Donald Trump has announced a raft of measures on the first day of his second term as American president with some of them likely to affect Africans.
In his inauguration speech on Monday, and shortly after settling into the Oval Office, Trump issued a raft of executive orders, many of which have potential impact on Africa.
Immigration and deportation
President Donald Trump on Monday kicked off his sweeping immigration policy, tasking the US military with border security.
Declaring illegal immigration a national emergency, Trump ordered the Pentagon to provide support for border wall construction, detention space, and migrant transportation and empowered the secretary of defence to send troops to the border as needed.
Trump's plan of a mass deportation operation targeting "criminal aliens" is likely to affect thousands of undocumented South Americans, particularly Mexicans. Analysts say undocumented African immigrants could be hit as well.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, there were an estimated 295,000 unauthorised immigrants from Africa residing in the United States in 2021.
Birth tourism
Donald Trump also issued an order intended to end the so-called birthright citizenship for US-born children whose parents lack legal immigration status.
Citing the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, a White House official said: "The federal government will not recognise automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States. We are also going to enhance vetting and screening of illegal aliens."
For most Africans, this was already a difficult process due to strict visa rules. But since 2020, the US government has intensified the move.
It could be more difficult for pregnant foreign women to go to the US with the aim of giving birth and obtaining citizenship for their children.
The policy allows consular officers to deny tourist (B-2) visas to pregnant women if they believe the primary purpose of their travel is to give birth in the US to obtain US citizenship for their child.
Consular officers are instructed to look for indicators that a woman may be travelling to the US primarily to give birth. These indicators may include factors such as the timing of the travel (late in the pregnancy), the applicant's financial situation, and their travel history.
Global health
Trump signed an order for the United States to exit the World Health Organization, insisting Washington was unfairly paying more than China into the UN body.
Trump said the WHO had failed to act independently from the "inappropriate political influence of WHO member states" and required "unfairly onerous payments" from the U.S. that were disproportionate to the sums provided by other, larger countries, such as China.
"World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It's not going to happen anymore," Trump said at the signing of an executive order on the withdrawal, shortly after his inauguration to a second term.
The US had entered the WHO membership through a 1948 joint resolution passed by both houses of Congress, and this resolution has been supported by successive administrations.
Africa implications
Trump's decision could have profound implications for Africa, where the US-WHO partnership has been instrumental in addressing some public health challenges, including disease outbreaks, workforce shortages, and health system inequities.
The US has been the WHO’s largest donor, providing over $1.28 billion during the 2022–2023 period.
The US has been a key player in supporting WHO-led emergency responses to outbreaks like Ebola, Marburg virus, and mpox. In recent years, US-WHO collaboration helped deliver vaccines and build health system capacity in several African nations.
WHO’s digital health initiatives in Africa, have improved vaccination tracking and health data management, reaching underserved populations.
These programmes may lose momentum without US support, leaving millions of children at risk of preventable diseases.
Reduced support for immunisation programmes could lead to a resurgence of diseases, some experts fear.
Organisations like the Africa CDC, heavily reliant on WHO, may face funding shortfalls, forcing African nations to bear a greater burden.
Climate change
President Donald Trump has also announced withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate accord, repeating an action he took during his first term.
The order extends Trump's defiant rejection of global efforts to combat planetary warming as catastrophic weather events intensify worldwide.
It would take a year to leave the agreement after submitting a formal notice to the United Nations framework that underpins global climate negotiations.
Although they contribute the least to its causes, African countries are among the worst affected by climate change.
They face frequent drought and floods among other disasters. That was why they demanded the biggest polluting countries, including the US, to do more in funding climate action during the last UN conference on climate change in November in Azerbaijan.
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