U.S. Aid Freeze Creates New Opening for China in Africa
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Hello and welcome to another edition of the China in Africa podcast, a proud member of the Seneca Podcast Network. I'm Eric Olander. And as always, I'm joined by China Global South's managing editor, Kobus Venstaden, who joins us this afternoon from lovely Cape Town, South Africa.

Good afternoon, Kobus. Good afternoon. Well, it's been an interesting past couple of weeks. I think everybody is trying to process the changes that have been going on in Washington and the impact that they've been having around the world. We mentioned last week that we were going to try and pull away from the Trump story a little bit, but it's just impossible to do, Kobus. The ramifications of what's been coming out of Washington are just enormous, and I think

And again, the speed with which the changes are happening is making it difficult for anybody to really get a sense and get their mind around what the impact is. Out here in Asia, we've been feeling it. In Africa today, we're going to talk about it. And today also what we're going to talk about is the impact for China. How does this create opportunities or risks for China, particularly in its diplomacy in Africa?

Cobas, I just want to bring you back a couple of weeks. This was two weeks ago, okay, at the Davos World Economic Forum.

And President Duma Boko was speaking to the media. Now, President Boko is the new president of Botswana. And he had an interesting exchange with a journalist about Trump that I want to kind of set up our conversation today. One last question. Are you worried about the Trump administration and what it will do to Africa? No, I'm not. I think the first thing that I notice about Trump, and this is his second coming, and the first coming, he was good for world peace, right?

So in the first instance, I think he will still be good for world peace. So we've seen the cessation of hostilities in... Well, at least the belligerent hostilities in Gaza. We expect, and reasonably, to see an end to the war in Ukraine on whatever terms. And then what we also know is that the...

In the world, in the politics of the world, outside the United States, Trump has been a very positive, strangely, if one may say, influence. And we're happy about that. In relation to the domestic issues of the United States, he has his own approach. But he also brings another dimension, which is robust diplomacy. He calls it as he sees it or he feels. And that sometimes is what world politics and world diplomacy means.

We flatter each other too much, and we flatter and deceive both ourselves and the ones that we are praising unduly. And so maybe if we could learn anything from his approach at all, is that sometimes robust diplomacy is needed. And I'm sure he made a call to somebody in relation to the situation in Gaza. He must have made a call, and he would have been firm in making that call, and I think it worked. So there's a lot that we can learn and appreciate.

I think President Boko's assessment of the situation in Gaza is maybe a little bit on the reductive side. There was a lot of diplomacy by the United States State Department before Trump came into office that took place ahead of that. So, and Secretary Blinken was involved in that and Joe Biden himself. Nonetheless, that was the view two weeks ago. Now, fast forward to this week.

and the robust diplomacy that he referred to comes in the form of a suspension of $95 billion of foreign aid. They say this is a stop work around the world for most foreign aid programs except those for Israel and Egypt and some of Ukraine funding is also not impacted by this, but the funding in Africa has been impacted.

Last year, that means $6.6 billion in assistance for Africa. And it's interesting the reactions that we're seeing across the continent. Kobus, I do want to get your take from South Africa, where they are particularly impacted by one program in particular from the Presidential Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief, which is PEPFAR, that's going to impact tens of thousands of people who rely on that program for antiretroviral medications to combat AIDS. Nonetheless,

There was some comments that came out on Thursday from former Kenyan President Uru Kenyatta, which also show the diversity of views in Africa on this. I saw some people the other day crying. Oh, I don't know. Trump has removed money. He said he's not giving us any more money. Why are you crying? It's not your government. It's not your country. He has no reason to give you anything.

I mean, you don't pay taxes in America. He's appealing to his people. This is a wake-up call for you to say, okay, what are we going to do to help ourselves? Instead of crying, to say, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? To support ourselves. Because nobody is going to continue holding out a hand there to give you. It is time.

for us to use our resources for the right things. We are the ones who are using them for the wrong things. Kobus, it's always funny when the millionaires tell you to stop crying and are very flippant about this. The fact is $6.6 billion of aid into Africa was significantly more

than any other donor country in the world. The United States may have had a lot of problems in this policy in Africa, but aid and its humanitarian assistance was one of the aspects that far outshined what China was doing and other major powers, including even the Europeans. What's your reaction to the stop work on foreign aid and the impact that you're seeing across the continent, particularly in South Africa?

Look, the United States obviously makes its own money and it has the right to spend its own money the way it wants to. So it's fully in the United States' right to withdraw that aid. What I think has been extremely damaging, like quite destructive, has been the...

the way that it's been done. You know, the way that it's framed is this form of like, you know, it's frequently framed obviously as kind of philanthropic, which it is. But at the same time, you know, the way that the U.S. has been involved in African countries means it was also that aid was also structural. So to let people know

ahead of time that it's going to be stopped in order for them to make contingency plans, you know, I think it's only fair. So this very abrupt stopping, the throwing, you know, the healthcare security of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people into doubt, having healthcare professionals literally not be able to go to work, to even not be able to even speak to their patients, you

None of that is acceptable. That's not acceptable in any healthcare context in any way in the world. So I think this is a really big, I think, rupture in the US-Africa relationship. And I think it's going to have a lot of fallout. It's going to have a lot of soft power fallout, I think, for the United States. Well, let's look at this from a couple of different angles today. We're going to look at it from the US perspective, but also, again,

what China and also African governments and how they're going to respond to this major shift in geopolitics. Again, aid is a very important part of diplomacy. And for that, we're just thrilled to have two of our favorite analysts and scholars on the show who follow these issues very closely. Paul Nantulia, regular listeners of our show, will be very familiar with Paul's work. He's a senior research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. And also our good friend, Paquese Eto, who is a policy analyst at

at the University of California, Irvine. Go Anteaters. A very good morning to both of you. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having us.

