Africa: The Club of Five and the Sociopath

Tuesday 29 July 2025, by Paul Martial


The return of the United States to the African scene is aimed at taking advantage of the continent’s riches, a clearly stated objective of the Trump administration.


On 9 July 2025, President Trump received five African leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal for a working lunch. Countries, according to Trump, "all very vibrant places with very valuable land, great minerals, and great oil deposits, and wonderful people.” Even if he is preparing to ban these “wonderful people” from entering the United States by refusing to issue visas.
U.S. Priorities

The Trump administration’s policy is to replace aid policy with trade policy. From now on, U.S. ambassadors to African countries will be judged on the number of commercial contracts completed. A policy based on three priorities: access to critical minerals, which is decisive for the digital and electronic industries; countering China’s hegemony on the continent; and fighting terrorism in the sector around the Red Sea, which is considered strategic. Thus, in the greatest media silence, the U.S. carried out 43 drone strikes in Somalia against al-Shabaab in six months (51 strikes during the entire duration of Biden’s term).

The policy defined as transactional, promoting trade, is encouraged by the removal of measures considered to be barriers. In this way, the issues of human rights and democracy must no longer interfere. In addition, the application of the law on corrupt practices abroad has been suspended. It effectively gives legal immunity to U.S. companies that bribe decision-makers abroad to win contracts.
Speed dating

There are several reasons why these five countries have been invited. First, they are all located on the Atlantic coast, which could encourage exports without the need to invest in the existing port infrastructure. Secondly, these countries have either gas or oil or rare minerals in their subsoil. In Liberia, for example, geological studies have shown the presence of neodymium, which is essential for the manufacture of permanent magnets. Finally, these are countries that do not belong to the BRICS+ (the economic alliance of the so-called countries of the South), nor to the zone of influence of China or Russia. In short, they are easy prey.

Especially since the five leaders, each in turn, extolled the merits of their respective countries, some of them with a dose of sycophancy for Trump and his oversized ego. Thus Faye, elected president of Senegal following an anti-imperialist electoral mobilization, found nothing better than to propose to him to invest in a golf course, discovering a passion for this sport.

Of course, no one pointed out to Trump that his policy of abolishing the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and putting an end to American aid could lead, according to the leading medical journal The Lancet, to 14 million deaths.

24 July 2025

Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.

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Paul Martial is a correspondent for International Viewpoint. He is editor of Afriques en Lutte and a member of the Fourth International in France.


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