In an article today in the New York Times, Helene Cooper discusses a group of questions the Trump transition team delivered to the State Department regarding U.S. policy towards Africa. The questions have aroused concern, but perhaps the tone of the questions have been worse than the questions themselves.
For example:
“With so much corruption in Africa, how much of our funding is stolen? Why should we spend these funds on Africa when we are suffering here in the U.S.?”
It’s not unreasonable to ask how corruption is impacting our foreign aid efforts. It’s also a core job responsibility to determine how much aid should be delivered. But the way these questions are posed calls into question whether we should provide any aid at all. They even seem inclined to destroy the program President George W. Bush implemented to combat HIV in Africa.
Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, complimented the program, calling Pepfar “one of the most extraordinarily successful programs in Africa” during his Senate nomination hearing.
But, in contrast, the Trump transition questionnaire asks, “Is PEPFAR worth the massive investment when there are so many security concerns in Africa? Is PEPFAR becoming a massive, international entitlement program?”
Considering how many lives are at stake, calling PEPFAR an entitlement program is morally offensive. And the excuse that the money would be spent better on security concerns is undermined by other parts of the questionnaire where they doubt the need or effectiveness of our counterterrorism efforts against al-Shabaab and our hunt for Joseph Kony.
To be clear, I welcome skepticism about these “security” issues. At the least, I think a new administration should take a fresh look. But if they don’t think we need to focus on them, then they can’t really be used as an excuse to deny people aid that will keep them from getting tuberculosis or HIV.
The overall tenor of the questions is that Africa is a swamp of corruption and that we should not help them. It seems the only valid interests we have in Africa are commercial.
“How does U.S. business compete with other nations in Africa? Are we losing out to the Chinese?” asks one of the first questions in the unclassified document provided to The New York Times.
It’s hard to believe that they expect some expert in the State Department to answer a question so lacking in specificity that it’s almost rhetorical. It also betrays a childlike innocence, as if they can’t imagine that foreign aid and security arrangements aren’t somehow the American way of getting a leg up for American businesses in the developing world. Take away all our money and our intelligence and military support and then expect these governments to be more accommodating to U.S. companies seeking to extract their diamonds and oil?
This is the wrong kind of skepticism, because it retains all the worst elements of U.S. commercial imperialism without providing any of the benefits, and it expects to do it in a way that relies on ponies and rainbows. It’s actually a recipe to force one African government after another into the arms of an alternate benefactor, which would harm both U.S. businesses and the health and human rights of the citizens. It also would make it much more difficult to prevent havens for terrorists from emerging, although that doesn’t mean I’m endorsing our current model. In this case, though, it’s inconsistent with Trump’s promise to smash ISIS and like-minded groups.
Overall, the questionnaire betrays a racist view of Africa that’s consistent with everything else about the messages that Trump is sending on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the questions showed an “overwhelmingly negative and disparaging outlook” on the continent.
“A strange attitude runs through this,” he said. “There’s a sort of recurrent skepticism that Africa matters to U.S. interests at all. It’s entirely negative in orientation.”
I can’t think of a worse occasion than MLK Day to attack John Lewis for example, and to inaccurately suggest that the congressman represents a crime-ridden district that is literally “burning,” demonstrates the same “overwhelmingly negative and disparaging” attitude about our urban black neighborhoods that the incoming administration shows towards Africa.
It’s no wonder that anti-black, anti-Africa leaders like France’s Marine Le Pen are flocking to Trump Tower to meet with Trump supporters like George G. Lombardi.
The political operative she went to meet at Trump Tower, George G. Lombardi, is a businessman who has made a career as a liaison between two right-wing Italian political parties — the Northern League and Forza Italia — and like-minded people in the United States. He has also worked with the National Front since 2012, Mr. Franceskin said.
And, of course Lombardi wanted to facilitate a meeting with the Trump team.
Then on Thursday, Mr. Lombardi said Ms. Le Pen suggested they meet for coffee, which led to her appearance in Trump Tower. Beforehand, Mr. Lombardi said he reached out to Mr. Trump’s team, without naming any names. “Before she came, I informed two or three people that I know, and I said, ‘Listen, I just want you to know Ms. Le Pen is coming here. I just want you to be prepared in case anything happens.’”
The white supremacist fascists are flocking together under the tutelage of Vladimir Putin.