Well, before we get started, I want to put a few disclaimers out there. First and foremost, the situation that we're covering today is a very fast-moving situation. So by the time you actually listen or watch this program, events may have changed. That is just how fast things are moving. I also want to put a disclaimer out there that both Paul and Paquese are speaking in their personal capacity here. And so not necessarily representing anything on behalf of their employers, but they're

Or then again, this is just, these are, we're just trying to get our heads around what's happening here. And everybody's trying to figure it out. So Paul, let's talk to you and pick up the conversation from Uru Kenyatta, the former Kenyan president. You also heard from the new Botswana president as well. Different views in Africa on how they may see Trump and how they may be responding to this shift in the aid. It's probably being seen depending on what country you're in differently.

Give us a sense of what you think is the conversations going on in the halls of the president and the prime minister's offices across the continent. Well, I think that what the Botswana president has said and what former Kenyan president Uhuru Kanyata has articulated, it encapsulates part of, not all, but part of the debate around Africa.

on this. There's certainly, you know, what President Uhuru, what former President Uhuru Kenyatta has said does resonate in quite a number of circles. The whole idea that African countries should be pulling themselves up and looking for ways in which they can become more self-sufficient. And I think we saw this back in 2016, 2017, 18 and 19.

For instance, when it comes to the World Health Organization, quite a number of African countries, their health interventions and even their health budgets are very dependent on WHO assistance. So the WHO is one of the most strategically important institutions for African countries. African countries are very dependent on the WHO. But they're not just recipients of WHO assistance. African countries send their best and brightest assistance.

diplomats to the World Health Organization in order to change and influence policy. My father is a retired UN civil servant, and he worked very closely with the WHO and even within the WHO cabinet, and I've had a lot of discussion with him around this. Fourteen African countries have taken the unprecedented step of coming together to assist the

WHO investment panel. So the WHO has an investment panel that is looking at creating a more predictable financing mechanism to mitigate precisely this type of situation, right? That panel has raised $45 million as of today. It has raised $45 million. These 14 African countries include Rwanda, South Africa, Ghana, include Congo, and

and so on, right? So this is just one example of what African countries are doing, not only to become more self-sufficient, but also to support critical international institutions

that African countries are dependent on in a number of areas. That's just one example. The other example is, you know, there's this initiative in Uganda. You know, Uganda always comes up because the anti-retroviral treatment in Uganda, the Ugandans that are alive, Uganda's HIV-AIDS positive, HIV-positive Ugandans that are alive, are alive because of PEPFAR, this program that was started under President Bush, right? The

this AIDS relief program. At least six to seven million people are alive today because of PEPFAR. Yes, but there's been a local initiative that brings together the Ugandan private sector leaders, business leaders, healthcare workers, that is appealing to Ugandans to contribute one dollar, to contribute one dollar to this initiative.

This is an initiative that has been running since around 2015, 2016. And the whole idea behind this is to get Ugandans to own the resource mobilization that is going into keeping HIV-positive Ugandans alive. So from a domestic perspective and from an international perspective in terms of the World Health Organization,

we are seeing efforts by African countries to be more self-sufficient, to mitigate precisely this, a situation where major injections of international assistance in the area of public health, where those resources are either threatened or are reduced. So I think that's what I would say, and we're going to see a lot more of that. I mean, I could cite a number of examples, but I've just chosen Uganda,

and the World Health Organization Investment Panel as two initiatives that are trying to address this issue that we're talking about. Paquesi, more broadly, how do you think this affects the way that the U.S. is seen as a partner, as a development partner on the continent? I think that in some ways, the views we heard from the former president and then the president, I think they are

Two dimensions of the same, same view in the sense that, so yes, since Trump's election, before he started taking any action, there was this sense of euphoria among the African elites. They were actually expecting and looking forward to Trump's inauguration. And many of them simply because they think that under Trump, U.S. is going to be sanctioned light. They are going to focus more on economic development, trade, and

and less on social issues, like their anti-LGBTQI+, you know, views and those kind of things, right? So there was this sense of euphoria among them that maybe Trump is going to be better for Africa, especially when it comes to sanction relief, when it comes to some even were looking for those that were taken out of AGOA because of like, you know, passing those LGBTQI plus legislations. We're looking forward.

to getting some reprieve. Now that Trump is in office and he started taking all of this action, I think their views is changing to, yes, but, you know, look at all these global peace issues that might get resolved because of Trump.

of Trump, and that is going to bring some relief to Africa in terms of like, you know, the inflation that a lot of countries are suffering because of the Ukraine-Russia war. So they think if that war goes away, it's going to bring down some of the pressures on the exchange rate, some of the pressures on inflation in their countries.

