Donald Trump is not set to attend the 39th annual meeting of the African Union, which kicks off its leaders’ summit on Friday.But his presence will still be felt as delegations from the 55 member states grapple with the new, disruptive reality of the United States president’s second term.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listTrump’s historic cuts to foreign aid, his overhaul of US trade policy, and his sweeping changes to immigration admissions have all had an outsized impact on Africa, though he gave the continent only slight mention in his wider global agenda.Amid the upheaval, the Trump administration has sought to forge new, bilateral agreements with African countries, focused on resources and security gains.“Over the past year, US policy toward Africa has introduced a degree of uncertainty that will inevitably shape how African leaders approach this summit,” Carlos Lopes, a professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Al Jazeera.“There has been a perceptible shift away from broad multilateral engagement and large-scale development programming, toward a more transactional, security- and deal-focused approach.”Many African leaders have sought to strike a careful balance with the new US leadership.Lopes has observed officials engaging with the US, while simultaneously “hedging” by “strengthening relations with China, the Gulf states, Europe and intra-African institutions to avoid over-dependence on any single partner”.“The defining theme of this summit, in that sense, is likely to be recalibration on both sides: the US testing a more transactional model of engagement, and African leaders signalling that partnership must be …
