Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 10, 2025 / 15:19 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo asked U.S. President Donald Trump this weekend to reinstate foreign aid to Africa.
“Targeted humanitarian aid for Africa is urgently needed, morally good, and of great strategic value to the U.S,” Ambongo, the archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, wrote in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday afternoon.
“President Trump has made clear that he will put the needs of his country and its citizens first before attending to the needs of the world. No leader of a nation as great as the U.S. could do otherwise,” the cardinal stated. “It would be a mistake, however, for Mr. Trump to forget about Africa.”
Ambongo highlighted Africa’s rich natural resources and “bright entrepreneurial and eager young people” as important assets to the U.S., emphasizing the utility of a relationship between Africa and the United States.
American generosity toward Africa through USAID has “transformed millions of lives for the better” in the region, Ambongo said, pointing out that American aid has helped enhance African society and avert further political and economic crises threatening the continent’s development. In the process, he noted, American economic influence in the region has been strengthened.
With the freezing of critical aid to African countries, the cardinal described Africa as “a magnet for conflicts and fights over the natural resources so important to modern technology.”
He also noted pervasive famine and poverty plaguing many parts of the region.
While Ambongo acknowledged the need for the U.S. to be concerned about the use of its limited resources, he noted that international adversaries will replace the U.S. if it completely withdraws all aid to Africa.
“International politics won’t tolerate a vacuum,” he predicted. “Should the U.S. abandon Africa, its place will be taken by its adversaries: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.”
The cardinal stressed that “it isn’t too late to turn the tide” and reach a mutually beneficial solution that does not exploit U.S. resources for ideological causes that run counter to African values by providing aid that supports abortion services and contraception in the region.
“It’s unhelpful to tie aid to ideology — to abortion or ‘population control’ — that defies the values of many African cultures,” he said. “I believe that respect for African culture can coexist with humanitarian aid. Cultural colonization needn’t be the price exacted for a moral, strategic, and humanitarian partnership.”
Ambongo’s remarks on the politicization of humanitarian aid come after the U.S. State Department announced its plans to destroy a reserve of artificial contraceptives that was previously set aside for distribution in developing countries through foreign aid programs.
Pleading on behalf of bishops, priests, and laypeople in Africa, Ambongo urged Trump and his administration “to reconsider aid to his friends in Africa, who have been and will continue to be important partners of the U.S.”
“We are eager to work closely with Washington to ensure that all such aid is used well, free of the fraud and mismanagement that has occurred in the past,” he concluded. “There is too much at stake — for Africans, for Americans, and for the world.”
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We read: “Should the U.S. abandon Africa, its place will be taken by its adversaries: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.”
Past engagement with Africa came in the form of the direct slave trade. But now in our convoluted times, to abandon Africa would indirectly enable a new kind of slavery under the cloud of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. And, under another cloud—prime-time and electioneering slogans—do any of the really smart operatives, anywhere, still consider the operative “Law of Unintended Consequences”?
And, about the “pervasive famine and poverty plaguing many parts of the region,” surely what’s left of Western civilization can do better than settle for triage of vulnerable populations? Surely?
CNA should also get its own house in order. The term “artificial contraceptives” is stupid, as if NFP is simply a non-artificial “contraceptive.” But, yes, do not adulterate foreign aid with moral blackmail…the attached contraceptive and LGBTQ ideologies.
To second Mr. Beaulieu above – Yes, get the artificial out of the
contraceptives.