By: Lina Benabdallah
October 27, 2025
During the July 2025 summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of five African countries, President Nguema of Gabon urged the U.S. side to invest in the continent, stating, “You are welcome to come and invest; otherwise, other countries might come instead of you.” This sentiment captures neatly the current rivalry between the United States and China on the continent of Africa. It also illustrates how African leaders have been leveraging this rivalry to create a narrative of zero-sum competition between U.S. and Chinese investors. The July summit, which saw leaders of Senegal, Mauritania, Liberia, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau hold meetings with President Trump, comes at the heels of sizeable changes to the way the US approaches its foreign policy in Africa and the Global South more broadly. Notably, the move away from foreign aid after dissolving the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the emphasis on investments and trade deals that stand to provide transactional benefits are aligning DC’s new approach to Africa with Beijing’s long-held “trade instead of aid” motto. This contrasts with previous patterns, in which the US plays the role of norm-maker and China, along with others, would follow suit accordingly.
The July summit also preceded the peace agreement that the United States and Qatar brokered between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which was celebrated by many in Africa. While mediating the conflict and endorsing the peace agreement, Washington did not shy away from attaching the agreement to a transaction involving a critical minerals deal and framing its vision for Africa as part of its broader “America First” approach. As the details of the peace agreement revealed, access to critical minerals for US firms was a central part of the negotiations for the U.S. side. Folded into the peace agreement were cobalt, copper, and lithium mining deals signed by U.S.-based firms like Kobold, which is backed by Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and other tech giants. Prior to this point, mining and refining of the DRC’s extensive cobalt resources—which make up 70 percent of the world’s reserves—had been dominated by Chinese firms.
Perceptions on the Ground
The U.S.-China rivalry is playing out in contexts beyond the borders of the two superpowers. African leaders are averse to putting Africans in the middle of the U.S.-China competition and do not want to choose sides or feel pressured to prioritize U.S. or Chinese investments. Instead, in many cases, African leaders have avoided cornering themselves with one-sided loyalties and successfully played China and the United States off each other to strike lucrative deals. This was exemplified when Angolan President João Lourenço attracted Beijing-funded Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments while at the same time pitching the Lobito corridor to the United States, effectively culminating in Biden’s visit in December 2024.
China, however, enjoys broad support from the African public. Over the last several years, the Afrobarometer has carried out surveys in over thirty-five countries across the continent, asking Africans about their perceptions of the United States, China, and other global powers. In the most recent iteration, Afrobarometer reiterated the well- that Africans generally perceive China’s influence in their countries to be mostly positive. Around two-thirds of surveyed respondents expressed that China’s influence was “somewhat positive” or “very positive,” and China consistently outranks the United States in these surveys.
U.S. policies have negatively impacted the African public and shaped sentiment against the United States. During Trump’s first term, several ambassador positions in Africa remained vacant, effectively leaving Washington without top public relations advocates in the region. Trump’s “travel ban” also blocked nationals of several African countries from traveling to the US. Things seem to be getting worse during the second term as a travel ban 2.0 was unrolled in June 2025, disproportionately targeting countries in Africa. Further escalating matters, in August of 2025, the administration announced a visa bond of up to $15,000 imposed on citizens from several African countries seeking to visit the United States for tourism or business. Likewise, the administration’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications for skilled workers from abroad is not helping boost the image of the US among elites on the continent. On top of this, the 2000 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a landmark legislation that fosters U.S. commercial ties with sub-Saharan Africa, expired on September 30th, 2025, despite several African leaders lobbying the Trump administration to renew it. Taken together, these maneuvers, in addition to the suspension of funding for aid initiatives that target the continent specifically, such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) which was announced by President Bush in 2003 and is credited for saving over 26 million lives, are sending negative signals about Washington’s intentions for partnerships with Africans pushing Africans even closer to U.S. rivals, including China.
The view from Beijing
For China, the Trump administration’s second term, like its first, represents an opportunity. It is an opportunity to advance China’s narrative power in Africa, spreading the view that Western partners do not view Africans as equals and are thus less reliable than China. Beijing has invested in this narrative both in and beyond the African continent. Drawing from its diplomatic toolkit, Chinese leaders have hosted high-level meetings for hundreds of delegations from across Africa, given out hundreds of thousands of scholarships for African students to attend Chinese universities, and sponsored events that boost cultural exchanges between the continent and China. Beijing has also continued to build its investment portfolio in Africa, bolstered by a narrative that China sees in Africans as equal partners seeking mutually beneficial deals. Every time the United States or any European power acts in a way that undermines or excludes Africans, China has an opportunity to push its narrative further.
China continues to expand its economic influence in Africa, where it is the largest trading partner of most countries. China is also involved in building critical infrastructure for several countries in the continent—from strategic ports to highways and parliament buildings—and Chinese construction companies are among the largest contractors in the continent. As such, unless Washington shifts its Africa approach to prioritize concrete projects over extractive deals and symbolic gestures, the United States does not pose much of a challenge to Chinese investments on the continent. Instead, African countries view Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India, and Malaysia as providing more credible economic alternatives to Chinese investments than the United States.
China’s influence in Africa is political as well as economic. Research shows that China’s behavior influences African countries’ voting behavior at United Nations General Assembly resolution events—indeed, the perceived failure of U.S. foreign aid to garner more votes from African delegations to align with U.S. voting was listed as a direct reason for closing USAID. The closing of USAID also did not help. Although Beijing is unlikely to fill some gap in providing assistance, the USAID’s closure is still a welcome move by Beijing in that it reduced U.S. influence on the continent at no cost to China.
Beijing has also sought to leverage what it perceives as controversial U.S. stances to shore up China’s image in Africa while undermining the United States’s. Recently, for example, Beijing has sought to take advantage of U.S. veto votes on the Israel-Gaza conflict to undermine Washington’s global leadership and standing in Africa.
Looking Forward
Looking forward, whichever direction U.S.-China bilateral relations go in the next few years will have a tremendous impact on African countries. While a scenario of détente between the two superpowers would indeed be welcomed by Africans who see partnership potentials on both sides, the impact of further deterioration could bring about devastating consequences for the continent. If Washington views the continent as solely a place to secure mineral resources and contain the threat of a rising China, it will overlook important opportunities to invest in Africa, which would undermine U.S.-Africa ties.
Africa could also benefit from a greater U.S. role on the security and governance side. We have already seen how shifting security partnerships are shaping up in the Sahel region with the eviction of French troops and the welcoming of the Wagner group and other new actors. Without a dedicated agenda that can bolster state capacity and good governance, the security situation will worsen over time, spilling further into countries in the Gulf of Guinea and West Africa. The United States—as well as China—should take these consequences into perspective and can work with African partners to make peace and security on the continent a central part of its agenda.