Euroviews. What Trump 2.0 means to the world's largest collective marketplace — Africa

It is no overstatement to say the entire world is waiting with bated breath for the 47th president of the United States to take office and to see just what President Donald Trump will do.

Africa is especially keen — and for good reason.

The continent did not feature too highly when Mr Trump was president the last time - Indeed, his attitude towards Africa is perennially remembered through a comment that rapidly became a social media meme: sh*thole countries.

But like many things about the man who will go down in history as America’s 45th and 47th president, the only president since Grover Cleveland in 1892 to win non-consecutive terms in the White House, it’s wise to remember the context.

President Trump’s statement about Africa wasn’t a generic comment on the continent but one in response to an issue becoming an inflexion point for the entire world from the global south to the industrialised north: immigration.

Indeed, President Trump’s remarks in 2018 would find an eerie resonance, if not perhaps as publicly, among many political leaders of my own country, South Africa.

Immigration is a massive issue and especially in Africa, as subsequent editions of the unique biennial African Youth survey have shown since it was first released in 2020.

The issue is not binary, black or white (pun intended), so the solution must be more nuanced.

Ironically it is the nuances that many will ignore when approaching a Trump administration. There is no doubt that President Trump’s first term in office was disruptive, sometimes deliberately so, at other times organically. This time seems very different, the early choices of the office bearers in his administration have been a very signal statement of intent. Outside the clamour of the