In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s surprise US election loss, Uganda’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs James Mugume said that the country was “going back to the drawing board” to figure out what the new administration in Washington DC would mean for bilateral relations.
“We did not anticipate it. Most people were expecting a Clinton victory, now we have to analyse the situation afresh,” he said on Wednesday evening.
In his congratulatory message President Yoweri Museveni said he looked forward to working with Mr Donald Trump “as we have been working with other leaders before him”.
Earlier this year, President Museveni asked Mr Trump to mind America’s business after it was reported that the Republican candidate, if elected, would go after long-serving African leaders.
Kampala has enjoyed a close relationship with Washington but the election of Trump poses a significant puzzle, analysts say. Kampala is a critical ally of the US in terms of regional security with its troops engaged in peace keeping missions from Somalia to South Sudan and Central Africa Republic.
In CAR, Ugandan troops are fighting alongside a small elite unit of the America Special Forces in the hunt for Joseph Kony. In Somalia, intervention by Uganda and other African countries have helped return the troubled Horn of Africa country to near normalcy ridding the seas of pirates and opening both Somalia and its strategic coastline to business.