July 9, 2024 - July 11, 2025 - President Trump will host a summit of five African nations, seizing the momentum of a U.S.-brokered peace deal between DRC and Rwanda, to gain the rights to West Africa’s critical minerals.
A wider summit is expected in September 2025 when the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) of 2000, which allows duty-free access to U.S. markets for certain sub-Saharan countries, is set to expire.
Thirty-two African countries benefit from AGOA, and Congress has renewed it on several occasions, but under Trump’s “America First,” it looks likely to be replaced by individual deals, with U.S. envoys now being judged on the commercial deals struck in a new “trade not aid” strategy for Africa.
