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Welcome to this new episode of the China in Africa podcast. And today, the China in Africa podcast will be presented by Corbis Van Staden, our managing editor in Cape Town, South Africa, and myself, Christian Geronema, the Africa editor of the CGSP. So, Corbis, the year is ending and 2025 will be starting with

major event in the U.S., the return of Donald Trump at the White House after his victory against Democrat candidate, the Vice President Kamala Harris. His return has sent a shockwave in the U.S. and the world where many are still wondering right now what to expect from Trump 2.0. We've been having a lot of speculation. Should we be worried? Should we be expectful? Or what should be

expecting from that Trump 2.0. So will his foreign policy be different of what we've seen before? Or it's going just to be an extension of what we've already seen during Trump 1.0? Or the questions are coming from both the global north and the global south, where people are just like a bit of like in the unknown.

known, not knowing really what to expect of it. So in Europe, the future of the war in Ukraine and NATO on the minds of many. A few weeks back, Emmanuel Macron, France president, was saying to his colleagues in summit, he was saying, you know what? EU should be starting to build its own

own strategic autonomy and not just be he was using a strange comparison and say not just be a grass eater victim of the carnivores and i believe he was referring here to russia to the u.s and to china that geopolitical battle where to say that europe cannot just be the

place where we're going to fall prey of those big powers. And here at CJSP, we've tried since November, once the results were out, we've really tried to put that in perspective to understand, to really try to connect the dots for people in the global South, to really help them to understand what to expect from a foreign policy coming from Trump 2.0. And especially regarding to China, President-elect Donald Trump has already signaled

is hard stance against China, at least domestically. That we know for sure. So with the rise of tariffs on Chinese-made product. But the question is, are we going to see the same stance translated into its foreign policy, especially in the global south, especially in Africa, where China has been one of the main question areas

in mind for the previous administration. They've tried as much as they can to remove and to keep the China war out of the official narrative. But the last Biden visit in Angola just puts back China on the forefront of the news. And given its stance against China, the question is like the geopolitical competition on critical minerals, we shouldn't be expecting otherwise. Maybe we should expect, at least from an African perspective, to have that

China agenda on the forefront. And this show today, Corbis, we are going to talk with Cameron Hudson, who's a senior fellow at the Center of Strategic and International Studies, CSIS. He was previously a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Africa Centers, where his research focused on democratic transition and conflict in the whole of Africa. He

He also served during the Bush administration as the director of African Affairs on the staff on the National Security Council at the White House. He started his government career as an intelligence analyst at the Africa Directorate at the Central Intelligence Agency. Basically, he's the guy to talk to when it comes to Africa this season. One among those guys to talk to because he has a huge and strong background on China. Recently, he became a bit stricter.

on me. I don't know if you remember, Kobisi came strong on me on the post I've made on Twitter regarding my analysis on what Africa should expect from Trump administration. And today, given his experience and given the extensive experience, it will help us better understand because let's face it, we are not insider in D.C. We are not really always accustomed to the D.C. traditions and the D.C. approach in terms of foreign policy toward Africa. So him

I think should be helping us to understand what we should be expecting, at least from Africa, from Trump 2.0. Cameron, good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. And Corbis, good morning to you. I haven't had the time to tell you good morning. How are you doing, Corbis, today? Good morning. I'm very, very good.

Yes, I'm really looking forward to this show. So before proceeding, I don't know, Cameron, if you remember the comment that you made about my Twitter. Before proceeding, I'd just like to know, tell me, what did I get wrong in my assessment of what Trump foreign policy and for Africa was going to look like?

Oh, I have to admit that I'm a little embarrassed. I don't exactly remember the tweet that I made. But again, I do think that not knowing what the tweet was, Washington looks very different from Africa. And I think that there's just a lot of as much as we are a very transparent society and you can go online and read any newspaper about.

this government and this administration and turn on any news channel and find it. I think there's a lot of nuance in how we talk about Africa here in Washington, but also kind of the inside, as we say, inside baseball around how the bureaucratics and the politics all conspire in a way. And it's that like alchemy that can produce gold or it can produce fool's gold. And so recognizing and understanding those nuances, I think, is generally hard to do from abroad.

Do you have the sense that you being in contact with different African stakeholders, do you have the sense that they perceive those nuances that's happening in D.C. ahead of what's the new Trump administration is coming regarding to all D.C. in general? Do you have that sense that African leaders understand that or they have a better grasp of those complexity that's happening in Washington, D.C.?

