President Ruto’s diplomatic rows continued as his handling of the Eastern Congo conflict was put into question. In the United States, Trump’s executive orders retain an uncanny resemblance to Project 2025.
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It happened in Kenya: Ruto’s diplomatic swings and misses.
Kenya’s diplomatic priorities were once again, called into question this week.
President Ruto’s handling of the ongoing conflict in Eastern DRC was met with huge backlash after it emerged that he held talks with the French President concerning the issue.
Replying to the tweet, Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi asked; “Mr. President, who the hell is Macron in the scheme of things in Goma and the greater DRC? We are not discussing ethnic and religious riots in Paris and Marseille, for Allah’s sake, to consult little Macron!“
Abdullahi’s sentiments perhaps encapsulate the sentiments of many, in Kenya and abroad.
President Ruto’s actions ask questions of his Pan-Africanist policy agenda which he seems to have on paper but in reality, he turns to court the interests of Western powers.
He also held talks with the new United Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Kenya’s involvement in the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti. Kenya has sent over 600 police troops to the mission as part of a bilateral security agreement signed under the Joe Biden administration, which also made Kenya a Major non-NATO ally of the United States.
However, Trump’s presidency is seemingly less open towards supporting foreign intervention programs such as the mission in Haiti. In a bid to secure his country’s new-found status, President Ruto has been finding ways to warm up to Trump’s administration.
Ruto may be seeking partnerships with other Western partners such as France, as Europe and the United States seem to drift apart and cracks appear in NATO. However, this goes against the interests of many African countries that are striving to shake off ties with their colonial overlords, i.e. France. This should have been evident for a leader who claims to be Pan-Africanist at heart.
Nonetheless, President Ruto convened an emergency session with other leaders in the region in his capacity as the East African Community (EAC) chairperson. The purpose of the meeting, which was held virtually, was to discuss the conflict in Eastern Congo between Rwanda and DRC. President Felix Tshisekedi of DRC was a no-show.
Tshisekedi has accused the EAC, and President Ruto in particular, of picking sides with Kagame and Rwanda in the conflict. A diplomatic row between the DRC and Kenya ensued in 2023 when a Congo rebel alliance (that included factions of M-23) was launched in a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. DRC immediately cut diplomatic ties with Kenya and relations between the two countries have been patchy ever since.
Some political analysts (including myself) are of the opinion that President Ruto’s handling of the situation could sabotage Raila Odinga’s African Union Commission (AUC) chairmanship campaign. His diplomatic overtures with President Macron of France could displease countries, especially those in Central and West Africa.
Odinga has been running his AUC campaign with full state support. His campaign efforts have been coordinated with the President who has also been directly campaigning for him. This was evident during President Ruto’s state visit to Egypt starting Wednesday, January 30, where he was hosted by the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Raila was part of Ruto’s delegation and was given a chance to present his AUC chairmanship bid to the Egyptian President.
The AUC chairmanship elections are set to be held on February 12-13, 2025 during the African Union Summit. The AU Assembly, which consists of African heads of state, elects the AUC chairperson by secret ballot. The winning candidate must obtain more than two-thirds of the 55 votes.
Odinga is currently the leading candidate and several countries have openly endorsed his bid.
On Monday, January 27, President Ruto hosted several African heads of state in his capacity as the AU Champion for Institutional Reforms, a position he has held since September last year. President Ruto flew out to Tanzania the next day where he convened with other African heads for the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit. Odinga was present for the summit as well.
Both events marked the homestretch of the AUC campaign trail.
Global Events: Is Trump bringing Project 2025 to life?
The effects of Trump’s slew of executive orders continue to be felt as the President upped the ante on policy reforms.
As the second week of his presidency rolled around, the United States President continued to double down and exceed promises given during his campaign trail.
Following his inauguration, Trump passed executive orders cracking down on illegal immigration, dismantling diversity and equality initiatives in what he calls the restoration of ‘common sense’, doing away with environmental protection programmes and reinstating oil and gas exploration activities.
A CNN analysis found that 36 of the 53 executive orders issued by Trump are directly correlated with proposals from the ‘Mandate for Leadership’, a 922-page document published by Project 2025. Project 2025 is a conservative political initiative that advocates for right-wing political policies that reshape the United States federal government by removing executive checks on power.
