Skip to main content

What Africa may learn from Trump presidency

President-Elect Trump successfully ran under the banner of making America first, reducing foreign 'interference' and trying new ways to work with partners on the international scene to solve some intractable challenges. The first tenet, in my opinion, is something that should interest African nations, because of the collective acknowledged viewpoint of making Africa work for Africans.

Looking back at the powers that scrambled for Africa more than 125 years ago to present day, we see challenges that have been brought about by the fact that Africa still remains a playground for western powers. The Democratic Republic of Congo fails to move forward due to the strong interests that keep fueling violence in order to continue the parasitic extraction of the vast resources with little benefit to the people of Congo.

The CFA countries of Central and West Africa still depend on precolonial arrangements with France to manage their monetary policies, stealing the initiative from these countries, their ability to control their own currencies. Other African countries have regressive arrangements with their 'former' colonial masters guaranteeing land leases of up to 999 years in some cases i.e. a millennium of land utilization in a foreign country! It is no wonder then that land tenure is such a crucial and emotive issue in a lot of countries.

If anyone is unconvinced of the power of these interests, then just observe what happened to Gaddafi after his plans to rid Africa's dependent on the western powers through an African-centered bank. An illegal no-fly zone was instituted, followed closely by the overthrow of the regime and the murder of Gaddafi. And thus came crumbling down the dream of an Africa-led coalition to solve its own problems, to maintain its prerogative in its own matters.


Therefore, the coming into power of Trump would perhaps signal, a departure from disastrous interventionist policies in Africa. We should also be keen to see how Trump addresses the large disparity that he talked about as far as trade policies with the Chinese and Mexico are concerned. We will learn, I hope, how he tackles the balance of trade and loss of jobs. And perhaps, we can use some of his tactics to dig ourselves out of the current predicament of exploitation and poverty.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Analyzing a carry trade proposal: Short USD, go long on bitcoin

I recently completed an assignment for an International Economics Policy class which entailed designing a carry trade. A carry trade is a financial transaction that involves borrowing (short) in a low interest currency, and lending (go long) in a high interest (yield) currency. For instance from Bloomberg 's rates for bonds, this would involve borrowing in Swiss francs (rate is -0.15 percent) and lend in New Zealand dollars (rate is 2.83 percent). All else remaining equal, the carry trade would yield a rate differential of 2.83+0.15 = 2.98 percent. Note: this is an unusual case where the interest rate we are borrowing from is negative; usually, this would involve subtracting the first interest rate from the second. For instance, borrowing in Japanese yen (0.04 percent) and lending in Kiwi dollars (at 2.83 percent) would yield 2.79 percent as profit. My carry trade in this case involves borrowing in USD at a rate of 2.33 percent, and buying bitcoins. But, what, you may ask, is the...
Post a Comment
Read more

They told us to wait

They said we should wait. The wazees were deliberating. They were discussing "important" issues of national security and interest. So, we walked out. We stood by the door. It was raining hard, and we strained to stand as close to the wall as possible, to avoid getting drenched. Inside, the air was exuberant. The wazees were laughing heartily as they imbibed to their fill with nyama choma and Tusker baridi . My stomach was grumbling. I looked around at my friend. She was shivering. "She's going to catch a cold if we don't get somewhere warm soon," I thought to myself. I could stay here and wait to see the wazees and tell them why we had come. Or I could save my skin and call it a day (or night). I chose the former. I motioned to Wanjiku to follow me. She seemed shocked. We had come so far, having walked in the wind and rain for two hours. She was heavy with child, and due any day now. We passed the Toyota VXs that had transported the wazees to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Amka Afrika

The rise of the continent of Africa is imminent, it is ongoing and it is unstoppable. For a long time now, the land that is the home of the Black Man has been downtrodden, allowed only to eat the scraps, the leftovers from the white man's rule. This is changing. We are seeing more nations of Africa freeing themselves from the bondage of complete dependence and servility to nations of Europe and the Americas. Our people are standing tall. But this cannot be one man's dream. Nor can one nation go it alone in the process of gaining complete autonomy from the rule that keeps him serving the selfish ends of corporations. We must unite. We must unite not only to move forward, but also to survive. It is imperative that the nations of Africa see themselves as a brotherhood for the black soul. One nation alone will not survive the onslaught that is coming to anyone that dares challenge the status quo. We have seen what happened to those who dared go alone in the liberat...
Post a Comment
Read more