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Donald Trump is not set to attend the 39th annual meeting of the African Union, which kicks off its leaders’ summit on Friday.

But his presence will still be felt as delegations from the 55 member states grapple with the new, disruptive reality of the United States president’s second term.

Trump’s historic cuts to foreign aid, his overhaul of US trade policy, and his sweeping changes to immigration admissions have all had an outsized impact on Africa, though he gave the continent only slight mention in his wider global agenda.

Amid the upheaval, the Trump administration has sought to forge new, bilateral agreements with African countries, focused on resources and security gains.

“Over the past year, US policy toward Africa has introduced a degree of uncertainty that will inevitably shape how African leaders approach this summit,” Carlos Lopes, a professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Al Jazeera.

“There has been a perceptible shift away from broad multilateral engagement and large-scale development programming, toward a more transactional, security- and deal-focused approach.”

Many African leaders have sought to strike a careful balance with the new US leadership.

Lopes has observed officials engaging with the US, while simultaneously “hedging” by “strengthening relations with China, the Gulf states, Europe and intra-African institutions to avoid over-dependence on any single partner”.

“The defining theme of this summit, in that sense, is likely to be recalibration on both sides: the US testing a more transactional model of engagement, and African leaders signalling that partnership must be reciprocal, predictable and respectful if it is to endure,” Lopes said.

An outsize impact

The White House National Security Strategy, released in November, gave only fleeting mention to Africa.

In the entire 29-page document, only three paragraphs mention the continent, at the bottom of the last page.

Some of those paragraphs reiterate the longstanding US goal of countering China’s influence. The section also highlights Trump’s recent push to end conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.

But the document also alludes to a wider vision for US-Africa ties, shifting from a “foreign aid paradigm to an investment and growth paradigm”.

That approach would be fuelled by new bilateral relationships with countries “committed to opening their markets to US goods and services”. In turn, the US envisions boosting development efforts on the continent, particularly when it comes to accessing strategic energy and rare earth mineral resources.

However, that paradigm shift — away from foreign aid — has had a disproportionate effect on Africa and is likely to be a topic of conversation at Friday’s summit.

An estimated 26 percent of the continent’s foreign aid came from the US. As of 2024, the country’s direct foreign investment in Africa was estimated at $47.47bn, much of it coming through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

But Trump has since dismantled USAID, as well as cancelled billions of dollars in aid programmes. Those moves have been accompanied by a wider US retreat from the United Nations. Experts say the repercussions have already been felt on the ground in Africa.

“We have experienced the end of USAID, and that has had huge, detrimental negative impacts — at least in the short run — on global health, particularly on health funding for African countries,” Belinda Archibong, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), told Al Jazeera.

The Center for Global Development has assessed that the current US foreign aid cuts could lead to 500,000 to 1,000,000 deaths annually.

In a December report, the organisation said the evidence of Trump’s aid cuts could be seen through increases in malnutrition mortality in northern Nigeria and Somalia, food insecurity in northeast Kenya and malaria deaths in northern Cameroon, among others.

Archibong also pointed to disruptions in HIV treatment and prevention across the continent, an area of concern for African Union members.

Trump’s funding freeze, for example, has caused service interruptions for programmes financed by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a US initiative credited with saving 25 million lives, primarily in Africa.

“So what does the health funding and health security globally look like in the aftermath of the US pulling back?” Archibong said. “That is going to be a very, very key point of discussion at the summit.”

With USAID scuttled, the Trump administration has pursued at least 16 preliminary bilateral agreements on public health aid, including with Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Kenya. It has dubbed its new aid model the “America First global health strategy”.

Critics, though, have raised concerns about such deals being tainted by “transactional pressures”, creating the potential for corruption and questions about their long-term sustainability.

‘Strategic ambiguity?’

For Everisto Benyera, a politics professor at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, Trump is likely to be the “proverbial elephant in the room” during the African Union’s two-day summit.

“This summit will be aware of his presence in his absence,” he told Al Jazeera.

Trump’s tariff policies have also had a wide impact on the continent. In April, 20 countries were hit with custom tariffs ranging from 11 percent to 50 percent, and another 29 countries faced a baseline tariff of 10 percent.