Project 2025 is coordinated by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative political think tank with close ties to the Republican Party. The initiative claims to be a ‘blueprint’ for executive action to be implemented by the next republican president, designed to help them ‘hit the ground running’.
At the height of his political campaign, Trump denied any involvement with Project 2025. Some of the proposals given by Project 2025 were quite unpopular, even with a conservative audience.
During the presidential debate in September 2024, Trump stated, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
Nonetheless, his recent flurry would appear to suggest that he read it. Or at least someone whispering in his ear did. Furthermore, Trump stated in a keynote address to the Heritage Foundation in 2022 that the Mandate for Leadership would play a key role in his Make America Great Again movement plan of action.
| Project 2025’s Proposals. | Trump’s Executive Orders. |
|---|---|
| The US president should ‘quickly and aggressively’ punish countries that refuse to accept deported immigrants. | Trump threatened to impose sanctions on Colombia which had refused immigrants brought in on a US military plane. |
| The US president should revoke security clearances of top government officials accused of political bias by the conservatives. | Trump revoked the security clearances of John Bolton, Brian Hook and Mike Pompeo, all former policy advisors who became some of his biggest critics. |
| Raises concerns that foreign aid programs are disconnected from the strategy and practice of US foreign policy. | Trump’s administration revoked funding for foreign donations and grants from countries not ‘fully aligned’ with his global aims. |
| Highlights foreign immigration as a dire policy concern that should be addressed with urgency. | Trump passed executive orders, labelling the influx of immigrants as an ’emergency’ and delegating state resources to address it, including by deporting undocumented immigrants. |
| Ending subsidies for green energy projects, limiting funds for refugee programs and removing federal works deemed ‘unloyal’ to the administration. | All of these policies have been passed as executive orders by President Trump. |
For a comprehensive list of Trump’s executive orders passed during his first week in office, catch up on last week’s weekly review.
Following in the guise of Project 2025, Trump has been at work rescinding most of Biden’s executive orders and restoring the status quo of his first term in office.
As if the Project 2025 connection wasn’t obvious enough, Trump also appointed several of its authors to key government positions. Russell Vought, Brendan Carr and Tom Homan, all key contributors to Project 2025, have received the top job callings in Trump’s federal government.
Trump also pushed for more trade tariffs, imposing tariffs on goods from China, Canada and Mexico, three of the United States’ largest trading partners. Trump tariff policies may worsen an already volatile economic situation, as the US’s inflation rates continue to soar amidst rising food and commodity prices. Nonetheless, Trump stated that the ‘pain’ due to the tariffs would be ‘worth the price’.
This is not the first time a US administration has issued tariffs to ‘protect American industries’. In the 1920s and 30s, various protectionist policies such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and the Fordney-McCumber Act were introduced by Congress to improve the economic stature of local American manufacturing and agriculture. These tariffs achieved little, other than worsening and expediting the Great Economic Depression (1929-1933).
Trump’s move to suspend federal donations and grants sent shockwaves globally. US federal grants facilitate the activities of numerous non-profit organizations and entities, especially across much of the developing world. This followed Trump’s move to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, which has brought the Global Healthcare ecosystem to a standstill.
Trump’s supporters have applauded him for taking these ‘bold’ actions, notwithstanding the fact they may expose the developing world to a major humanitarian crisis. However, the developing world too needs to let off depending on the United States for life support and start taking initiative for solving its own humanitarian problems.
It is quite ironic that despite African countries, for example, loose billions daily to corruption, yet their healthcare and education systems continue to languish due to being underfunded. Consequently, many of these countries have grown dependent on donor-funded programs to support programs in these sectors.
Trump’s ascension to power has also been fueling the rise of conservative, ultra-nationalist movements across much of Europe. In Germany, for example, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, a far-right political movement has been gaining ground and support in the country. AfD has been fervently campaigning and taking issue with immigration and has been against the current and previous administrations’ moves to allow more refugees and asylum seekers into the country.
The party currently polls second in the electoral polls and is expected to obtain a substantial number of seats in Germany’s parliamentary elections to be held on February 23.