I don't really get that impression. And it's a bit perplexing given how open and transparent information is in Washington. There's, you know, everything is being leaked. Everything is being splashed on newsletters and newspapers. So I think maybe it's because there is this surplus of information and

at many times there are cross currents, conflicting information. And so trying to tease out the signal from the noise, I think can be really hard to do when there's a conflicting set of facts and inputs that you're seeing from afar. I think especially with the incoming Trump administration, what we know from the first go around

is that they really issue process. I mean, that's the one thing that Washington has typically been known for, is that there is a process for how we arrive at especially foreign policy decisions and foreign policy decisions that have a national security imperative, right? There is a process that people can feed into, whether it's lobbyists or advocates

or foreign government officials. You can engage through the Hill, you can engage through the executive agencies, and there's a pretty well-established process for how we make those decisions. But what we know from the Trump administration the first go-round was that they kind of blew up that process at different times. And I think there's an expectation here again that given his distrust, I think, of the bureaucracy or the deep state, as he calls it, I think you could see an increasing amount of decision-making happening

being concentrated at the most senior levels in our foreign policy establishment, at the State Department, at the White House, and therefore a lot of opaqueness around how certain decisions get arrived at. I think for African countries or countries

Arab states in particular, there's a real opportunity to do an end run around the foreign policy establishment and the established process that exists to just get to Trump or those in his inner circle to advance your issue. And so I think that

There's a lot of enthusiasm I'm hearing from senior officials across the continent, across the region, that they think that they're going to have a more direct line into having their voice heard and not having to go through, you know, the traditional, you know, embassy process or sort of laborious, almost 19th century foreign policymaking process that we have here.

So at the moment, we know that he has so far indicated that his pick for Secretary of State is Senator Marco Rubio. We don't yet know, obviously, who some of those lower tier officials would be, particularly the people focusing on Africa. So I was wondering what you think Marco Rubio's approach would be to the continent and roughly who are some of your favorites for possible Assistant Secretary of State for Africa?

Well, I've started the process of looking back at Marco Rubio's record as a senator. You know, he has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So on the rare occasions that the full committee meets to talk about an Africa subject, he's typically

typically there. And he has typically not shared the sessions, but asked questions. His questions have unsurprisingly, I think, centered around great power competition, the role of China, the role of Russia. He has been concerned with security affairs, the rising terrorism on the continent. But also, I think, you know, as much as he's a China hawk, he's, I think, a real kind of pro-democracy advocate.

That isn't to say he's into nation building or, you know, that kind of thing. But given his record in Latin America, given his very strong and public positions around Cuba and authoritarianism in Latin America, I think that there's going to possibly be a lot of carryover into how he approaches those questions in Africa. So I think that this expectation that

the Trump administration is going to go easy on African strongmen or strongmen generally. I don't know that that's entirely right. I don't know that it's entirely going to stand up. My sense from Rubio and from the president himself is that they're formulating a very pragmatic foreign policy, that they are going to be unapologetic in their pursuit of what they have defined as

as American national security interests. And I think that they're going to grow to great lengths to narrow what are America's national security interests. I think that the criticism that you hear from the Biden administration, which frankly, I hear from African officials all the time, is that because the Biden administration cared about everything from gay rights to workers' rights to human rights to criminalization,

critical minerals, to nuclear security, to satellite technology. I mean, you name it, there was an initiative for everything under the sun. Africans didn't know what the priority was. They didn't know where they stood. They didn't know what the trade-offs were. I keep hearing a lot of confusion from African officials about we never fully understood what Washington...

cared about during the Biden administration. I think that the Trump administration has heard that more broadly, not just from Africans, but more broadly than that, because this is not a problem that is unique to Africa. And I think what you're going to see is the Trump administration that is narrowing the scope of interest that America has overseas as part of this kind of America first approach. And

You know, I think the question in my mind is, does that create on the continent, especially a sense of kind of moral hazard, where if someone from the administration says, well, we don't care about the extension of a third term, right, or the rewriting of a constitution, that's not going to be our priority. Is that going to kind of give the green light, at least implicitly, to the

leaders, and there are a number of them on the continent right now who are contemplating such a move. Does that provoke a kind of, you know, movement to do that? I don't know. I don't know what the answer is on that. But I do think that you're going to see, at least from a Marco Rubio State Department, a pretty clear articulation on

on democratic rights, on human rights, how that gets operationalized as it is weighed against, as I said before, a more kind of pragmatic approach to international relations, I think is going to be what we're all watching for.

So you mentioned Marco Rubio pro-democracy background. You also mentioned the fact that he's really strong onto the great power competition, the anti-China, anti-Russia stance, and really have that hawkish position toward China. From what you've presented, I kind of have the hint of a few elements of the question I want to ask you, but I'd like you to kind of dive into much deeper into that if you could. What would be the main drivers of a Trump 2.0 foreign policy in Africa?

