Trump notches up more than $16bn in health pacts with Africa

The United States has signed a health agreement with Ivory Coast, bringing the total value of bilateral deals US President Donald Trump’s administration has done in Africa since withdrawing from the World Health Organisation to more than $16 billion (R264 billion).

The five-year pact with Ivory Coast is valued at more than $480 million, the US embassy in Ivory Coast said in a statement on Tuesday.

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Trump has signed health pacts with more than a dozen nations on the continent, including Kenya and Nigeria.

The moves have raised concerns about data privacy and the risk of weakening global cooperation.

A Kenyan court temporarily froze the $2.5 billion deal and asked the government not to share medical, epidemiological or sensitive personal health data with the US.

Source: Bloomberg

“For Washington, this approach aligns health security with industrial competitiveness,” Ngozi Erondu, associate fellow at Chatham House, wrote in an article posted on the think tank’s website.

“For its partners in Africa and elsewhere, however, it risks hardening patterns of structural dependency precisely when they want to improve their own manufacturing and regulatory capacity.”

The US Department of State has said the America First Global Health Strategy will save millions of lives. In Nigeria, the pact will help to provide access to medicines and healthcare to combat HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. As part of the deal, the West African nation will spend $3 billion, according to a State Department statement.

“We are in a new generation of our assistance,” Jessica Davis Ba, US ambassador to Ivory Coast, said at the briefing. “We are working together with Côte d’Ivoire on HIV/Aids, malaria issues and global health.”

Ivory Coast will contribute 163 billion CFA franc ($292 million), accounting for 60% of the funds by 2030, Prime Minister Beugré Mambé said.

Read: Ivory Coast edges past South Africa on African ratings scorecard [May 2024]

“These agreements would give the US undue leverage over your governments, including to decrease or cancel health assistance for perceived noncompliance,” 50 civil rights organisations said in a letter to African leaders earlier this month.

“These terms also raise serious potential human rights violations.”

© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.

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