Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: Nigeria seeks to reverse its legacy of trade protectionism, the Democratic Republic of the Congo bans an ex-president’s political party, and Tunisia’s crackdown on government critics intensifies.
Nigeria Seeks to Trump-Proof its Economy
Nigeria signed a minerals deal with South Africa last Thursday as it seeks to diversify from oil, which currently accounts for around 90 percent of Abuja’s exports. According to the pact, the two countries will share technology to boost mineral extraction in Nigeria—a nation rich in gold, lithium, and iron ore that goes largely untapped, as mining contributes less than 1 percent to its GDP.
The cooperation comes at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war has roiled global markets. Although Nigeria’s more than $4 billion in annual crude oil exports to the United States will be exempt from Trump’s paused 14 percent tariff for the country, those tariffs will affect Nigerian agricultural exports such as cocoa. More importantly, Trump’s trade war has caused oil prices to plunge, threatening revenue for Nigeria and other oil-exporting states.
So far, Nigeria has been cautious in its approach to negotiating a trade deal with the United States. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu recently met with Massad Boulos—Trump’s new Africa czar—in Paris, where the two reportedly discussed forging closer economic ties. But Tinubu’s critics want him to be more proactive in negotiations.
As Nigerian politicians come to see the United States as an unreliable trade partner, they are looking to create a plan for economic growth that is less vulnerable to Washington’s whims.
“Most importantly, what is even destabilizing the market is inconsistencies in the way [Trump] also sends his policies. He moves today. Tomorrow, he reverses. So, it’s been challenging to predict the next level,” Farouk Ahmed, who oversees Nigeria’s midstream and downstream oil regulatory body, told reporters at a press briefing.
After a sell-off sparked by Trump’s tariffs, Nigeria’s central bank released nearly $200 million into local markets earlier this month to stabilize its currency, the naira.
Nigeria is also revising its economic strategy. “[W]e are going back to the drawing board to look at our budget all over again,” said Finance Minister Wale Edun, who drafted a fiscal policy in January based on oil being around $75 a barrel.
The downstream effects of Trump’s tariffs threaten Nigeria’s economy as well. For instance, Indonesia—which imports large quantities of crude oil from Nigeria—plans to cut Nigerian imports and buy more U.S. oil as a way to negotiate with Trump and avoid his proposed 32 percent tariff.
Instead of sealing a trade deal with Washington, however, Abuja has so far prioritized broadening its economic partnerships elsewhere. It has sought greater ties with its former colonial power, the United Kingdom, and nations within the BRICS group, including China, India, and South Africa.
But mostly, Nigeria has turned to other African nations. Trump’s tariffs are “a lesson for us that we need to trade among ourselves,” Edun said. “We need to be resilient.”
Last week, Tinubu committed to removing duties on 90 percent of goods traded within Africa as part of a major push to accelerate the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, the world’s largest free trade area.
Nigeria has also quietly resumed talks on economic and security cooperation with junta-led Niger, which were paused after the latter country’s 2023 military coup. Last week, Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar traveled to Niamey to discuss, among other subjects, the planned 2,500-mile trans-Saharan pipeline to transport gas from Nigeria to Algeria via Niger.
Like other commodity-exporting economies, Nigeria is less reliant on U.S. trade and therefore better insulated from Trump’s tariff roller-coaster than many industrialized economies—such as South Africa—that export cars and machinery.
“You really don’t need a foreign policy for selling crude oil,” Cheta Nwanze, the founder of Lagos-based political analysis firm SBM Intelligence, told Foreign Policy. “Oil is one of those things that are sanctions-exempt [under Trump’s tariffs], so Nigeria doesn’t need some coordinated meetings and trade discussions” with the United States.
Still, for decades, Nigeria did not invest in the infrastructure to diversify and build sustainable growth from markets beyond oil and gas. Nigeria’s new agreement with South Africa is a major step forward as demand for lithium and cobalt increases amid the global energy transition. It’s also a blueprint for inter-African innovation that is less reliant on Western nations.