Well, I think in my sense, it's going to be, as I said before, really narrowing the focus of what we care about. And I think if you look back, even at the Project 2025 document that everybody seems to refer to and to the small section on Africa, you see that it's drawn very much from the

the Biden 2022 strategy on Africa in terms of defining the growing importance of Africa because of its growing population, because of its strategic location, both as a partner on the Atlantic, so they share our backyard with us on the Atlantic Ocean, but they also sit astride the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea strategic transport

lane. So there's a recognition there. There's obviously a recognition around critical minerals and the need to have access to those minerals, reliable access. And I think that there is a China component and a competitive component. But I think we should, again, if we widen the aperture, we have that same competitive component with China in Latin America. We have it with them in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. Right. So, again, Africa, we make a lot about, you know, Africa as a battleground for great power competition. But that great power competition is happening in a

in many other regions of the world. Africa is not unique in that regard. What I keep telling people here is I think that the substance of the policies are not going to be substantially different between Trump and Biden, because I do think that there still exists, by and large, a Washington consensus or a bipartisanship around Africa policy.

which by the way, I'm not convinced this is entirely a good thing. I think that there's a bipartisan kind of understanding because Africa just doesn't matter that much, right? We would never expect there to be total bipartisanship on

on how we treat Iran or how we go about peace in the Middle East, because those things really matter to U.S. national security. On the things that really don't matter as much and don't rank quite as high, we can have a bipartisanship because we have much less skin in the game. And so I would love to see more, you know, more rancorous debate around AfriCast.

Because it meant that people had very firm views and that they were willing to fight for those positions to advance what they thought was better policy because it matters. And I think until that happens, we can talk about bipartisanship in Washington. But bipartisan also means that the debates don't matter quite as much, at least in my, you know, my read of the situation.

I wonder if I could just follow up with a slightly contrarian question. How bad is it for Africa to be low on the level of priorities for the US? I mean, is that a problem from your perspective? Or can one also see it as a kind of a hidden blessing? The reason I'm asking is because some of the moments when the US did really intervene in Africa didn't go so well, right? Particularly the NATO intervention in Libya was a notorious disaster. So is it bad for Africa if it's being ignored by the US or?

you know, is there something really that Africa should be campaigning to get more attention for? Listen, I think be careful what you wish for, right? And Africa has, in some respects, benefited from kind of flying under the radar, right? Obviously, I think the flip side is that when it does manage to get onto the radar, it can easily slip off, right? And so when you see Biden delaying his Africa trip multiple times, it's just, I think, a

a reminder to many of us and to those on the continent that one day you can be standing in the sun and then the next day the clouds come and you're eclipsed again. And so I think Africans are used to that. Again, what I hear from my counterparts in Africa is not kind of disgruntlement that they are

aren't higher. It's that they want an understanding of where they rank. And it's OK that they rank below other U.S. national security priorities. But what they don't want is to be told that they rank much higher than they actually do. And they don't want the expectation created that the United States is going to be

involved and then not involved, right? So whether it's we ignite revolution because we say that people should rise up and overthrow authoritarian regimes, and then when they're slaughtered in the street, Washington isn't there to back them up or to condemn those regimes, right? Like that's the moral hazard that Washington has had a tendency to create. And I think that we don't want to do that anymore. I think we've recognized the risks that come with creating some of these expectations. I have criticized the Biden administration because I think they did a lot of that

But I think Africans have grown wise to reading between the lines of, you know, political rhetoric that comes from the White House. And they've become much more pragmatic in their own approach to Washington, where I think they're not going to, you know, they're not going to take our promises anymore. They're going to wait and see how we deliver on the things that we discuss. And so I think we've learned a lot of lessons. We haven't learned them all. We haven't operationalized them. But I

I think Africa, what I'm seeing more and more is that they have decided that they cannot wait around for Washington to get its act together. They are opening the door to competition. They are opening the door to new entrants, whether that's from, you know, middle powers or other great powers. And I think that they are increasingly trying to advance their interests on their own terms. If Washington wants to be a part of that, then so much the better. But I

But increasingly, my sense is that African governments are setting the terms of engagement and Washington can engage or it can choose not to engage, but it shouldn't create expectations and then not live up to them. Yes, you mentioned expectation. You mentioned promises. You mentioned the fact that Africa, they don't want to be told that they're ranking high, knowing they don't really rank high. All of that just puts the question of like,

how much the U.S. promises to Africa can be really taken seriously now in comparison to great powers like China. So we've heard so many times that this administration is going to be strong into, you know, anti-China rhetoric, anti-China approach. But at the same time, the reality on the ground is like African leaders and decision makers, they also know that when it comes to delivery, the U.S. has never been

always really up to his promises to deliver compared to China that's been delivering for quite some time. Now, how the new administration will intend or from what you see is going to approach that China rhetoric on the continent and being credible into the promises it's going to make to African countries?

