Rwanda became the latest African state to accept foreign deportees from the United States last week after confirming that it had received seven people expelled by Washington.
President Paul Kagame's government confirmed in early August that it would accept up to 250 deportees from the US.
Government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told journalists on 28 August that they had been "accommodated by an international organisation".
Uganda, Eswatini, and South Sudan have also agreed to take US deportees - though the combined number of deportees is below 50 so far.
In South Sudan, where the government of president Salva Kiir has hired Scribe Strategies, a Washington-based lobbying outfit whose principal, Joseph Szlavik, has close links with top Trump officials, there was anxiety that the US could shut its embassy in Juba.
In May, the US also revoked visas for all South Sudan nationals citing the government's refusal to take back over 20 people whose asylum claims had been rejected.
Szlavik, who has also secured contracts with the governments of Morocco, South Sudan, and Ivory Coast worth over $3m (€2.6m), told EUobserver that migration control would be part of his work with them all.
During his election campaign last year, Trump promised to deport 1 million people a year.
He has also found takers in Latin America, where Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and El Salvador have all agreed to take individuals deported by the US.
The US deals on deportees are slightly different to the EU's 'cash for migrant control' deals with Turkey, Lebanon, and, in Africa, with Egypt, Mauritania, and Tunisia in exchange for over $9bn in financial support.
The EU has also been talking to Senegal about a similar arrangement following a spike in migrants crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the Spanish Canary Islands.
The EU deals are about preventing would-be migrants from crossing the Mediterranean Sea or Atlantic Ocean to EU territory.
For the moment, the US is not focusing on outsourcing border control, but on deportations.
Also, unlike the EU, the US is not offering financial incentives.
Instead, the US is using the threat of trade tariffs and, in Africa's case, threatening blanket visa bans on their nationals being able to enter the US.
Visa bans would disproportionately hit wealthy and politically-connected Africans.
In the case of Rwanda, meanwhile, the US is currently brokering peace talks with DR Congo and Rwanda in a bid to end the war in eastern Congo that has seen the Rwandan army and the M23 militia group, which it supports, take swathes of territory.
Trump and his senior Africa advisor Massad Boulos, who is also father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany, are offering US investment in exchange for minerals access to ease the peace process.
Kigali concluded a €360m deal with Britain's former Conservative Party governments led by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak only to watch a series of legal challenges delay its implementation.
The scheme was then abandoned by prime minister Keir Starmer after winning last July's election.
Trump's policy priorities in US-Africa relations are now very similar to the EU's, but more openly transactional.
Migration control – along with securing critical minerals – has become one of the main planks of the Trump administration's Africa policy.
In particular, Washington wants African states to take back their nationals whose asylum or migration applications have been rejected.
But Trump has only convinced a few African leaders so far.
The leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal left a three day July summit in Washington without agreeing to take deportees, though they briefed reporters that Trump had put the issue on the table.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has also refused a deal with Washington.
Even so, Trump's moves are likely to encourage the EU to move ahead with their own so-called 'innovative solutions' to outsource immigration and asylum claims.
In July, EU home affairs ministers heard presentations from officials at the UN's International Organisation for Migration and the refugee agency UNHCR about the potential roles they could play in running migrant and "return hubs" outside the EU.
The EU is keen to have the support of the UN to avoid legal challenges.
Denmark, which holds the EU Council's six-month presidency, has put the idea of creating "return hubs" in African countries and others on the agenda for EU home affairs ministers.
The idea of paying Rwanda to accommodate asylum seekers while their claims were processed was minted by Boris Johnson, who agreed a €360m per year deal with Kigali to take hundreds of asylum seekers.
However, the scheme was derailed by a series of legal challenges and was then scrapped in July 2024 by the incoming Labour government.
Only four asylum seekers were sent to Rwanda under the scheme, all voluntarily.
Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.