William Ruto is wined, dined and feted in Washington

The Kenyan president’s trip comes at a time when the US’s global standing has taken a potentially fatal hit as it continues to back Israel’s assault on Gaza 

The US finds itself increasingly isolated on the world stage for its unwavering, “ironclad”, as Biden would put it, support of Israel’s nearly eight-month war on Gaza. The world’s preeminent superpower is seen as abandoning the rules-based order it so often champions and promotes to countries in the Global South. However, in these testing times for America, it finds a reliable friend, an old ally in the Great Rift Valley – the East African nation of Kenya. The trip coincides with the 60th anniversary of U.S.-Kenya relations.  

President Joe Biden invited his counterpart Ruto for a state visit and an extravagant dinner – the first state visit by an African leader since John Kufuor of Ghana in 2008. Turkish journalist Ragıp Soylu said that the last time any leader from his country – a NATO ally of the US – enjoyed a state dinner at the White House was in 1988! On Monday, President Ruto, in a move criticised by many Kenyans due to the cost of living crisis in the country, flew into the U.S. in a private jet for a four-day visit to deepen ties between the two countries. This comes as Ruto, dubbed the “tax collector” president, has been asking his people to tighten their financial belts and pay more into the public treasury. Babu Owino, a Kenyan politician, described Ruto’s wave of new taxes this way during a broadcast: “Tax on chicken, tax on plants or crops, tax on anything that is moving, literally tax on everything.” 

Former President Barack Obama – who was the first US president to visit Kenya – and a member of the “African diaspora” in the words of Biden – held talks with Ruto on Thursday. Mwangi Maina, a Kenyan journalist, noted the irony of Obama’s willingness to meet Ruto, when just a decade before, the Obama administration kept its distance as Ruto faced ICC charges. “Fast forward to today, and the American statecraft is on full display,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. The two “exchanged views on democratic developments, climate and peace and security challenges in Africa.”  

Biden pledged to work with Congress to designate Kenya as a major non-NATO ally – the first Sub-Saharan African country to be awarded this designation and a sign of Kenya's rise to becoming one of the U.S.’s most important partners on the continent. Faisal Roble said the meeting officially anointed Kenya a regional anchor state, supplanting Ethiopia which has been mired in conflict. Kenyan officials have been boasting the same since at least 2023. The designation is granted to countries with close strategic working relationships with the United States. Regional analyst Rashid Abdi has tied these developments to purported US ambitions to leave Djibouti this year to project power in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea from Kenya.  

Kenya and the United States have worked together to degrade al-Shabaab which has carried out several high profile attacks inside Kenya, including a 2020 attack on a US base at the coastal city of Lamu in eastern Kenya. The base is used by American and Kenyan personnel for counterterrorism operations against the militant group.  

America’s friendships often have a lot to do with fighting on its behalf and predictably Kenya’s expected deployment of police officers to Haiti was hot on the discussion. The White House has called on Nairobi – a country in east Africa – to quell violence on an island just over a 1000 km off its own coast. This is a United Nations backed initiative that Nairobi will be leading and Washington will be backing. Ruto has confirmed in an interview with the BBC that Kenyan police are set to arrive in Haiti in about three weeks.  

It’s important to note no African country has led a security mission outside of the continent. The long-stalled deployment was approved by the UN security council last year after a plea by former Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry – who Haitian gangs waged a war against – pleaded with the council for help to stop gang violence in the capital, Port-au-Prince. One young journalist, Ayub Abdikadir, working for a Kenyan TV channel asked his president during a presser why it was that Kenya was sending police half across the planet when its own northern regions are plagued by banditry. “Can you explain the geopolitical goal, 12,000 km away from Nairobi?” He continued: “Isn’t it an irony when you are putting a fire in a faraway neighbour’s home, when our own home is on fire?”  

Ruto didn’t appear to really have an answer prepared. Kenya, Ruto said, sent troops to Somalia and to DRC Congo because both are in his neighbourhood and are therefore Nairobi’s responsibility, but for some reason added: “and Haiti should not be an exception.” It isn’t clear what he meant here.  

This visit – dubbed the Nairobi-Washington vision – comes at a time where American influence on the African continent is waning with a Gallup poll showing the US’s main superpower rival – China – taking the pole position as the continent’s most influential global power.  

Russia, China, and Turkey are making bold moves across the continent – with many Africans viewing the US’s approach to Africa as paternalistic, perceiving America and traditional European colonial powers as neo-colonial. China’s growing popularity in Africa can be attributed partly to its funding of key infrastructure on the continent while refraining from interfering in issues regarding governance and human rights. Blunders of European leaders and journalists when visiting Africa, which often go viral, haven’t helped. In a recent interview with a French TV channel, Félix Tshisekedi took an opportunity to school a journalist who said if the Russians and Chinese were better than the west. “Oh, absolutely!” Tshisekedi replied. He cited a Kenyan official who once told him: “Every time China visits, we get a hospital; every time Britain visits, we get a lecture.” CNN repeated that mistake with William Ruto, asking him if he preferred Western or Chinese investment, which Ruto more diplomatically managed. He summoned Kwame Nkrumah who also once said: “we face neither east nor west; we face forward.”  

America’s decreasing influence can be best seen in events in the Sahel region – where a string of coups from Guinea in the west to Sudan in the east have seen a series of pro-Russian military regimes emerge. In March, Niger ordered with “immediate effect” the suspension of its military cooperation with the US in a major setback to American security interests in the region. The US military operated a major airbase near the city of Agadez-at a cost of more than $100m and has been used since 2018 to target ISIL fighters. The US’s relationship with Chad also appears to be on shaky grounds, with the capital N’Djamena ordering the US to remove its troops from a former French base.  

While the US influence in Africa has further waned under Biden’s presidency – it has strengthened its alliance with Kenya. This comes at a time when the US is facing growing unpopularity not just in African countries tired of Western paternalistic attitudes towards the continent but also across the Global South. There is a palpably increasing anger at what is seen as American hypocrisy in the US’s unwavering support for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza as it wags its fingers elsewhere about human rights. 

Niger’s prime minister, Lamine Zeine, expressed his frustration at this in an exclusive interview with the Washington Post, telling the paper: “The Americans stayed on our soil, doing nothing while the terrorists killed people and burned towns… It is not a sign of friendship to come on our soil but let the terrorists attack us. We have seen what the United States will do to defend its allies, because we have seen Ukraine and Israel.” 

Though Ruto insists his country is facing forward as it balances the tightrope between Beijing and Washington, a bigger question is now beginning to emerge on the horizon. Israel has had a really awful week on the legal front. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for its leaders; the ICJ has ordered it to halt its Rafah operation, and this happens as the court says there is a “plausible” case of genocide in Gaza. The US has attacked the ICC and the ICJ, fundamental legal pillars of the world order it erected. During his visit, Ruto reportedly told Biden that Kenya and America were neighbours. Biden asked how that could be, to which Ruto responded that while the two countries don't share borders, they do share beliefs. Gaza it appears hasn’t forced Kenyan leaders to review this assumption.