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| (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) |
The substance of President Trump’s “Nambia” speech was a step in the right direction.
Trump’s mispronunciation of
Namibia was not, but it was also unsurprising. It is no secret that most Americans are terrible at
geography (which is, however—ahem—not a uniquely American shortcoming), and I
don’t think anyone who likes Donald Trump likes him because of his presumed familiarity
with the globe. I am sure his supporters feel indignant that we mean old
coastal elites should mock him over a matter as piddling as this. But it is not
a piddling matter, we anti-Trump folks instinctively feel, because it
symbolizes his willful ignorance and privilege. Despite being a buffoon, he has
the privilege of leading the world’s most powerful country and thereby obliging
other world leaders to deal with his buffoonery. And the problem for America is
that although ignorance, clownishness, meanness, and mendacity may play well
with Trump’s fans, they are not a good look for the United States. Other
countries see what we are now, and they are repulsed.
Or are they? Africans, apparently, took the speech in stride.
As explained on the China in Africa Podcast, the response to the speech on
African social media was mostly good-humored. Notably, Namibia’s President Hage
Geingob said, “That ‘Nambia’ put Namibia on the map, huh? They have to explain,
while they are—think they are teasing the president, they had to explain
Namibia: where is it and so on, and so we got good publicity from that. So… and
I was also very much impressed meeting the president. We had different
expectations, but, uh, to tell you the truth he spent two hours with us at
luncheon, and he listened.” The podcast’s Kobus Van Staden pointed
out that throughout the continent of Africa, President Trump was largely
regarded as a joke already, which may account for the lack of anger.
But the substance of Trump’s speech was a more important
reason for the willingness of Namibians and other Africans to overlook his ignorance. The speech talked up increased American trade and
investment in a variety of Africans countries, and that is good for Americans as much as Africans. The
future of Africa matters for the United States because African economies are
growing rapidly—more rapidly than most Westerners are aware.
As for the specific manner in which Trump expressed America's economic interest in Africa, he again received criticism for saying, “Africa has
tremendous business potential. I have so many friends going to your countries
trying to get rich. I congratulate you. They’re spending a lot of money. But it
does: it has a tremendous business potential—and representing huge amounts of, uh,
different markets, and for American firms, it’s really become a place that they
have to go, that they want to go.”* The tone is unmistakably paternalistic and
classically Trumpian in its narcissism, but beneath that is a positive message:
we want to trade with you. That is exactly what African governments want to
hear. Earlier in the speech,
he said, “In this room, I see partners for promoting prosperity and peace on a
range of economic, humanitarian, and security issues. We hope to extend our
economic partnerships with countries who are committed to self-reliance and to
fostering opportunities for job creation in both Africa and the United States.”
Boring and unspecific? Sure, but also respectful, and ritual affirmations of
respect and vague commitments to cooperation are the essence of diplomacy.
Prior to the “Nambia” speech, Trump’s views on Africa hadn’t
made any headlines during his presidency, except for headlines pointing out
that he hadn’t expressed any. The fear among American foreign policy wonks has
been that by completely ignoring Africa, Trump is letting the continent fall
into China’s sphere of influence or at least—to put it in language less reminiscent of
the Cold War—letting China alone take advantage of all the opportunities Africa
offers.
In the last decade, China-Africa trade has grown much more
rapidly the US-Africa trade, and China surpassed the US as the continent’s
largest trading partner in 2009. Africans have long complained that America
views Africa as a basket case and a recipient of aid rather than as a potential
economic partner. Though the average Zhou also has something of that in his/her
view of Africa, the Chinese state most assuredly does not. China’s emphatic
official view is that Africa is an economic partner, and it shows in China’s
actions. Besides titanic infrastructure investments, China is also building
institutions with Africa, the most important being the Forum on China-Africa
Cooperation, formed in 2000.
On the whole, Africans seem to appreciate this respect. In
the 2016 Afrobarometer survey of thirty-six African countries, 63% of Africans
reported feeling that China was a positive influence in their countries. To be
fair, 30% still reported that America “would be the best model for the future
development of our country” versus 24% for the China model. But consider this:
the concept of a “China model” didn’t really make its appearance on the world
stage until the late 1990s.
Since then, it has gained widespread currency and received much debate; the
Washington Consensus, the American development model, has
meanwhile come in for a great deal of criticism—particularly after 2008. To put it more candidly: since 2000, China has lifted hundreds of millions of
people out of poverty. What has America done other than destroy Iraq and tank
the global economy?
If mere opinion polling doesn’t interest you, consider that
more African university students now choose to study abroad in China than in England or the United States. What
relationships are they forging? What values are they imbibing? With whom will
this next generation of Africa’s leaders feel comfortable doing business? This
is an extraordinarily important development. America’s closeness with global
elites in the last few decades has depended enormously on the magnetism of
American universities.
Considering that America’s educational and economic appeal has been weakening, why does our image there remain mostly favorable? No doubt we can thank Beyoncé for that. But democracy makes a difference, too. Democracy remains the
most widely respected political concept globally (the list of political
entities who deny believing in democracy is motley and short—even North Korea is actually the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). But it remains to be
seen how long other countries will believe that America embodies democracy or
other admirable values.
Even if America does maintain the mantle of democracy’s
champion, democracy itself is not without competition. At the very same time
that regressive kleptocracy in a populist mask has been gaining ground in
developed countries, the China model or the Beijing Consensus has been
generating more and more buzz among economists and policy makers in developing
countries.
In a nutshell, this refers to a form of authoritarian capitalism, or the prioritization
of economic development over human rights. In the next decade, however, if China’s economic growth
slows down and the country fails to escape the middle-income trap (as expected),
then the China model will doubtless lose some luster, and other developing
countries, including those of Africa, will hesitate to follow China's path. But then
again, if America falls into complete Trumpism, the authoritarian capitalism of the China model won’t really be an alternative, will it? In essence, we’ll share the
same system.
*Addendum:
A lot of progressive pabulum was tweeted about how money,
rich people, Donald Trump’s friends, corporations, and colonialism are bad. Yet money, rich people,
Donald Trump’s friends, corporations, and colonialism are all different things
and therefore should not be conflated. Do Donald Trump’s purported friends have money? I’m sure. Do many of them run corporations? Seems likely. Do they want to make more money in Africa? It would seem so. Does that mean they want to pillage? No, not necessarily.
Does any involvement of Euro-Americans in Africa constitute neo-colonialism?
No.
Colonialism is a system wherein a state (the colonizer) seizes control of
another state or region (the colony) by means of military force and occupation,
and then extracts the raw materials of the colony, ships them back to the
colonizer, uses them to manufacture finished goods, and then exports those
goods to the colony.
Neo-colonialism is an ill-defined term, but it should refer to a system wherein the
economic aspects of colonialism still obtain—that is, an economic relationship
wherein a developed country (the neo-colonizer) traps a developing country (the
neo-colonized) in a cycle of dependency wherein the developing country remains
reliant on the export of raw materials to the developed country and bound in
some way to rely on imports of high-value-added products from the developed
country.
But this is by no means the essence of trade. It is but one
system of trade. Is this what Donald Trump’s alleged friends intend to do? We
don’t know. What we do know is that trade is indispensable for developing
countries, so let us leave behind the patronizing assumption that Africans will
inevitably be victimized.
