BURSTLUANDA, Angola — African leaders are torn in their dealings with the Trump administration, seeking to balance their desperate need for investment with deep frustrations over the U.S. president's rhetoric and actions toward the continent.
That was the prevailing sentiment in Luanda, Angola, last week among the 3,000 attendees and 12 heads of state at the 17th annual U.S.-Africa Business Summit, hosted by the Corporate Council on Africa, an association of U.S. businesses.
The record attendance and promotion plastered across the city — with billboards hyping the summit from the airport to the city’s popular waterfront promenade — pointed to the bright side in U.S.-African economic ties, linking the world’s fastest-growing continent with its largest source of capital.
“Bring us those deals,” Troy Fitrell, senior official for the Bureau of African Affairs, said to reporters at the conference, summing up the administration’s message at the conference.
The mutual excitement over dealmaking at the summit was tempered by frustrations with the Trump administration’s immigration and trade policies, which threaten to undermine closer private-sector ties with the United States.
“We cannot accept visa bans, we cannot accept unfortunate tariffs with nothing to do with rules and regulations with the World Trade Organization,” African Union Commission Chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, the former foreign minister of Djibouti, said to loud applause in the opening session of the conference.
Angola, which hosted the summit, has long been a focus of U.S. investment and Washington’s attention. The port city of Lobito is the entry and exit point of a transcontinental railway bringing minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to the Atlantic coast.
The Biden administration promised a $600 million loan to develop the so-called Lobito Corridor, but that money has yet to materialize, and it’s unclear whether President Trump will follow through with the planned support. Still, Trump officials joined the Angolan government and multinational business executives in promoting their visions for expanded economic opportunities afforded by the rail line.
Trump during his second term has increasingly sought to use America’s economic leverage as both a carrot and stick in its attempts to influence African countries: promising profitable partnerships if conflicts come to an end, while rattling the saber of harsh tariffs if countries don’t yield to U.S. pressure.
Trump on Friday hosted the foreign ministers of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the initial signing of a peace agreement — after Congo saw an opportunity to entice American mediation in exchange for access to the country’s rich stores of critical minerals.
Massad Boulos, father-in-law to Trump’s daughter and the president’s senior adviser for African affairs, tied the themes together during his speech to the conference.
“Meaningful economic growth can only take root in an environment defined by peace and stability,” he said.
Simmering frustrations
Speakers were not shy about their frustration over Trump’s tariffs — with proposed import taxes ranging from 10 to 50 percent on countries across the continent — or travel bans on at least seven African countries and the elimination of hundreds of millions in aid dollars for health care, education and democracy building.
African leaders also warned against the expiration of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in September, a preferential trade agreement with eligible sub-Saharan African countries. Other attendees brought up concerns about the Trump administration’s plans to close embassies across the continent.
Trump’s disparaging remarks toward African nations have also been a concern. The president famously referred to “s---hole” countries in Africa during his first term, and he more recently referred to the tiny, landlocked nation of Lesotho as a place “no one’s ever heard of” in his address to Congress in March.
The enthusiastic reception for the African Union Commission chair’s fiery remarks reflected a broader disappointment with Trump’s policies so far.
“The AU Commission chairperson, we elected him to speak his mind,” said former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde in a short interview on the sidelines of the conference.
“I believe he got a lot of applause because the way we see United States is really, we put it on a high pedestal. When sometimes you get some policy directives, you’d be very much surprised — why would a country that you very much revere, will consider some policy?” she said.
But there was little appetite to roil relations with Washington. Most African leaders sought to avoid such direct criticism in their public comments, seeking to align themselves with Trump’s desire to focus on investment.
“The role of the United States is inevitable given its unique role on a global scale,” said Angolan President João Lourenço in a keynote address opening the conference. Lourenço called for America’s role to “replace the logic of aid with the logic of ambition and private investment.”
Trump invited Lourenço to visit Washington in July alongside the leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a signing ceremony in their peace agreement.
