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Yeah, but now they're on his radar. When he thinks of "Africa" now he has this frame of reference of these specific countries and leaders, and probably not much else that's specific.

I don't really know if these people had the option of gracefully just refusing to do the visit or participate in any way, but if there was any smooth way to do that, I think it would have been better. Both for their own personal dignity and the dignity of their people, and for their long term future.

Columbia University tried to appease Trump by punishing their protestors severely, and all it did was put them into the news cycle associated with "protestors" and get them punished even more harshly by Trump. Zelensky was invited to play this humiliation game, and pushed back instead, and Trump and Vance got very mad and made some shows of humiliating him, but nothing really happened. Because Trump's a punk, he's still pushing to send aid to Ukraine.

He's not some kind of Tito / Stalin figure where crossing him means your days are numbered. He's just an old man who's confused and mean, and generally gets distracted before he does much of anything. Just staying out of his field of awareness is better, if you can manage it, is my read of the situation.