How America deals with Africa, despite Donald Trump

THESE DAYS it is notable when both Republicans and Democrats oppose a foreign policy of Donald Trump’s in strident unison. When it was reported that Mark Esper, the secretary of defence, was set to remove American forces from the Sahel, where jihadists have been wreaking havoc across a vast swathe of Africa, members of Congress reacted angrily together, arguing vigorously against such a course.

A few weeks later Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, sounding ambivalent on the matter, set off on the first tour of sub-Saharan Africa by any member of Mr Trump’s cabinet for a year and a half. The carefully chosen countries were Senegal, Angola and Ethiopia. Mr Pompeo made friendly noises in all three. The Senegalese urged America not to withdraw from the Sahel. In oil-rich Angola Mr Pompeo encouraged trading with America rather than China and warned against corruption. In Ethiopia he praised the Nobel-prize-winning prime minister for making peace and privatising bits of the economy.

But few Africa hands reckon the recent visit will mark a change of policy in the White House. Donald Trump has made no bones about his lack of interest in Africa. The continent is full of what he has described as “shit-hole countries”, one of them apparently called “Nambia”. Mr Trump took a year and a half to appoint an assistant secretary of...