Donald Trump assumed office to a shocking flurry of executive orders pushing for US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the UN's health body, the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as radically combating immigration, amongst many critical domestic and international issues where America has indicated a drastically inside looking posture. This marks the second time Trump has ordered the US be pulled out of the WHO and the Paris Agreement. While the emerging posture is likely to wipe away what is left of the fragile soft power of the US, we reflect on the fast-paced implications of these changes in various parts of the world, focussing on Africa in particular.

Trump 2.0 has not only inflamed global uncertainty amongst developing countries, or those geographically linked in some way to the US like Mexico and other Latin American countries contending with the challenges of immigration, but the rest of us, including developed countries in the northern hemisphere who are traditional allies of the US.

US isolationism could be surely problematic, but it is more the unpredictability and transactional nature of Trumpian approaches to international relations, verging on the opportunistic, if not coercive arm-twisting, devoid of any moral values or norms that will be a major challenge for many of us.

The key question though is how other nations will deal with the new US administration, and whether this American rollback could probably generate a new impetus for the global south and Africa to forge stronger sustainable relations amongst themselves to extend their shared domestic and international aspirations and interests. For Africa in particular, where does this leave the continent, and is the broader participation in the Silk Road, now the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the BRICS, the Forum for Africa China Cooperation (FOCAC), amongst other international cooperation platforms bringing together countries from the global south, built on mutually beneficial relations and shared norms the main way forward.

Although the US is the major superpower, and the biggest economy in the world, its superpower position has been declining, and its role in the world has become increasingly controversial as it lost much of its normative flair. Despite its position as a global power, its economic contribution to Africa was largely framed and influenced by its security interests, and revolved around humanitarian and development aid. The aid dependency syndrome is well known problem in development discourses. Conditional aid diminished the agency of Africans to creatively focus on forging innovative ways to foster development using their abundant resources, including forging mutually beneficial bilateral and multilateral cooperation with other developing countries.

The controversial halting of all federal development and humanitarian aid distributed through US agencies to many countries and millions of people globally may have plunged many governments whose vulnerable citizens depended on such aid in crisis, leaving them with nothing to hold onto. The US withdrawal from both the Paris Agreement and the WHO, will create major funding challenges for these very important global institutions, but emerging powers have it in their capacity to close these gaps, and reimagine these organizations in ways that sustainably benefit the world majority. Fundamentally, US rollback, as sudden and unfortunate as it is, challenges African governments and their emerging partners to explore sustainable cooperation grounded in strong sense of shared solidarity anchored on shared norms and mutually beneficial relations.

The Covid 19 pandemic reminds all of us of the collective need to confront global emergencies together, and responsibly. The United Nations has frequently indicated that humanity faces a climate emergency, calling the developed countries, who are more responsible for harmful climate emissions to do more in combating climate change.

While countries like China have demonstrated much needed political will and resources towards addressing such challenges for the benefit of humanity, the Trump administration is not only withdrawing from the Paris agreement, but has gone further to halt the Green New Deal, a series of Biden measures that were aimed at boosting green jobs, regulating the fossil fuel industry, and limiting pollution. Washington declaring a "national energy emergency", promising to fill up oil reserves by producing more fossil fuels, unlocking oil, gas and other natural resources from such states as Alaska in initiatives that aggravate climate risks.

The Trump administration is also putting more pressure on the EU to import more from Washington, while threatening to dump the transatlantic alliance (NATO), which brings together the EU countries and US. Both France and Germany, the major EU powers are facing economic challenges of their own, while the EU has fallen behind China in terms of competitiveness.

Reminiscent of arm-twisting, coercive disrespect for other polities and their leaders, Trump has belligerently threatened many states with sanctions and high tariffs mainly China, the BRICS member states amongst others. Trump specifically threatened to impose 100% tariffs on members of the BRICS group of countries, which now include Egypt, Ethiopia and recently, Nigeria, the biggest African economies. The BRICS is a grouping of major emerging economies, is fast becoming the largest multilateral platform for emerging economies.

But perhaps US rollback is a moment for emerging powers to lead the fight against climate change, global health challenges and other challenges. China could rally the EU and the global south to become the backbone in confronting global challenges while fostering responsible global leadership and solidarity founded on common humanity. In 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to protect the landmark Paris agreement, during a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron.

At the COP29 negotiations in 2024, China engaged in intense proactive multilateral diplomacy to break stalemated long-standing multilateral negotiations over climate change and climate financing to ensure that developed countries pay their fair share. Following the negotiations at the COP 29, Beijing vowed to continue to actively address climate change, and has since played an important role in lowering the costs renewable energy technologies, while providing funding and technologies to developing countries.

China has surged ahead in the past few decades to become the second biggest economy in the world, and the biggest trading and development partner with the African continent for more than a decade and half. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), sometimes referred to as the New Silk Road, is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived. Launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, it has become the heart of vast collection of development and investment initiatives linking East Asia, Oceania, Latin America, Europe, and Africa through physical infrastructure. The Forum for Africa China Cooperation has significantly gained traction as a major link between China and Africa, building on historical ties to foster mutually beneficial development cooperation, technology, and knowledge sharing, while unlocking major Chinese capital inflows into the African continent accounting for extensive diverse development initiatives and employment creation.

Most significantly China is providing humble historical leadership, unconditionally sharing its development experiences and resources with other developing countries based on shared common values and south-south solidarity. Thus, US global rollback under Trump may be a great opportunity to continue to synergise, strengthen and consolidate cooperation amongst developing countries. For Africa, this may mean leveraging intra-continental and international south-south cooperation to advance its development aspirations.

Gideon H Chitanga is a Post Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for Africa-China Studies.

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