The incumbent President of the United States simultaneously disrupts these corroding forces of neo-colonialism by exposing their holding hand of exploitation, and gifts Africa an opportune window to strengthen its position of sovereignty/economic sovereignty.
In this piece I argue for the abstract made simple claim that the current incumbent President of the United States of America, Donald J Trump, is a century gift for Africa and African Independence. Now let’s argue!
Disclaimer! I don’t take this argument lightly; therefore, I intend on taking you down to my thinking trial such that it is apparent that I limit my argument to be premised only on two terms, African Independence and Neo-colonialism.
The theoretical for the argument.
The World Systems Theory by Immanuel Wallerstein is my theoretical lenses of understanding and contending with the terms of African Independence and Neo-colonialism. Therefore, my approach and thinking of present reality is that we are currently in a post-colonial period of neo-colonialism divided into segments of the core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral powers. This power analogy defines independence/dependency mostly through the term sovereignty or economic sovereignty. By the classification of this theoretical lens and as a result of the continued coloniality on Africa, African countries are mostly classified under peripheral countries. A category in the classification where countries are heavily dependent either on the semi-peripheral countries but definitely dependent on the core countries. At this point, this theoretical lens equates to the same understanding as the hegemonic stability theory in how the world order of the day is maintained in structure and function.
As you would correctly assume, countries classified under peripheral are dependent not independent. This is where African independence jumps in; in the post-colonial order Africa still lacks sovereignty, especially economic sovereignty.
Therefore, how is the World Systems Theory power analogy maintained such that peripheral countries stay dependent? What maintains the forces that erode the economic sovereignty of Africa? To answer these questions abstractly, it is the forces of neo-colonialism through deployment of its instruments – i.e. donor aid, loans, and the architectured international trade – that ensures the erosion of African economic sovereignty, ultimately African Independence.
The Artificnuial Intelligence (AI) divideis one current debate which again exposes the continued erosion of African economic sovereignty as studies already projected that it’s mostly the Global North countries – but specifically the United States and China – that stand to benefit in higher Gross Domestic Products returns from AI. Global South countries face higher AI adoption fees by lack of infrastructure and research. Furthermore, it’s a general fact that the economic inequality between core and peripheral countries seems to be an ever-increasing gap rather than decreasing. For example, Global North countries average a higher GDP per capita of 55 000 USD versus the average of Global South countries which stands at 8 500 USD.
The theoretical argument I make for this claim therefore is that through the World Systems Analysis, we can learn the structure, functions, maintenance, and perpetuation of the forces that erode African independence in its post direct colonial period.
However, the incumbent President of the United States simultaneously disrupts these corroding forces of neo-colonialism by exposing their holding hand of exploitation, and gifts Africa an opportune window to strengthen its position of sovereignty/economic sovereignty.
Trump’s gift and case studies.
What follows in my argument is to expose exactly the gift Trump presents to Africa. Firstly, the gift of disruption which reveals what is eroding African economic sovereignty and a rare window of opportunity which Africa has been in thirst of for nearly half a century now in her political sovereignty. From there I present two case studies which abstractly illustrate some of the opportunities of economic sovereignty Trump has opened for Africa; these include the economic shock in Lesotho after tariff Liberation Day, and the Group of 20 summit recently held in Johannesburg.
As part of making America great again, President Trump unleashed an international trade war to balance the scales for America and formed the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) on domestic soil. In the international war unleashed, we saw the effect of cutting “donor aid” to African countries. For example, a year ago and almost three months in office, the Trump administration made cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which caused closure of HIV-clinics in all of sub-Saharan African. The humiliating vulnerability of Africa and her dependence got exposed but an opportunity to progress on African independence availed itself to African governments. We got exposed on a disturbing fact that we can’t/don’t manufacture nor can afford medicine and health services for our sickly people, conversely, this exposure is an opportunity to cut ties of dependency and build to strengthen African independence in manufacturing or developing our medicine for instance.
This simple case of the Trump administration pulling of a basic government service turned “donor aid” exposed and disrupted a holding force of neo-colonialism eroding African independence.
Lesotho Tariff case.
Keeping close with the international trade war, the March-April 2025 tariff period exposed the tilted scale of balance of power. Some nations barely survived the aftermath of April 2nd known as Tariff Liberation Day. In Lesotho, the tariffs unearthed the woes of an “Independent constitutional monarch”. It exposed the patterns of ownership in its textile industry which have not been benefiting to the Kingdom in the Sky (Staritz and Morris, 2013).
When the tariffs dropped, a state of economic crisis disaster was declared in Lesotho as more people lost jobs, the roads went dry, and the lights went off. The economic dependency of Lesotho on negotiated African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) benefits and the trade contract deals with Asia got exposed together with the instrument which maintains the dependency. This exposure is an opportunity of redraft and redefining the scales of independence-dependency.
South Africa’s Group of 20 summit.
The most significant outcome for me in the first G20 summit held in African soil is that South Africa is not invited in Maimi this year. This signifies the tilted scales of power and disruption of norms in a case where a hegemonic leader is overruled through world consensus. Trump gifted Africa and members of the G20 the chance to address the bully in the room. An opportune window availed itself as the room discussion turned to issues impeding African economic sovereignty, i.e. Debt structuring.
Above it all and in a word of argument, the current incumbent President of the United States of America, Donald J Trump, is a century gift for Africa and African Independence. Simultaneously he disrupts the corroding forces of neo-colonialism by exposing its holding hands of exploitation through donor aid or trade deals, and gifts Africa an opportune window to strengthen its position of sovereignty/economic sovereignty ultimately independence.
-MediaHouse150
