A Seat at the Table or on the Menu? Africa’s Strategy in the New World Order

The metaphor is stark and has echoed through diplomatic corridors for years: nations are either seated at the table where global decisions are made, or they are on the menu—passive subjects of those decisions. For Africa, a continent of 54 nations rich in resources and youthful potential, this is not a theoretical debate but a daily political and economic reality. As the United States pivots its foreign policy under a “America First” doctrine and great-power competition intensifies, Africa faces a critical inflection point. Can the continent transform from a geopolitical prize to be contested into a unified, strategic player in the emerging international order? This analysis explores the seismic shifts in global diplomacy, the transactional nature of new alliances, and the urgent, difficult path toward African agency.

Key Points: Africa’s Crossroads in Global Affairs

• The “Table or Menu” Paradigm: The analogy, popularized by figures like Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, captures the existential choice for all nations in a world of resurgent power politics and declining multilateralism.
• US Policy Pivot: The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy explicitly states the U.S. cannot be “further aware of every region,” signaling a strategic de-prioritization of Africa in favor of the Western Hemisphere and Indo-Pacific.
• Rise of Transactional Bilateralism: The era of broad, multilateral partnership frameworks is giving way to targeted, resource-focused bilateral deals, as seen in the U.S.-DRC minerals agreement, which bypass continental collective bargaining.
• The China Factor & Multi-Alignment: While China remains Africa’s largest bilateral creditor and investor, other powers like Russia, Turkey, and the UAE are aggressively pursuing resource and security deals, creating a complex multi-alignment environment.
• Continental Agency Gap: Despite frameworks like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Agenda 2063, a lack of unified strategy and domestic political challenges hinders Africa’s ability to negotiate as a bloc.
• The Urgency of Self-Reliance: Leaders like Ghana’s President John Mahama argue for “pulling up by bootstraps,” emphasizing the need for internal resource mobilization, regional industrialization, and coordinated external diplomacy to break dependency cycles.

Background: The Metaphor and the Historical Context

The Origin of a Powerful Analogy

The “table or menu” dichotomy is not new, but it has gained renewed potency. It was famously used by former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney at the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos. His warning was for the entire world: in a fragmenting international system dominated by a few great powers, middle powers and developing nations face a binary fate. For decades, African leaders have argued for a seat at the table of global governance—whether at the UN Security Council, the G20, or the Bretton Woods institutions. The demand has been for a reform of the post-WWII order to reflect 21st-century demographics and economics.

A History of Engagement and Dependency

Africa’s position has long been defined by external engagement. The Cold War saw the continent as a proxy battleground. The post-Cold War era brought the “Washington Consensus” and structural adjustment programs. The 2000s saw the “scramble for Africa” driven by Chinese resource diplomacy and the “War on Terror” which brought increased U.S. security assistance. Through these phases, the continent often operated as a collection of individual states negotiating from a position of relative weakness, reliant on foreign aid, loans, and security partnerships. The promise of the “African Renaissance” and the “Africa Rising” narrative of the early 2010s has been tempered by persistent debt vulnerabilities, governance challenges, and a failure to translate commodity wealth into broad-based industrial development.

Analysis: The Shifting Sands of Great Power Engagement

The United States: From “All-In” to “Selective Engagement”

The rhetorical shift between the Biden and Trump administrations on Africa is dramatic, though critics question the depth of either. President Biden’s 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington proclaimed the U.S. was “all-in on Africa’s future,” with a strategy document labeling sub-Saharan Africa as “essential to advancing our worldwide priorities.” However, his single presidential visit to the region—brief stops in Cape Verde and Angola in December 2024, his final month in office—undermined the message’s credibility for many observers.

In contrast, the Trump administration’s November 2024 National Security Strategy is brutally clear: “We can’t afford to be further aware of every region and every problem on this planet.” The three paragraphs dedicated to Africa speak of partnering with “select nations” to foster mutually beneficial relationships and shift from aid to trade and investment. This is not a policy of neglect but of transactional selectivity. The focus is squarely on critical minerals—cobalt, copper, lithium, rare earths—essential for defense, clean energy, and digital supply chains.

The December 2024 U.S.-DRC minerals deal, signed alongside a Rwanda peace accord, is the archetype. It aims to develop “secure, reliable, and resilient supply chains” for the U.S., with language emphasizing investment in the DRC. For Ken Opalo, a Georgetown University Africa specialist, this model is perilous: “the bargaining position for African nations will be extremely weak… The DRC example suggests the U.S. focus is about simply securing mining rights for American corporations and little else regarding the wider economic co-operation, which isn’t what the region needs.” The region needs deeper market access, investment treaties, and diversified FDI, not just extractive concessions.

China: The Enduring but Evolving Partner

China has not retreated. For over a decade, it has outspent the U.S. in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and development finance in Africa, though the U.S. narrowly regained the lead in 2023-2024 due to large-scale projects under the Power Africa initiative and new investments. China’s model, centered on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure loans, state-owned enterprise projects, and a no-strings-attached diplomatic approach, remains deeply entrenched. However, China faces its own economic headwinds and is becoming more selective, focusing on higher-value projects and strategic ports. The U.S. pivot does not diminish China’s presence; it simply adds another competitive bidder to the field, potentially giving African states more leverage if they can coordinate.

The “Other” Powers: Russia, Turkey, UAE, and Europe

The landscape is crowded. Russia’s