But in the most important thing I think we have to understand is that all the research shows the strength the U.S. has over China in Africa depends on U.S. support among the population. And what the erratic decisions coming out of Washington, D.C. is doing is that it's going to directly impact those people that benefit from U.S. aid. And one that's that hurting them

I am not sure what their view of the U.S. is going to be and how that might give an advantage to China. Because China is now in the mood of wanting to build political solidarity with the African people, not only just the African leaders. Because among the African leaders, China has made significant inroad where China hasn't made much inroad.

It's with the people. And so for me, that is what I am afraid of. Well, Paquese, I mean, not according to Afrobarometer. I mean, Afrobarometer consistently puts the Chinese ahead of the United States in the past two surveys they've done. The Isikovits poll in South Africa that measured 14 countries...

The young populations in 14 countries put the Chinese ahead among the people. So the Chinese have made quite a few advances. I think in soft power, what you're talking about in terms of Beyonce, McDonald's, Starbucks, Facebook, and those kinds of brands, there's probably a lot more retention by the United States. But let's not forget TikTok is a Chinese brand, right? So I don't know. I'm just thinking that Chinese soft power may be understated in some respects in Africa. Paul, what's your take on that?

Well, I think Chinese soft power, I think it is definitely in areas, if you look at areas like education, foreign education and foreign training, professionalization training in different areas. This is very popular. It's very, very popular in Africa. In fact, the idea of improving skills and improving exposure in terms of getting educational qualifications overseas, it's almost like a cultural value anywhere in Africa, right?

This is the thing that parents and grandparents will tell their charges, right? Go overseas, get an education, bring that knowledge back to Africa so as to develop Africa. This has become part of the African cultural, you know, the modern African cultural dynamic. So to that extent, I think what the Chinese are putting on the table, maybe what I would say is that the Chinese understand the value of that, right?

And when we look at the things that make China popular in Africa, often in these sorts of discussions, infrastructure, because infrastructure has a way of sucking in idle labor, it has a way of sucking in these young people, right, who get to work on these various projects.

And therefore, when Chinese activities in infrastructure go down, then China's popularity sinks. We haven't seen that, though. I mean, again, the Afrobarometer data is not showing that, you know. Exactly. And I think it's because of this education. But the education impacts only 60,000 kids, I mean, out of a continent of...

billion people, I mean, that's a relatively small number of people. I mean, the education, I agree, is important. Yes. But it can't be the thing that's keeping up what Afrobarometer is finding in their surveys. Let's bring in Kobus into this conversation, right? Kobus, because you wrote a 2023 article for Afrobarometer where you were demonstrating that, on the average, the popularity of these two countries are decreasing in the countries. But if you look at country by country, yes,

the U.S. still has an edge in some ways over like China in terms of like popular opinion. And I think that the Afrobarometer studies that Eric, you are citing, says Africans welcome Chinese engagement. It doesn't necessarily say they love China, right? So, Kobus, what's your view on this?

Well, I think another, like, causality and adjacency is always a problem, right, kind of with this kind of thing, because it's very difficult to say whether, say, infrastructure or, like, a stance on democracy, for example, whether that makes the country more popular or not.

whether it simply aligns with what Africans are thinking anyway, right? So, for example, China is generally quite popular, like frequently, like somewhat more popular, like a few percentage points more popular than the United States frequently in Africa, even though a lot of Africans don't...

don't think that the Chinese political system is correct for Africa. Like, you know, overall, those same polls find that Africans prefer using elections to elect leaders, for example. That does not necessarily put daylight between them and China. You know, they simply relate to China in a different way. In the case of the U.S., that becomes an even more acute issue, right? Kind of because usually the U.S.,

tends to frame the popularity of democracy as the popularity of the U.S., right? Kind of because the U.S. has been so actively involved in democracy promotion traditionally,

The halting of the complexity of US foreign aid, I think, really raises... I'm seeing it as a big experiment with US soft power. It's essentially making... It's almost like a lab experiment, saying, well, OK, if we assume that US soft power has to do with... or is partly based on these forms of engagement and representing democracy in some kind of way...

then let's see what happens when this foreign aid is withdrawn from that equation and what happens in the soft power then.

Like, what I expect is that I think there's an adjacency issue there. I don't think that Africans necessarily, that the US was necessarily popular in Africa because of this pro-democracy stance. I think democracy is popular among young Africans, and the US used to be popular for a different set of reasons. Now, I think it's essentially, as I said, it's a big experiment. Like, you know, kind of like over the next two or three years of polling, I think it'll be very interesting to see how this shakes out and whether it has a direct bearing on it at all.

And also this idea that the U.S., to some extent, used to represent a model of freedom, a model for social mobility, right? So you see a lot of young Africans look up to the U.S. as a symbol of quality, as a symbol of the idea that we want freedom and not tyranny from our government, as a symbol of

economic opportunity. So if you give them a choice today, do you want to move to China or do you want to move to the US? I think the answer might be a lot clearer. But with recent actions, especially on the immigration or especially on how erratic the whole rescinding of foreign aid and all of that is, my fear is that that is going to put a dent in

into the level of support the U.S. has on the continent. And at the same time, also, it also going to undermine the argument for like the liberal international order. Well, by the way, Marco Rubio said he did not want to support the liberal international order anymore in his Secretary of State confirmation hearings. But also want to bring to your attention that if you go onto YouTube today and start looking up

