Some call America’s Africa policy “No Africa Policy,” and perhaps the new Monroe Doctrine adopted by President Trump in December raises concerns, because it calls for focusing on the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. urgently needs to review its Africa policy and not make it simply a reaction to the moves of competing powers such as China and Russia, or base it on pressure from human rights activists in the U.S. or Europe.
For example, America needs a new approach to African gold. This continent produces one-third of the world’s gold. It suffers from the use of gold to fuel internal conflicts, but it also suffers from international competition over gold. Therefore, instead of moving toward one side of the contradiction — campaigning against gold production or criticizing the international scramble for African gold — I propose the “Accountable Gold Initiative.”
In African countries suffering from “internal gold conflicts” and “international competition over gold,” the solution is to focus on the required standards and how to agree on them with African countries. Therefore, the Accountable Gold Initiative could offer a different approach: supporting legal and transparent production that is accountable and serves communities, instead of treating African gold as a cursed material by nature and pushing it away from America toward the global shadow economy, where competitors take control and are then followed by conflicts with them, which America and Europe often lose.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the European Union has imposed targeted sanctions in recent years against individuals and entities linked to human rights violations, instability, and the continuation of the conflict. Did it work? No, because there are simply alternatives for European companies.
This is an especially important lesson for people in charge of Sudan’s affairs, where the EU decided on July 13, 2026, to ban the purchase, import and transport of gold from Sudan. Will the ban succeed? We will see the same failure.
Washington should learn from this experience and not automatically move toward a sanctions policy that may seem like an easy tool to show firmness and achieve diplomatic gains, but is not an effective tool for building a new relationship with Africa. In a multipolar world, there are other powers ready to take advantage of the economic and political vacuum in the world.
The Clean Gold Initiative, for its part, provides environmentally friendly alternatives for gold production. But under the Accountable Gold Initiative, work would be done on both sides: global dialogue on international gold regulations instead of competition over Africa, and dialogue with African countries on domestic gold regulations. Western countries alone — such as Switzerland and the U.K. — assessing the legality of gold is a mistake, and African governments alone, without democratic representation within their countries, making laws and monitoring gold is also a mistake.
This approach could be more compatible with both American and African interests. It does not ask Africa to choose between America and Russia, nor does it try to remove African gold from the global market. Instead, it helps Africans build a more independent and transparent gold market.
For the U.S., this path could be smarter than sanctions, especially if U.S. actors step forward and support it, such as the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), business networks and relationship-building organizations led by African Americans, or think tanks for economic and global affairs that are serious about U.S.-Africa relations.
Elmograbi is a media and governance consultant, press writer and former diplomat in Washington, D.C. Reach him via email at elmograbi@gmail.com.
