"Africa has tremendous business potential. I have so many friends going to your countries, trying to get rich,” he said, pausing and smiling, but receiving only silence in response. He recovered, adding, "But it does, it has a tremendous business potential and representing huge amounts of different markets. And for American firms it’s really become a place that they have to go, that they want to go.”

Trump called for increasing US trade and investment in half a dozen industries from agriculture to tourism. He noted that the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an aid agency created by George W Bush, is considering an investment in Côte d’Ivoire, which has been a recipient of the program since 2015. Given that six of the world’s fastest growing economies are in Africa, the continent has "tremendous, tremendous potential,”according to the president. (The World Bank has updated for 2017 that just three of the world’s fastest expanding economies are in Africa: Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Tanzania.)

Africa is indeed an opportunity that US businesses are missing out on. US exports to Africa fell to $17.8 billion last year, from $38 billion in 2014. Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the region reached $102 billion in 2015. The European Union is negotiating trade agreements with regional African blocs while the US has not signed a new bilateral investment treaty in Africa since 2005.

The president’s speech, however puzzling, is at least a departure from a bare-bones US-Africa policy so far. The nine-month old administration’s main engagement with Africa has been proposing cuts to PEPFAR, a crucial US-funded health program in Africa, sending US troops to Somalia to fight the extremist group al-Shabaab, and finalizing a $593 million weapons sale to the Nigerian military. Most US ambassadorships to African countries are still unfilled.