America Must Respond to Africa’s Call

An Acrylic Painting: Founding Fathers Tableau by Stephen Warde Anderson

Although they’d not recognize their meticulously designed political entity these 200 years later, America’s Founding Fathers would, no doubt, extoll the illustrative ways their countrymen played on the world stage: In the Marshall Aid Plan, deftly avoiding WW III via the Cuban Missile Crisis, and prevailing in the Cold War against a worthy adversary. But past glory notwithstanding, the collective spirits of Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Washington, et al may also have cause for trepidation as this, their divided government experiment, is ostensibly in decline. The country that cohesively countered the former Soviet Union in the Berlin Blockade is, in essence, too embroiled in internal strife to strategically check and counter China’s aggressive foray into Africa.

So pre-occupied is America that smaller countries like Vietnam and Turkey do proportionately more business volume with Africa. The US may remain the world’s leader in trade merchandise and services, but an approximate USD $30 bn and $60 bn in respective African export-import is simply not befitting of its trillions in outlay. Contextually, after China surpassed the US as Africa’s singular top trade partner in 2009, trade volumes are projected to run over USD $220 bn for 2013; augmented, also, by a USD $20 bn infrastructure loan facility available for individual African countries.

On the face of it, Africa really does not matter. America, whose partnerships extend to all corners of the globe can, essentially, concentrate on trade relationships with China, Japan, the European Union, or its new pact with the Asia Pacific region. But there are two things to this: First, it goes without saying that US businesses stand to get more bang for their buck in an African business agreement than with any of these other partnerships. Basically, a hypothetical USD $ 3 bn spent on a road network between Congo Brazzaville on the Atlantic coast and Mombasa on the Indian Ocean one will not only open up the Democratic Republic of Congo or opportunities in Southern Sudan; it will also make US goods in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia so much cheaper since they’ll not have to make that long journey by sea via the Cape of Good Hope.

Secondly, Rochau’s ubiquitous realpolitik is more relevant today than it was in the 19th Century: A fleeting perception that China is more consequential in Africa can frazzle the delicate plexus upon which superpower status is based. Plainly: A hegemony has un-shirkable responsibilities; and ceding ‘sensitive’ territory to a cavernous China or a ‘divide and conquer’ European Union can affect how the US deals with al-Qaeda in Mali. Illustratively, if the US were a force to be reckoned with in the region, American firms wouldn’t lose quite as many lucrative regional contracts and projects to Chinese or even Vietnamese and Filipino nationals. Just like the self-inflicted deeply embarrassing credit downgrade of 2011, and the needlessly riveting fiscal cliff debacle, not providing your own countrymen with adequate support to win foreign contracts is indicative of the collateral damage inflicted by arms of government being out of step with each other!

Of course, in overall context, the Founding Fathers would, undoubtedly, beam at how their nation, amongst a host of successes, overcame an ugly chapter of slavery, Civil War; and successfully expunged segregationist Jim Crow laws through Civil Rights to re-elect their African American president in 2012. But this glorious past and present do not bridge the deep chasm that now exacerbates an already dysfunctional Washington, DC.

The US cannot cohesively grow its ignominious USD $ 30 bn in annual export and foreign direct investment to Africa. And so, China and other countries continue to prance around un-countermanded on Africa’s territory – running roughshod over existing trade arrangements; further destabilizing an already delicate eco system in their bid for natural resources.

In all fairness, Obama himself is culpable. He is, after all, leader of the free world; endowed with immense power. And to Africa policy, he has, thus far, not wielded the breadth of his Neustadtian power. From this perspective alone, America’s Africa dilemma may even summarily be termed ‘unconscionable.’ With a president as globally popular and one even as revered as Obama is in Africa, American goods and services have still not become staple to a more urbanized, much better informed, exposed, educated and technologically savvy crop of younger Africans. If burnished Chinese stuff enthralls them now, wouldn’t they, surely, be dazzled and enchanted by that which is made in America?

Hence, the President must rebalance global dynamics in the shortest time and in the most effective way possible. The path to a comprehensive US | Africa trade and investment policy regime goes through a deeply divided 113th Congress that concludes at the end of 2014. The status quo of a Clinton-era AGOA preferential trade program or even the recent Obama administration Doing Business in Africa campaign do not equitably benefit the world’s largest economy and its potential partner – a region slated for exponential economic growth this decade and the next.

The unique aspects pertaining to these times notwithstanding, polarization in both the House and Senate cannot excuse failure to reach for epitome. These traditional battles between Republicans and Democrats raged for FDR, LBJ and the Gipper! Yet Roosevelt attained the New Deal, Johnson his Great Society, and Reagan’s voodoo economics caroused America’s veins for longer than a decade. The 44th president’s circumstances are actually not much different from those the 32nd, 36th and 40th faced.

To get the ball rolling, Obama must, exigently, sidestep Sarah Palin’s know nothings, Paul Ryan’s debatable deficit reduction actions and make the flailing Republican Party an offer they simply cannot refuse. Short of this, the first black president will have bucked his predecessors’ trend for doing great things in less than ideal times.

Still, Obama neither owes Africa nor should he be guilty of not doing enough. And the president doesn’t really receive due credit for supporting regional integration, promoting peace and human rights or even his administration’s streamlining efforts at effectively channeling American resources to the continent. Moreover, his June 2012 US Strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa has already started to sprout green shoots. But with this fierce urgency to immediately counter China, the European Union and third countries in Africa, we cannot wait for Obama’s seedlings and policy to mature. It must be done before a best case scenario of June 2013 and by the end of 2014 on a worst case continuum. We are, however, hoping for something miraculous in the middle: After all, in a presidential debut fraught with political land mines, this is the novice who got the huge USD $787 bn stimulus and even the historical Obamacare through Congress in 2009 and 2010 respectively. And if the start of this second term is anything to go by, Obama may even attain ‘Great President’ status by further claiming the previously elusive scalps of comprehensive immigration reform, gun control and climate change.

So, like he likes to refer to being able to chew gum and walk at the same time, Obama can work to sort out the hot button issues with both Republicans and Democrats, and also ensure that long term self interest issues like an Africa plan are on the negotiating table. Besides, for a Congress that has historically passed African legislation in true bipartisan fashion, this shouldn’t be such arduous a task: All 50 states in the union increased their exports to Africa, and if this plan to compete with China is efficiently executed, it will also improve the US job situation.

Lastly, even George Washington, the original isolationist, without really understanding the technology, would approve of the fat wads of cash an American app developer and his African customizer can make from levying a small fee to hundreds of millions of smart phone using Africans.

Editorial Board
The Habari Network
January 28, 2013