Well, I think you're going to see across the board, not just on sort of China competition, but on the things that matter to the administration, whether it's on trade and investment, whether it's on critical minerals. I think you're going to see a much more kind of direct

in-your-face kind of approach, right? And so the one, I guess, criticism or compliment, however you take it, of Trump is that he often says the quiet part out loud, right? That the subtext for a lot of the Biden administration policy to Africa was competition with China. And yet,

They went to great lengths, oftentimes, to not frame it in those terms. But then, you know, in unguarded moments or unscripted moments with the press, they would revert back to these old tropes and narratives that you and others have debunked, right, around whether it's the debt stock that Chinese hold versus your bondholders, whether it's, you know, whatever it is. There was this, I think, broader knee-jerk reaction to the kind of language about China that Biden expressed

at a public level and a high level kind of eschewed. But when they were off their talking points and off their teleprompter, they would revert back to very quickly. And certainly for those of us in Washington, having private meetings with USG officials, they would refer, you know, very openly and very directly to the competition with China and, you know, saying things like, you

You know, we have moved Angola out of the Chinese orbit. They are now in the U.S. zone of influence. You know, very explicit kind of competitive language that they wouldn't talk about publicly. I think you're going to see the Trump administration talking about those things publicly.

very publicly. And again, I don't know that African leaders are going to be turned off by that because, again, their criticism has often been, we don't know where we stand. We don't know what's important. We don't know how to approach you based on all of the things that you say are our priority. So I think Trump's going to be very clear about what the priorities are and what the priorities aren't. And that's going to rub some people the wrong way. I think it's going to create opportunities and it could

create unintended consequences. And I think we're going to have to manage the fallout of that style of political discourse. So a lot of your work focuses on East Africa and the Horn of Africa specifically. And we've heard two very interesting kind of tidbits over the last few days around that. One being that there is some kind of incipient deal between Ethiopia and Somalia that was brokered by Turkey. And then the

Also that there are rumors that the Trump administration might support Somaliland independence. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about these developments, what you make of them, and then also how they factor into U.S. and China involvement on the continent. Well, again, I think that the Somaliland recognition response

rumor has been out there for a long time. I would say, interestingly, I was in the Bush administration when the Somalilanders brought this to the Bush administration. And the position at the time essentially became the Obama position and even the Biden position, which was really, you know, we need to let the African Union decide everything.

who is an African country and who isn't, right? They need to be in the driver's seat on that. I think the position has changed for a number of reasons in recent years by Republicans. I think, first of all, it is reflective of the kind of geopolitical competition on the continent. And frankly, a real, we don't talk enough about this, but like a real and growing, I think, discomfort of being in Djibouti. Djibouti is becoming a

The French might call it a petite dictateur. I think they're becoming a little bit more of such when you win, you know, an election with 99% of the vote. That creates a certain amount of discomfort. I think it creates discomfort to have China a few miles down the beach. I think it creates discomfort for the Djiboutians to be offering other basing agreements or entertaining other basing agreements, you know, to the highest bidder. And so creating a little distance and diversifying

Our basing in Africa makes a lot of sense. Obviously, Somaliland creates an opportunity. I think a lot of the language that is being used about, oh, well, we need to promote this democracy. It stands on its own. I think that's really secondary. I think that's cover for this broader geopolitical movement to diversify away from Djibouti, create a new opportunity at

the mouth of the Baba in the Mount Strait. I think that's the real motivator, certainly from the Defense Department. I think those in the Africa community might talk about recognizing the strength of Somaliland's democracy. I think, unfortunately, there's a real appeal to sticking a thumb in the

eye of Somalia to sort of lament the amount of U.S. blood and treasure that has been spent in Somalia that they still can't seem to kind of put together a functioning government. So that feels a little petty to me, quite frankly. But at the same time, the same people who are using that rhetoric and I share with them the view on South Sudan, right, which is and I think in Washington in general, anybody who has been involved in South Sudan has learned a very painful lesson from

from the birth and the kind of midwifing of South Sudanese independence. Now, again, Washington is not the only midwife of that process. There was a peace agreement that we were a part of, but IGAD and the African Union were also a part of and which we supported along with a host of other African countries. So as much as

on the international level, you know, Washington is seen as sort of owning the South Sudan problem. You're seeing increasingly the incoming Trump administration, and I happen to agree that more and more this can't be a problem that Washington owns alone, especially given the prospects of, you know, what could

what could be a new, you know, civil conflict coming, you know, on the horizon. So I think all of these lessons, the lessons of Niger and being kicked out of Niger and having all your eggs in kind of one basket is another lesson that's being applied, I think, privately to Somaliland. So I think there's a lot of reasons why this move and this rhetoric is happening around Somaliland. I think we can't also forget Western Sahara for the longest time.

