At first glance, the first months of the second Trump administration appear less than promising for US engagement with Africa, particularly around efforts to strengthen energy accesss.
Just days after Donald Trump re-entered office in January, he allowed his cost-cutting tsar Elon Musk to put the US Agency for International Development "into the wood chipper". While some humanitarian spending will be allowed to continue, Power Africa, a USAID initiative that claimed to have helped connect over 37 million homes to electricity over 12 years, was among the programmes to be unceremoniously axed by the new administration.
Trump also cancelled US loans for South Africa's 'Just Energy Transition Partnership', in which donor countries have agreed to help fund the country's switch away from coal power, amid strained relations with Pretoria. Trump and his allies have amplified conspiracy theories around a "genocide" supposedly taking place against the country's white population.
African countries are also in line to be hard hit by Trump's tariff policies. If these are implemented in full after the 90-day pause following the initial tariff announcement in April, then Lesotho will be the hardest hit country in the world. The mountain kingdom, a country Trump claimed "nobody has ever heard of" during an address to Congress, faces a 50 tariff from July unless it can negotiate an exemption.
While the picture appears bleak, the practical impact that US cuts will make to Africa's efforts to strengthen its energy infrastructure is not yet clear. The cuts could even provide a much-needed push for the continent to diversify its sources of funding. And the idea that the United States is turning its back on the continent is not entirely accurate. In fact, many figures in the new administration appear eager to remain important players in the African energy arena.