ICE Africa immigration crackdowns and just all words in that kind of that index, you will see that African migrant communities in Boston, in New York, in Atlanta are very, very worried. And there is immigration enforcement actions being taken against African communities as there are

in many migrant communities in the United States, those videos are being played all over the world and back home. So that no doubt, to Paquese, to your point, may also have a big impact. Paul, let's kind of turn it to the Chinese side of things. You know, during the pandemic, the Chinese got an enormous amount of attention for delivering vaccines to Africa. Yet when you actually look at the number of vaccines that they brought and how they were distributed, well, the numbers get a little bit kind of

weird. So in all, there were about 120 million doses that were delivered to Africa. The bulk of that was concentrated to North African countries. These were two injection vaccines. So basically 120 million means only 60 million people were vaccinated from the Chinese. So out of a continent of a billion people,

not that much. Now, to be fair, at the time, the West was not sending any vaccines into Africa. So the Chinese filled a void, but they got a lot of publicity and a lot of goodwill for a very relatively small investment. I guess my question now is that with the United States potentially pulling out long-term from aid, could the Chinese repeat that by making modest adjustments to their aid programs in Africa and get

equally enthusiastic type of support that they did with their vaccines. Well, Eric, I think if I try to be a fly on a wall, the policy mandarins in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs working overtime to try and figure this out right now, right now, right now, they're gaming it out because... Right now, you're saying? They're gaming this out? Yes. Okay. Tell us what you think they're actually, if you were that fly on the wall, what they're actually gaming out right now.

Well, one, look at what happened in 2016 after the first American withdrawal from the WHO. Within a week, within a week, the Chinese increased their voluntary contributions to the World Health Organization. Now, granted, it was $30 million. And these 14 African countries that I mentioned before have raised $45 million through the World Health Investment Panel.

But nevertheless, when the Chinese make a statement like that, it reverberates across the continent. And it does have resonance across the continent, especially among health workers, right? The number of African countries where, you know, health is the most important ministry. Secondly, there were a number of additional things that the Chinese did.

They ramped up their support for the African Centers for Disease Control, which was subsequently opened in Addis. That was, again, another major initiative that occurred in the midst of the COVID pandemic.

And then if we pay attention to the Chinese military and civilian medical teams, the CMTs, those three years, China actually deployed more CMTs than it had deployed in the year before COVID and subsequently the years after COVID. Right. So there was a ramping up of Chinese health teams.

assistance. And that was done for political reasons. It was done to send a message that China was in the game, China had skin in the game, and China wanted to use all the tools at its disposal to have that competitive edge against the United States. And you think as the fly on the wall right now that that's the kind of thing they're talking about and considering to do in response to this action by the United States? 100%. Because the Chinese are creatures of habit and they're creatures of precedent, right? Right.

And, you know, one could argue that the Chinese have been here before and African countries have been here before. So I would bet that, you know, the Chinese, you know, the folks that are responsible for policy are looking at this issue and asking themselves how and when essentially to increase China's voluntary contributions. Because it's not so much the assessed contributions, but it's the voluntary contributions that really give an indication that,

on a country's interest. And that is where the debate is going to be. And I would bet that that's where the debate is currently in Beijing.

I was wondering how you see the impact of this halting on US aid on the US, you know, obviously, because usually the default kind of like framing of this is philanthropic, right? Kind of like the narrative around is that it's essentially something that the US is giving out of the goodness of his heart for nothing, right? That it doesn't kind of gain anything from that. But of course, realistically, we know that

it actually gains a lot. It's like, you know, in the first place, a lot of that assistance stays within the US economy. But more specifically, what it also buys is the role to set, the power to set norms, right? To set norms, to be listened to, to always be considered in every conversation for exactly this reason, because this assistance that has become semi-permanent in African budgets may be withdrawn.

So now that there is, actually, now that this permanence has been shaken, and what kind of impacts do you see on this kind of like role of the US of always being considered? You know, taking, for example, into account just the symbolic, you know, thing that also happened this week, you know, in the DRC of several European embassies being trashed by kind of protesters.

you know, kind of for, you know, kind of DRC-specific reasons, like, you know, around the Civil War and the Rwandan invasion, and particularly France, Belgium, those embassies getting wrecked by commenters. Not saying this is going to happen to the U.S. embassy, U.S. embassies are something different, but what I mean is this withdrawal of that kind of, like,

consideration that's kind of given to always having, always getting a voice in, always kind of deferring to the US on these kind of norm-setting levels. Do you foresee some kind of, like, what kind of impacts do you foresee on the US from this stoppage?

Thank you. So let me just quickly add one more thing to the whole China conversation you had earlier, then I would address this question directly. And I have about four or five points on this question that you asked. So the first thing I wanted to say is that China is maybe one of the biggest capitalist nations that we have, even though their title is a

communists. So they always want to buy low to get the most value out of anything. And so if you look at their strategy on the African continent, when they started penetrating the African continent back in the early 2000s, which countries did they try to form an alliance with at that very onset? The countries that were shunned by the West. Because in those kind of countries, little investment means a lot because there was no investment at all.

