Admiration for Donald Trump runs deep in parts of Africa, despite his racist record. But will this survive the turmoil of the U.S. president’s current tariff wars? A 90-day moratorium, forced by global fury, offers little reprieve for vulnerable African economies already burdened by his broader policy shifts.
By Chudi Okoye
So strong, it seems, is his grip on their minds that even now—whacked yet again by his whimsical actions, this time his global tariff offensive launched on April 2nd—some Africans remain unshaken in their perverse admiration of Donald Trump, the current U.S. president. The term ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)’ has been pushed into public usage, often glibly tossed out to pejoratize what’s perceived as irrational liberal contempt for Trump’s persona and his norm-bending behaviors. But we have yet to properly acknowledge what may be dubbed ‘Trump Admiration Disorder (TAD),’ a phenomenon that seems equally irrational in its exuberance, manifesting even in the far-flung flanks of Africa.
Though neither condition has made the hallowed list of officially recognized mental disorders, both can be visceral, TAD arguably a tad more so.
Such is the force of the TAD phenomenon, such the fad, that Trump’s political movement is often likened to a personality cult—distinct yet comparable to the fervor that followed some of his towering predecessors, among them Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. These historical figures possessed immense charisma and an ability to inspire deep loyalty, each cultivating their base in unique ways—through crisis leadership, ideological appeal, or simply personal magnetism. We’ll yet see if Trump can achieve their stature and similar historical durability. But his movement stands out in modern American politics, not only for its intensity but also its diversity: an inchoate coalition of working-class voters, White evangelicals, nativist ideologues, and the gilded ranks of media and financial elites—all animated by grievance or greed and the sheer force of Trump’s personality.
Trump’s support base displays distinct signs of a personality cult, surpassing that of any other contemporary politician. It is evident in their utterances and their actions, in the various departments of their deportment. Even his most powerful admirers speak in tones that verge on devotional. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and leader of an efficientizing government agency, in February—a few days to Valentine—dropped a Twitter post saying “I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man.” He was widely mocked for this, many embarrassed on his behalf. But he didn’t seem to care. Republican lawmakers similarly fall over themselves to demonstrate loyalty to Trump, their ‘Dear Leader,’ issuing rote praise and retreating into silence when he crosses lines they once deemed inviolable. This is to say nothing of the huddled masses, the swooning rank and file in Trump’s base, many of whom already idolized him prior to his attempted assassination before the November election.
Trump has not merely attracted this cult-like following; he has gleefully and artfully cultivated it. Moving at a rapid pace, he’s imposing his personal brand on the U.S. government, much as he does in private business, projecting strength and cultic power whilst demanding absolute fealty. This has allowed him to commandeer the Republican Party, sidelining or subserviating its traditional leaders and placing its apparatus firmly under his control. He also aggressively monetizes his political celebrity, launching a steady stream of branded products—from cryptocurrency to a vast collection of MAGA merchandise that includes a $550 ‘45-47’ Bling Clutch and other pricey bibelot. He even peddles a ‘God Bless the USA’ Bible, printed for pittance in much-maligned China and sold to devotees with wrappings of piety at the celestial price of $59.99, plus shipping and fees. According to one media outlet, Trump’s online store hawks some 1,725 items, a collection that could set a giddy supporter back about $36,000 in one ‘patriotic’ shopping spree. The proceeds, of course, flow directly into the Trump family coffers. With him, ‘political fortune’ has shifted from Machiavelli’s notion of erratic fate (Fortuna) to pure profiteering, unconstrained by virtue.
Yet, though he reigns supreme in today’s Republican Party, Trump’s electoral performance hasn’t been that impressive. Across the three presidential elections he has thus far contested, Trump never cracked 50% of the popular vote. In 2016, he won the presidency by securing 304 electoral votes against Hillary Clinton’s 227, but she outpaced him in the popular vote, garnering 48.2% to his 46.1%. In 2020, he lost to Joe Biden, who won decisively with 306 electoral votes and 51.3% of the popular vote, while Trump managed 46.8%. Even in 2024, when Trump defeated Kamala Harris with his clutch of 306 electoral votes, he still fell short of majority in the popular vote, winning 49.8%. Trump’s approval ratings have tracked these election results: middling at best, and currently underwater.
