Trump is leaving Africa

The public broadcasting company Yle told us that the United States will reduce its military presence in Africa. More specifically, Americans will reduce especially troops intended to fight against terrorism.

According to Yle the decision was affected by the threats caused by Chinese and Russians, against which Americans are willing to fight somewhere else than in black Africa. And naturally we all remember the promises president Donald Trump gave during his inaugural speech, according to which USA has focused too much on the borders of other countries instead of its own.

The story by Yle included few items, on which I would like my reader to put attention.

The first one stated that Americans are not any more willing to support fruitless operations for peace, and that they have already reduced their contribution to the development aid. My intrerpetation is that president Trump and his regime have got tired of spending their voter´s tax money and even American lives on futile operations in Africa.

Professor Emmanuel Kwesi Aning from Ghana has obviously not understood this connection as he pointed out that islamistic groups Boko Haram, al-Qaida and al-Shabaab are still timely threats. However, from the Trump´s point-of-view they are not threats to America as long as they stay in Africa and therefore neither targets on which American resources should be used.

It is also clear, that Chinese will not tolerate islamistic organizations any more than Americans, and as they have much less problems with their home fronts, they may use brutal actions to get rid of them. The same holds also Russians now settling more deeply in Africa. Therefore Boko Haram, al-Qaida and al-Shabab will only lose if Americans will be replaced by Chinese or Russians.

The other item I would like to discuss here was the comment of Kwesi Aning, who pointed out the real problem of Africal countries: he said that if you look at the ratio of soldiers and growing populations of African countries, the poor countries are not able to invest enough to their defense against safety challenges. I just wonder if also Trump regime would have understood that no number of soldiers or quantity of help will be enough if the African population growth will not be stopped - and therefore made his decision to give up.

Although I do not know whether Trump regime have understood this or not, it is a fact. And it remains to be seen how Chinese of possibly Russians will get on with the African population explosion.

I have understood that the purpose of China is to hit two flies with one hit - to turn Africa into a colony that supports their own economy and in order to get that done stabilize the African communities by creating local business opportunities. It remains, however, to be seen, whether they have means to handle the  population explosion. I do doubt that.

What is anyway clear, are the Chinese motives. Even Professor Kwesi Aning noted that he does not consider Russia or China to be friends of Africa as they do not care about democracy or human rights.

Unfortunately, the rhetoric question to asked here is that what good the Western countries - putting a lot of energy on democracy and human rights - have provided to Africa since mid 20th century with their developing aid - except of course that they have launched the population explosion that right now looks like the ultimate barrier preventing all development in Africa.

The original though in Finnish:
Trump on poistumassa afrikkalaiselta areenalta