What seemed unthinkable about six months ago is beginning to look eerily probable. Donald Trump, billionaire politician who claimed President Barrack Obama occupies the oval office illegally because Obama was allegedly not born on US soil as well as calling for a halt on Muslims entering the USA and other outrageous statements, might well clinch the Republican Party’s nomination for the US Presidential election later this year

In the rather unlikely eventuality that Trump wins the Republican nomination and goes on to defeat the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party; former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, how will US foreign policy be re-structured under a President Trump and what implications would  a Trump Presidency portend for China-Africa strategic partnership?

Trump would first of all seek to intimidate the Russian Federation. Unlike President Obama who has sought to build a constructive and cooperative relationship with Russia, Trump will seek to accelerate NATOs eastward expansion as well as staging strategic nuclear weapons in countries that constitute Russia’s traditional security buffer zone. Therefore tensions between the US and Russia will escalate to dangerously worrying levels.

A Trump foreign policy will also lead to the US more forcefully projecting its military power in Asia. The target of this power projection will be the Peoples Republic of China. The US will seek to use the ongoing territorial disputes between the Peoples Republic of China and other Asian states such as Philippines, Japan as a pretext to deploy hard power in Asia. The rationale will be to force China into a maddening arms race, to divert China’s energy from further deepening economic reform to lift millions of China’s citizens out of poverty.

A highly costly arms race with a Trump-led USA, will also negatively impact Africa, because Beijing will be forced into higher military spending thereby necessitating cutbacks in infrastructure development support to African countries.    

Trump will then move to aggressively ‘contain’ what the US considers as China’s growing influence in Africa. In the sphere of diplomacy, the US will seek to browbeat African countries into distancing themselves from China in the United Nations (UN) and other international forums.  American diplomats will use blatantly crude pressure such as threats of aid cuts to African countries that stand with Beijing in the UN.

In Africa itself, the US will pressurize those resource rich African countries which have strong ties with China to cancel contracts with Chinese firms. If African leaders resist American overtures, the US may supply resources to opposition politicians so that these pro-Washington political elites (opposition) win elections to get into office. Once these politicians capture state power, they will significantly downgrade relations with China and in some extreme cases break off diplomatic ties with Beijing.  In pursuit of this strategy, Washington will, contrary to diplomatic blandishments, back the rigging of elections to ensure that their preferred candidates win. In cases where pro-Washington candidates do not win, the elections will be portrayed by conservative US media to be flawed and not reflecting the ‘broad will’ of the electorate

A Trump Presidency would have no qualms about using the US Africa military Command (US-AFRICOM) to engineer coups against leaders who are perceived to be too close to Beijing. Currently the US has clandestinely escalated the scale of its military involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa. The oft-cited justification offered by the Pentagon for this ‘surge’ has been to counter terrorism in Africa or to hunt down rebel forces who have allegedly committed horrendous human rights abuses. The real reason for the expansion in American military activity in Africa has been to position American forces near coveted resources such as petroleum, copper, cobalt, uranium etc.  US-AFRICOM ‘collaborating’ with ‘friendly’ African forces could be deployed to secure these strategic resources under pretext of combating terrorism on the continent.

A Trump Presidency will certainly pursue the strategic goal of dismantling China-Africa strategic partnership. It is therefore crucial for the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum (CATTF) to deliberate the doomsday scenario portrayed in this article, so that China and African countries can craft an appropriate strategic response. To be fore-warned is to be fore-armed.

By Dr. Njunga Michael Mulikita

The author is Commentator on African Politics. He was a United States(US) National Security Fellow at University of California at San Diego(UCSD), USA, January-March, 2007