Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa goes to the White House, Sudan’s army chief appoints the country’s first prime minister since civil war broke out, and a Nigerian film makes history at the Cannes Film Festival.
South Africa’s Diplomatic Gambit
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday in an attempt to mend bilateral relations, which have deteriorated in recent months as Trump has parroted claims that white South Africans are facing “unjust racial discrimination” and “genocide.”
This is the first time that Trump will host an African leader in his second term. At the meeting, Ramaphosa is expected to propose a comprehensive trade deal as a way to reset the U.S.-South Africa relationship.
Since he took office in January, Trump has cut aid to South Africa, expelled its ambassador, signaled plans to boycott the G-20 summit in Johannesburg in November, and reportedly banned U.S. agencies from working on the summit. Trump also announced a 31 percent tariff on South African imports as part of his recent tariffs scheme.
Last week, tensions worsened as Washington granted refugee status to 59 white South Africans—a move that Pretoria said was “entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy.”
Trump’s main grievance is South Africa’s new Expropriation Act, aimed at redressing apartheid-era land inequality, which allows Pretoria to seize property in limited circumstances. (No land has been expropriated under the law yet.) Since his first term, Trump has also repeatedly claimed without evidence that white South African farmers are victims of targeted killings and discrimination.
Pretoria’s broader diversity laws are also in the firing line as the Trump administration attacks diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at home and abroad. Trump’s billionaire advisor Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, has been a vocal critic of Pretoria’s policies, which he has called “openly racist.”
But Trump’s stance against Pretoria is not just about its domestic politics. He has also criticized South Africa’s relationship with Iran and its position on Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump’s February executive order on South Africa cites “aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.”
Ramaphosa is expected to challenge Trump’s understanding of the treatment of Afrikaners, the descendants of mostly Dutch settlers, in South Africa. Pretoria’s delegation to the White House includes John Steenhuisen, the agriculture minister and leader of the majority-white Democratic Alliance party, who will likely help dispute the White House’s false claims of white genocide.
“There is no genocide in South Africa,” Steenhuisen said last week. “What we need to do is to make sure that when important trading partners like the U.S. are making decisions around their outlook … they are making it based on the facts and not the fiction.”
There are fears among the South African public and politicians that Ramaphosa may be humiliated like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose meeting with Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance at the White House in February descended into a shouting match.
Yet Ramaphosa is reportedly unfazed and hopes to placate Trump with business opportunities, including by making concessions on sectors such as critical minerals and agriculture. South Africa is the United States’ largest African trading partner; in 2024, bilateral trade totaled around $20.5 billion.
“We will be conducting our discussions in a business-like manner,” Ramaphosa told reporters on Friday. “We are not going to be distracted by anything. We will just focus on what is important to our country. … You also negotiate with those that you may have differences with.”
Ramaphosa may try to charm Trump by reextending an invitation to play on South Africa’s golf courses.
While he’s in Washington, Ramaphosa is also expected to bring up business opportunities for Musk, which could include a proposal for Tesla to receive favorable tariffs on imports to South Africa. He reportedly plans to offer Musk a workaround of Black-ownership laws so that Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet business, can enter the South African market.
The Week Ahead
Wednesday, May 21: Trump and Ramaphosa are scheduled to meet at the White House.
South Africa’s finance minister presents the country’s third revised budget.
European Union and African Union foreign ministers meet in Brussels to discuss how to strengthen cooperation.
Tuesday, May 27, to Thursday, May 29: The West Africa Industrialisation, Manufacturing & Trade Summit is held in Lagos, Nigeria.
What We’re Watching
Sudan’s new prime minister. On Monday, Sudanese army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan appointed Kamil al-Tayeb Idris as the country’s first prime minister since civil war broke out in 2023. Idris is a career diplomat who formerly led the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization.
Idris is tasked with forming a new government at a time when the civilian death toll is worsening in Sudan’s civil war as it enters a new phase marked by the use of foreign drones. Meanwhile, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has established its own rival government.
