Look at the chief economic and strategic spots across Africa — ports for key trade corridors, mines that produce critical minerals, large renewable energy projects — and you will find the United Arab Emirates.As the United States and, to a lesser extent, China reduce their investment, aid and presence on the continent, the Emirates is using its enormous wealth to fill the void.Persian Gulf investments in Africa, primarily by the Emirates, have exploded in recent years. Since 2019, $110 billion worth of deals — mostly by firms tightly aligned with the ruling powers — have been announced, dwarfing amounts pledged by any other country. “The UAE is turning into a dominant foreign player” in much of Africa, said Anna Jacobs, a nonresident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.Its efforts to become a world leader, particularly in finance and technology, are likely to be bolstered under President Trump, Jacobs said. The President, seeking to draw Emirati money to the United States, paved the way this week for the sale of American advanced artificial intelligence chips to the Emirates.Like other oil-producing nations in the Persian Gulf, the Emirates is looking to diversify its economy away from fossil fuels, and it sees Africa as an essential part of the plan. The continent has vast mineral resources, a growing population, agricultural potential and a strategically important location bordering the Red and Mediterranean seas as well as the Indian and Atlantic oceans.Powerhouse Emirati corporations based in Dubai and Abu Dhabi with political connections are in dozens of countries across Africa.AMEA Power is already building or operating clean energy plants in Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Togo, Tunisia and Uganda and has plans to expand. Abu Dhabi National Energy has projects in Morocco, Senegal and South Africa.DP World, the gargantuan govt-backed ports and logistics operator, has invested billions of dollars in ports and economic free zones from Algeria to Zambia, including in the Berbera port city in the breakaway republic of Somaliland, where the Emirates also has a military base.Last year, the Emirati International Holding invested more than $1 billion for a 51% share in the Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia.Spending in Egypt has also soared. Last year, the Emirates agreed to invest $35 billion to develop a new city and tourism destination on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.Once the biggest foreign investor on the continent through its Belt and Road Initiative, China still has a large presence, but Beijing has pulled back in recent years after a series of debt crises in Africa and at home.In 2022 and 2023, the Emirates announced a total of $97 billion in investments in Africa — three times China’s total, according to fDi Markets, a database of foreign investments. US investment in 2023 was about $10 billion.Meanwhile, Trump has fast-tracked the US’ exit from Africa, ending billions of dollars in funding, dismantling the USAID and ending all contributions to the African Development Bank.
