The Obamas Do Africa | Black Agenda Report

The Obamas Do Africa

26 Jun 2013

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

President Obama claims he’s off to Africa in search of trade. But the Chinese have eclipsed the U.S. in that arena by offering “far better terms of trade and investment than the Americans.” Obama talks trade for public consumption, while the U.S. military locks Africa in a cage of steel.

The Obamas Do Africa

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“The U.S. is not in the business of fair and mutually beneficial trade – it’s about the business of imperialism.”

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.

To justify its rapid militarization of Africa, Washington plunges whole regions of the continent into chaos. U.S. policies, under presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, have utterly destroyed Somalia, made the Horn of Africa a theater of war, drawn the northern tier of the continent into America’s cauldron of terror, and killed six million people in the eastern Congo.

“The Americans ensure their access to African natural resources through the barrel of a gun.”

The face of America in Africa is war, not trade; extraction of minerals by military intimidation, not conventional commerce. Washington’s priority is to embed AFRICOM ever deeper into the militaries of African states – rather than configuring more favorable trade relationships on the continent. But you won’t learn that from the U.S. corporate media, which chooses to focus on the $100 million cost of Obama’s African trip, or to look for human interest angles on Obama’s decision not to touch down in his father’s homeland, Kenya. However, even that angle is too sinister for deeper exploration by the corporate press, because Kenya’s absence from the itinerary is meant as a threat.

The United States is angry because Washington wanted the Kenyan people to elect a different president, one more acceptable to U.S. policymakers. The Americans expected the whole of Kenyan civil society to bend to Washington’s will, and reject the candidacy of Uhuru Kenyatta, simply to please the superpower. When that didn’t happen, it was decided that Kenya must be shunned, despite its past services to U.S. imperialism.

Skipping Kenya was a warning that more serious repercussions may lurk in the future – which is a potent threat, because the U.S. controls most of the guns of Africa. As the U.S.-backed warlord in Somalia said in Jeremy Scahill’s excellent film The Dirty War, “The Americans are masters of war.” War, and the threat of war, is the reality behind every U.S. presidential visit, to Africa and everywhere else. Whether the terms of trade are good or bad, the declining U.S. empire will get access to the resources it needs, or thousands – millions! – will die.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130626_gf_ObamaInAfrica.mp3

More Stories

Socialist Movement of Ghana , Dhoruba bin-Wahad
Statement of Condemnation of the Plan to Have Emmanuel Macron Deliver a Keynote Address on Reparations in Ghana
10 Jun 2026
The Socialist Movement of Ghana declared its strong opposition to their government's invitation to French president Emmanuel Macron to speak at a conference on reparations.
Carlos Martinez
Siege Socialism or Barbarism: Why We Must Stand with Cuba
10 Jun 2026
Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are astounding, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Report June 5, 2026
05 Jun 2026
In this week’s segment, we discuss the US effort to control the world’s oil and gas supplies in Venezuela, Iran, and other nations, and to disrupt and steal supplies going to and from Russia and Ch
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley , Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
"Move the Games": Take the FIFA World Cup Out of the U.S. and Boycott the Host Country Itself
05 Jun 2026
Ajamu Baraka is a Black Agenda Report contributing editor and Director of the North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights. The North-South Project is among the organizations calling for…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley , Richard Medhurst
Iran, Venezuela, Ukraine, Greenland, and the U.S. Heist of the World's Oil and Gas Supply
05 Jun 2026
Richard Medhurst discusses his latest investigative reporting, “The Petrogas-Dollar: The Secret US Strategy Behind the Iran War," an analysis of the latest iteration of U.S. hegemony. The U.S. is…