In its latest delivery the weekly magazine Der Spiegel International has released an editorial signed by the editor-in-chief Klaus Brinkbäumer under the title: “Europe Must Defend Itself against a Dangerous President. The article is inflammatory to the new US president but largely reflects the opinion about Mr. Donald Trump elsewhere in the EU. What has attracted more attention from this blog is that the German official calls for the formation of an international coalition including Africa to counter the new tenant of the White House. To the extent that our continent essentially offers its agricultural raw materials for the moment to the rest of the world, it can legitimately be deduced from European appreciation that somewhere the new US administration would pose a risk to our agricultural sectors, vital to our countries. So, it may be useful to try to take a closer look, depending on the information available, if there are any specific hazards that the new Trump administration could pose on agricultural and / or agro-industrial activities in the African continent.
The recurrent temptation towards autarkic behavior has always characterized the United States because, in particular, everything they need, or almost, they have it on their own country-continent. Thus, during World War II, it took all of Churchill‘s tactical skill, plus the attack on Pearl Harbor, to decide the Americans to abandon their neutrality in the war that had been raging in Europe for two years. The English played a catalytic role in pushing the Americans into military conflict with the Germans at that time. At present, many indicators suggest that it is the French who are urging the Germans to take a commercially aggressive attitude towards the Americans.
According to convergent information, this began in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In order to “allow” German reunification, President Mitterrand insisted on, among other things, closer commercial ties with Germany within the EU by means of a single currency. As the Germans were in a delicate position, they eventually acquiesced to the requirement. They then provided a Herculean effort to push their citizens to swap their cherished Deutsche Mark for a shared Euro. Once done, the Germans showed, as always, a formidable ability to adapt to the new currency whose assembly made it cheaper than the Deutsche Mark and therefore advantageous for export. As a result, the Euro will prove to be a formidable Bonanza in terms of trade and boosted export performance of Germany. On the other hand, deprived of the possibility of a currency to be devalued in order to remain competitive, the countries of southern Europe had to resign themselves to undergo the industrial and commercial hegemony of the German power to the detriment of their industrial fabric which collapsed considerably afterwards. The case of France is more worrying because the country continues to see itself as a great global power. Great Britain had the same attitude until the early seventies. But after having been forced to resort to the IMF, like the poor countries, to get by, the English took the full measure of their new distress, rolled up their sleeves and went back to work instead to continue on a policy of annuity which usually characterizes the commercial relations of former masters with their ex-colonies. France has apparently not yet resolved to make this introspection and prefers to cling to the advantage that has hitherto given her the status of former colonial power over much of Africa. But the former metropolis realizes now that the perpetuation of this status vis-à-vis our continent is best served in being presented covered by the umbrella of the UE under the tutelage of Germany as Trump well stressed.
So, after having well seated the power of their export industry in the EU, and according to the saying the appetite comes by eating, the Germans had to push “their Euro” elsewhere in the world. But here, often the place was already taken by the Dollar. This prompted Mr. Peer Steinbrück, Federal Minister of Finance of the first government of Angela Merkel, to say that the Dollar aspired to 70% of the world’s savings. In other words, the Germans would not disdain to recover part of this saving which would arrange the affairs of monetary Europe, France first. And the continent where the Euro naturally found a relatively favorable position relative to the Dollar is obviously Africa given the volume of trade largely in favor of the old continent.
In fact, nowhere else is President Trump decried as much as in the countries of monetary Europe. Among all the evils of which it is overwhelmed, there is the assertion that it is a dictator, statement that refers to individuals like Idi Amin Dada or Jean-Bedel Bokassa for example. But considering the stature of the various centers of power legitimate in the US, which everyone knows, the qualifier is at least exaggerated if not irrelevant. It is accused of wanting to undermine the existing world order, especially for the multilateral rules of international trade. In fact, considering the discussions in the WTO that had reached an impasse, everyone has put theirs in this blockage, France among others. What is surprising is that in the reasoning of European officials, including the above-mentioned article, they are putting the EU on the same level as internationally statutorily disinterested structures like the UN, for example. It is at least confusion if not an imposture.
The reality, as I see it, is that the old continent has made its day and that he actually has not much more to offer to the rest of the world reason why pretty much everywhere in the world they are calling it the new Soviet Union. Indeed, this is annoying the EU officials and the European public at large. No growth, high unemployment and inflation of standards on everything and its opposite. It follows that within monetary Europe, they are terribly afraid of US competition, especially on the African continent that France sees largely as its pre-square. And indeed, Germany’s first Latin partner still maintains a comparatively commercial advantage in West Africa thanks to the various levers that have been in place since the colonial period and maintained regularly and on which the former metropolis continues its working. For us African, the arrival of the USA brings a new touch that would shake a little the current status quo which has not benefited the African countries so far.
The fact is that Germany as such, like Japan, has little to fear from competition with the US. Maybe even the opposite. However, it is highly probable that if the Americans came to settle in business on our continent, the fragility of the French position would soon appear in the open, especially in agro-industry.
