For two decades, China’s strategy in Africa was straightforward: shower the continent with opaque and corrupt loans to build roads, ports, and power plants, securing influence and natural resources for itself. But that lending boom is winding down and the bills are coming due.

As China shifts from serving as Africa’s ATM to its debt collector, the U.S. has a generational opening to become the partner of choice for a disillusioned continent — if Washington moves with speed, purpose, and transparency.

The lending retrenchment is real. Chinese sovereign lending to Africa has fallen sharply from its 2018 peak — down roughly 71 percent by 2023 — even as Chinese trade and investment attention tilts toward mining and critical minerals. That means fewer new loans but more pressure to collect on the old ones. The new reality is hard-nosed recovery on opaque and unpopular contracts.

Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway shows what’s at stake. The rail line was sold as a cost-saving connection from Mombasa to Nairobi to Kampala and beyond. Instead, after billions in Chinese finance and construction, it ends abruptly in a field west of Nairobi. Kenyan Courts questioned how the main contract was awarded, and shippers complained their total logistics costs had increased. The railway became a political millstone rather than the growth engine Kenyans had been promised.

African Governments now face a brutal trade-off: Either service Chinese debt or deliver jobs and services to restive, youthful populations. Beijing sees the problem and is trying to salvage its position with public-diplomacy campaigns, media training, and party-to-party exchanges.

This hands the U.S. a golden opportunity to step in with transactional, transparent, and growth-centered solutions that make commercial sense for U.S. firms and local economies. America should lean into its comparative advantage of its deep capital markets, world-class firms, and the rule-of-law standards that lower the real cost of capital over time.

A ready vehicle exists and is prepared to meet the moment: Prosper Africa — an initiative I was honored to steer from March 2023 to June 2025. Launched in 2019, under the first Trump administration, it coordinated 17 federal agencies to help U.S. and African firms close nearly 2,500 deals worth more than $120 billion.

The initiative, however, was de-prioritized under the Biden administration and disappeared in 2025 with the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which housed the initiative’s secretariat.

What’s needed now is a relaunch with a purpose. Call it Prosper Africa 2.0 — an “ Economic Command Center for Africa,” which does three things.

First, deliver alternatives fast. Stand up a rapid response Prosper Africa team in the State Department’s Africa Bureau that can identify bankable packages in weeks, not years.  Harness the best minds in U.S. finance, mining, and technology; empower them with the tools of political risk insurance, equity stakes, guaranteed offtakes; and unleash them to set U.S. commercial priorities. This team should have direct access to U.S. ambassadors abroad, political leadership in Washington, and a broad consortium of private sector stakeholders to develop coordinated infrastructure, transportation, energy, mining, and commercial projects. Make commercial diplomacy the center of U.S.-Africa engagement. The point is not to out-subsidize China; it’s to out-execute with cleaner terms and better long-run economics.

Second, play to U.S. strengths. Africa’s fastest growth is in services, such as fintech, digital infrastructure, creative industries, health tech, and energy services. These are sectors where American firms dominate on quality and where governance — and data-security standards — matter. Prosper Africa 2.0 should function as a single front door for U.S. companies, pairing them with vetted African partners and pre-cleared finance so deals don’t die in red tape.

Third, increase transparency. Africa’s bad Chinese deals were driven forward by big bribes and secret confidentiality clauses that fueled public backlash around China-financed megaprojects like the Kenyan railway. The U.S. government should also help our African allies expose corrupt Chinese lending and push back against aggressive collections. African youth deserve to know the nature and history of the debt they are paying.

As the former head of Prosper Africa, I know that first and foremost Africans don’t want more aid. They want commercial partnerships that are fair, clean, and productive — partnerships that create jobs and opportunities on both sides on the Atlantic. That should be the center of our Africa policy.

China’s lending spree is ending; its collection phase has begun. That shift will define Africa’s political economy for the next decade. The United States can offer a better path that aligns prosperity with accountability. A Prosper Africa 2.0 — fueled by talent, transparency, and speed — would show that America still knows how to compete and how to win, without asking partners to mortgage their futures. The opportunity is generational. Let’s take it.

Daniel Swift is a senior research analyst for economics, finance, and trade for the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a retired U.S. diplomat and was mostly recently the Acting Coordinator for Prosper Africa — a presidential-level national security initiative to increase two-way trade and investment between the U.S. and Africa.