China is likely to pause investments in Africa as part of a wait-and-see strategy as US President Donald Trump disrupts its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). “Every other investment from China is not going to materialise in the next few years,” says Carlos Lopes, an African economic and governance expert. “They’re just going to not declare it, but pause, because they want to know exactly what the cards are like.”

Lopes, honorary professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town, tells The Africa Report on the sidelines of the Djibouti Investment Forum last week that China’s long-term game plan was designed taking into account certain parameters, and these have been disrupted by Trump.

Among others, Trump’s pronouncements about merging with Canada, buying Greenland and allying with Russia appear to point to his ambitions to acquire the Arctic sea route as a faster and more profitable trade route, disrupting China’s BRI ambitions. Trump has also imposed a prohibitive 145% tariff on all Chinese imports into the US.

China started to pause activities in Africa last year when it became clear Trump would win the presidential election. During this pause, investments from the Middle East in Africa increased. “It’s as dramatic as the withdrawal of the others,” Lopes says.

In December, The Guardian, citing FT Locations, reported that the UAE had become Africa’s biggest investor, overtaking China. Emirati companies announced $110bn worth of new projects in Africa between 2019 and 2023, making pledges more than double in value than those made by companies from the UK, France and China.

Implementation and investment

Lopes says that, unlike China, which has the people and capacity to implement its investments, the Gulf states only have capital and must go elsewhere to look for a workforce to run projects. “They go to India for the implementation,” Lopes says. “India is more private sector-oriented, whereas in China, they have to deal with the state.”

He says the Middle Eastern capital is followed by sophisticated investor vehicles, such as BlackRock, Bloomfield and Goldman Sachs. “They have identified this as an opportunity. That’s why you see them coming back to Africa.”

Lopes says China’s pause doesn’t mean a retreat. “China is going to resist,” he says about Trump’s plans.

Trump’s anti-climate reform moves are not new

And although Trump’s actions are dramatic, they represent a continuity in US policy and the decline of multilateralism. “The erosion of world trade regimes started way before Trump,” Lopes adds. For example, former president Barack Obama was at odds with the World Trade Organisation’s Appellate Body over “judicial overreach”.

The retraction from climate obligations by Trump is not new. “Every other rich nation has been retracting. Everything is a sort of trend that has been given an incredible speed and intensity [by Trump],” Lopes says. He adds that even the agreements at the COP climate summits were fake consensus because “it was not about implementation”.

Lopes indicates it could take two or three years for China to analyse the parameters of Trump’s actions, and for activity to return to Africa. Meanwhile, the Middle Eastern investments are not just about economics, but also ideology and politics.

“That’s why they are funding a lot of proxies in wars,” he says, citing Sudan and Mozambique as examples. The countries – Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia – also compete with each other.

Hard-hitting social media soft power

The way the US exercises soft power will change. It will no longer come in the form of official development assistance or legacy media outlets like Voice of America, or even through diplomacy. It will be through social media such as Facebook, TikTok and X.

“Soft power has changed. You can go directly to the people. You don’t need to go through the state with aid and some bags of rice,” he says. “No, you control their minds.” He says this is something the US is good at.

Lopes notes that the US will push back against social media regulators in the Global South, citing freedom of expression.

Wake-up call to the rising right-wing tide

Samuel Maimbo, candidate for African Development Bank president, told the audience during a panel discussion with Lopes at the Djibouti forum that Africa should take advantage of the crisis created by Trump’s presidency.

The frankness, as brutally painful as it is, is a wake-up call

“Trump is doing us all a favour by expressing verbally what a lot of people are thinking,” he said.

Trump’s presidency comes at a time when several G7 governments have changed and are leaning more to the right. “When you are negotiating vast sums of money, when you are negotiating a continent you love that is far from reaching its potential, I want you to tell me if my tie is dirty or not,” he said. “The frankness, as brutally painful as it is, is a wake-up call.”

He said the shutdown of USAID, which has funded the battle against HIV/Aids in southern Africa, including Maimbo’s native Zambia, brought immediate pain and horrifying memories.

“But through that process, you have to stop and say to yourself, why is something as fundamental as health subject to a third party to finance? It’s unacceptable. Health, defence and education are things that we should manage on our books.”

Maimbo said African countries should take full financial responsibility for their health systems.