It was an article of faith in Washington that, you know, if we backed the Moroccans, that we would be starting a new civil war in the region. The Trump administration did that. It didn't happen. You know, the sun continues to rise and set. And I think there is a sense among many in the Trump administration that civilization

some of these articles of faith or sacred cows, you can take steps against them. And whether that's moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, you know, war did not break out when that happened. I think that they look at Somaliland and say, you know, we can recognize Somaliland and we can manage the response. That may or may not be true. One thing that I would say is I'm very curious to hear what the Egyptians have to say about this.

But don't you see that strategy backfiring to the United States, given how, for example, a country like China has been strong on the anti-independence narrative, mirroring its own situation with Taiwan. China has been backing up Morocco, backing up Somalia in the struggle against those separatist zones of their countries. Don't you see that at the end they're going to find an Africa that's been troubled?

Dramatized by the South Sudanese experience. Now, looking at it, I'd say, you know what? The narrative that Washington is going to portray or their project in Washington is going to portray it. So those issues might be destructive to us. And China is much more reliable on those issues than Washington.

That may well be. I mean, I think China has a pretty effective argument on the continent when it comes to these issues. That's why, again, I kind of go back to this idea of it will serve Trump better, I think, to be unapologetic about what the U.S. national security interest is rather than trying to frame it as a kind of we're just here to support democracy. Right. I think that that

is a pretty thinly veiled argument that many Africans will see through when they look at our engagement in a place like Equatorial Guinea, where we have no interest in supporting democracy. We just want to be there for oil and gas interests, right? So I think when you hold up Somaliland as a reward and a recognition for countries that do the right thing,

On democracy, you're sending a signal that that's something that we really value when in other parts of the world and in other parts of the continent, we don't value it nearly as much, right? And so what it really is about is our interests. And I think if we can be honest about what our interests are and move away from the kind of stylized talking points that we traditionally use to kind of justify these positions, I think we'll actually gain more credibility with our African partners.

Speaking of strategic interests, one of the most prominent interests that the Biden administration has been focusing on in Africa has been critical minerals. And it put a lot of work into putting together a huge project, you know, under the name of the Lobito Corridor of connectivity and rail connections between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Angola. Could you allow me to jump in there and to kind of say that the Lobito Corridor is not a US project and not many countries.

many who are listening might be against me on that. But yes, it's really not a US project. We may debate on that, but I just wanted to make that comment. I mean, there's many G7 partners in there. And I mean, of course, this kind of synergy between the United States and G7 partners was also a hallmark of this kind of, of trying to kind of push back on China as the main infrastructure provider in Africa through the global gateway and so forth. Cameron, I was wondering if you

would, you know, kind of weigh in a little bit on what you think the Lubito corridor is going to look like, and particularly what the balance is going to be between, maybe I should say, like one of the ways that the Biden administration, you know, defused the narration, the kind of big great power competition narration around critical minerals in Africa has been to dress up the Lubito corridor with a lot of other initiatives, including, you know, agricultural technology and cell phone connectivity and so on.

Do you foresee that those bells and whistles will survive? And if not, is there the case to be made that a more mercantilist Trump administration might just find it cheaper and easier to just simply buy refined cobalt from China, as American companies tend to prefer? Or do you see the energy to actually put billions of dollars into building infrastructure in a developing country?

I think that to your first question about the kind of bells and whistles, again, I would go back to what I was saying before about I think we're just going to be really unapologetic about what our interests are and and hopefully strip away some of the veneer that we put on. Right. I think that's, again, one of the criticisms of the Biden administration is that, you know, they downplay.

why we're involved in the project and we make it about everything else. We make it about internet connectivity, telecoms, maternal health, animal husbandry, agricultural development. I mean, you name it, it's about everything but getting minerals out of the Congo and bringing them to the Atlantic Ocean. I think that you're not going to see all of the song and dance around those projects. Whether or not they get eliminated, I think is frankly a bigger question about what's going to happen

to the U.S. bureaucracy? I think that's the bigger question that is going to have ripple effects across the continent and the world, right? So let's imagine a world where USAID doesn't exist anymore, or rather USAID has been folded into the State Department and they're just one floor in that

larger building, right? And they have one third the number of people and one third the budget that they had before. That's a real possibility. So when you ask me about, is he going to eliminate all of these kinds of bells and whistles around the veto? Maybe or maybe not.

but it could de facto be eliminated by the fact that we are talking very seriously about downsizing really substantial portions of our government. And the way that manifests itself onto something like critical minerals is, you know, they're talking about downgrading or dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. That's the agency that licenses the refining of minerals here in this country. So if that regulatory body is eviscerated, then...

That creates all kinds of new opportunities and openings for companies to decide that they would be very happy to import raw materials into this country. Now, I don't know that that's going to happen. It's being talked about. And so if it happens and if it plays out, I think that there is going to be a whole host of ripple effects that ripple through the critical mineral sector in Africa immediately.