Right. So Zimbabwe is one of the greatest allies that China has on the African continent. Why? Because of all the sanctions the West put on Zimbabwe and all of that. And if you now start playing it out and start looking at how China goes in, immediately the U.S. redraws to say, hey, we are here for you. Think about even what the foreign minister did when the Ethiopian war was going on and then the U.S. was...

started to impose sanctions on Ethiopia. Immediately, he changed his plan. He was on the continent. He changed his plan and flew to Ethiopia just to tell Abiy, Abiy, don't worry, we are behind you. Okay, let me just- So you're saying this is a political buying opportunity now for them is what you're saying, right? Exactly. Okay. The stock market is down, right? And so this is a buying opportunity. And if you can use this opportunity to be able to score some geopolitical wins on the

the chessboard, then that actually is embedding yourself much more into the system. And I think that has been the Chinese strategy all along, that they want to what? Make countries more dependent on them, and then they become less dependent on countries. That's been their strategy, right? So that they can be able to use that as a leverage when they need to. But then let's go to Kobus, what you were raising about. What would

All of these policies, what is the impact on the U.S. directly? I think the economic impact is usually underestimated or understated. If we think about the amount of U.S. jobs that are supported by the aid economy, it's outstanding, right? A lot of food aid comes from Iowa and there's a lot of corn and soybean and that hits farmers. Those big bags of grain that are sent over to Ethiopia, that comes from Iowa farmers, a lot of that.

With that big stamp made in the U.S. That's right. And in many of these countries, they depend heavily on imported food. And so if we are feeding them and our farmers are the people feeding them, we don't usually see that as a linkage, but there is a linkage there. And also when we start exporting maybe some of our technology to these countries through aid, but let's go to the other dimension.

With all the cuts that are going on, and it's going to force maybe some of the baby boomers to retire that have been in the aid and development economy and humanitarian economy. And that is a loss of essentially like experience, right? We are throwing away institutional memory. We are throwing away lots of human resource that could...

could mentor the next generation of aid workers, the next generation of development workers. Another thing is what I'm calling the knowledge gap. So one of the things that this aid gives us, it puts boots on the ground. So if you go, our aid workers are sometimes in different villages and some of the health programs we run, we are able to identify risk factors a lot sooner because our people are on the ground.

And this is an intangible benefit that sometimes we don't take into account when we are doing a cost-benefit analysis, that that surveillance that we are able to do that level of knowledge. And I don't want to call it surveillance in the negative sense, but we are able to know when something bad is going to happen sooner because we have local knowledge. And then also let's think about the impact on

on maybe our research institutions. Okay. So especially since we foster a lot of partnership, especially in public health through USAID,

to go and collect specimen, to go and do research in some of these countries. And one of the ways in which the U.S. has been leading the world is actually our output in basic science, in applied science. And if we want to stop some of those partnerships, how does that feed back into our overall economic competitiveness? Because those basic science actually help our U.S. companies to

to develop technology and things that do help their competitors compared to like, you know, even the Europeans and the Chinese. Okay. Those were fantastic points and covered a lot of ground. Let's wrap up our conversation trying to fulfill the promise that I made at the beginning of the show to help people try and get their heads around what's happening. And nobody really can because so much has happened in the past two weeks and it's happening so fast that again, we just, the changes are just absolutely enormous. But again,

Paul, we'll start with you and Pacuezia will give you the final words. You have a little time to think about it while Paul's answering. But what are people supposed to make of this if you're sitting in Kampala right now?

And you see the changes coming from the U.S. You hear from people like you that the Chinese policymakers are furiously getting together to plan. You also hear from Kenyatta who says, you know, we should be paying for this ourselves. Let's remind everybody that Africa is not a poor continent. Probably $6 billion a year of money leaves the continent through illicit means.

The money is there. It's just not being used properly and it's flowing away through corruption and misgovernance. And Eric, sorry to interrupt just for a little bit of context there. Corruption is only a fraction. The old school Sani Abacha style corruption of African leaders sending African money overseas is only a fraction of those illicit financial flows. The much larger part of it is

is Western companies and other transnational companies not paying the tax that they're supposed to be paying in Africa. That's one of the biggest things. So one of the things that this kind of consideration that USAID has bought structurally also

smooth the way for US companies, right? So I think US companies may expect somewhat more regulatory friction in the future around this issue. So sorry, go ahead, sorry, Jim. Yeah, fair that. So Paul, there we go. We've set the table for you. Help people figure out how to get there, maybe just through next week, okay? And we'll come back to you next week to figure out how to get from there. But help us process and put our heads around what's happening, China, Africa, the US.

Look, if I was called in to advise African governments or if I was called in to Addis because they're about to have a heads of state summit, I would put five strategic policy issues on the table. Number one,

develop a strategy because African countries up until this point do not have a written strategy on any of these countries, United States, China, Turkey, but these countries have strategies towards Africa that are updated frequently. That would be my first recommendation. And actually there are signs that the African Union is listening to this message. Number two, self-help.

