Charged Affairs

By David Dapaah | YPFP Member | May 30, 2024 | Photo Credit: Flickr

During Kenyan President William Ruto’s recent state visit to Washington—the first for an African leader since Ghana’s president in 2008—the optics were hard to miss: America is reaffirming its commitment to the region amidst escalating rivalries with China and Russia. Ruto’s four-day stay at the White House reflected a much-needed embrace by the Biden administration which is looking to counter perceptions of waning U.S. influence in parts of Africa. The U.S. Ambassador to Kenya underscored this was a “specific message to Kenya and to the continent.” America, she said, “wants to be your partner.”

The state visit by Ruto happened despite President Biden’s failure to visit the African continent during his first term even though he pledged to do so at the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in late 2022. That summit, which was hosted to revitalize U.S. partnerships in the region, was overshadowed by geopolitical headwinds that are now picking up with speed and intensity. We are witnessing a steady rise in interference by great power competitors and increased political instability, both of which are weakening democracies across Africa.

Recent military coups have toppled governments from Burkina Faso to Sudan, while long-standing U.S. allies like South Africa are cozying up to Russia, supporting autocratic leaders and advancing the Kremlin’s foreign policy aims in exchange for political and security guarantees. While the United States is relatively absent, Russia is attempting to fill the power vacuum, using the Wagner Group to embed itself on the continent by providing Africa clients with direct military support and security services. The Russian government and its proxies are also executing soft power campaigns, weaponizing propaganda and building troll farms to meddle in elections.

Meanwhile, China is aggressively expanding its influence through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), trying to saddle African states with unsustainable debt to force compliance with Beijing’s demands. From 2000-2022, China lent a staggering $170 billion to African governments, funding over 100 major infrastructure projects across the continent while setting up sinister debt traps that force difficult choices between servicing loans or investing in development projects. What makes these developments so distressing is the fact that the United States has gradually decreased its involvement on the continent over the last two decades. Russia and China’s increasingly pervasive campaigns, gone unchecked, will continue to threaten U.S. security, economic, and political interests in the region.

For the Biden administration, playing host to Ruto presented a timely opportunity to shore up ties with a pivotal democratic ally, and signal a commitment to African nations to collectively counter foreign malign influence. 

To that end, U.S. and Kenyan officials unveiled the Nairobi-Washington Vision, a framework calling on lender countries like China to provide debt relief, grants, and budgetary support to nations like Kenya buckling under the strains of unsustainable debt. Another key announcement was that the U.S. infrastructure investment firm Everstrong Capital and other major American companies will secure contracts totaling over $3.6 billion for new projects in Kenya, including an expressway connecting Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa. This will directly challenge China’s attempts to dominate areas like railway construction under BRI. 

While symbolic state visits rarely generate immediate policy impacts, in this case, it did deliver an important reminder: the United States and African countries must work together to prevent Russia and China from gaining deeper footholds in the region. Stepping up the quality of engagement on the second largest continent in the world will take considerable resources with a sustained, top-down effort by the government to support our African allies – admittedly, a tough endeavor given the urgent security challenges in Europe and the need to deter a major conflict in the Indo-Pacific in the mid to long term. However, failing to make these partnerships a priority risks authoritarian actors gaining more access and power in Africa. Neglecting to bolster partnerships will, in the long run, weaken America’s ability to maintain its global leadership and allow rivals to expand their ambitions across the continent.

David Dapaah is a member of YPFP and a Global Consulting Associate at the Robert H. Smith Center for Global Business, where he is currently pursuing an M.S. in Business Analytics at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Previously, he was a Research Analyst at the London Politica China and Africa Desk. David holds a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Ghana and an M.A. in Political Science from Colorado State University.