U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are falling around the world, but one continent stands apart: Africa. Around 3 in 5 young Africans believe that Trump’s leadership could benefit the continent, the fourth edition of the African Youth Survey has found.

Since its inception in 2020, the survey has revealed significant support for U.S. influence—as high as 83 percent in the last year of Trump’s first term, with Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda leading the way. On the brink of a U.S. presidential election in 2024, 42 percent of young Africans felt that then-President Joe Biden would be more beneficial to their countries, and only 23 percent supported his rival. Since the change of power in the Oval Office, however, and despite Trump’s disparaging remarks about the continent, nearly two-thirds of the nearly 5,000 African interviewees aged 18 to 24 across 16 countries are optimistic that the Trump administration will be beneficial for them.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are falling around the world, but one continent stands apart: Africa. Around 3 in 5 young Africans believe that Trump’s leadership could benefit the continent, the fourth edition of the African Youth Survey has found.

Since its inception in 2020, the survey has revealed significant support for U.S. influence—as high as 83 percent in the last year of Trump’s first term, with Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda leading the way. On the brink of a U.S. presidential election in 2024, 42 percent of young Africans felt that then-President Joe Biden would be more beneficial to their countries, and only 23 percent supported his rival. Since the change of power in the Oval Office, however, and despite Trump’s disparaging remarks about the continent, nearly two-thirds of the nearly 5,000 African interviewees aged 18 to 24 across 16 countries are optimistic that the Trump administration will be beneficial for them.

On a personal level, Trump strikes a chord with the culturally conservative and those who aspire to become wealthy. Books by and about the straight-talking billionaire reportedly sell well in Nigeria’s and Zimbabwe’s secondhand bookstores—Why Donald J. Trump Must Win 2024, by former Kenyan Sen. Kennedy Mong’are, praises Trump’s business acumen—while some young wealthy entrepreneurs aspire to the nickname “the Trump of Zimbabwe.”

Trump’s appeal in Africa is influenced by both traditional and anti-establishment values, said Chipo Dendere, an assistant professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College.

“Young people—especially young men—were attracted to Trump for the same reasons young men in the U.S. are shifting rightward,” Dendere said. The so-called manosphere’s influence is strong on the continent, she told Foreign Policy.

For Shadaya Knight—a popular but controversial social media personality from Zimbabwe—Trump is a positive role model because of his values of manhood and leadership.

“I like Trump because he’s a masculine figure, someone who isn’t ashamed of being a man, especially in the first world,” Knight said.

Trump’s assertive approach to foreign relations, emphasizing deal-making and peacebuilding in pursuit of strategic U.S. interests, has elicited positive reactions even in countries where relations are strained. In South Africa, a country that has fractious relations with Trump, there is still strong support for him, said Freeman Bhengu, a member of Operation Dudula, a grassroots anti-migration movement.

Operation Dudula, which means “force out,” is a key player in South Africa’s ongoing protests against undocumented migrants, which have seen an estimated 175,000 Africans being repatriated back to their homelands. The group’s “South Africans First” stance has been legally challenged, but Bhengu said he believes that every sovereign nation should be entitled to prioritize its own citizens.

“As an African, what resonates with me most about the America First message is not that Africa should become America, but that African countries should also put their own citizens first,” Bhengu said.

A young African liking Trump does not necessarily translate into liking his or her own country’s strongmen, though. According to the 2026 Now Generation Network survey, supported by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, there is robust support across the continent among young leaders for democratic institutions such as independent judiciaries and media as well as presidential term limits.

A 2023 Afrobarometer survey found that roughly 70 percent of those polled supported presidential term limits and a preference for democracy to any other system of government. More recent Afrobarometer studies have underscored that preference—although trust in elected governments has waned for several reasons, including distrust of governance institutions, corruption, abuse of office, and economic problems.

In this context, support for Trump among young Nigerians is a sign of protest against their own leaders, said Joshua Akintayo, a Nigerian policy analyst. “Supporting him therefore becomes an indirect way of expressing dissatisfaction with Nigeria’s own political class,” he said.

The Trump administration’s decision to cease almost all U.S. Agency for International Development programs and limit support for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief across the continent has raised significant concern among experts. Yet according to the African Youth Survey, 26 percent of young Africans, particularly in Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria, believe that the aid cuts could have a positive impact, perhaps by forcing African governments to take more responsibility for the needs of their citizens.

Ivor Ichikowitz, the founder of the African Youth Survey, said this indicates that “some young Africans associate the withdrawal of aid not only with loss, but also with the possibility of greater self-reliance and government accountability.”

In the Sahel, Lisa Tschörner, a researcher with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, has argued that countries perceive the United States’ withdrawal of aid and from internal affairs as amounting to noninterference, a significant shift from conditional development aid, investment, and financing.

“They see Trump as ideologically close to their own military governments, which had gained popular support through a nationalist-sovereign discourse,” Tschörner told Foreign Policy. “People hoped that under Trump, a more transactional partnership with the U.S. could be established.”

The U.S. Bureau of African Affairs recently devised a new “U.S.-Africa Strategic Investment Program,” which will award grants to businesses and nonprofits on a competitive basis. With a budget of $500 million, the new fund affirms Washington’s move toward a more transactional approach, using development funds to support private and public ventures that align with U.S. interests.

Despite approval among many of Trump and his transactional ways, there is still distrust of Washington’s intentions. The African Youth Survey showed that 7 in 10 young South Africans and Liberians anticipated that the United States would disregard international law to access African natural resources. Roughly two-thirds of Ghanaians and Somalis polled also shared the same skepticism.

“This generation has worked out what much of the Western commentariat still refuses to,” Ichikowitz said. “Diplomacy is about what you can get from the man in the Oval Office, not whether you like him.”

Still, while Trump’s hard power is attractive to some, this does not necessarily translate to widespread African support for a Washington-led world order. With nearly $350 billion in trade flowing annually between China and Africa, Beijing enjoys the strongest ally rating of any foreign country tested in the survey.

The survey’s review of multiple global actors, including the African Union and the European Union, suggests that there is preference for a multipolarity. In 2024, 69% of those polled felt their countries should play a role in ending international conflicts, while in 2026, 79% of African youth support UN reform to include permanent African representation on the Security Council.

As part of the world’s fastest-growing population, Africans such as Bhengu want to be seen as equal economic players.

Rather than Washington restricting visas, Bhengu said, “I would prefer to see greater emphasis on trade, investment, skills, infrastructure, and partnerships that create sustainable economic independence.”