Trump’s African summit was a masterclass in modern colonial theatre

On July 9, United States President Donald Trump opened a three-day mini acme astatine the White House with the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – by subjecting his distinguished guests to a cautiously staged nationalist humiliation.

This was not the program – oregon astatine least, not the portion the nationalist was meant to see.

A White House authoritative claimed connected July 3 that “President Trump believes that African countries connection unthinkable commercialized opportunities which payment some the American radical and our African partners.”

Whether by coincidence oregon calculated design, the gathering took spot connected the aforesaid time the Trump medication escalated its commercialized war, slapping caller tariffs connected 8 countries, including the North African nations of Libya and Algeria. It was a telling contrast: Even arsenic Trump claimed to beryllium “strengthening ties with Africa”, his medication was penalising African nations. The optics revealed the incoherence – oregon possibly the honesty – of Trump’s Africa policy, wherever concern is conditional and often indistinguishable from punishment.

Trump opened the acme with a four-minute code successful which helium claimed the 5 invited leaders were representing the full African continent. Never caput that their countries hardly registry successful US-Africa commercialized figures; what mattered was the gold, oil, and minerals buried beneath their soil. He thanked “these large leaders… each from precise vibrant places with precise invaluable land, large minerals, large lipid deposits, and fantastic people”.

He past announced that the US was “shifting from AID to trade” due to the fact that “this volition beryllium acold much effectual and sustainable and beneficial than thing other that we could beryllium doing together.”

At that moment, the illusion of diplomacy collapsed, and the existent quality of the gathering was revealed. Trump shifted from statesman to showman, nary longer simply hosting but asserting control. The acme rapidly descended into a cringe-inducing display, wherever Africa was presented not arsenic a continent of sovereign nations but arsenic a affluent expanse of resources, fronted by compliant leaders performing for the cameras. This was not a dialog but a show of domination: A stage-managed accumulation successful which Trump scripted the country and African heads of authorities were formed successful subordinate roles.

Trump was successful his element, orchestrating the lawsuit similar a puppet master, directing each African impermanent to play his portion and respond favourably. He “invited” (in effect, instructed) them to marque “a fewer comments to the media” successful what became a choreographed amusement of deference.

President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania led the way, some physically and symbolically, by praising Trump’s “commitment” to Africa. The assertion was arsenic misleading arsenic it was surreal, fixed Washington’s caller assistance cuts, punitive tariffs, and tightened visa restrictions connected African nations.

In 1 particularly embarrassing moment, Ghazouani described Trump arsenic the world’s apical peacemaker – crediting him, among different things, with stopping “the warfare betwixt Iran and Israel”. This praise came with nary notation of the US’s continued subject and diplomatic enactment for Israel’s warfare connected Gaza, which the African Union has firmly condemned. The soundlessness amounted to complicity, a calculated erasure of Palestinian suffering for the involvement of American favour.

Perhaps mindful of the tariffs looming implicit his ain country, Ghazouani, who served arsenic AU Chair successful 2024, slipped into the relation of a consenting supplicant. He each but invited Trump to exploit Mauritania’s uncommon minerals, praised him and declared him a peacemaker portion ignoring the massacres of tens of thousands of innocents successful Gaza made imaginable by the precise weapons Trump provides.

This code would specify the full sit-down. One by one, the African leaders offered Trump glowing praise and entree to their countries’ earthy resources – a disturbing reminder of however easy powerfulness tin publication compliance.

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye adjacent asked Trump to physique a play people successful his country. Trump declined, opting alternatively to compliment Faye’s youthful appearance. Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema talked of “win-win partnerships” with the US, but received lone a lukewarm response.

What did seizure Trump’s attraction was the English fluency of Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai. Ignoring the contented of Boakai’s remarks, Trump marvelled astatine his “beautiful” English and asked, “Where did you larn to talk truthful beautifully? Where were you educated? Where? In Liberia?”

That Trump seemed unaware English is Liberia’s authoritative language, and has been since its founding successful 1822 arsenic a haven for freed American slaves, was possibly little shocking than the assemblage code of his question. His astonishment that an African president could talk English good betrayed a profoundly racist, imperial mindset.

It was not an isolated slip. At a White House bid ceremonial connected June 29 involving the DRC and Rwanda, Trump publically commented connected the quality of Angolan writer and White House analogous Hariana Veras, telling her, “You are beauteous – and you are beauteous inside.”

Whether oregon not Veras is “beautiful” is wholly beside the point. Trump’s behaviour was inappropriate and unprofessional, reducing a respected writer to her looks successful the mediate of a diplomatic milestone. The sexualisation of Black women – treating them arsenic vessels of achromatic antheral tendency alternatively than intelligence equals – was cardinal to some the transatlantic enslaved commercialized and European colonisation. Trump’s remark extended that bequest into the present.

Likewise, his astonishment astatine Boakai’s English fits a agelong imperial pattern. Africans who “master” the coloniser’s connection are often seen not arsenic complex, multilingual intellectuals, but arsenic subordinates who’ve absorbed the ascendant culture. They are rewarded for proximity to whiteness, not for intellect oregon independence.

Trump’s remarks revealed his content that articulate and visually appealing Africans are an anomaly, a novelty deserving momentary admiration. By reducing some Boakai and Veras to aesthetic curiosities, helium erased their agency, dismissed their achievements, and gratified his assemblage ego.

More than anything, Trump’s comments connected Boakai reflected his deeper indifference to Africa. They stripped distant immoderate illusion that this acme was astir genuine partnership.

Contrast this with the US-Africa Leaders Summit held by President Joe Biden successful December 2022. That lawsuit welcomed much than 40 African heads of state, arsenic good arsenic the African Union, civilian society, and backstage assemblage leaders. It prioritised peer-to-peer dialog and the AU’s Agenda 2063 – a acold outcry from Trump’s choreographed spectacle.

How the Trump medication concluded that 5 men could correspond the full continent remains baffling, unless, of course, this wasn’t astir practice astatine all, but control. Trump didn’t privation engagement; helium wanted performance. And sadly, his guests obliged.

In opposition to the tightly managed gathering Trump held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu connected July 8, the luncheon with African leaders resembled a chaotic, tone-deaf sideshow.

Faye was particularly disappointing. He came to powerfulness connected the backmost of an anti-imperialist platform, pledging to interruption with neocolonial authorities and reconstruct African dignity. Yet astatine the White House, helium bent the genu to the astir brazen imperialist of them all. Like the others, helium failed to situation Trump, to asseverate equality, oregon to support the sovereignty helium truthful publically champions astatine home.

In a infinitesimal erstwhile African leaders had the accidental to propulsion backmost against a resurgent assemblage mindset, they alternatively bowed – giving Trump abstraction to revive a 16th-century phantasy of Western mastery.

For this, helium offered a reward: He mightiness not enforce caller tariffs connected their countries, helium said, “because they are friends of excavation now”.

Trump, the “master”, triumphed.

All the Africans had to bash was bow astatine his feet.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.