The
President and his family are spending a week in sub-Saharan Africa,
with Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa on the itinerary. The focus of
the trip, if you believe the White House,
is trade, an arena in which the United States has been eclipsed by
China since 2009. China, by some measurements, now does nearly twice as
much business with Africa as the U.S., and the gap is growing. It is now
commonly accepted that the Chinese offer far better terms of trade
and investment than the Americans, that they create more jobs for
Africans, and their investments leave behind infrastructure that can
enrich their African trading partners in the long haul.
No
one expects Obama to offer anything on this trip that will reverse
America’s declining share of the African market. That’s because the U.S.
is not in the business of fair and mutually beneficial trade – it’s
about the business of imperialism, which is another matter, entirely.
The Americans ensure their access to African natural resources through
the barrel of a gun.
So,
while the Chinese and Indians and Brazilians and other economic
powerhouses play by the rules of give and take, the U.S. tightens its
military grip on the continent through its ever-expanding military command, AFRICOM.
-- Glen Ford, "The Obamas Do America" (Black Agenda Report).