Pompeo Fails to Court African States After Visit

Date: 19 February 2020 - 22:06

News ID: ۷۶۳۳۸

NAIROBI, Kenya (Dispatches) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday closed a three-nation Africa tour with a thinly-veiled swipe at China.
"Countries should be wary of authoritarian regimes with empty promises. They breed corruption, dependency,” Pompeo boasted in a speech to diplomats and business leaders at the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
"They run the risk that the prosperity and sovereignty and progress that Africa so needs and desperately wants won’t happen.”
Pompeo in his remarks did not explicitly mention China -- Africa’s largest trading partner -- but analysts predicted ahead of his trip that he would attempt to pitch the U.S. as an alternative source of investment.
On Wednesday Pompeo name-checked U.S. companies operating in all three countries on his Africa tour, the first by a U.S. cabinet-level official in 19 months: Bechtel in Senegal, Chevron in Angola and Coca-Cola in Ethiopia.
He criticized a proposed constitutional amendment in South Africa that would allow private property to be expropriated without compensation -- a plan that seeks to overcome inequalities set down in the apartheid era.
The amendment would be "disastrous for that economy and most importantly for the South African people,” Pompeo claimed before leaving later for Riyadh.
Pompeo’s attempt to lay out a positive vision for U.S. cooperation with Africa has been undermined by President Donald Trump’s Africa policy so far, analysts say.
Critics are quick to cite Trump’s widely-reported remarks in 2018 when he used a profanity to describe African and poorer Western Hemisphere nations whose citizens migrate to the United States.
Washington is currently discussing military cuts in Africa, and the U.S. recently announced tightened visa rules targeting Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, as well as Tanzania, Sudan and Eritrea.
"Pompeo is unlikely to undo the damage from the Trump administration’s travel bans, the proposed budget cuts, or the president’s disparaging comments about the region,” said Judd Devermont, Africa director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in Washington.
Countries like Ethiopia have benefitted from Chinese engagement, rendering Pompeo’s message less effective, said Abel Abate Demissie, an Ethiopian political analyst.
"It is undeniable that Chinese investment was quite crucial in keeping Ethiopia on track as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies for many years,” Abel said.
He added that much Chinese money has gone toward tangible projects like roads and buildings, while American money is more often funneled to "less visible” fields.
"The fact that Chinese loans and sometimes grants have less bureaucracy also makes it quite convenient for Ethiopia and Africa at large,” Abel said.
China has funneled cash and loans into infrastructure projects across the continent.