President-elect Trump is expected to tap Joe Foltz, staff director for the Republican side of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, to lead the Africa desk at the National Security Council, according to a congressional aide.
Foltz served on the NSC during Trump’s first term in office, and also served at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Biden administration, as humanitarian affairs division chief and director of legislative affairs.
The Trump transition team would not confirm the appointment.
“President-Elect Trump has made brilliant decisions on who will serve in his second Administration at lightning pace. Remaining decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s incoming press secretary.
During his time on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Foltz is credited as a driving force behind a bill to establish the U.S. Foundation for International Conservation (USFIC), a public-private initiative funding conservation efforts globally. The legislation is also aimed at undercutting China and Russia’s malign influence in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
The bipartisan bill was included in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act and co-sponsored on the House side by the chair of the committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), and the ranking member, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.).
Foltz this week shared a post on the social media site X by Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, saying that anyone working with the NSC “will be fully aligned with his America First agenda.”
“Any rumors or suggestions to the contrary are fake news and a distraction from the mission. We will clear the decks to Make America Great Again!” Waltz wrote on the post on X.
Discussion on priorities for U.S. relations with Africa were largely absent from Trump’s campaign rhetoric and in 2018, he railed against immigration from “sh–hole countries” in Africa.
The Biden administration and Congress have sought to elevate ties with African nations, amid growing competition for resources and influence with Russia and China on the continent. Lawmakers included in the NDAA that a leaders-level summit between the U.S. and African leaders should take place in at least 2026, and every two years after.
Trump did not visit the continent while serving as president, but did endorse plans by his then-National Security Advisor John Bolton to recognize Morocco’s claims to sovereignty over Western Sahara.
Trump also removed Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, as part of efforts to have Khartoum establish relations with Israel. But civil war broke out in that country in 2023 and the Biden administration has sanctioned a top general and determined that general’s paramilitary forces, the Rapid Support Forces, have committed genocide.
President Biden made a historic trip to Angola in early December, his first and only trip to the continent. But experts say that while the administration laid out ambitious goals for elevating U.S.-Africa ties, there was little follow through.
“In his nearly four years in office, President Biden has hosted fewer than a handful of Africans for Oval Office visits. He makes phone calls to African leaders with similar frequency,” Cameron Hudson, senior fellow with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an article that was shared by Foltz on X.
Hudson earlier told The Hill he wasn’t convinced Trump will make a major policy shift on Africa.
“I think that Trump is going to take a narrower view, a more defined view of what U.S. interests are in Africa,” he said. “[Trump] will be very clear what he cares about and what he doesn’t care about.”
