As 2025 dawns, African nations are looking out onto an uncertain global political landscape. Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine still has no end in sight, the United States is about to swear in an unpredictable leader in Donald Trump and the European Union’s two biggest economies and perennial trading partners with African countries — France and Germany — are in political turmoil.
“We are often on the back foot whether it’s coming from the West or the East. We are often at the mercy of the ways in which other economic giants deal with us,” said Tessa Dooms, a South African sociologist and political analyst.
Economic turbulence through trade tariffs?
Some of those headwinds may well blow from a Trump-led United States. According to Dooms, the world’s biggest economy is warning that a global trade war might be on the horizon. The US has already signaled its intention to imposed trade tariffs on competitors, like China, but also allies like Mexico and Canada.
As 2025 dawns, African nations are looking out onto an uncertain global political landscape. Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine still has no end in sight, the United States is about to swear in an unpredictable leader in Donald Trump and the European Union’s two biggest economies and perennial trading partners with African countries — France and Germany — are in political turmoil.
“We are often on the back foot whether it’s coming from the West or the East. We are often at the mercy of the ways in which other economic giants deal with us,” said Tessa Dooms, a South African sociologist and political analyst.
Economic turbulence through trade tariffs?
Some of those headwinds may well blow from a Trump-led United States. According to Dooms, the world’s biggest economy is warning that a global trade war might be on the horizon. The US has already signaled its intention to imposed trade tariffs on competitors, like China, but also allies like Mexico and Canada.
“This may impact not just the cost of goods, but also the production value chains of goods from particular regions,” said Dooms.
During his first term as president, Trump seemed to largely ignore the African continent as a trading partner, and many analysts expect more of the same from his second term. In contrast, outgoing President Joe Biden committed around $55 billion (€53 billion) to the African continent in 2022, and visited Angola in December.
But while African nations might not be direct targets of Trump’s threatened trade tariffs or a trade war, countries like China may turn to Africa to soften the blow of difficult trading conditions.
“China has quite strong ties to the African continent and the growing BRICS grouping can definitely see this is an opportunity to strike back at the US, both in terms of where trade and production is happening,” explained Dooms. But she stopped short of saying BRICS (consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates) can fill the void.
“There will definitely be opportunities for engagement and reimagining economic trading patterns. The US is definitely underestimating the power of the new kind of economic trading blocs. Even the European Union has options, and has Africa as part of those options,” Dooms told DW.