African countries started diversifying their economies even before US President Donald Trump's announcement of new reciprocal tariffs, political science expert Emmanuel Remi Aiyede told Sputnik Africa.
"Before Trump, and given the experience from his first four-year term, I think a lot of lessons have been taken, and many countries are already promoting initiatives to make them less dependent on the US when it comes to trade," the expert said.
African countries realized that such measures as US new tariffs that affected the most of the continent could happen, but they did not understand that "it would be this extreme," the professor from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria noted.
"What the African countries need to do is to find ways and means of accelerating the pattern that they have already taken in terms of diversification of partnership and also in terms of intensifying trade within the African country," he emphasized.