Africa knows who its true friends are – and they’re not in Washington

The gaffe at last month’s Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, where a US State Department presentation displayed a map of Africa with every country mislabelled, serves as more than a source of embarrassment. It was a potent symbol of the distance between Washington’s rhetoric and its real stance regarding the African continent.
Earlier this year, Nick Checker, a senior US State Department official, spoke of “resetting” US relations with Africa, pivoting away from dependency and towards...