Experts say the nature of the tariffs adds to the air of uncertainty before this year’s summit.

The heightened, individualised tariffs disproportionately affect countries with specialised export industries that rely, in part, on protectionist trade policies to keep their economies afloat.

For instance, the kingdom of Lesotho, a nation of about 2 million, landlocked by South Africa, initially faced a staggering 50 percent tariff rate, risking ravages to its garment industry. Meanwhile, Madagascar, known for its vanilla exports, was slammed with an initial 47 percent tariff rate.

The rates for both Lesotho and Madagascar were later dropped to 15 percent.

Some reprieve has been offered by Trump’s decision this month to temporarily extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade agreement dating back to 2000.

It allows eligible countries to export 1,800 products — including fossil fuels, car parts, textiles and agricultural products — to the US duty-free. However, the extension only stretches through the end of 2026.

Adding to the tensions is Trump’s decision to stop processing immigration visas for 75 countries, including 26 in Africa. That accounts for nearly half of the African Union’s members.

Three African countries have launched reciprocal policies, banning travel for US citizens.

Still, Benyera predicted most leaders at this week’s summit would strive to maintain “strategic ambiguity”, with an eye towards arranging future agreements.

“The African Union will, therefore, not want to make policy pronunciations that contradict Trump,” he said.

“They will aim to strike a strategic balance between appeasing Trump, reassuring [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and maintaining relations with [Chinese President] Xi Jinping.”

‘Normative actor’

Lopes, meanwhile, predicted that the summit will include “subtle but pointed language emphasising international law, multilateralism and consistency”.

He pointed out that several African states have taken “vocal stances” on “global flashpoints”, including Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza — which the US supports — and the recent US military action in Venezuela.

The governments of South Africa, Namibia and Ghana, for instance, have led condemnation of the US’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as a blatant violation of international law.

South Africa, meanwhile, has spearheaded a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“I do expect that theme of international justice to continue, not necessarily as open confrontation but as a reminder that Africa increasingly sees itself as a normative actor on the global stage,” Lopes said.

He explained that recent dealings between the US, South Africa and Nigeria have been “illustrative” of the tightrope walk many African Union members face in the Trump era.

In South Africa, Trump has pushed claims that white Afrikaner farmers have been persecuted in a “white genocide”, a position rejected by the government of Cyril Ramaphosa and several top Afrikaner officials.

But even after an extraordinary — and falsehood-laden — confrontation at the Oval Office, Ramaphosa’s government has sought to forge new deals with the Trump administration, while also strengthening ties with its top trading partner, China.

Trump has also pushed dubious claims about Christian persecution in Nigeria. In December, the US struck an alleged ISIL (ISIS)-linked group in the country’s restive northeast, promising more bombings if armed actors “continue to kill Christians”.

Nigeria’s government has responded to the US attack carefully, characterising it as a “joint operation”, while rejecting the notion that religion was the root of the violence.

It has also used Trump’s interest in the region to boost security cooperation and intelligence sharing with the US, in an effort to counter the persistent insecurity in the country’s north.

“Both have experienced a more antagonistic tone from Washington. Yet, both have also leveraged that friction to diversify partnerships and assert strategic autonomy,” Lopes said.

A United States judge has granted an injunction preventing the Department of Defense from stripping Senator Mark Kelly, a military veteran, of his retirement pension and military rank.

The Defense Department had taken punitive action against Kelly for critical statements he had made against President Donald Trump.

But on Thursday, Judge Richard J Leon, an appointee of Republican President George W Bush, issued a forceful rebuke, accusing the Trump administration of trying to stifle veterans’ free speech rights.

Leon directed much of his ruling at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a senior Trump official who announced on January 5 that Kelly would be censured for what he characterised as “seditious” statements.

“Rather than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired service members, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired service members have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years,” Leon wrote.

“If so, they will more fully appreciate why the Founding Fathers made free speech the first Amendment in the Bill of Rights!”

History of the case

Thursday’s decision comes after Kelly, a Democratic member of Congress, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on January 12, alleging “punitive retribution”.