Elon Musk also gave a virtual speech during AfD’s campaign launch, stating that Germany needs to move on from its focus on ‘past guilt’. Musk seemed to allude to the days of Nazi Germany, and the country’s commitment towards distancing itself from far-right politics. His remarks may have emerged as insensitive and ‘anti-semitic’, coupled with the ‘Nazi gestures’ he appeared to make during his speech at Trump’s inauguration.
Elsewhere in the Region: The Rwanda-DRC conflict escalates
The world stopped to pay attention as the M-23 rebels took control of the city of Goma in Eastern DRC.
The rebels stormed into the city after taking control of much of the North Kivu province, of which Goma is the capital. By Friday, the rebels’ offensive proceeded south, heading for the South Kivu provincial capital of Bukavu. The rebels have pledged to march to the capital, Kinshasa to make their grievances heard by Tshisekedi’s government.
This is not the first time that M-23 has taken over the city of Goma. The rebel movement had captured Goma and held it captive for days in November 2012. They were forced to withdraw following mounting international pressure on their biggest supporter, Rwanda.
Rwanda has denied any involvement with the rebel movement despite obvious links to the rebel group.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame decried his disappointment with the peace process during the emergency meeting by EAC heads of state convened by President William Ruto of Kenya. He has continually stated that his country will go to great lengths to defend its national security, citing the presence of Rwandese anti-government rebel groups operating within Eastern DRC.
Rwanda and DRC have blamed each other for supporting rebel groups that collectively undermine their national security. Rwanda has launched various military offensives into DRC to exterminate rebel groups that it perceives as threats to its well-being.
Rwanda blames DRC for not doing enough to deal with the rebels operating in its borders. Therefore, it insists that the DRC must negotiate directly with the M-23 rebels operating within its borders, a non-negotiable that the DRC refuses to back down on. DRC’s refusal to negotiate with the M-23 rebels may have been a reason for the collapse of the Luanda Peace Process, which Rwanda walked out from.
The M-23 rebel group numbers about 4,000 strong and is made up of mostly Tutsi soldiers. It is supposed that a faction of the Rwandese military could be fighting among M-23 ranks. Nonetheless, M-23 receives much logistical support from Rwanda.
More than 700 people have been killed since fighting broke out in Goma and a humanitarian crisis threatened to unravel. The international community has been placing pressure on Rwanda to cease its support for the M-23 rebels.
Uganda recorded its first Ebola casualty since 2023, as a 32-year-old man succumbed to the symptoms of the disease.
The country last recorded an Ebola outbreak in 2022, as the illness killed 55 of the 143 reported victims. The East African region has been dealing with a resurgence in communicable diseases; such as the monkeypox virus outbreak and the Marburg disease outbreak.
The country has scrambled to contain the spread of the disease to prevent the emergence of another outbreak.
Also, the Ugandan Supreme Court issued a ruling suspending the prosecution of civilians in military courts.
The ruling comes as a reprieve for Kizza Besigye, Uganda’s long-standing opposition leader who was abducted in Nairobi in November 2024.
Besigye has appeared on trial in Uganda’s military court where faces various multiple charges of firearms and security, some of which could hand him the death sentence.
Besigye’s family and lawyers have stated that the charges are unfounded and politically motivated. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni’s government has been accused of using military courts as a means to target political opponents with politically charged accusations.
On January 22, 2025, Tanzania’s long-standing opposition figure Tundu Lissu was elected as chairman of CHADEMA, the country’s main opposition outfit.
Lissu will lead the party’s military offensive against CCM, Tanzania’s ruling party that has effectively held power since the country’s independence. Lissu will face off against the Samia Suluhu Hassan, the country’s current president.
His will not be any small fete. CCM has had a vice grip on power in the country. CCM has effectively run Tanzania as a pseudo-democracy where some political opposition is allowed but any substantial political reprisal is cracked upon.
Lissu has personally suffered at the hands of the government, especially during John Magufuli’s tenure. He survived an opposition attempt in 2017 and was forced to flee to exile in Belgium.
Whilst Suluhu’s government has been more open to democratic reform, incidences of violence and government crackdowns have been documented in the country.
That’s it for this week!
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