Let us look around the continent. If one goes back to the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014, the African Union worked with the African private sector to raise significant resources, human resources as well,

which were deployed to West Africa to assist in Ebola response. That could be my second recommendation. This, what I call self-help initiatives. There's no shortage of self-help initiatives in Africa. So that would be the second thing that I would tell African heads of state. The third thing I would tell African heads of state is be more serious when it comes to value addition. The whole idea that

Sixty years after independence, African countries are still exporting raw, unprocessed material to China, to the United States, to other parts of North America, to Europe, and are importing finished products. This needs to change. The population of Africa is growing. There's need for value addition. There's need for policies changed.

to enhance value addition. That would be my third recommendation. The fourth recommendation would be fiscal discipline. When you're operating in an environment, I mean, African countries have still not yet recovered from COVID-19, and there's a restriction of international funding. There's need for fiscal discipline. Because the fact remains, if one looks at the panel that was chaired by President Thabo Mbeki,

on illicit flows, the amount of money that African countries are losing through illicit flows is like triple the amount of foreign aid that comes in, right? So clearly, African countries...

can actually achieve quite a lot through fiscal discipline. But that's a state capacity. That's a governance issue. And Kobus, I come back to this to say, yeah, you're right that Western companies are taking it out, but it's up to the government to enforce their tax laws to make sure that doesn't happen. That's part of the picture. That's part of the picture, right? And then my final point would be enhanced engagement to protect, to enhance, to preserve an

And improve existing international institutions Did you know that

35% of the manpower at the United Nations comes from Africa, right? Most of the staff, UN staff around the world, whether it's Asia, Africa, Europe, Gaza, most of that staff is from Africa, right? African countries have a strategic interest. It's true that African countries do have grievances in the current international system, but the approach of African countries has not been to destroy the system.

or to replace the system, or to destabilize the system. The approach of African countries has been to improve the system, to enhance the system, and to participate and defend those global institutions. This would be my fifth strategic policy to African leaders and to the African Union.

Okay. Paquese, you're going to get the final word. We're running very tight on time. I'm doing the same challenge as Paul and advising a president, prime minister or the AU on how to deal with this moment that we're in and helping getting their minds around it. What would you say? So I would also put quickly five things on the table. One is that reciprocity is on the table. So you should start developing strategies on reciprocity.

how you could negotiate reciprocal agreements with especially the US in this case. And one of those has to do with, which relates to my second point, has to do with African leaders developing like a campaign strategy to push for AGOA. At this point, they shouldn't consider AGOA as a done deal. Right?

So they have to come up with their own concrete strategy to be able to put a coalition together to advance the AGOA legislation through the system and also get the general system preference program renewed in addition to AGOA. The African Growth and Opportunity Act, not all listeners will. That's the trade. That's up for renewal right now. I mean, it's right in the process and not entirely sure yet.

if it's going to get renewed and or if South Africa will be a part of it. Those are two variables we don't know. Well, the South African graduation has, that conversation has always been on the table. And we sort of kind of like handled that in 2015 by South Africa negotiating a deal with the chicken industry in Delaware to just resolve some of those issues that they raised.

I think South Africa lost almost a decade by not making itself resilient enough to the whole graduation conversation. But some of the legislations that had come out for the enhancement actually are really good for South Africa because it's talking about, okay, let's have a system in place for the graduation so that if you move away from what we consider to be a developing country, we shouldn't just graduate.

kick you out entirely because right now the current framework is you get kicked out and then you have to start from the scratch. Then the third issue that I probably want to just rush to, due to time, I'm not going to pick all of this up,

into details is you have to think about strategic autonomy. And one of the ways to do that is you have to start developing partnership with non-traditional partners, right? There are countries coming up, even Cambodia, Vietnam, these are countries you don't necessarily think about when you're trying to develop trade deals within the global South, but you have to now start thinking about them and putting them as part of your strategic thinking.

Then it's important to understand that there's going to be more disruptions, especially for the global south, because the Trump strategy is they are expanding the geopolitical chessboard back to the pre-Cold War era and looking at where the U.S. has actually lost strategic edge.

And now in most of those places, the U.S. has lost strategic edge. China is embedded in those places. If you think about the whole Greenland conversation, the whole Panama Canal conversation, these are not lunatics, as some people would like to believe, that, oh, this is an erratic decision, this ally. No, there is a geopolitical thinking behind those strategies. And part of that, what

What Trump is trying to do then is to say China has gained an edge here. Let's dislodge them or let's deny them the opportunity to take advantage of the edge they have gained.

And so if you are in a capital in the global south, then you ought to start looking at your own policies and looking at how you are positioned vis-a-vis these partners to see where that disruption is going to come for you. Because that disruption is truly coming. And maybe you are not on the block or your name is not on the chopping list yet, but

If Chinese have gained advantage of the U.S., you should be careful over there. Then the last point I want to put on the table is that middle powers, the Germanys, the Francs, the Japan, Australia, they ought to strengthen some level of solidarity among themselves and be prepared to negotiate the new rules of the new order that is emerging together.

even if the U.S. is not at the table. And what I am seeing from some of these countries, especially Emmanuel Macron and some of this, is that the decline in middle power and great power nationalism is making a return, right? We are seeing an increase in nationalism from some of these leaders. And they don't need too much U.S. nationalism to be able to provide leadership in the new age, right?

They have to rather start thinking much more about how do we protect the international world order without becoming too nationalistic. So to me, that is some of the threats and some of the suggestions that I would put on the table. Those are very helpful. And we want to thank both of you for those insights. Again,

I have a feeling by next week, we're going to have a whole different set of issues to deal with, given the pace of change that things are going at right now. But for now, we appreciate your insights. Paquese Heto is a policy analyst at the University of California, Irvine. And Paul Nantulli is a senior research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. Gentlemen, again, thank you so much for taking time out of your morning to join us. We really appreciate it. Happy Year of the Snake, everybody.

Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us and happy Lunar New Year for our Chinese friends.