He had drawn the Trump administration’s ire with several public statements questioning the president’s military decisions.

Kelly, who represents the swing state of Arizona, had condemned the administration for sending military troops to quell protests in Los Angeles in June 2025.

Then, in November, he was also one of six former members of the US’s military and intelligence communities to participate in a video reminding current service members of their duty to “refuse illegal orders”.

That video quickly attracted Trump’s attention, and the president issued a string of social media posts threatening imprisonment and even the death penalty.

“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP?” Trump wrote in one post.

In another, he suggested a harsher punishment: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

Shortly thereafter, the Defense Department announced it had launched an investigation into the video and Kelly specifically, given his role as a retired Navy captain.

Hegseth accused Kelly of using “his rank and service affiliation” to discredit the US armed forces, and he echoed Trump’s claims that the video was “reckless and seditious”.

His decision to pen a formal letter of censure against Kelly prompted the senator to sue.

Such a letter serves as a procedural step towards lowering Kelly’s military rank at the time of his retirement, as well as curbing his post-military benefits.

But Kelly argued that such punishment would serve to dampen the rights of veterans to participate in political discourse – and would additionally hinder his work as a member of Congress.

An exclamation-filled ruling

In Thursday’s ruling, Judge Leon determined that Kelly was likely to prevail on the merits of his case – and, citing the folk singer Bob Dylan, he added that it was easy to see why.

“This Court has all it needs to conclude that Defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees,” Leon said in his often quippy ruling.

“After all, as Bob Dylan famously said, ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.’”

Leon acknowledged that granting an injunction against the government is an “extraordinary remedy”. But he argued it was necessary, given the gravity of the case.

The judge conceded that the Defense Department does have the ability to restrict the speech of active-service military members, given the need for discipline among troops.

But the Trump administration argued in its court filings that those restrictions extended to retired military veterans as well.

Leon, however, dismissed that assertion with the verbal equivalent of a snort: “Horsefeathers!”

“Speech from retired servicemembers – even speech opining on the lawfulness of military
operations – does not threaten ‘obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps’ in the same way as speech from active-duty soldiers,” Leon wrote.

“Nor can speech from retired servicemembers ‘undermine the effectiveness of response to command’ as directly as speech from active-duty soldiers.”

Leon also acknowledged that Kelly’s role as a lawmaker in Congress compounded the harms from any attempts to curtail his free-speech rights.

“If legislators do not feel free to express their views and the views of their constituents without fear of reprisal by the Executive, our representative system of Government cannot function!” he wrote, in one of his many exclamatory statements.

The judge was also harshly critical of the Trump administration’s arguments that Kelly’s rank and retirement benefits were solely a military matter, not a judicial one.

Leon described Hegseth’s letter of censure as making Kelly’s punishment a “fait accompli” – a foregone conclusion – given that such a document cannot be appealed and could itself serve as the basis for a demotion.

“Here, the retaliation framework fits like a glove,” Leon said, appearing to validate the crux of Kelly’s lawsuit.

At another point, he rejected the government’s arguments by saying, “Put simply, Defendants’ response is anemic!”

The injunction he offered, though, is temporary and will last only until the lawsuit reaches a resolution.

Trump administration responds

In the wake of the injunction, Kelly took to social media to say the short-term victory was a win for all military veterans.

“Today a federal court made clear that Pete Hegseth violated the Constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said,” Kelly said in a video statement.

“But this case was never just about me. This administration was sending a message to millions of retired veterans that they, too, can be censured or demoted just for speaking out.”

He added that the US faces a “critical moment” in its history, warning of the erosion of fundamental rights.

Kelly then proceeded to accuse the Trump administration of “cracking down on our rights and trying to make examples of anybody they can”. He also acknowledged that the legal showdown had only just begun.

“I appreciate the judge’s careful consideration of this case,” Kelly said. “But I also know that this might not be over yet, because this president and this administration do not know how to admit when they’re wrong.”

Within a couple of hours of Kelly’s post, Hegseth himself shared a message on social media, confirming that the Trump administration would forge ahead with contesting Thursday’s decision.

“This will be immediately appealed,” Hegseth said of the injunction. “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain.’”