Washington keeps asking why it is losing Africa to China. I commissioned a survey of nearly 5,000 young Africans to find out what they don’t like about America, and the answer is uncomfortable. America has not been losing because young Africans prefer Beijing. It is losing because previously it would not stop lecturing a continent that has outgrown the lesson.
Last week the Pew Research Center reported that, for the first time, China is viewed more favorably than America across much of the world. Our numbers say the same about Africa. But they also say something Pew did not capture: the race is far from over – and President Trump, of all people, is the reason why they could still win it.
Young Africans want to deal with Trump for the same reason they will deal with Xi. Results
The 2024 edition of the survey found young Africans expected a Biden administration to be better for their countries than a Trump administration by 42 percent to 23 percent. Yet, now they have seen a Trump presidency in action, the 2026 edition finds the opposite. Young Africans are optimistic that President Trump’s second administration will bring about a better future in many of the areas they care most about: youth empowerment and security cooperation and counterterrorism both at 60 percent, democracy support and trade relations both at 59 percent, with military support, development aid, and political support, all at 58 percent.
Every respondent this year was polled after Trump returned to office and the findings show that, whatever the consensus is in DC, it is actually hard to argue Trump 2.0 has in any way made America less visible in Africa. If anything, he has put it back at the center of the conversation.
The African Youth Survey 2026 canvassed 4,901 people aged 18 to 24, randomly selected across 16 African nations. It is the fourth edition of a biennial study I have commissioned since 2020. This year’s headline is that a generation of Africans has stopped taking the West on trust. Instead, they want to see results. And, on that criterion, they like what they see in Washington.
Overall, since President Trump took office for his second term, US influence has risen from 74 percent in 2024 to 81 percent, edging ahead of China at 79 percent. Yet, as the Pew Research Center also found, visibility is not the same as goodwill.
On whether that influence is positive, China wins comfortably: 95 percent say its role is good for their country, against 85 percent for America. Thirty years of Chinese roads, rail and ports have bought Beijing a great deal of gratitude. Yet 80 percent of the same young people told us they are worried about foreign powers meddling in their countries. This is a generation that will take your bridge and still not trust your motives.
When we asked them to name enemies, America drew blood: one in ten called it a strong or partial adversary, more than three times the 3 percent who said the same of China. The United States has earned that suspicion. Washington backed apartheid South Africa almost to the day it fell. In the same week John F. Kennedy told Americans to ask what they could do for their country, the United States was implicated in the murder of Patrice Lumumba, a democratically elected African leader.
Young Africans do not need a history lecture from me. Many of them can recite this one better than the State Department can. But here is the finding that should stop Washington in its tracks. Despite all that history, 52 percent of young Africans say African leaders should find a way to work with President Trump. Not because they trust him. Some 58 percent expect America to break international law to get its hands on African minerals, a figure that climbs to seven in ten in my own South Africa. Young Africans expect to be shortchanged but they want to do the deal anyway.
That is not naivety. It is the most clear-eyed foreign policy instinct on the continent. This generation has worked out what much of the Western commentariat still refuses to: diplomacy is about what you can get from the man in the Oval Office, not whether you like him. Young Africans want to deal with Trump for the same reason they will deal with Xi. Results.
Which is why the gutting of USAID lands so badly, and why Washington should think hard about it. You cannot build a clinic, put a flag on it, then walk away and expect a generation to be grateful. China does not walk away.
Watch one project above all. The critical minerals of south-eastern Congo are what the entire energy transition runs on, and the old colonial railways that carry them are now a battlefield. America is running studies and consultations on the western line to the Atlantic. China, later to start, has already assembled the money for the eastern route. Beijing is currently ahead in this race.
Our survey makes clear respondents notice the difference, and so should you. I have no doubt the 2028 survey will record who won. The lesson of the 2026 Africa Youth Survey is not complicated, though it seems to baffle capitals from Washington to Brussels. Africa’s young want results. Studies and development plans are not enough. They are done being a cause to be saved and ready to be a market to be won. Whoever grasps that first wins Africa in the 21st century. Right now, that is not America. But under Donald Trump, the most remarkable result of this year’s survey is that it still could be.
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