Seoul Gazette - German FM, on Africa tour, eyes business ties amid US, China pressure

Johann Wadephul called for "strengthening trade and investment" at a meeting with his counterpart Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu in Abuja, having spent Tuesday in the economic capital, Lagos.

Claudia Roth, a Green party member of parliament accompanying Wadephul, told AFP "in this world I think desperately, we need new partners... against the warlords in politics, against these Trumps and Putins and Xis."

Diplomatic and trade tensions have flared between the United States and Europe as US President Donald Trump has upended global trade policy and threatened the stability of the NATO military alliance.

Europe's economy is under pressure from what it calls unfair Chinese trade practices, while Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine drags into its fifth year.

China and Russia have also carved out economic and security ties, respectively, in Africa.

But Wadephul, on his third trip to Africa this year, said "the potential of our economic partnership is far from exhausted" in Nigeria, "particularly in information technology and the vibrant start-up sector".

Bilateral trade grew by around 10 percent last year, he said.

That comes as President Bola Tinubu has engaged in a raft of reforms, hailed by economists and investors, including liberalising the naira currency exchange rate, overhauling the tax code and removing a costly fuel subsidy.

Wadephul named "critical raw materials, renewable energy and the pharmaceutical industry" as areas for potential growth.

- Dwindling foreign aid -

The German foreign minister also commended Nigeria -- which has been fighting a jihadist insurgency concentrated in its northeast since 2009 -- for standing on "the front line in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism".

He warned of a "spillover" of fighting from separate insurgencies in the neighbouring Sahel.

Wadephul's promise of continued security and humanitarian cooperation, however, comes as Germany's foreign aid budget has been cut repeatedly.

While the United States has come under scrutiny for dismantling its main aid organ, USAID, there has also been a broader Western retreat from foreign assistance in recent years.

Tinubu's economic reforms, meanwhile, have sparked frustrations domestically after they caused crushing inflation in the short term.

Roth, the Green lawmaker, said that humanitarian aid would remain on the agenda.

Mauritania, where the German delegation stopped Monday, "desperately needs it", she said, citing hundreds of thousands of refugees who have arrived from neighbouring Mali "because the situation in the Sahel is so dangerous".

Germany would also pursue "partnerships on a different level" across Africa, she said.

"We are not coming from the north and educating people, but we are coming and saying... 'we do not know anything better, we have to learn from you'," she told AFP.

"Europe is quite fragile, so we need a strong partnership."

Wadephul's three-country tour ends in South Africa on Thursday.

C.Park--SG