US president may have a few tricks up his sleeve

By their own admission, US Africa envoys tend to spend most of their time fighting fires — preoccupied with troubled corners of the continent at the expense of furthering commercial ties in its brighter spots.

So the focus on trade and investment, that US President Barack Obama plans to bring to his second coming in Africa, will be welcome both for the countries he visited — Senegal in the east and South Africa and Tanzania in the east — and for the US companies waking up to African economic potential.

Obama’s first term in office was something of a damp squib for Africans. Across the continent, there have been persistent murmurs of disappointment at the perceived lack of a coherent US response to changing times: To the fast growing markets, aspirational populations and more assertive governments.

Many Africans had begun to compare Obama’s engagement, or the perceived lack of it, unfavourably with George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

This may not be fair.

In security terms, the US has remained hyperactive under Obama’s watch, with the US supporting regional initiatives to combat Islamist militancy in east and west Africa. In trade terms, the US has been overtaken by China as a leading bilateral partner in many African countries. However, the US stake in overall trade with Africa has risen healthily by comparison with former colonial powers in Europe.

Nonetheless, just one visit of less than a day to Ghana in more than four years was never going to satisfy demand from a continent that drew inspiration from Obama’s personal story — a black American with Kenyan roots — and saw his election in 2008 as a victory for racial equality. Moreover, Africans now have the experience of the elaborate courtship from the likes of China, India, Brazil — and most recently Turkey — whose leaders have made their presence felt in aggressive pursuit of markets and resources.

“When Obama got elected, expectations were so high all over the world and were probably highest in the left wing of the Democratic Party and in Africa. In both instances it has been a jarring engagement with reality,” says Witney Schneidman, former US undersecretary of state for commerce in Africa under Clinton.

Back in 2008, on his brief stopover in Accra, Obama tapped into a strong desire for self-determination among Africans in his maiden speech on the continent. He evoked the inspiration that Martin Luther King Jr drew from Ghana’s struggle for independence and proclaimed that he had Africa in his blood.

There have been an array of dynamics inhibiting much follow-through from the man himself: The 2008 financial crisis; the Iraq and Afghan wars; and at one point near-daily questioning from political opponents about his bona fides as an American citizen, born as he was to a Kenyan father.

However, the field is clearer now for Obama to re-energise and recalibrate relations.

Supporting role

At present, the Pentagon has far greater representation on the continent than the US Department of Commerce. US strategic interests in African security are unlikely to diminish, but Washington is under growing pressure from US companies to take on a more supporting role in promoting commercial ties

In the past, US companies — outside the oil and gas and extractive sectors — tended to be indifferent to Africa, dismissing it as representing a tiny part of global trade. That is changing as the rapid growth of some African economies draws the likes of Walmart, General Electric and the civil engineering giant Bechtel in search of new markets.

Obama is arriving this time with a few tricks up his sleeve. He will announce the creation of a new fund, Power Africa, to support the development of electricity infrastructure with a mix of state and private investment as well as initiatives to promote trade. His trip coincides with talks in Addis Ababa on renewing the Clinton-era African Growth and Opportunity Act, which gave thousands of African products duty-free access to the US.

It is too early to write the Obama legacy in Africa. But, as Schneidman argues, this trip can be an important stepping stone to recalibrate US policy from aid to trade, investment, and even “mutual benefit”.

— Financial Times