Nigeria-China defense pact. Nigeria signed a defense agreement with a Chinese company during Nigerian Minister of State for Defense Bello Matawalle’s visit to Beijing in early May. The Chinese firm has agreed to establish local manufacturing capabilities, invest in military training and equipment servicing, and facilitate technology transfers to Nigeria.
Although Nigerian officials did not name the Chinese company in its statement announcing the deal, a delegation from China’s North Industries Corp. (Norinco) visited Abuja in March. Nigeria looks to bolster its air defense systems amid a resurgence of extremist groups. Islamist insurgents attacked four military bases in northeastern Nigeria over a 24-hour period last week.
Beijing has stepped up its defense cooperation with African nations in recent years. Norinco, China’s largest state-owned arms manufacturer, has worked with Algeria, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, and Senegal. Last week, China hosted 100 military officers from 40 African countries at its military academies.
Unrest in Libya. Multiple officials resigned from Libya’s Tripoli-based government on Friday, including Economy and Trade Minister Mohamed al-Hawij, amid protests calling for Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah to step down, according to Libyan media reports.
The demonstrations followed armed fighting that broke out in Tripoli on May 12 after the killing of Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, the leader of a powerful armed group, by a rival militia. The clashes have led to the deaths of at least eight civilians.
U.S.-Africa summit. Trump will host a summit for African leaders by the end of the year, according to Troy Fitrell, the acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Washington’s new Africa policy will prioritize private sector investment and dealmaking, Fitrell said at an event last week in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
The last U.S.-Africa leaders’ summit was hosted in December 2022 by then-President Joe Biden, who faced criticism for scheduling few one-on-one meetings with his African counterparts.
Bongo leaves Gabon. Gabon’s deposed president, Ali Bongo, has left the country for Angola with his wife and son. Bongo was placed under house arrest after he was ousted in a 2023 military coup; his son, Noureddin, and wife, Sylvia, were detained on charges of money laundering and embezzling public funds. The junta accused Sylvia of manipulating her husband to misuse state assets following his stroke in 2018.
According to a statement posted on social media by the Angolan presidency, the Bongo family’s release followed an agreement between Angolan President João Lourenço and Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema, Gabon’s coup leader-turned-president who won the country’s election last month.
This Week in Culture
Nigeria’s film industry is being represented for the first time in the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection with My Father’s Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr.’s semi-autobiographical directorial debut. The film, which premiered on Sunday, is set in Lagos during Nigeria’s 1993 coup, when the military annulled presidential election results and Gen. Sani Abacha seized power.
Davies co-wrote the screenplay with his brother, Wale, who said the film attempts to capture Nigerians’ hope for—and disappointments around—democracy and change. “I think with Nigeria, it’s the promise and the potential that kills you,” Wale said. “And now I’m 42, and I think even in that time we’ve lost so many people who’ve never seen this promise materialize.”
Film, music, and art are Nigeria’s biggest exports after oil, and Nollywood is the third-largest film industry in the world in terms of output.
FP’s Most Read This Week
What We’re Reading
Musk’s African profits. U.S. diplomats have used the threat of aid cuts to pressure African governments to fast-track licenses for Starlink, according to a ProPublica investigation.
In cables, senior State Department officials have suggested to their counterparts in African nations that granting licenses to Starlink would prove “their commitment to good relations with the U.S.,” according to the report. U.S. officials reportedly lobbied on Musk’s behalf in Cameroon, Djibouti, Gambia, and Lesotho.
Diverted water in Malawi. A class action lawsuit against Illovo Sugar Malawi and its parent company, Associated British Foods—which owns sugar brand Silver Spoon and retailer Primark—alleges that flood defenses around the producer’s Nchalo Sugar Estate in Malawi diverted floodwaters that killed seven people and destroyed homes in 2022, the Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi reports.
Villagers allege that the flood barriers built to protect the plantation altered the flow of the Mwanza River, worsening the impact of flooding on their community.
