The United Arab Emirates is significantly increasing its economic influence in Africa, investing heavily in key sectors like ports, mining, and renewable energy. With the United States and China reducing their presence, the UAE has pledged billions in deals, surpassing other nations’ investments. This strategic move aims to diversify the UAE’s economy and capitalize on Africa’s resources and strategic location.
Look at the chief economic and strategic spots across Africa — ports for key trade corridors, mines that produce critical minerals, large renewable energy projects — and you will find the United Arab Emirates.
As the United States and, to a lesser extent, China reduces their investment, aid and presence on the continent, the Emirates is using its enormous wealth to fill the void.
Persian Gulf investments in Africa, primarily by the Emirates, have exploded in recent years. Since 2019, $110 billion worth of deals — mostly by firms tightly aligned with the ruling powers — have been announced, dwarfing amounts pledged by any other country. “The UAE is turning into a dominant foreign player” in much of Africa, said Anna Jacobs, a nonresident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Its efforts to become a world leader, particularly in finance and technology, are likely to be bolstered under President Trump, Jacobs said. The President, seeking to draw Emirati money to the United States, paved the way this week for the sale of American advanced artificial intelligence chips to the Emirates. Like other oil-producing nations in the Persian Gulf, the Emirates is looking to diversify its economy away from fossil fuels, and it sees Africa as an essential part of the plan.
The continent has vast mineral resources, a growing population, agricultural potential and a strategically important location bordering the Red and Mediterranean seas as well as the Indian and Atlantic oceans.
Powerhouse Emirati corporations based in Dubai and Abu Dhabi with political connections are in dozens of countries across Africa.
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