment could be used for spying.
Africa presented a harder commercial problem.
Huawei had already spent years supplying equipment across the continent, building relationships with operators and governments and becoming embedded in existing networks. Unlike in markets where governments were prepared to restrict Chinese vendors, African operators also had to contend with the economics of expanding coverage in countries where capital was scarce and average revenue per customer was often low.
Washington recognised some of that problem even during Trump’s first term. When Eswatini joined the Clean Network, senior State Department official Keith Krach said EXIM had been given authority to finance 5G projects using equipment from trusted non-US suppliers such as Ericsson (STO: ERIC B; NASDAQ: ERIC), Nokia (HEL: NOKIA; NYSE: NOK) and Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930; LSE: SMSN). US financing, he argued, could help close the cost gap with Huawei and ZTE (SZSE: 000063; HKEX: 0763).
The idea is therefore not entirely new. What is becoming more visible is the use of public capital to put it into practice.
Africell offers an unusually convenient starting point. It describes itself as Africa’s only US-owned mobile-network operator and has operations in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. Africell says its Angola business has attracted more than 8mn customers, while the group currently reports more than 15mn subscribers across its four markets.
Its network also already follows the kind of supplier model Washington would like to encourage. Nokia announced in 2021 that it would provide radio, core and IP technology for Africell’s Angola launch. US financing can therefore support European network hardware alongside American components, software and other technology.
The missing US champion
The structure of the global equipment market helps explain that approach.
The global radio access network (RAN) industry remains extraordinarily concentrated. Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung accounted for 96% of worldwide RAN revenue in the first half of 2026, according to Dell’Oro Group. Two of those companies are Chinese, two European and one South Korean. None is American.
That leaves Washington reliant on a combination of public financing, European radio equipment and American semiconductors, software, cloud and networking technology.
Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) technology fits into the same strategy. By making interfaces between network components more interoperable, Open RAN is intended to reduce operators’ dependence on tightly integrated systems from a single supplier. US policymakers across successive administrations have put substantial funding behind open and interoperable networks, including through the $1.5bn Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund launched under the Biden administration. The Trump administration has since redirected part of that effort towards AI-native network architecture.
The administrations have differed in approach, but the attraction for Washington is consistent. A more fragmented network architecture creates room for US technology companies even if they do not manufacture complete mobile networks.
Huawei’s installed-base advantage
Huawei’s advantages, however, extend beyond the architecture of its equipment.
Chinese lenders historically played a significant role in financing African communications infrastructure. Boston University’s Chinese Loans to Africa database estimates that Chinese lenders committed about $15.7bn to African information and communications technology projects between 2000 and 2023. The model helped finance infrastructure in markets where governments and operators could otherwise struggle to raise capital.
That source of finance has since receded sharply. Boston University found no new Chinese loan commitments to African ICT projects in 2024, describing the sector as increasingly market-driven. Overall Chinese lending to Africa is also far below the levels reached during the early years of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The decline in sovereign lending does not amount to a broader Chinese retreat from Africa. IntelliNews reported in August that Chinese Belt and Road investment announcements in Africa reached a record $33.5bn in the first half of 2026, with the model increasingly shifting from state-backed lending towards direct corporate investment in productive assets.
The change therefore concerns the form of Chinese capital more than its disappearance. For Huawei, however, financing is only part of the advantage.
Huawei has retained an advantage that does not depend on cheap credit: its installed base.
Mobile networks are built incrementally. Existing 4G equipment influences how an operator moves into 5G, and changing vendors can require new hardware, integration work and retraining. An incumbent supplier able to offer a relatively straightforward upgrade therefore begins with an advantage before financing terms are even discussed.
The $99.6mn Africell loan tackles one part of that equation by reducing the financing constraint around alternative suppliers. It does not solve the switching problem for operators whose networks already rely heavily on Huawei.
Nor is Africell representative of the biggest commercial test. As a US-owned challenger already using Nokia equipment, it is unusually aligned with Washington’s objectives.
Persuading one of Africa’s large incumbent operators to change procurement strategy would be considerably harder. Such companies operate across multiple countries, have billions of dollars invested in existing infrastructure and generally buy equipment from several vendors. Network decisions have to satisfy commercial requirements that extend well beyond geopolitical preference.
Beyond the mobile network
The difficulty of dislodging an incumbent network supplier helps explain the significance of Washington’s push elsewhere in Africa’s digital infrastructure, even if the investments are not explicitly presented as substitutes for competition in mobile-network equipment.
DFC had already invested $50mn in pan-African digital infrastructure company Cassava Technologies before its latest WIOCC transaction. The agency explicitly presented that investment in terms of strategic competition, arguing that support for African fibre, data centres and digital services could expand the position of US and allied technology companies.
Its September investment in WIOCC pushes the same approach further across an infrastructure footprint covering 30 African countries. DFC called it its largest digital investment to date and said WIOCC’s networks were used by American technology companies expanding on the continent.
The strategy therefore reaches beyond who supplies a mobile operator’s antennas. Fibre networks, data centres and wholesale connectivity increasingly determine where cloud services and other digital businesses can expand. Huawei itself operates well beyond traditional telecom equipment, including in cloud computing and enterprise technology.
That infrastructure is becoming more economically important as Africa’s cloud and data-centre market expands. IntelliNews reported in January that Africa still accounted for only about 1% of global data-centre capacity, but capacity was forecast to grow rapidly as cloud adoption and internet use increased, with South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt emerging as leading markets.
Africa’s commercial calculus
Describing all this simply as a US-China contest can obscure the calculations being made in African capitals and boardrooms.
Telecom operators need affordable equipment, financing, spectrum, fibre links and reliable electricity. Many are still spending heavily to increase ordinary 4G coverage even as richer markets debate advanced 5G services. Currency weakness and high borrowing costs can make capital expenditure particularly difficult.
The same constraints apply further down the digital-infrastructure chain. The Africa Data Centres Association says power availability has overtaken connectivity as the principal obstacle to data-centre expansion on the continent, meaning the effectiveness of new capital will also depend on access to reliable electricity at commercially viable sites.
That commercial pressure helps explain why African governments and operators are unlikely to treat technology procurement simply as a choice between geopolitical blocs. Dare Leke Idowu of the University of Johannesburg argues that African governments are increasingly hedging between the US and China, selecting partners according to infrastructure needs, domestic priorities and financing conditions rather than committing to either technology ecosystem.
Those conditions favour whichever supplier — Chinese, European, American or otherwise — can offer the best combination of price, financing, reliability and support. Washington’s security campaign can influence the political environment in which those decisions are taken, but it cannot by itself change their economics.
The growing use of EXIM loans, DFC equity and support for alternative network architectures suggests Washington is increasingly trying to compete on that terrain as well.
Huawei enters the contest with an extensive installed base and decades of relationships across the continent. The US enters without a Huawei of its own.
Its answer is to finance a coalition instead.
Whether that financing can alter the procurement decisions of Africa’s larger telecom operators will be the harder commercial test.