Mutual enthusiasm
Carla Sydney Stone, president of World Trade Center Delaware, has been coming to the summit for years.
“I would say that people here are very enthusiastic about doing business with Americans, Americans are well liked, from what I’ve seen,” she said in a proudly American booth, among dozens set up in air-conditioned tents at the summit.
The gathering served as a counterpoint to the usual news about Africa, Stone added.
“There’s not a lot of good information coming out of the press, it’s a lot of negative, it doesn’t talk about the economic opportunities here,” Stone told The Hill.
Attendees networked while munching on pastries, fruit, fresh-squeezed juice and made-to-order espresso. Panels featured remarks from some of America’s biggest brands, including Bank of America, Boeing, Mastercard and Coca Cola. Conversations flowed at long banquet tables facing Luanda’s harbor, with overloaded platters fish, meat and desserts.
“It helps to have a trusted partner here, that’s very important,” Stone said. “Relationships matter not just in Africa, they matter all over the world. It’s not a completely transactional society. American business tends to be more focused on the transaction rather than the longer term.”
Still, the summit was largely about celebrating deals. To list a few:
- An approximately $250 million luxury hotel deal in Addis Ababa between the private equity firm U.S. International Finance Partners and Ethiopia’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest sovereign wealth fund on the continent.
- The U.S.-based tech company Cybastion and Angola Telecom announced a joint, $170 million digital infrastructure investment in Angola.
- Swiss-based Mitrelli Group announced a major investment in the New York-based energy investor Hydro-Link to develop a 720 mile electricity transmission line between Angola and Congo, a $1.5 billion project.
On hand for these signings was a U.S. delegation that included Fitrell and Boulos, along with Tamara Maxwell, acting senior vice president of small business for the Export-Import Bank of the U.S.; Thomas Hardy, director of policy and program management at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency; and Conor Coleman, head of investments at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
Haim Taib, founder and president of the Mitrelli Group, which is working on building a Lobito Corridor platform to take advantage of the rail line, said the U.S. delegation wasn’t good enough.
“I expect a little bit more, at least some very high positions to come here. But it’s OK,” Taib said.
“Businessmen, I saw a lot,” he said, but he argued U.S. policies toward Africa were throttling serious interest from American investors.
“I think it’s important to change the policy in favor of Africa, then it would give more confidence to American investors to come to Africa to invest. Today it’s almost impossible to come here.”
Stubborn barriers
Corruption and lack of infrastructure are some of the most often cited barriers to entry for foreign investment, particularly from America. Taib is supportive of Trump’s suspension of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which sought to discourage extortion by making it illegal for U.S. businesses to pay bribes in foreign countries.
But the executive said the administration should issue clearer, updated guidance that distinguishes between systematic misconduct and malign intent, or practices often seen as the price of doing business in Africa.
Sukusu Souza Templar, director general of the clean energy company Ohm Watt Energies in Congo, said he wanted to see American promotion of anti-corruption efforts.
“To make it profitable to the people of [Congo], don’t only send the aid or the funds without making sure that the funds will really benefit the people who really need it,” he said in an interview.
“Don’t only bring us money, bring us knowledge, bring us expertise,” he said. “Train the local people to be better, train the local people to transform their country, train the local people how to lead. Train local people in business, politics, in university. We can produce money as well, but we need knowledge to maintain money.”
Historically, U.S. efforts to promote good governance, education, access to technology and professional training have been carried out by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Trump has effectively shut down months into his second term.
Yet Templar put a positive spin on those cuts and other controversial Trump policies.
“When he bans African countries to the U.S. we cannot only see it from the negative side. Let’s look at it from the positive side,” he said, explaining that African leaders would be pressured to improve their countries, or “make your home comfortable.”
He pointed to Trump’s efforts to resolve the war between Congo, Rwanda and the various armed groups embroiled in a three-decade conflict.
“If President Trump is bringing peace with his administration, who do you want us to see greater than him? No one.”