Let me just give you a little bit of perspective on some of the polling that's been done early in the United States. It's turning out that these cuts on aid, very popular among Americans. They don't fully appreciate how little that Americans actually give. So it's about one one-thousandth of the federal budget. Many Americans think that they're giving 10, 11, 12% of their budget away.

There is a sense of, well, we've been carrying the world for so long. It's time for you to kind of carry your own. What is interesting, though, is that Trump has two somewhat...

conflicting agendas that are happening here. So on the one hand, it's this nativist America first that is very popular and that is resonating in those polls. I can understand why people are saying that. The other one, and we see this in the appointment of Marco Rubio and basically his entire national security team, is to contain China and to confront China and to limit China's power.

There is a very compelling argument to be made that what Trump has done with this cut of aid is the gift that the Chinese could not have imagined would come so quickly to them.

and Panama and Colombia and these very aggressive interventions that Trump is making in these countries that when now the Chinese ambassador goes to the Colombian president and says, "I'd like to talk to you," I think that the president will take that call right away. When the Chinese come to South Africa and say, "You know what? We're gonna fly in a plane load full of antiretrovirals." It may not be much,

But we're going to start doing it and guess what the propaganda is going to be enormous on it We're going to see the Chinese take advantage of this opportunity I think Paquese was right the stock of Africa is in a buying mode right now And there's opportunities for the Chinese that they're going to take these are two contradictory Trends that are playing out right now domestically this plays very well, but confronting containing and challenging China not so much

Yeah, I agree. I think it's going to strengthen a set of Chinese talking points, and it's also going to strengthen, I think, a set of African talking points, which are related to the kind of complicated way that US power shows up in the world. On the Chinese side, I think what this is, simply the line that I think they're going to be using, and I think that line will really resonate, is, oh, you can't trust the US.

us. Like, you know, they're always changing, they're not stable, you can't trust what they say. Like, they promise you one thing and then, you know, kind of two years later they pluck it away. You know, that I think was inconstancy. I think will be the line from China and of course that China has been really emphasizing constancy, you know, over many decades already. So I think that line will land. I think

Africa itself, I think, has quite a kind of complicated relationship with US power because in lots of ways...

On the one hand, it shows up in these kind of hard power ways, like kind of militarily, for example, or through sanctions. But it also shows up through this kind of wider, more diffuse appeal, you know, kind of to larger arc towards justice, a larger kind of focus on institutions, you know, those kind of things. That story, I think, is really going to take a hit because it's

I think the narrative that will come up was, oh, the U.S. never believed in this stuff to begin with. Even under Biden, even before Biden, it was always just window dressing for American power. And now they decided to take away the window dressing. I think that's the narrative that's going to come. Which isn't really fair, though.

But that's not fair though, because I mean, may not be fair, but the reality is that American taxpayer. But that's going to be the narrative. Sure. But American taxpayers have been paying tens of billions, $95 billion of aid every year is a huge amount of money relative to other countries. Yes. And so.

And as I say, you know, kind of like what the US was buying was a stable relationship, right? So they're not buying that anymore, so they don't have it anymore. And the thing is, I think what people don't 100% understand because they're so used to thinking of Africa as passive is that a lot of US entities, a lot of US citizens, a lot of US kind of interests are involved in Africa on a regular basis.

One of the things that this assistance has bought them has been stability, right? Kind of like it bought them a certain amount of power, of norm setting, for example, right? So they're giving that up. I don't think that that doesn't translate into an immediate kind of like hit on US power. What it does translate to, and I think like the US doesn't 100% get what that means, what it translates into is...

A lot more problems. Like a lot more small problems, big problems, messes, complications. It's not a single wound to American power. It's thousands of paper cuts just all the time. Like people getting kidnapped, more piracy, porous borders, more disease, more problems, more migrants, all of these things.

hitting the US in all of these different ways. And, you know, of course, you know, a lot of Americans don't care, right? Kind of like they think it's fine, you know, and they're right. I'd say most Americans don't care. What they don't realize, of course, or what they maybe don't appreciate right now, is once that kind of structural, what seems structural kind of American influence isn't permanent, right? Kind of it has to keep being maintained. Once

So the world will move on, and they will move on painfully. A lot of people will die in the process because the US was paying for healthcare. But the world will move on. Africa will move on. Africa has other options now. So Africa isn't dependent on the US for really anything, actually. When you come down to it, they were saying once they figure out ways to pay for some of these things...

they don't need to listen to the US anymore, right? And so this is why I think this is such a fascinating experiment. Because I am just fascinated to see what it's going to be like once the US isn't listened to. Like, you know, what is that US? Like, the US isn't used to not being listened to, right? So let's see. Let's see how that goes, you know? And of course, you know, as always, like, this is the world's youngest continent, right? This is, you know, so...

As Trump chokes off immigration, the US is increasingly a country of old people. So the kind of long-term implications of the break in this relationship

I think it's big. I think it's bigger than a lot of people. A lot of people weren't because they're so used to thinking of Africa with content. Okay. There was an article that was circulating, a column actually, on just security. Not much, by the way, on this foreign aid cut. People in the US are not talking about it very much because it occurred at the same time as the domestic cut.

that the White House announced. So $95 billion sounds like a lot of money, but the same week, the Trump administration also announced a suspension of almost $3-plus trillion of domestic spending. Now, that was reinstated 24 hours later, Bennett, through the whole system into chaos, but you can see why...

this foreign aid issue kind of got buried in it all. But on the site Just Security, Michael Schiffer, who was an assistant administrator for Asia at USAID until January 20th, 2025, he wrote a very compelling column that I'll put in the show notes. Stop work order on US foreign aid puts China first and America last.