This pattern suggests that Trump faces a hard ceiling in terms of national support. His record compares unfavorably with some earlier Republican candidates: Richard Nixon achieved a landslide victory in 1972 with 60.7% of the popular vote and 520 electoral votes; Ronald Reagan secured 50.7% and 489 electoral votes in 1980 before improving to an overwhelming 58.8% and 525 electoral votes in 1984; and George H.W. Bush won comfortably in 1988 with 53.4% of the popular vote and 426 electoral votes. Trump’s rigid ceiling complicates his apparent third-term agenda, which anyway is decidedly unconstitutional.
African Favorability
Ironically, though he lacks the overwhelming support once enjoyed by his more august predecessors in the United States, Trump is widely admired in parts of Africa. He remains polarizing on the continent, no doubt, but repeated surveys show him consistently outperforming his domestic numbers, even amid a spiral of controversies. For instance, in spring 2019, when Trump’s U.S. approval rating hovered around 39%, Pew Research found that 65% of Kenyans and 58% of Nigerians expressed confidence in his global leadership. By contrast, traditional U.S. allies registered much lower ratings: 13% in Germany, 20% in France, and 32% in the UK. Five years later, in 2024—during Biden’s tenure and on the eve of Trump’s comeback election—the pattern persisted: 63% in Nigeria and 59% in Kenya, versus 15% in Germany, 16% in France, and 30% in the UK (global median: 28%). Meanwhile, throughout his presidency, Biden enjoyed stratospheric levels of favorability among America’s major allies, much like President Barack Obama before him. These patterns highlight a pronounced global distaste for Trump, especially in the West, offset only by the surprising levels of admiration he continues to enjoy in parts of Africa.
Trump’s enduring favorability in Africa is surreal against his lifelong record of racial animus—a catalog of slurs, conspiracies, and policies targeting Black communities that began in his youth. In 1973, a 27-year-old Trump and his property company were sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for systemic discrimination against African American renters, exposing biases that would persist for decades. He later spearheaded the racist ‘birther’ conspiracy against Barack Obama, evidently seeking to delegitimize the nation’s first Black president, by questioning his American birth. In 1989, he demanded the execution of five Black and Latino teenagers falsely accused of raping a white jogger in New York’s Central Park. The ‘Central Park Five’ were exonerated in 2002, with their convictions vacated, following a confession from the actual assailant, and DNA evidence confirming his confession; yet, as late as 2014, Trump still insisted on their culpability, calling their $41 million settlement “a disgrace.” He reignited the smear as recently as 2024, during his presidential campaign, prompting a new defamation lawsuit against him.
As president, he infamously branded African nations, along with Haiti and El Salvador, as “shithole countries.” He told four Democratic congresswomen of color—one naturalized and three U.S.-born citizens—to “go back” to their supposed countries of origin, a remark condemned as racist for its nativist undertones. He described Black neighborhoods as war zones, disparaged Somali refugees, and pursued immigration bans targeting majority-Black nations. He amplified White nationalist stereotypes on social media, and pursued policies that often paralleled his incendiary talk. All this proved that his youthful bigotry had hardened over the years into institutionalized racism.
Against this sordid backdrop, Trump’s enduring popularity in Africa seems jarringly counterintuitive. What explains it?
