President Donald Trump greets Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari during a working lunch with African leaders at the Palace Hotel in New York, Sept. 20, 2017.DOUG MILLS/The New York Times
When U.S. President Donald Trump accidentally invented a fictitious African country at his luncheon with African leaders this week, many ordinary Africans were amused but unsurprised.
They are accustomed to American ignorance of their continent, and so they chuckled wearily at Mr. Trump's repeated references to the imaginary country of "Nambia" – apparently his muddled conflation of the countries of Namibia, Zambia and Gambia. (The White House later clarified that he had meant Namibia.)
What really bothered them, however, was Mr. Trump's boast that his friends were rushing to Africa "to get rich."
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It sparked an angry backlash on social media across the continent. One commentator, a South African named Mfanelo, said the comment was "embarrassingly tone-deaf." A man from Tanzania, Paul Mwasya, said Americans were "using dubious one-sided contracts" to "rob" the continent.
Mr. Trump's words evoked a long history of colonialism and exploitation in Africa, still a raw subject here. And it was a reminder that foreigners, for centuries, have become wealthy on the backs of impoverished Africans.
His comments were significant, because he has said so little about Africa so far in his presidency. In the U.S. State Department, senior posts on Africa have sat vacant, while many ambassadorial jobs are still empty. Mr. Trump's few comments on Africa in the past eight months have suggested that he sees the continent mainly through the prism of terrorism.
In his first telephone calls with the presidents of Nigeria and South Africa, he spoke mostly about the fight against terrorism and offered weapons to Nigeria.
On Tuesday, as leaders gathered in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Trump held his first formal meeting with a wide range of leaders from every African region, including nine presidents.
He referred twice to the non-existent country of "Nambia." He mentioned it in his introductory greeting to the leaders. Then he praised "Nambia" for its "increasingly self-sufficient" health system.
He also praised Guinea and Nigeria for their response to the recent Ebola outbreak, apparently unaware that the main countries affected by the outbreak were actually Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
But his most controversial comments were on Africa as a potential source of wealth for Americans.
"I have so many friends going to your countries, trying to get rich," Mr. Trump told the lunch meeting. "I congratulate you. They're spending a lot of money. It has a tremendous business potential and representing huge amounts of different markets."
His comments rankled many Africans. Since the beginning of the colonial era, they've seen Western companies journeying to Africa to exploit its resources and labour. Even the more recent Western investments in the African mining and oil sector are often resented. They are perceived as reaping profits without paying sufficient taxes or royalties, leaving Africans still struggling in poverty.
This perception is compounded in countries like South Africa and Tanzania, where foreign investors have been accused of looting. The controversial Gupta brothers, who migrated from India, have allegedly taken huge profits from South Africa in covert deals with politically connected officials at state-owned enterprises.
Geoffrey York