Washington, June 20, 2025 (Lusa) - Researcher Ramsey Day said on Friday that the United States' intention to hold a business summit with Africa, instead of the traditional leaders' summit, is a positive step and could redefine relations between the two sides.
“We should applaud this initiative; it takes us a significant step towards implementing the vision of establishing a modernised relationship with the continent, focusing on commercial engagement rather than traditional aid,” the analyst wrote in a lengthy article on the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace research institute.
In his analysis of the US government’s intention to hold a US-Africa business summit rather than the traditional US-Africa leaders’ summit that the leaders have hosted since Barack Obama’s presidency, the visiting researcher at the Africa Programme at this research centre said the change is “a promising development”.
“A summit along these lines would provide a platform to reintroduce the United States to a select group of African partners and send a broad message that the United States wants to do business with Africa,” he said.
“It could also clarify the summit’s three strategic priorities: the mutual benefits of transitioning from aid to trade; the geostrategic benefits within a new tariff framework, particularly in the critical minerals and energy sectors; and the unlocking of opportunities for African and American companies in collaboration based on artificial intelligence and digital technology,” the researcher said.
The US government announced in May its intention to hold a summit with African leaders later this year in New York, focused on trade and investment.
The meeting “will prioritise exchanges between partners and relations between equals,” said an official from the African department of the US State Department, which acts as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in European governments.
‘The main guests will be business leaders, and the focus will be on commercial interests, so one recommendation was to call the summit what it is and change the name from leaders’ summit to business summit,’ the researcher added, noting that this would put ‘Trump’s stamp’ on the meeting, starting with the change of name and framing.
“For decades, the United States predominantly based its engagement with Africa on traditional aid models that addressed symptoms; today, it increasingly promotes sustainable economic prosperity and viable trade partnerships,” he said.
“With the Trump administration’s decisive action to rapidly dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), along with several other aid-based agencies, and absorb those functions into the State Department, the shift from aid to trade has suddenly accelerated from aspiration to necessity,” the researcher concluded.
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