One could charitably, and quite legitimately, blame Trump’s African fanbase on basic ignorance. Despite the confident presumption of many in Africa, there’s clear evidence of the Dunning-Kruger effect, with not a few overestimating their knowledge of Trump and U.S. politics. That explanation, however, only goes so far, especially when you spot flickers of Trumpist fervor among the African cognoscenti. So, then, what gives? Well, religion, for a start. It mediates much African thinking, often short-circuiting political judgment. Trump’s hard-edged cultural conservatism—his open disdain for liberal permissiveness, especially on LGBTQ+ issues—resonates in societies where progressivism is seen not as evolution but decadence. His name is intoned almost liturgically in some Pentecostal circles, thanks in part to his zealous support for Israel. For instance, for many Nigerian Christians chafing under Muslim political dominance, Israel’s pummeling of the Islamic Middle East is divine retribution, and Trump—more than some of his restrained predecessors—is admired for being its ardent enabler. Layer onto this the enduring cult of the strongman—a staple of African political life—and the appeal of Trump’s brash persona begins to make cultural sense. His vulgarity becomes virility; his sharp elbows, forged in the rough and tumble of the real estate business, a proof of manliness. In a continent where shifting economies are quietly empowering women, his exaggerated masculinity probably offers threatened men a fantasy of restored dominance. What reads as political admiration may thus be psychic compensation.
This is my quick take on the issue. Others, I’m sure, have their own views. But whatever the explanation, it may soon collide with the brute fact of Trump’s new tariff offensive, a potential headache for Africa.
From MAGA to MASA
It might be easy—for Africans not familiar with the dynamics of global trade, and even experts in advanced countries less informed about Africa—to overlook the continent as they calibrate the consequences of Trump’s escalating tariff wars. As the battle intensifies between the U.S., China, and the EU, there has been only the faintest focus on far-off Africa.
The reason is not hard to fathom. The continent barely registers in U.S. global trade. In 2024, America imported $39.5 billion worth of goods from Africa—just 2% of its $2 trillion import bill. Its exports to the continent totaled $32.1 billion, less than 5% of Africa’s own $699 billion in global imports. The disparity is just as stark in capital markets. In the first four days following Trump’s tariff announcement, the S&P 500 (which tracks the 500 largest U.S. companies) lost $5.83 trillion in market value, a figure over four times the combined market capitalization of Africa’s 29 stock exchanges.
With negligible trade volumes and fragile financial footprints, it is easy to see why Africa might be forgotten. Yet this must not be. An ancient Swahili proverb warns that “when elephants fight, the grass suffers.” As the global juggernauts escalate their ‘tariffying’ trillion-dollar brawl, the consequences for Africa could be catastrophic. The world’s most vulnerable economies will be whipsawed by the seesaw, if there’s no withdrawal in Washington or retreat by the rest.
But will the sparring powers pull back from the brink? There are mixed signals. On April 9th, after a week of worldwide turmoil attending the tariff surge, news broke that Washington may indeed have climbed down—if only partially. President Trump had earlier insisted, amid the weeklong churn, that there’d be no change of course until countries yielded to a fairer trade deal for America. Now, however, without any overt sign of the global concession he craved, Trump announced a 90-day moratorium on his tariff hikes, replacing the individuated assessments he had earlier imposed with a uniform 10% “reciprocal tariff” on all nations.
This temporary reprieve, however, excluded China, which was slapped with a further hike, bringing its current levy to an astonishing 145%. Trump accused China of showing a “lack of respect to the World’s Markets” by raising its own tariff on U.S. imports to 84%, in retaliation to the earlier U.S. mark-up. This tit-for-tat escalation between the world’s two largest economies raises the stakes dramatically, and it remains unclear where it will end. As of this writing, China had yet to respond to the latest U.S. move, though the E.U. opted to suspend its threatened retaliation after Trump’s partial backtrack. Perhaps China expects the U.S. president to relent at some point, if offered an off-ramp, especially given that Trump’s China-produced merchandise, including his branded Bible, could be caught in the crossfire.