And so it's a little bit hard to predict where that's going to go. But again, I think the Trump administration will be, you know, much more explicit, much more direct about its minerals policy and specifically its minerals policy in Africa. They're talking about creating a special envoy or a czar of some kind, whether that's a global czar with a global remit or if it's focused exclusively on Africa.

I don't know. But they are putting in place, I think, a structure to support these national security interests that they have. And those structures will presumably go around the existing bureaucracy that exists, that in many ways has supported but also sometimes slowed down our agility in our

advancing our interests on the continent in what is a pretty fast-moving sector right now. Cameron, we are heading toward the end of this podcast. You've mentioned great power competition, the strategic interest. But when you look at those strategic interests, when you look at the U.S. national security, you've mentioned also the narrowing down of those priorities. We're basically left with only a few countries that really might

matters on the continent matters for the U.S. administration. I can name a few of them on the top of my hand. We may have like five or six or seven on the top that really fits that criteria. What at the end would happen to smaller countries, those who geography did not bless them, geology did not bless them, and basically they really have nothing to show for, to put on the table? Would they still have a place to the Trump administration in the foreign policy on Africa?

I think that's a great question. And I've been thinking about this a lot because I think one of the other reforms or bureaucratic changes that is being anticipated is this idea of reforming the Foreign Service and possibly even eliminating the Foreign Service Union. And what that means is this idea that we have to have two thirds career ambassadors, one third political ambassadors could go away. You could see more than just South Africa and Kenya have political ambassadors. You could see Trump appointing

a dozen, two dozen friends and colleagues, presumably many from industry and specific industries like mining, to be ambassadors across Africa. Probably not in, you know, Ouagadougou or Niamey, but certainly in places like Gaborone and Luanda, you could anticipate political ambassadors who are really there to do much more kind of commercial diplomacy. So I think you could see a real augmenting and deepening of

of our ties in countries where we already have an established interest because of what's in the ground or because of some strategic location or what have you. But I think to your point, the traditional kind of diplomatic structure, I think, will continue to exist in those countries where we don't have that same level of strategic interest, or as you say, they're not blessed with geography or geology. So again, I keep going back to this example of Gabon, for example,

I don't think that Gabon is going to get the level of attention. I don't think there's going to get, I don't think they're going to get the, you know, when there is a coup in Gabon, certainly a bloodless coup. I don't think you're going to see the level of alacrity from a Trump administration to try to, you know, put Gabon back on a democratic path, right? I think that smaller countries like that, that don't present a strategic threat or strategic interest to the United States are going to largely fly under the radar. You'll still see career ambassadors in those places, handlers,

handling the day-to-day. But again, if they have no budget because USAID has been eviscerated, if they don't have a

seemingly a connection to the seventh floor of the State Department, that's where the Secretary of State sits, or to the White House, then what leverage are they going to have? What influence is an American ambassador going to have in a country like that going forward? I think that's a real risk that comes from concentrating in areas only that we have decided that we care about and letting those other areas kind of go in some respects. I think that's the real concern.

So one of Trump's favorite kind of themes at the moment is trade tariffs, and he's threatened to impose tariffs on several countries. And at the same time, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which offers tariff-free entry to the US market to African countries, is coming up for review next year. So I was wondering what you think the future of AGOA is, and particularly

the status of my own country, South Africa, which makes up the bulk of Ogoa trade and has also come under a lot of pressure from Republicans, particularly about its stance on US support for Israel in Gaza and on perceptions that it's too close to Russia. So I was wondering kind of how you think Ogoa is going to go and whether South Africa will remain part of Ogoa.

Well, I mean, this is a big question that folks in Washington are talking about. I think we have to remember, first and foremost, that the AGOA legislation is going to come from Congress. It's not going to be written by the Trump administration. They will have to sign off on it and approve it and pass it into law. But the penholding, as it were, is in the Congress. You know, when I talk to staffers on the Hill, Republican staffers in particular, I have heard them talk about a need and a willingness to move away from using AGOA as a punitive measure. Right.

Right. So under the Biden administration, they removed or suspended seven countries from a goa from 42. They're down to 35 countries in a goa because of various transgressions, whether it's the gay rights law in Uganda or it's coups in other countries. And I think a lot of feedback that Africans have conveyed in Washington is transgressive.

that it's this reliability question, right? You know, we design an economy to take advantage of a go. So the quintessential example here is Ethiopia, which had a garment industry set up. And then because of their war in Tigray, have seen themselves suspended from it. And those garment factories go dormant by and large. And so it's this kind of pulling the rug out, which they don't appreciate. So my expectation is that there's going to be a real willingness on the part of Republicans to insulate Ethiopia

a goa from some of the kind of political winds that blow from time to time across the continent that might put countries in bad odor, right? And so just to make a goa about trade, irrespective of other extenuating circumstances, that's number one. But I think the other piece that gets to your question about South Africa is that

