“The world needs more leaders who speak for the people,” said Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa in his congratulatory message to Donald Trump.Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
Authoritarian regimes in Africa are celebrating Donald Trump’s election victory, seeing it as the potential end of U.S. sanctions against them, but analysts are warning that Mr. Trump is likely to impose cuts on trade and health programs that benefit millions across the continent.
Politicians in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Sudan – all of which have faced U.S. sanctions against their senior officials because of alleged corruption or human-rights abuses – were among the first to congratulate Mr. Trump.
“Now that Donald Trump has won, the sanctions are gone,” Ugandan parliamentary speaker Anitah Among told the country’s legislature on Wednesday. She and several other Ugandan officials were hit with U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption and extrajudicial killings earlier this year.
Ugandan military commander Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the son of President Yoweri Museveni, posted a rapid-fire series of more than a dozen social media posts about Mr. Trump’s victory, lauding his “inspired leadership.”
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, one of 11 officials in Zimbabwe who were sanctioned by Washington this year for alleged corruption or serious human-rights abuses, was effusive in his praise for Mr. Trump. “The world needs more leaders who speak for the people,” he said in his congratulatory message.
In his first term in office, Mr. Trump withdrew his country from the United Nations Human Rights Council, and he could do so again. “Trump demonstrated little respect for treaties, multilateral institutions or efforts to protect the human rights of people living under repressive governments,” Human Rights Watch said in a report on Wednesday.
“Likely partnerships with rights-abusing governments during a new Trump administration risk emboldening these governments to further harm people … and perpetuate cycles of abuse and immunity,” the non-governmental organization said.
Many African countries will be vulnerable to Mr. Trump’s beliefs, including his long-standing hostility toward U.S. funding for foreign aid, peacekeeping missions, multilateral treaties and UN agencies. Africans also remember the crudely derogatory term that he reportedly used to describe their countries in a private meeting with U.S. lawmakers – a sign, in many eyes, of his lack of sympathy for the continent.
More specifically, Mr. Trump’s tariff promises could spell doom for the trade concessions that Washington provides to countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which is set to expire next September if not renewed.
In South Africa alone, an estimated 13,000 jobs are dependent on AGOA, which gives preferred treatment to about 21 per cent of its exports to the United States.
Countries, such as South Africa, that have close relations with Russia and China and are highly critical of Israel, could face further targeting from the Trump administration and the likely Republican majority in Congress. South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and its strong support for Iran, “will likely be seen as punishable acts by a Trump administration,” according to Cameron Hudson, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Earlier this year, a group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill in the House of Representatives seeking a “comprehensive review” to find out whether South Africa has undermined U.S. security interests by forging military and political ties with Russia, China and Palestinian militant groups. The bill has not been passed, but five of its eight sponsors are Republican.
Some experts are worried that a Trump administration could cut back on funding for African health programs, including vaccinations, especially if Mr. Trump gives a cabinet post to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a close ally who has made unfounded claims about the risks of vaccines.
More immediately, Mr. Trump is expected to reintroduce the so-called “global gag rule” prohibiting any U.S. funding to international organizations that refuse to disavow abortion. He introduced the policy in 2017 at the beginning of his first term, and it caused a significant rise in unsafe abortions and maternal deaths in Africa until it was rescinded by President Joe Biden in 2021, health groups say.
MSI Reproductive Choices, a group that provides contraception and abortion to thousands of women and girls worldwide, said on Wednesday that it lost US$120-million in funding as a result of the 2017 policy. If the funding had not been cut, it could have prevented 6 million unintended pregnancies, 1.8 million unsafe abortions and 20,000 maternal deaths, it said.