United States: An Imaginary Scramble for Markets?

Against the backdrop of the “new scramble for Africa” literature, this chapter tests a hypothesis postulating that increases in PRC exports of the given products in the given year(s) always correlate with decreases in US exports of the specified six products to the two African countries studied. The findings of the chapter point to the lack of general replacement of the US by the PRC in the period between 2007 and 2017, however. There were, nevertheless, three (out of six) incidences of the US being surpassed by the PRC; with 1 being reversed in a subsequent year, and 2 of the 3 were in the Kenyan case study. In the case of South Africa, the PRC briefly and temporarily surpassed the US as the principal import source of mineral fuels in 2016, but this was subsequently reversed. Overall, the data characterizes more mutual growths, as well as mutual declines, than reverse correlations.