There seems to be a real sense in Washington, too, among Republicans on the Hill, not just in the Trump administration, that this is a trade promotion program. It is a privilege to be a part of it. And so under previous administrations, Republican and Democrat, the goal was always to get as many countries qualified for a go as we could.

irrespective of how much they could take advantage of it, it was almost just about a headcount. We want as many countries participating so that we can send this message that it's a broad-based program. I think that you could see AGOA become a much more selective program with 50%,

fewer than even the 35 countries that are in it now, but that you're going to have to pass some kind of loyalty test to get into it. It is a privilege to have duty-free access to the United States. And I think there's a real possibility that you could have a Trump administration say, we're going to examine your voting record at the UN, we're going to examine your security partnerships, you know, domestically, and we are going to create a litmus test for whether or not you

you are a sufficient friend, whether or not you're a sufficient, you know, strategically important country, that we should include you into this. And so I think you could see a smaller number of countries earn

earning the privilege to be a part of this program and many others being locked out. And I think in that respect, I think there is a real risk and South Africa should prepare itself for being made an example of. And especially if you look at some of the statements that Senator Rubio has made, he's been quite critical of South Africa in particular, where its position's

about Israel, about Russia, China. I mean, you name it. He has put South Africa in the crosshairs going back many months.

So this predates his nomination. So I think that you could really see South Africa emerge as an example for the rest of the continent of the fact that there are going to be costs to not supporting the United States within international institutions. And again, you saw this from the incoming president's tweet about BRICS, where he made a very direct threat to countries within the BRICS group about forming their own currency or banking structures to get around use of the U.S. dollar.

Some of that is posturing and bluster. But at some point, I think that there's going to be some kind of real steps to impose costs on countries that take positions that run contrary to U.S. interests. And I think South Africa is setting itself up for being the case in point.

African country, be aware. The new Trump administration is going to come gun blazing unapologetic about what he wants in Africa and what he can get from you. So they're going to be quite straightforward to tell you maybe you're going to have to choose between the US, China and Russia. And that's going to be really hard. And I think African countries will have to really practice.

play a hard bargain if they want to maintain the independence of thought of mind international stage given the current context of international competition that are taking place we can go on and on and talk about different issues we didn't talk about the death threat narrative we didn't talk about all different narratives that can come into the china africa debate with the us in it but i think we're gonna stop here and cameron it was a real pleasure having you on this show to give us some hints and

direction on what to expect from the new Trump administration. And I hope we're going to have you, I hope, 100 days after Trump getting in office, if you're still available, would like to have you back on the show to kind of reflect on what the 100 days of Trump toward Africa look like and what to expect for the future. Cameron Hudson, it was a pleasure to have you. Thank you again. Great to be here. Thank you very much.

So, Corbis, you've heard it. The Trump administration that's coming out is going to be really gun blazing and apologetic about what you want for Africa and from Africa. And I'm really kind of worried about South Africa now, given what Cameron has said. And when we know where Senor Rubio stood against China, Russia and all those great power competition. And I really liked his answers because he gave us refreshing perspective and really straightforward comments.

clear perspective on, you know, this is going to be about politics. It's going to be about interest. It's going to be about bargaining. It's going to be about what I get from you, what you can get from me. And there's no going to be sugarcoating or cutting short and putting the veneer and the bells and whistles as you put it to get what we want. That was really interesting. I don't know if you got the same feeling that I got about that.

Yeah, it was super interesting to speak with him. It's like very kind of interesting, not only because he's so knowledgeable, but also to get a kind of a glimpse of the perspective within Washington about how it looks from there. I think on the South African issue, what struck me is that I think a lot of this is going to be

over, not immediately, but like over the next few years, I think what strikes me is like a really kind of big mega trend that's playing out that we've seen kind of popping up in different areas, which is both at COP29 and around the discussion around Gaza and increasingly around other issues as well. We're seeing this really stark,

north-south split happening. You know, it's really global north versus global south, very explicitly. I think Gaza has really become kind of ground zero for that. It's just seen fundamentally differently in the global south than it is seen in the global north. And I think China has read that room very effectively and it kind of positioned itself consistently with the global south on these issues.

So, I think after a year of the Gaza conflict and after, you know, as Trump comes in, I think the last year we've really seen a very, I think, strong devaluation, I think, of a lot of kind of Western language on rights, on the rules-based international order, on international law. A lot of those, I think, now pass.

come with asterisks. I think in the global south, I think a lot of that is seen as code rather than as actual principles. And so then South Africa being made an example of force standing up in the face of what at the very best could be called extreme war crimes.

It's going to be an interesting test case of this larger kind of global positioning and also where China is landing in it. I think if South Africa is kind of punished or made an example of, as Cameron suggested, I think that is a very real possibility. I think the longer term effect will be to just conclusively push South Africa more towards China.

