ABUJA – When Donald Trump turns his attention to Africa, it is rarely for reasons African policymakers recognize as grounded in fact or consistent principle. His latest escalation of tensions with Nigeria and South Africa, framed as a moral crusade against human rights abuses, reflects a recurring pattern: selectively invoking the language of rights to justify punitive diplomacy that ultimately serves domestic politics more than international justice.

In Nigeria, Trump has warned of potential military action and suspended aid over what he describes as systematic persecution of Christians. 

In South Africa, he has gone further, barring the country from the next G20 summit under the claim that its government is engaged in discrimination against white farmers. 

Both accusations draw on contested narratives, many of which are heavily filtered through U.S. culture-war lenses rather than on-the-ground reality. Yet they form the basis for punitive actions with real diplomatic consequences.

The first layer of Trump’s motivations is domestic. His political base responds strongly to narratives of Christian victimhood abroad and to claims of “reverse discrimination” against white communities overseas. These are not accidental themes; they have been central to identity politics, the backbone of far-right movements globally. By positioning himself as the protector of these groups, Trump fortifies his standing among voters who see global affairs through cultural, not geopolitical, lines.

But domestic politics alone doesn’t explain the harshness of the measures. The second layer is coercive diplomacy, a strategic attempt to leverage American power to reshape African political behavior. By threatening Nigeria, one of the continent’s largest democracies, with military intervention, Trump signals a willingness to use force in a region where U.S. influence has been slipping. 

His exclusion of South Africa from a major multilateral forum is even more striking: it weaponizes an international platform traditionally used to cultivate cooperation, not to settle scores.

Yet such tactics carry risks, particularly when they rest on shaky factual ground. Nigeria’s religious violence is tragically real, but it does not follow the simple Christian-persecution narrative Trump promotes; Muslims, Christians, and traditional communities have all suffered in complex, overlapping conflicts. In South Africa, the “white genocide” narrative has been debunked repeatedly by independent analysts, including many conservative experts. Reanimating a fringe myth to justify diplomatic punishment not only distorts reality, but it also undermines Washington’s credibility at a time when the U.S. can ill-afford diplomatic missteps on the continent.

More troublingly, the moral selectivity of Trump’s Africa posture exposes the deeper issue: rights talk is being used as a geopolitical tool, applied where it aligns with domestic messaging and ignored where it doesn’t. That inconsistency is noticed. In capitals across Africa, policymakers read Trump’s moves not as principled advocacy but as transactional pressure masquerading as moral concern.

For African nations already navigating a multipolar world, this approach is likely to accelerate an existing trend: the search for partners who engage without politicizing internal affairs. If the U.S. wants to remain influential, it must offer something more stable than threats, exclusions, and ideologically charged narratives.

What Africa needs from Washington is engagement rooted in reality, not rhetoric tailored for American campaign rallies. What multilateral institutions need is leadership grounded in principle and not political theatrics. And what the United States risks, if this trend continues, is the erosion of its standing in a region whose geopolitical significance is only growing.
Trump’s posture on Nigeria and South Africa tells us less about human rights and more about how power, perception, and domestic politics now shape America’s global actions. 

Africa has seen this before, though this time, the costs and the consequences may be far higher.

(Patricia Esami-Lubba is a Nigerian journalist and foreign-affairs correspondent whose incisive reporting explores global power dynamics, U.S.–Africa relations, and the nexus of international policy and human-rights diplomacy.)