But, Nwanze warned, “there’s a huge gap between intention and ability to enforce.” If oil prices continue to drop due to Trump’s policies, Nigeria’s economic future will depend on its ability to reverse a decadeslong legacy of trade protectionism and fully embrace continent-wide free trade.
The Week Ahead
Wednesday, April 23: French President Emmanuel Macron begins a two-day trip to Madagascar, which will host an Indian Ocean Commission summit on Thursday.
Wednesday, April 23, to Saturday, April 26: Chinese President Xi Jinping hosts Kenyan President William Ruto in Beijing.
Thursday, April 24: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits South Africa.
Friday, April 25: Macron visits Mauritius.
What We’re Watching
Kabila returns. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has banned former President Joseph Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy and seized his assets over his alleged ties with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. Kabila, who denies the accusation, recently returned to the eastern Congolese city of Goma—which was seized by M23 in late January—after 18 months of self-imposed exile in South Africa.
Kabila took power 10 days after his father, former President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, was assassinated in 2001, and he refused to leave office when his term was set to expire in 2016. This culminated in deadly protests and, ultimately, Kabila’s ouster in 2019.
Kabila claims that he has returned home to help address the nation’s “worsening security situation” as fighting between the Congolese army and M23 has escalated in recent months.
Tanzanian demonstrations. Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema, has called on supporters to protest outside a courthouse where party leader Tundu Lissu will appear on treason charges on Thursday, April 24.
Lissu was arrested earlier this month after he called for Tanzanians to boycott general elections in October and argued that members of the country’s electoral commission should not be directly appointed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan. His party was subsequently banned from participating in the upcoming elections.
Tanzania’s election body said Chadema had failed to sign an electoral code of conduct, but rights groups have pointed to the government’s actions as an example of its intensifying crackdown on the opposition. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party has governed Tanzania for more than five decades.
Tunisian repression. Arbitrary jailing of critics is the linchpin of Tunisia’s response to dissent, according to a new Human Rights Watch report. The government’s crackdown has dramatically increased since President Kais Saied’s takeover of state institutions in July 2021.
As of January, more than 50 people were documented by the rights organization as being detained in Tunisia on political grounds, with many of them at risk of capital punishment.
Aid halted in Ethiopia. The World Food Program (WFP) has suspended treatment for 650,000 malnourished women and children in Ethiopia due to limited funds after donor nations, including the United States, cut aid. Washington has made exemptions to its aid freeze for the United Nations agency, but WFP says that it has received little U.S. aid for this year.
This Week in Tech
Niger’s solar embrace. Solar panels have been booming in Niger since neighboring Nigeria suspended power to the country as part of regional sanctions after its 2023 military coup.
Nigeria has since restored energy exports, but they remain limited as Abuja faces strains on its energy capacity at home. In the face of widespread power cuts, Niger has turned to solar energy, importing panels mainly from China. Last year, Niger’s military government commissioned a $34 million solar power plant to reduce reliance on Nigeria.
Musk not welcome. South Africa’s biggest mobile operator, Vodacom, said last week that it supports the government’s decision to prevent Elon Musk’s Starlink internet services from operating in the country if the company does not comply with national Black Economic Empowerment laws.
Musk has yet to apply for South African licenses, citing the empowerment laws, which require at least 30 percent ownership by historically disadvantaged groups. One South African official, however, is looking to tweak the requirements for Starlink and other providers. If Starlink expanded into the country, then Vodacom would be one of its main competitors.
“We believe in the importance of adhering to national regulations that promote inclusivity and redress historical inequalities,” Vodacom said in a statement.
What We’re Reading
Big Tech’s African workforce. New data shows that major tech companies outsource labor to workers in 39 African nations who perform content moderation and data input for artificial intelligence models.
The research comes as Facebook’s parent company, Meta, faces a lawsuit in Kenya over allegations of poor labor practices and accusations of amplifying hate speech, Stephanie Wangari and Gayathri Vaidyanathan report in Rest of World.
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