The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
How the American president is using the playbook his predecessors have used for far too long
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I am an admirer of President Donald Trump because I find him more realistic about issues and brutally frank in the way he expresses himself. He lacks the hypocrisy and conspiracy that characterizes most Western dealings with other countries. However, I have failed to find rationality in his recent trade war with China and the world despite hours upon hours of reading and watching news media that are favorable to his point of view. Even where I am inclined to agree with him, I find them best suited for a developing country, not for an advanced economy like the USA.
Trump keeps complaining that trade deficits mean America’s trading partners are ripping off his country. This cannot be generally true, but it can be specifically true. For instance, if Washington signed a trade deal with a country allowing it to access the USA market duty free while the other country retails the right to have trade restrictions on American imports, that is an unbalanced agreement. America can do this for strategic or humanitarian reasons – to win over such a country from rivals or help it industrialize, etc. With time such aims may lose their original justification.
Often a trade deficit means that the other country produces more of what you need than you produce in what it needs. And this could be because other countries produce the goods that a country needs at a more cost-efficient price than you do, or it just doesn’t consume what you produce in the quantities that balances the trade. Trump therefore seems oblivious of basic ideas about international trade – or all trade. Yet he is president of the most advanced country in the world with the best brains on trade theory.
I wonder whether it’s possible that one man can singlehandedly decide such important matters in a country like America. Of course, I am aware that the views Trump is expressing have been on his head since the late 1980s. I have seen a video clip of him on Larry King Live in 1988 saying exactly what he is saying today – that every country in the world is ripping off America. So, this is not something new. However, it is possible there are smart economists around Trump pushing this agenda. The ones I have read and watched online are hawks, not thinkers to be taken seriously.
I believe, contrary to Trump, that America is the one that has been ripping off almost every country it trades with. The USA prints the world’s reserve currency, the dollar, in which most international trade is conducted. If you sell coffee to America, the USA doesn’t have to produce anything to pay you. It can go on its printing machine, print pieces of paper called dollars and pays you. It costs America almost nothing to print those pieces of paper. Today, the USA doesn’t have to print those pieces of paper. All it does is punch numbers into a computer and you are paid.
The right to print currency is the most powerful weapon ever invented by human beings. All countries have this right only within their borders. America has it all over the world. It is such a luxury that Americans can live far beyond their means and still be solvent. China has to export huge quantities of physical and valuable goods to America such as are earth minerals, electronics, computers, textiles etc. to earn foreign exchange. America doesn’t have to sell anything to China to raise money to pay the Chinese. America just prints yellow papers, US treasury bonds, to pay China.
I find it hard to believe that Trump and his team are unaware of the strategic significance of the dollar to America’s economic life. If they do, why escalate this trade war not just with China but most of the world? In his sense, I feel Trump is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Jo Biden, in digging the grave for the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The Biden regime (pun intended) imposed what it called “crippling” sanctions on Russia and even confiscated her foreign exchange reserves. This has made other countries fear keeping their reserves in dollars. Since February 2022, the price of a kilo of gold has gone from US$23,000 to US$93,000 today. Why? I suspect most people and countries are buying gold as a store of value because they can no longer trust the dollar.
Successful American administrations have over the years used (and abused) the dollar’s role as a reserve currency to settle scores with their political enemies. They impose unilateral sanctions on persons, entities and countries that do not share America’s self-inflated sense of itself. As I write this article, there are 23 countries and over 12,000 entities sanctioned by America. With time, countries, corporations, individuals etc. will have to find ways to avoid these sanctions by developing other means of trade and international financial transactions to avoid USA’s abuse of the dollar.
Therefore, the only way to understand Trump is to understand America. The USA has entered a period of arrogance. All power corrupts, the saying goes, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Since the end of the cold war in 1991, America has enjoyed absolute power, and it has corrupted that country absolutely. America has developed an air of both moral righteousness and invincibility. This is a toxic combination that makes it less willing to tolerate dissent. Everyone in the world must act as Washington deems fit of faces reprisals in sanctions, bombings and other forms of blackmail.
Therefore, the difference between Trump and his predecessors is not in the actions taken but the way he has done so. While his predecessors would have not alienated their allies like Europe and Asia, Trump doesn’t give a damn. He removes all pretense when making decisions. I do not think his tariffs will bring manufacturing back to America. The country is too advanced economically to become a manufacturing hub again. Even if it did, I do not think it will create much in jobs due to automation and robotics. Good old Donald is living in the 1950s, not the 2020s.
Like Biden before him, Trump is only accelerating the demise of the dollar as a global currency and the USA as a trusted global actor. I suspect that from now, slowly by slowly, America’s reign over the globe can only decline not just in relative terms but also absolute terms. It is a self-inflicted wound.
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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug
Some cake for Andrew: When individuals from autocratic nations support the most oppressive aspects of their own governments while simultaneously devoting their efforts to critiquing the policies and practices of more developed democratic countries, a contradiction emerges that warrants reflection. Is it not paradoxical to focus one’s critical energy on the shortcomings of highly developed nations—often without direct experience of their systems—while refraining from addressing or challenging the systemic failures within one’s own nation?
Such individuals are frequently the first to express indignation when observers, especially those from outside their region or continent, comment on the governance issues in their home country or offer suggestions for improvement. This defensiveness often stems from a desire to appear intellectually superior within their own circles, rather than a genuine commitment to constructive discourse.
If intellectual integrity and civic responsibility were the true motivations, one might expect these individuals to take at least minimal steps toward advocating for democratic principles and resisting entrenched autocracy or dynastic political rule within their own struggling nations.
Wow, so wonderful!
But, I wonder if Mr Tibuhaburwa’s propagandaist likes reading such brutally challenging comments, for he believes so in superiority of his intellectual ideas!!
I dare him to rebut your comment in this very space!
Nothing to add on my side.
I wouldn´t have put it any better than this. About time gloves are off and the truth is told. Lou, go for it. 100% behind you.
I think Andrew is spending too much time theorizing about problems in other countries. He should instead apply his intellect to serious issues in his neighborhood. Andrew, your immediate neighborhood is full of serious existential issues that need your attention.
Trump has become an experimental president. He has turned America into a laboratory of sorts. He is experimenting with the world and strangely with America itself. Aside the unpopular internal reforms under the disputed Elon Musk led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he is not even shy experimenting with already established high-quality intellectual holy grounds like Harvard. What explains this craziness? Where is America’s technocrats, political elite, and intellectuals who drive America’s global agenda? This rather excessive experimental appetite must somehow be tamed lest it will attract a backlash.
Yes. Trump is focused ONLY on trade deficits in manufactured goods, but completely forgets about the service industry which is what is making America Great Again (no pun intended).
If one adds up agriculture, manufacturing and service industries the US has a humongous trade surplus with other countries.