While the China-excluded moratorium may suggest a tactical retreat, it is also a stark reminder of the dizzying volatility of U.S. trade policy under Donald Trump, a frenetic rhythm of rancor and reversals that leaves allies, adversaries, and vulnerable economies alike in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Trump’s spokespeople spun the policy shift as a win, claiming tariff pressure had forced negotiations. But the president himself let slip that the move was triggered by mounting market jitters, visible in tumbling indexes and massive losses, including a sharp sell-off in U.S. government bonds and the dollar, traditionally safe havens for investors.
Trump had teased the reversal on social media hours before the announcement, prompting speculation of market manipulation, especially as the markets rebounded spectacularly in its wake. The maneuver added yet another twist to the aura of policy volatility, heightened further by reports that many of Trump’s own advisers had been blindsided by the decision.
Nowhere is this volatility more concerning than in Africa. The continent, already whipsawed by Trump’s sweeping tariff measures, finds itself increasingly at the mercy of America’s changing moods. Lesotho, a landlocked country reliant on textile exports to the U.S., faced a punitive 50% tariff—an existential threat to its fragile $2 billion economy. For its 12,000 garment workers, many supporting extended families on $0.50/hour, this tariff would have been devastating. Even with the temporary reprieve, uncertainty remains. Not only will the new uniform rate hurt the country, there’s no clarity what comes after the moratorium. Trump could revert to the higher rate later, or cancel the reprieve altogether. This may be less a retreat than strategic reload!
Other African nations face similar risks. Nigeria, once Africa’s largest economy, had been hit with a 14% tariff on its exports to the U.S., but now faces the universal baseline tariff of 10%—a rate that still threatens its already fragile fiscal outlook. While crude oil (accounting for 80% of Nigeria’s exports to the U.S.) is exempt from the new tariffs, non-oil exports worth N324 billion ($209 million) now face steep challenges. This includes agricultural products like cocoa, nuts, and fertilizers, which are critical to Nigeria’s diversification efforts. South Africa, meanwhile, had been slapped with a 30% tariff, possibly tied to its ICC suit against Israel over Gaza or tensions with Trump adviser Elon Musk over anti-apartheid land reforms. The base rate could still erode a significant chunk of its auto industry revenue, particularly in vulnerable regions like the Eastern Cape, where employment in the auto sector provides a vital lifeline. Madagascar’s vanilla exports, Ivory Coast’s cocoa production, Kenyan tea growers, and Ethiopian coffee farmers all risk becoming collateral damage in Trump’s tariff wars.
Notwithstanding the new moratorium, which induced a momentary sigh of relief, African economies with U.S. linkage are still at risk, given Washington’s weaponization of uncertainty under Trump. With the U.S. Congress having apparently abandoned its role in setting trade policy, it is now up to Trump, a man with mixed motivations who seems to relish chaos and disorder. With little leverage of their own—as opposed to the major powers who can occasionally call Trump’s bluff—Africa is completely vulnerable to policy vacillations in Washington.
This is not just an economic story; it is a political reckoning. Trump’s trade offensive threatens to unravel decades of cautious optimism anchored in frameworks like AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act), which has granted duty-free access to U.S. markets since 2000. With AGOA set to expire this year, and no evident path to renewal under Trump’s America First ethos, African economies now face exclusion from global value chains alongside eroding trust in a partner once seen as a beacon of opportunity.
The irony here is pungent. Many African leaders, and not a few citizens, had viewed Trump with a kind of idiosyncratic admiration. His defiance of so-called global elites, his populist swagger, even his transactional worldview resonated in parts of Africa still navigating the complexities of postcolonial sovereignty. But this admiration now confronts a brutal test, as the consequences of Trump’s policies play out not in the abstract arena of global geopolitics, but in the day-to-day struggles of textile workers, cocoa farmers, and small business owners. Africa’s admiration of Trump may have been emotional, even symbolic, but the tariffs and his other policy swerves are painfully real.
With Trump and Africa, it is a story of MAGA versus MASA: to Make (his) America Great Again, it seems the U.S. president is prepared to Make Africa Suffer Again.
