President Donald Trump promised West African leaders a pivot from aid to trade during a White House meeting Wednesday as the region reels from the impact of sweeping U.S. aid cuts.<\/p>\n
Trump said he sees \u201cgreat economic potential in Africa\u201d as the leaders of Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau boasted of their countries\u2019 natural resources and heaped praise on the U.S. president, including their thanks for his help in settling a long-running conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
Trump described the nations represented at the meeting as \u201call very vibrant places with very valuable land, great minerals, and great oil deposits, and wonderful people\u201d \u2014 a definite shift from his first term, when he used a vulgar term to describe African nations.<\/p>\n
The meeting comes amid a shift in U.S. global and domestic priorities under Trump\u2019s leadership. Earlier this month, U.S. authorities dissolved theU.S. Agency for International Development and said it was no longer following what they called \u201ca charity-based foreign aid model\u201d and instead would focus on partnerships with nations that show \u201cboth the ability and willingness to help themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The five nations whose leaders were meeting Trump represent a small fraction of U.S.-Africa trade, but they possess untapped natural resources. Senegal and Mauritania are important transit and origin countries when it comes to migration and along with Guinea-Bissau are struggling to contain drug trafficking, both issues of concern for the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
In their speeches, each African leader adopted a flattering tone to commend Trump for what they described as his peace efforts across the world and tried to outshine one another by listing the untapped natural resources their nations possess.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a great deal of resources,\u201d said Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, president of Mauritania, listing rare earths, as well as manganese, uranium and possibly lithium. \u201cWe have a lot of opportunities to offer in terms of investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, the U.S. administration facilitated a peace deal between Rwanda and Congo to help end the decadeslong deadly fighting in eastern Congo, while enabling the U.S. to gain access to critical minerals in the region. But analysts said it won\u2019t end the fighting because the most prominent armed group said it does not apply to it.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, Trump described trade as a diplomatic tool. Trade \u201cseems to be a foundation\u201d for him to settle disputes between countries, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou guys are going to fight, we\u2019re not going to trade,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd we seem to be quite successful in doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, addressing the African leaders: \u201cThere is a lot of anger on your continent.\u201d
\nAs he spoke, the U.S. administration continued sending out notifications to developing countries about higher tariff rates effective from August 1. The five Western African nations were not among them.<\/p>\n
The portion of the lunch meeting that was open to the press didn\u2019t touch much on the loss of aid, which critics say will result in millions of deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have closed the USAID group to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,\u201d Trump said Wednesday. \u201cAnd we\u2019re working tirelessly to forge new economic opportunities involving both the United States and many African nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
West African countries are among the hardest hit by the dissolution of USAID. The U.S. support in Liberia amounted to 2.6% of the country\u2019s gross national income, the highest percentage anywhere in the world, according to the Center for Global Development.<\/p>\n
Liberian President Joseph Nyuma Boakai in a statement \u201cexpressed optimism about the outcomes of the summit, reaffirming Liberia\u2019s commitment to regional stability, democratic governance and inclusive economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: The Associated Press<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Donald Trump promised West African leaders a pivot from aid to trade during a White House meeting Wednesday as the region reels from the impact of sweeping U.S. aid cuts. Trump said he sees \u201cgreat economic potential in Africa\u201d as the leaders of Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau boasted of their countries\u2019 natural…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":86873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86874,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86872\/revisions\/86874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}