What should one make of the recent announcement by the US President’s National Security Adviser, John Bolton, outlining a new ‘America First’ policy towards Africa?
If taken at face value it suggests that the US Administration is embarking on a policy that regards the continent as a cold war playground in which superpowers vie for influence and control, irrespective of the sovereignty of the states concerned. At the same time, it implies that the decades-long US policy neglect of the continent and its cession of engagement to Europe, is at an end.
More importantly it sets out clearly a new US foreign policy model which offers benefits only to those nations that are deemed politically willing to accept its embrace.