He writes,

In fact, Trump may have conceded great power competition with China before his first week in office was even over. Amazing. So that was part of the discussion, but that is very small part. It did not resonate much beyond the foreign policy circles.

I think one of the things that's really important, and I think that we kind of get a unique glimpse into, because we cover the China-Africa relationship so closely, is I think some US stakeholders have lost track of what the US has stopped representing to Africa, right? So one of the things that the US has stopped representing to Africa is futurity, or even technological advancement.

Like, increasingly, that's China's role, right? Kind of like EVs, China. Green energy, China. Like flashy drone, you know, kind of displays in the air, China, right? Even social media, China, right? Like, a lot of this, like, the assistance was, like, built a relationship in one of the very few areas where the U.S. was still strong, right, in Africa. Like, the U.S. on infrastructure, the U.S. is weak, right? Kind of like in trade, very weak. It doesn't buy a lot of stuff, right?

aid was the space where they could keep having a relationship. That is gone now. And as the countries are scrambling to try and kind of like make up this gap, because again, like if the US had given them six months warning, then it wouldn't have been such a terrible thing, right? Kind of like, but now that they're kind of scrambling to kind of make it work,

they are talking to China, they're talking to the UAE, they're talking to Turkey, they're talking to Vietnam, all of these other countries, they're talking to each other.

And kind of like the entire discussion now is how to rid yourself of the U.S., how to kind of like block the U.S. from different things, how to get the U.S. out of your mix, right, in order to try and kind of buffer yourself. So not a soft power win there, I think, you know, as it goes, you know. Yeah, I mean, I was going to put a soundbite in today and I just didn't get around to it. But I sent you a video earlier this week saying,

of the premier of British Columbia, okay? I mean, you cannot think of a more amenable US friend than the premier of British Columbia that borders the Northwest United States who gave a fiery speech this week that said, we have to find other partners. We have to eliminate our reliance on the United States. And when you hear from the premier of British Columbia saying that,

you know you've entered into a different world. I mean, this is what makes this time, I mean, in every way, economically, geopolitically, culturally, linguistically, I mean, just down the line. Interesting, a little fun fact here, in all the conversations that I've been having this week and what I've been watching, one country in particular has come up a lot more than in the past, and it came up in our conversation with Alonzo Yucca last week on Panama.

Indonesia. Watch for a lot of countries to start looking to Indonesia. And I say Indonesia because, yeah, Vietnam and Cambodia are great, but these are tiny markets relative to Indonesia. Indonesia is a population of more than 300 million people. So if you want to start selling stuff to a big country, and I think the global south superpowers, that is Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, these are the 200 million plus countries that

Their opportunities are gaining quite a bit in this new world It's one of the reasons why I think China is paying a lot more attention to these countries those three countries in particular They can buy things they've got diplomatic clout There's military clout that comes with it and let's be clear Trump has already had tensions with Brazil in these first two weeks and so this again creates all sorts of new dynamics and

on the chessboard between the Chinese and the Americans in the global South. Okay, Kobus, let's leave the conversation there. We could talk for four more hours on this. I apologize to everybody in advance that I don't only want to talk about Donald Trump this year, but I think we have to keep staying with this given the profound nature of the change.

So, you know, and every week there's a new dynamic that's playing out. We are going to insert some other shows in the mix. And so we may have to step away from the Trump story. And we just for our own sanity, we'll probably have to step away from the Trump story. But... And also because that's what we bring, right? Kind of like as we focus on the China and the global South relationship, Trump impacts that relationship. But that's what we focus on. You know, kind of like that. There's a lot of stuff going on outside of Washington.

So that's what we end up focusing on. And what's amazing is that the Washington worldview has always been very small. I think it's gotten much, much smaller because the nature of the events unfolding in the United States are even more dramatic. And so I think the United States is now consumed with itself. And by the way, if you ever feel bad about your job, Kobus,

Just think you could be a U.S. diplomat in Africa today. You know, that is a very lonely, lonely, lonely job because, you know, basically people are saying, wait, you don't represent that guy. So, yeah.

Let's leave the conversation there. I mean, it's just it's a tough it's a tough spot for all government workers to be in today. I think this there's a lot of uncertainty facing them. So I don't envy them. And it's it's very disheartening to see the amount of anxiety that a lot of civil servants. I have some in my own family who are going through this. So it's a it's a difficult time for a lot of people. So.

Let's leave it there. We'll be back again next week. Again, of course, if you'd like to see the great work that Kobus and the rest of the team are doing at the China Global South Project, and the best way to support what we're doing is to subscribe to the work that we produce every day. We are producing cutting-edge journalism, research, analysis, data visualizations.

We've got some amazing projects coming out later this year that we're just so excited to bring you. Go to chinaglobalsouth.com slash subscribe. And of course, as always, I want to remind if you are a student or a teacher, we will give you half off. So send me...

and an email to eric at chinaglobalsouth.com, and I will send you the links to get those discounted subscriptions. So for Cobus Van Staten in Cape Town, I'm Eric Olander. Until next time, we'll be back with another edition of the China in Africa podcast. Thanks for listening, and thanks for watching.

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