Not only South Africa alone, basically all African countries because we're going to see how they treat African countries in a moment where we're talking about much more about independence. You know, we don't want to pick sides. We want to be independent in our political choices. Seeing South Africa being punished is just clearly sending a message by saying, you know what, we're going to rally beyond South Africa and we're going to rally behind those who are talking about reforming the international rule-based order, being China, being Russia. It's not only about Russia, it's going to be also China.

China, not only China, also Russia all along to say, you know what, we're just going to go with those who are saying this international system doesn't work for us and doesn't work with us. We need a new approach to that. And that comes on top of the fact that the polarity of the global economy, especially the part of the global economy that is able to

with Africa and invest in Africa, that polarity, that center has really shifted eastwards, right? It's like it's not only China, but it's the Indian Ocean Rim is increasingly where Africa's commercial future seems to lie, whereas its trade relationships with Europe and the US are very flat and they're still big countries

at the moment, but they're not growing. And overall, there seems to be, you know, that a lot of that side of the relationship, the kind of Atlantic side, seems dormant or stagnant sometimes. So in that sense, I think that could push a much larger trend of, as you say, of the whole

continent particularly South Africa being pushed towards China and in the process what one should also keep in mind is not only that South Africa is a small country but it's also weirdly a big country in some ways in that it's a G20 member it has all of these kind of ideas it punches above its weight in lots of ways and

And at the same time, it also still remains one of the only viable shipping routes if you're not shipping through the Red Sea. And we've seen that shipping through the Red Sea is increasingly fraught. You know, so there's very real geostrategic reasons to stay friendly with South Africa. And if in this kind of moment, South Africa is, you know, fully alienated in this kind of way, then that has larger ramifications, I think.

And South Africa is not as powerless as it looks like. And I think former Foreign Affairs Minister Nelidi Pandor reminded that when she was in Washington last year, when she was saying, let me remind you that South Africa produced 17 of the minerals that the U.S. automobile industry needs. So it's not as powerless as it was.

we may think it is. I think they're going to need to be much more bold enough to assessing the position and to know, you know what, we're going to be who we want to be and we're going to maintain our independence. But all of that at the end really for me just inches on the ability of the U.S. to deliver whatever promise they're going to make on the continent. And as he mentioned himself, the U.S. has a lot of issues in terms of being able to deliver on different promises to African countries. And if you yield the stick, at some point you're going to have to also offer the carrots. If there's no carrot...

And if I know that your promises are empty promises, there's so much I can just get from you or expect from you. So at some point, you're threatening me just like one thing, but you're threatening me to give me what in exchange? If you don't give me anything, your threats are just empty words for me. Exactly. And then it also plays on the back of, I think, again, you know, it's something that looks quite differently from Washington and from outside of Washington. For example, the quite awkward kind of overlap between

between the US's position on Gaza and the structural inequities that was revealed through the Black Lives Matter process, and then the way that the Black Lives Matter process essentially fizzled out and no real reforms happened. So, you know, in a country like South Africa, that's very articulate about race issues, and tends to see things through the stark kind of lens of like, you know, which how could they not through like the apartheid history of kind of racialized injustice.

You know, again, like this, it plays into much larger issues around kind of global south, global north relations that I think a lot, both the US and Europe, I think are not 100% prepared to fully engage with. You know, not at the level that I think the global south is demanding. We definitely saw that at COP29. I mean, it's like the split between what the global south was demanding and what the global north was even willing to discuss was so vast.

that there was almost no conversation to be had, you know? So in that sense, that's going to be playing out in geopolitics, in trade, in investment, in everything. And China is sitting there ready to benefit.

Yeah, so African countries, Trump or not Trump, my stance has always been the same. We have to gain our independence. We have to gain our truth for independence to really stand our ground when we want something. And I think the Trump administration is offering that opportunity, really not sugarcoating things, being straightforward, being clear and do what they want. I think it's also an opportunity for African countries to really be clear on what they want and how they stand and really being responsible at the end.

And just to quote what Emmanuel Macron said, we're going to have to develop our own strategic autonomy if we want to move forward, if we want to exist in an environment where Donald Trump is president of the United States and what could also unfold in terms of geopolitical tension around the world.

So we're going to stop here. And as I said before, we can go on and on about those topics here. But we're going to stop here for this podcast today. And as you've noticed, there's no Eric voice today. It was just only me, Christian Géraud and Corbis Van Staden. And it was really a pleasure to have you for this China in Africa podcast. And see you next week for another edition of China in Africa podcast.

The discussion continues online. Tag us on Twitter at ChinaGSProject and visit us at ChinaGlobalSouth.com. If you speak French, check out our full coverage at ProjetAfriqueChine.com and AfriqueChine on Twitter. That's Afrique with a K. And you'll also find links to our sites and social media channels in Arabic.

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