The Trump Regime’s Predatory Africa Agenda
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
The US under Republicans and undemocratic Dems aim to co-opt, exploit, and control other countries - polar opposite how China and Russia operate worldwide.
Their ruling authorities seek cooperative relations with other nations, waging war on none. The US pressures, bullies, bribes, and bludgeons other nations to bend to its will - what imperialism is all about.
It’s a losing strategy longterm - attested to by the demise of all empires in history, a fate awaiting the US one day, humanity to exhale for the first time in the post-WW II era when it arrives.
On Thursday, Trump’s hardline national security advisor John Bolton delivered a foreign policy address at the right-wing Heritage Foundation think tank - opposing virtually everything related to governance serving everyone equitably and world peace.
Its board of trustees includes a rogue’s gallery of right-wing extremists. Its president Kay Coles James held senior positions in the Bush I and II regimes.
Bolton discussed the Trump regime’s Africa agenda - unrelated to pursuing “lasting stability, prosperity, independence, and security on the” continent.
It’s all about pursuing US political, economic, financial, and military interests - Bolton stressing what he called “three core US interests on the continent:”
1. “(A)dvancing US trade and commercial ties with nations across the region to…benefit” America exclusively at the expense of African nations - the Trump regime’s real aim Bolton left unexplained.
2. “(C)ountering the threat from radical Islamic terrorism and violent conflict” - what the US supports, waging endless wars of aggression against nations threatening no one, using ISIS and other jihadists as imperial foot soldiers.
3. “(E)nsuring…US taxpayer dollars for aid are used efficiently and effectively.” Washington under both right wings of duopoly governance notoriously pours countless trillions of dollars down a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse.
US taxpayers forced to pay for its imperial excesses in collusion with Wall Street, war-profiteers, and other corporate predators.
Bolton and other regime hardliners aim to counter the growing influence of Russia, especially China, and other major US competitors in Africa.
Their agenda is all about a scramble for the continent’s vast resources - including vast oil and gas supplies, gold, silver, diamonds, uranium, iron, copper, tin, lead, nickel, coal, timber, cobalt, bauxite, wood, coltan, manganese, chromium, vanadium-bearing titanium, and much more.
Africa’s agricultural lands are valued. So is offshore fishing. The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established in October 2007 to further Washington’s imperial interests on the continent - notably by warmaking, military relations, and economic exploitation.
The US wants Africa colonized, exploited and controlled, part of its global dominance agenda. US regimes want corporate America benefitting at the expense of local enterprises and foreign competitors, notably China and Russia.
US global war OF terror is all about replacing sovereign independent governments not subordinate enough to its interests - endless wars the favored strategy.
China is America’s main global economic and financial competitor, a growing military one, spending a small fraction of the Pentagon’s bloated budget.
An earlier US Defense Department report sounded the alarm about China’s “robust investment in modern hardware and technology,” adding:
“Many modern systems have reached maturity and others will become operational in the next few years.”
“(T)here remains uncertainty about how China will use its growing capabilities…(Its) rise as a major international actor is likely to stand out as a defining feature of the strategic landscape of the early 21st century.”
Nations posing an economic, financial, and/or military challenge to the US are demonized - often a pretext for war, perhaps one day against China and/or Russia, the unthinkable possibility of nuclear war if launched by Washington.
Beijing uses carrots, not sticks, in dealings with nations in Africa and elsewhere. Russia operates the same way - both countries gaining influence at Washington’s expense. Its approach is all sticks and illusory carrots.
China’s success in political and economic dealings with scores of African countries causes alarm in Washington, what’s behind Bolton’s Thursday address.
In 2006, Beijing hosted officials from over 40 African nations, part of its strategy to secure oil from the continent, essential to its economic, industrial, and technological growth.
Chad is one of numerous examples of how China gains allies. In 2007, its oil giant CNPC contracted to build a refinery in the country. Later it constructed a pipeline to transport oil to the facility.
Similar projects and investments elsewhere in the continent are mutually beneficial to China and partnered host countries - a winning strategy for joint economic development.
AFRICOM’s mandate includes serving US corporate interests, mainly at the expense of China and Russia on the continent, especially Beijing’s aim to benefit from Africa’s oil and other mineral wealth.
Washington’s aim has nothing to do with what Bolton called initiatives “benefit(ting) both the United States and Africa(n) countries - the US wants dominance over, wanting China, Russia, and other key US competitors shut out on the continent.
The so-called 2011/12 Arab Spring was all about the Obama regime wanting unchallenged US control over the Middle East, notably its vast energy resources. It had nothing to do with replacing despotic regimes with democratic ones, a notion Republicans and Dems abhor.
Economic development depends on access to energy, why Washington seeks control over global supplies.
Heny Kissinger explained its importance, earlier saying “(i)f you control the oil, you control entire nations or groups of nations.”
Washington aims to achieve this objective - in Africa and virtually everywhere else worldwide, the core objective of its imperial strategy.
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