DAKAR: US President Donald Trump will welcome five African leaders to a White House lunch on Wednesday, with commerce and trade expected to feature prominently among a mixed bag of potential agenda items.<\/p>\n
The presidents of Senegal, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon \u2014 five nations located along Africa\u2019s Atlantic Coast \u2014 will convene at Trump\u2019s behest.<\/p>\n
Officials from the countries have told AFP that they expect talks to center on trade, investment and security, among other topics as they meet in the executive mansion\u2019s State Dining Room.<\/p>\n
But few concrete details have emerged as to the White House\u2019s intentions.<\/p>\n
The meeting comes as the Trump administration is focused on tariffs and trade deals, and as it seeks to ensure a stable supply of critical minerals.<\/p>\n
But the five nations lack the extreme mineral wealth of other African countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
The gathering additionally takes place just days after the Trump administration celebrated the formal shuttering of the US foreign aid agency USAID, trumpeting the move as an end to the \u201ccharity-based model.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials from the five countries who spoke to AFP seemed keenly aware of the White House ethos.<\/p>\n
Liberia\u2019s President Joseph Boakai accepted the invitation with an eye on no longer being \u201csolely (an) aid recipient,\u201d his press secretary Kula Fofana told AFP on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur interest is to look more to trade and engagement partners who will invest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gabonese presidential spokesman Theophane Biyoghe said the meeting marked a chance for synergies \u201ccentered around the industrialization of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
US arch rivals China and Russia have made major incursions into the region recently, including substantial investments by Beijing in a number of the countries.<\/p>\n
Moscow, meanwhile, has lent support to the region\u2019s newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES), comprised of junta-led Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.<\/p>\n
The alliance states share borders with several of the counties at Wednesday\u2019s lunch.<\/p>\n
Security and drugs could additionally feature on the White House agenda.<\/p>\n
In April, Guinea-Bissau said it had turned over four convicted Latin American drug smugglers to the US DEA drug enforcement authority.<\/p>\n
The country is often used as a transit zone for moving cocaine from Latin America to Europe and beyond.<\/p>\n
Shortly before leaving for Washington, Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo described the visit to the press as \u201cvery important\u201d for his country.<\/p>\n
\u201cEconomically, this is a great opportunity opening for us,\u201d he declared, adding that he hoped his country would also benefit from \u201cthe support\u201d the United States provides to other countries.<\/p>\n
A number of world leaders have faced brutal political ambushes during White House visits.<\/p>\n
Among them are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who became embroiled in a notorious row with Trump, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n
During a visit, Trump showed the South African leader a video of baseless claims of a \u201cwhite genocide\u201d being committed in his country.<\/p>\n
While those episodes happened in front of cameras in the Oval Office, the five African presidents meeting Trump on Wednesday are so far not scheduled to appear before the press.<\/p>\n
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared few details about the meeting when she told a briefing on Monday only that Trump would \u201chost leaders of five African nations for lunch\u201d in the State Dining Room.<\/p>\n
Gabon, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal are among 36 nations that the United States is considering adding to a travel ban barring entry to its territory, according to an internal administration memo last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAKAR: US President Donald Trump will welcome five African leaders to a White House lunch on Wednesday, with commerce and trade expected to feature prominently among a mixed bag of potential agenda items. The presidents of Senegal, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon \u2014 five nations located along Africa\u2019s Atlantic Coast \u2014 will convene at Trump\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83484,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83470\/revisions\/83484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}