by LUKE ZUNGA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE American President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Monday, 20th January 2025, bringing an end to the reign of President Joe Biden.
Amidst the pomp and ceremony President Biden was reduced to a puppy as Trump exercised executive powers bestowed on him. The world cherished the smooth changeover of power in the United States of America (USA).
I love America and its people, systems and leadership, as long as I keep one eye closed.
What does the ascendancy to power of Donald Trump mean for Africa? Trump was quick to say that the US will impose tariffs on imports into the USA, and created a new ministry of external revenue to manage the imposition and collection of tariffs.
He withdrew from the Paris Accord of Climate Change and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The African Presidents are sniffing and smiling. Executive orders mean the US president knows what he wants, as opposed to African Presidents who are led by technocrats.
There will be no free money for Africa. The expectations of American investors must dry up completely.
Many countries expected billions to be dished out for climate damage and assistance. Countries which neglected their health investments will receive less from the World Health Organisation (WHO) when the US withholds US$1.2 billion funding.
There are real disappointments in African presidents. For example, President Cyril Ramaphosa is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He appears to be reporting to some unknown authority that South Africa has improved on electricity.
South Africa has a Government of National Unity (GNU). Who is president Ramaphosa reporting to? Who cares about that? Back home, his government does not know, a very damaging aspect of the economy, that all financial institutions do not finance black people to start businesses, factories or anything to express their freedoms.
Startups are at the High Court to raise their voices that they are left out. This is 30 years after freedom. The South African president did not respond.
He is chasing the wind tunnel of technocrats telling him to attract foreign investors. He does not hear that foreign fixed investors avoid countries with depreciating currencies and the Rand is in such dreaded tumble.
He is surrounded by a cacophony of praise singers, thieves stealing around his face. The same is happening in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) etc.
African leaders must learn from Donald Trump.
They must learn that they must do things themselves, that capital will not come from America, that governments must assist citizens to raise capital in their own countries.
Presidents must rise above their technocrats, to listen to the rest of the population on the many suggested ways of raising capital for their industrial and country development.
Right now, there is going to be food shortages. And the presidents listen to careering technocrats to attract investors, instead of retooling black freedom fighters who are humiliated with stipends, black people jumping at the back of white people to gain a little capital and the clever ones stealing and corrupting the country.
The ideas of our Presidents, apart from security and public engagements, are far too uninspiring.
Donald Trump is showing the African presidents how authority is exercised for the key development issues of the country. If the economy is falling apart the President must take appropriate action to grow the economy.
The issues which retard growth are well documented in the book, What Economists are Missing, ordered from Amazon.
NB: The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author, Luke Zunga, and not those of CAJ News Africa. Luke Montgomery Dzipange Zunga, is Lead for South African Development Foundation.
– CAJ News