On his first trip to Africa last April, President Trump’s top advisor for the continent headed straight to the Congo and Rwanda, parties to a devastating war going back 30 years. It was just two months later the White House hosted the signing of a Congo peace agreement. The special envoy is Massad Boulos, a well-connected entrepreneur who was not an expert on African affairs before taking the job. His Lebanese family has business interests in Africa, and his son is married to Trump’s youngest daughter.

For President Trump, the Congo war is one of seven he says he has brought to an end, a feat for which he says he lays claim to the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, the fighting has not stopped, and the real aim of the diplomacy may be to open the way for American firms to tap Congo’s staggering mineral wealth.

The Trump administration has a very different approach to Africa than its predecessors, and the Congo agreement is exhibit “A.” Embassies go without ambassadors and are under-funded, but the President is receiving African heads of state at a faster rate than any of his predecessors, says the Economist.

The White House dramatically cut humanitarian aid to Africa when it closed the AID foreign aid agency. Gone also is the prior emphasis on democracy and human rights. Today, the goal is said to be “trade-not-aid.” Yet the President allowed a 25-year-old Africa-wide free trade agreement to lapse at the end of September and has slapped tariffs of up to 50 % on some of Africa’s poorest countries.

What is happening to U.S. relations with Africa? We’ve invited two top experts on Africa to give their views at our next Distinguished Speakers Program on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Ambassador Tibor Nagy served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the first Trump administration and Undersecretary of State for Management in the first months of Trump II.  He was U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and to Guinea as well as Deputy Ambassador to Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo. For 15 years he was Vice Provost for International Affairs at Texas Tech, where he received his B.A. degree, and he also advised two presidential campaigns – Barack Obama in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. He is a native of Hungary, having fled in 1957 with his family after the Hungarian Revolution.

Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh is the Senior Associate for Africa at the National Democratic Institute, where he organized and advised international election observation missions to 11 countries and supervised democracy support missions to 17. He is an expert on democratization in Africa. He holds a law degree from Yaounde University in Cameroon, a master’s degree in international law from Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science from Boston University. He is an adjunct professor at the African Center for Strategic Studies. He is the founder of a nonprofit organization supporting democracy and humanitarian causes in his native Cameroon.

Please join us in person if you can, or otherwise on Zoom, for what is sure to be a lively discussion!

This event will be cosponsored by Goucher College, new partner of the Baltimore Council, and the venue will be at Goucher College in Towson. The program runs from 6 to 7 with a reception beginning at 5:15 pm, where you can meet our speakers.

We’ll send detailed driving instructions in the coming days.

Contact programs@bcfausa.org for more information or to register for this event.