The choreography of U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent Gulf tour marked a turning point in global power dynamics. In Riyadh, flanked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Syria’s Islamist President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Trump rewrote diplomatic protocol with a handshake that symbolised a decisive pivot: from ideological alignment to raw transactionalism. Western principles of diplomacy—long used to box in African agency—are dissolving in real time. This is not a regional spectacle. It is a direct opportunity for Africa. In the unravelling of the old order, Africa must see not instability, but advantage. Trump’s chaos is, without qualification, Africa’s ladder.
The images emerging from the Gulf—trillions in investment deals, softened rhetoric on sanctioned regimes, and a side-lining of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu—signal a world where economic scale and geopolitical agility matter more than historical alliances or moral posturing. African nations, often treated as marginal actors in global diplomacy, must now reconfigure themselves not as recipients of policy, but as designers of it. Trump’s realignment has laid bare a truth that African policymakers must internalise: diplomacy now flows where capital, access, and neutrality intersect. The so-called “rules-based order” has fractured, and it is time to negotiate accordingly.
Historically, Africa has been penalised for its diplomatic plurality. Engagements with China or Russia have triggered rebukes from Washington, and conditionalities from Western institutions have stifled statecraft. That has changed. Trump’s handshake with Sharaa—a figure until recently branded by the U.S. as a terrorist—is proof that all previous red lines are now negotiable. Gulf states are now rewarded for playing every side. Why should Africa behave differently? The continent must move with confidence, engaging not as aid-dependent supplicants, but as strategic brokers. We offer rare earths, green energy corridors, demographic scale, and digital markets. We must no longer ask for relevance—we must price it.
Trump’s rejection of Netanyahu’s unilateral war in Gaza and his greenlighting of direct negotiations with Iran and Syria demonstrate that no ally is immune from revision. Israel, for decades the centre of U.S. Middle East strategy, is now being bypassed for Riyadh, Doha, and even Damascus. The lesson is sobering: if Israel can be sidelined when it obstructs U.S. objectives, then African states must not overestimate loyalty from any foreign power. What matters now is alignment with economic outcomes. In this space, African sovereignty is not a weakness—it is a currency. We must spend it wisely.
The Gulf’s strategy should serve as a model for African capitals. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have secured access to U.S. military hardware, data infrastructure, and energy partnerships not by bending to ideological demands but by presenting themselves as necessary partners in the new order. They have leveraged capital, geography, and strategic ambiguity into unprecedented diplomatic clout. Africa must learn from this. We have what the new world needs—critical minerals, labour force scale, and geopolitical neutrality. What we lack is unified coordination and sovereign confidence. It is time to stop explaining our complexity and start projecting our leverage.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) gives us the institutional platform to speak and negotiate as a block. But diplomacy cannot wait for full harmonisation. Individual states must move decisively, and regional blocs must align on shared strategic goals. The days of waiting for OECD approval or IMF backchannel blessings are over. If the Gulf can weaponise sovereign wealth for global advantage, African central banks and pension funds must start thinking the same way. Statecraft must now be aligned with asset allocation. Our foreign policy must be investment-literate.
Israeli firms, sensing regional isolation, will soon pivot toward African markets as new clients for their defence tech, cybersecurity, and water systems. We must not allow this re-engagement to occur without reciprocity. Africa can and must demand transfer of technology, joint production, and infrastructure equity. Gulf sovereign funds are also repositioning, pouring capital into East African ports, North African data hubs, and West African energy fields. We must ensure these investments support industrial policy, not replicate colonial extraction. Our engagement with these new suitors must be strategic, not sentimental.
Britain, reeling from Brexit dislocation, is seeking new trade corridors and commodity security. The European Union is fractured over migration, energy, and defence. The United States under Trump is focused on deal flow, not development models. This leaves Africa with room to manoeuvre. We are no longer at the edge of the map—we are in the centre of the deal. But we must update our playbook. Strategic patience, non-alignment, and donor dependency are no longer viable. Today’s game is dynamic hedging—diplomatic diversification, institutional agility, and infrastructure leverage.
Africa must now invest in foreign policy intelligence units, sovereign negotiation teams, and diaspora capital mobilisation. Our embassies must not simply represent—they must broker. Our presidents and foreign ministers must think not in press statements, but in terms of deal flow, infrastructure corridors, and capital translation. The future is not dictated in Washington or Brussels. It is brokered in Riyadh, Nairobi, Ankara, and Beijing.
Trump’s chaos is a rupture, but it is also a reset. The path forward is not to return to the predictability of paternalistic partnerships but to build our own. Africa does not need to wait for a seat at the table. We must build our own table—with steel from Angola, servers from Rwanda, fibre-optic cables from Kenya, green hydrogen from Namibia, and negotiation leverage from Addis Ababa.
This is the moment. The world is being redrawn. Alliances are fluid, capital is fast, and narratives are collapsing. Africa must not plead for inclusion. We must set the terms. Trump’s chaos has opened the door. Let us ascend the ladder—with clarity, with strategy, and with sovereign intent.
Written by Farai Ian Muvuti, the Chief Executive Officer of The Southern African Times, 2023 winner of the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award by the South African Chamber of Commerce UK, an advisor on the board of the Africa Chamber of Commerce, and a contributor to Arise News, Al Jazeera, and the BBC.
