After a deluge of truth and lies on social media, reams of print and hours upon hours of speculation in the so-called legacy broadcast media, Donald J Trump has once again made it to the White House. This second victory has less of a ring of the Manchurian Candidate about it than Trump’s narrow election win in 2016 – and is remarkable in that the democratic victory was so resounding. (The Manchurian Candidate is Richard Condon’s political thriller about a Presidential candidate who had been brainwashed to becoming an assassin in a Soviet conspiracy).

Unlike in previous elections, such as in 2016, where Hilary Clinton could claim she won the popular vote, and 2020, where Trump and Make America Great Again (MAGA) sought to overturn the result, this time, a more organised campaign – one consistent in its populist message – has seen Trump and his MAGA movement win control of the Grand Old Party (GOP – the Republican Party), the popular vote, and control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Fears of voter suppression and a repeat of Trump’s dangerously sore-loser behaviour manifest after the 2020 elections meant voters and officials worked hard to ensure the vote result was clear and incontestable. Ironically, this gives Trump, infamous for his love for autocrats, a truly popular and democratic mandate – something that neither China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin nor North Korea’s Kim Jong Un would ever be able to do.

But what does it mean for Africa? With very few exceptions, commentators speak of Trump’s unpredictability creating ripples of anxiety and tension throughout the Foreign Affairs Ministries of friends and foes alike. But what we know of Trump is that he does what he says he is going to do. Remember the Muslim ban of his first term? While cool heads around him in his first term tempered the Muslim ban, Trump 2.0 will be Trump Unchecked. This time, he has made sure that cool heads are nowhere near him or are irrelevant. His appointments now place loyalty over competence. His chosen Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, an outspoken Fox News commentator who attained the rank of major in the National Guard and served as a prison guard at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and did tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, will replace Lloyd James Austin III, who left the US Army with the rank of general, having served as the US Army’s Vice Chief of Staff.

Trump has no apparent understanding of, let alone love for, Africa. He has spoken of Africa with the extreme disrespect typical of the hard-right populism that is on the rise in the US and Europe – and where diplomacy, sensitivity and courtesy all now go under the label ‘woke’ or ‘wokism’. Asked what Trump would mean for Africa for this article, a veteran ‘old-fashioned’ Republican who worked in the State Department on African affairs under George W Bush said he would wait to see who was appointed to the African affairs post but that in his view Africa will probably be ignored.

Trump’s choice as US Secretary of State to replace the veteran guitar-playing Antony Blinken – who has crisscrossed Africa in an exhausting but merry dance to counter the influence of Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov – is Florida senator Marco Rubio. So, while Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Blinken sought to put democracy, human rights and anti-corruption back on the agenda after the disregard of these issues in the first Trump term, these are likely to be abandoned in Trump 2.0 – a welcome release for Africa’s new dictatorships across the Sahel. It will certainly be open season for Russia to continue marking out new client States like Equatorial Guinea, for the United Arab Emirates to continue trading Africa’s stolen gold unimpeded and for Turkey and Saudi Arabia to invest in and develop infrastructure and trade – but no help to the millions of Sudanese facing starvation, displacement and ethnic cleansing.

Unlike Trump, Rubio at least visited the Horn of Africa as part of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when he travelled to Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti in 2019. Rubio is a known hawk who has taken hardline positions on Iran and China. Assuming always that Trump will do as he has said he will do, Rubio will pursue an ‘America First’ isolationist and nationalist agenda and impose a 20% tariff on all imports and a 60% tariff on imports from China. US tariffs will cause an international economic shock that will again hit global demand and undermine pan- African growth – which is struggling to get back to the average 5% growth it achieved prior to the Covid-19 shock.

Trump’s main foreign policy priorities are likely to be China, Ukraine and the Middle East – in that order – and where the risks associated with his unpredictability and love of autocracy make his direction uncertain. What we know of Trump is that foreign policy is likely to be transactional. He will seek to squeeze his opponents for what he perceives to be the US’s best advantage. The big question for Africa is whether in this new era of tariffs and protectionism Trump will renew 32 countries’ participation in the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa), which grants preferential access to the US market and which comes up for renewal in 2025. If so, Trump will ask what’s in it for the US.

South Africa may come under the most pressure for several reasons. First, the US criticised the pre-Government of National Unity administration as it conducted joint naval drills in February 2023 on the anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, for its refusal to sanction Russia for the invasion and for allowing sanctioned boats to unload cargo at South African ports. Second, as a long- standing ally of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump may oppose South Africa’s long-standing support of Palestine and its bringing a case of genocide against Israel’s actions at the International Court of Justice in December 2023. Of all the Agoa countries, South Africa has the most to lose. Of the roughly $43-billion in Agoa trade from 32 countries, South Africa’s share is $10-billion.

Africa’s irrelevance to Trump will also be underscored by its irrelevance to the US economy as a whole: US-Africa trade was $43- billion annually compared with China-Africa trade of about $282-billion in 2023. Africa’s best defence against the impact of yet another external shock is to accelerate the removal of intra-African trade barriers as set out in the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement.