By Makafui AIKINS
Chapter 1: Empirical
Trump is back! And naturally, so is his ‘the United States of America is a victim of international trade’ rhetoric.
He has been consistently emphatic on this point—years upon years before he ever actively contemplated holding office, during his first term of office, then his four years in purgatory, having lost a second term in 2021, and upon his return to power this year (2025).
And China has, in recent years, largely been on the receiving end of these endless outbursts.
Trump has gone so far as to allege ‘rape’—as being committed by China upon his country. “We have a 500-billion-dollar deficit—trade deficit—with China… We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country… It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world!” He tells an exuberant campaign crowd back in 2016. “Since China’s entrance into the World Trade Organisation in 2001, no one has manipulated better or taken advantage of the United States more… I will not say the word ‘cheated,’ but nobody’s cheated better than China, I will say that.” He opined in 2019.
And these incessant tirades, they have, for the most part, been backed with actions. Tariffs. Oh, Trump loves his tariffs! “I always say ‘tariffs’ is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary. Because ‘tariffs’, it’s going to make us [USA] rich as hell…” He proudly proclaimed on his Inauguration Day (2025), when announcing upcoming tariffs on Canada and Mexico, effective 1st February.
Fundamentally inclined to the mercantile school of thought (perhaps without even knowing or intending), Trump has, in the past—during his first term, that is—and present (during this second term of his) continued to whip out tariffs and the threats thereof to countries, every chance he gets. Below are some few examples.
In 2018, he infamously issued tariffs on steel and aluminium exports from all countries—barring some few exceptions. All steel imports into the USA faced a 25percent tariff, while aluminium had an application of 10percent. Trump’s reason for this was straight-forward: this was to help shore up US industries, protecting them from, what he deemed to be unfair trade practices and resultant competitions brought about by countries like China.
Just a few months after this Steel-Aluminium tariffs, beginning in July, China was to face a series of tariff impositions for their exports into the US market, with, among others, intellectual property theft, the forced technology transfer (i.e., local content requirements) then allegedly being applied by China on American companies within the Chinese market cited as reasons for this wave of tariff impositions on this Asian nation.
The European Union also got its share of tariffs during the periods 2018 to 2020. In 2019, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on US$7.5 billion worth of EU goods. This was a WTO-sanctioned retaliation to the subsidies that had for years been granted by the EU to domestic aerospace companies like Airbus—subsidies which resulted in the stifling of their foreign competitors, like the USA’s Boeing.
And of course, fast-forward to 2025, with just a couple of weeks in office, Donald has, as noted, already started issuing out tariffs and the threats thereof, so much so that within a span of three days that I spent working on this article,
Trump has undertaken trade actions that have consistently rendered this particular paragraph outdated. And he has absolutely no plan of stopping now. One cannot keep up with how fast he moves, specifically when it comes to his trade policies. The gentleman has proven himself to be the most tariff-happy President in USA’s history.
In the nationalistic context, experts have remained divided on the efficacy of these tariffs, with some swearing by its positive impacts to the American economy, while many others decry its reversed adverse effects.
These tariffs have mostly tended to elicit—not fear, not withdrawal—but retaliatory measures from these targeted nations. Indeed, these tariffs have tended to ricochet off their intended targets, repeatedly hitting the American economy instead.
So detractors claim. But this article is not intended as an expository piece into the efficacy or lack thereof of Trump’s trade policy, nor is it intended as an exposition into the efficacy of such similar trade policies carried out by nations worldwide.
Detractors may act like this ‘American first’ protectionist trade ideology is a Trump invention—he may be the loudest, proudest, and most ruthless at it, but he most definitely is not the only at it. But this is a matter for another day.
Indeed, this article isn’t about the content of Trump’s trade policies, rather it is about the spirit (the soul) behind these trade policies. Primarily, what this article seeks to do is to dissect these italicised phrases as contained in the opening paragraph of this piece—as attributed to Trump:
- Cheating. Rape—as alleged by him within the context of international trade
- And this so-called rape being described as the “greatest theft in the history of the world!”
The greatest theft in the history of the world!?!
Ha
Chapter 2: Sentimental
A fable
In situations like these, one has no option but to evoke the fabled giant: Kweku Anansi.
Imagine a world where there exists, a universally agreed-upon weighing scale for accurately measuring the human experience.
A scale capable of measuring the gravity of the pain humans worldwide are made subject to—one way or the other, and then accurately deciphering who the perpetrators of these pains are… And imagine that you, upon standing on said scale, come off with a victimhood score of 98percent, while your neighbour Anansi comes off with a cool 8percent—a whole 90percent less than your score.
And now imagine that this same Anansi who scored a mere 8percent on the victimhood scale is also decisively found to be one of the main perpetrators responsible for this 98percent victimhood score of yours. In fact, not just you—but this same Kweku Anansi, he is found to be one of the main perpetrators responsible for the victimisation of people interspersed worldwide…
Brothers and sisters, I can only imagine your shock when you, after shouldering your victimhood, swallowing your pain, ‘giving it to God’ (as we Africans like to do), going through it all stoically, finding little to no resolution for your victimhood status, finding little to no change in your status no matter how hard you try… Oh, brothers and sisters I can only imagine your shock when you, upon stepping out of your house one day, find your neighbour, Anansi, standing in the town square, with a large crowd all about him, launching into a full display of lamentation, soaked in tears, bawling his heart out, passionately, aggressively pointing fingers at this person and at that person, indicting all around him for wrongs he believes has been committed by all against him, demanding there and then resolutions for these wrongs…
Oh, Anansi may be the reason for your many burdens and sorrows, but Kweku Anansi, he can never be made the victim of these same sorrows. All of you encircling Kweku Anansi, all you these countless people surrounding Anansi, you only exist to watch him flourish on—by all means necessary, and at your expense, in fact.
Even if it is on your backs that this flourishing is done, so be it! Kweku Anansi must be the first among unequals—always. Anansi must never be dealt a bad hand—he does the dealing! Anansi must never be the victim—he does the perpetrating.
Oh, brothers and sisters, I can only imagine your shock at this blatant display of hypocrisy…
The history
‘The greatest theft in history’—that is a very hard determination to make. With much of our human history doomed to antiquity, such a determination is objectively difficult to make, isn’t it? So how about we look to ‘recent history’ instead? The greatest theft in modern history…
And this title, it surely cannot go to this so-called Chinese-orchestrated rape being purported by Trump as being committed against his country, can it? Especially looking at the fact that it was just a few decades ago when this continent of ours experienced its final lap of ‘rape’—having suffered over four centuries of looting, with our human and natural resource capital forcefully deployed to finance the developments of the West, i.e., nations like the USA.
Indeed, beginning the 15th century, the African continent was made to involuntarily partake in a demonised version of international trade… Nations interspersed worldwide, the West especially, went into international trade relations willingly, but we, Africans, were thrown into this jungle with hands bound in chains, with our natural resources and human resources plundered to finance the socioeconomic expansion of the West.
During the 18th century, the nation of the United States of America was formed from the voluntary agglomeration of European emigrants. And with this new nation, the continent of Africa found no rest either. Beginning that same 18th century, the USA was to superintend over a hellish era of slave trade—a trade which left this then-newly formed country prosperous beyond every nation’s wildest dreams.
Now, this is what you call the greatest theft in modern history! And it did not even end here.
In the 20th century, much of the West and East found themselves at War. World War II was a particularly interesting one—for the USA, at least. Because while their counterpart nations were knee-deep in this highly industrialised war, the goriest of wars ever seen, bleeding human lives and national resources, a war that saw to the crumpling of empires, superpowers, and economies, the then isolationist-inclined USA was quietly reaping the spoils of this war, trading in, among others, military and industrial goods, so much so that by the end of the war in 1945, this country had come out of it all a superpower—taking over reins from the United Kingdom.
With the world having been made victim of two gory world wars, in close succession, through the handiwork of these perpetrators (the Global North), calls for an institutionalised and sanitised international plane became more prominent. The stage was set. A new world order had to be drawn.
A world order that would regulate relations between all nations around the globe—one that would see to it that such barbarisms, as spawned by these nations (the Global North), would never repeat itself again. And so began this modern era of international relations, comprising, among others, the institution of the rules of international trade.
The drawing up of a new set of rules of engagement that would see to the creation of an orderly world. And at the helm of the designing of this new world order, this drawing up of these new rules of engagement, were these same nations, these same perpetrators of these past barbarisms—the Global North generally, the USA especially. Interesting.
This is even more interesting because this continent of ours, at these very early stages of the development of this new world order, was still bound in the chains of colonialism, completely prevented from partaking in the designing of the framework of this new world order—this new world order which had as a crucial component, the rules guiding international trade.
So, the West, countries like the USA especially, they continued to benefit from this unbalanced world created by them, for them—with the continent of Africa still kept at this continued disadvantaged position.
And these colonial structures, they have, in many ways, undeniably formed the basis of this so-called modern age of international relations—trade especially. We find this glaringly evident in the fact that the continent of Africa has infamously been steamrolled into remaining the world’s leading exporter of cheap raw materials—even in this 21st century, decades after the continent’s so-called liberation. This is no different from the continent’s role a few centuries and decades ago during the slave trade and colonial era respectively.
So, when you talk about ‘cheating’ and ‘rape’—and especially in terms of the ‘greatest of such recorded in modern history’—no level-headed person will skip by the continent of Africa and choose the USA as the most victimised group. In fact, the history related here shows the exact opposite! The USA has arguably been the country that has benefited the most from international relations—particularly international trade.
I tell you what, when Trump throws around the words ‘rape’ and ‘cheating’ willy-nilly in description of his country’s so-called victim status, ah, the African cannot help but experience PTSD!
The town square
Okay, so what do we make of this all? This is all well and good… But of what use is this history related in this article to Trump, the American, the West, and the rest of the Global North for that matter?
We, finding the fabled Anansi deep in his impassioned lamentations and tapping him on the shoulder to remind him that he, in fact, has caused exponentially more harm to us and much of the rest of the world than he has ever received from the world at large—we, these same people to whom he is laying out these lamentations… What use is this information to Anansi? Is it to stop him from ever laying out his case? …Stop him from ever fighting for himself? “Looking at the ‘perpetrating’ you have done and continue to do, you can never assert victimhood!” Is this what we are seeking to tell Anansi?
And if so, do we have the right to make such a proclamation? And even if we have such a right, are we right in doing so?
One cannot help but shudder at the thought of living in a world where nations are denied the room to air their grievances and seek rectification—no matter how deeply hypocritical this action of theirs may be.
We cannot stop Anansi from hypocritically mourning over his 8percent victimhood—no matter how culpable he may be of other nations’ plights. We can point out this hypocrisy all we want, but that will not and should not stop Anansi from seeking ‘justice’ for himself—whenever he feels wronged.
In fact, instead of wasting time pointing at this hypocrisy, we are better off taking a page from Anansi’s book instead, and never swallow a wrong, never stand for injustice, never sit in fatalism for theft, for cheating, and definitely not for rape.
For four whole years, beginning in 2017 and ending in 2021, Trump served as a telling lesson to the African continent that she hasn’t been angry enough—and perhaps has never truly been… At least not on that concerted scale and on that united front prerequisite to effect true change.
We can scoff at Trump’s endless tirade all we want—this tirade of showing off an 8-percent wound as though it’s a 98-percent one, and wailing with the fervour which, really, should be ours, the continent of Africa’s… But I insist, we have no right to tell Anansi how to mourn.
Our best bet is to take a book from Anansi’s page, and launch for ourselves, with result-oriented ferocity, a resistance to all things that seek to keep us bound in this quagmire of lowliness, left to scrape the bottom of the global food chain, and render us mere spectators to the splendours attained by other nations, the Global North especially.
But keep in mind, this is not a call for the wanton replication of the Trumpian tariff-based trade policy—because heaven knows that these policies tend to be rife with the curse of the vicious cycle. Rather, this is a call for the replication of the spirit, the soul behind his charge. Trump is a telling lesson to the African continent that she has no business being fatalistic.
In the next four years, Trump is going to continue lamenting and demanding instant rectification for the littlest injustices he believes have been meted to his country. In the next four years, oh, Africa ought to do as Trump does, and mourn, baby, mourn! Demand immediate rectification and justice, oh, baby demand—at any and all injustices committed against the continent on the international plane, particularly in trade… At any and all injustices, historic and present.
Ah! Go ahead you this ancient continent, and mourn, baby, mourn! Seek immediate rectifications and reparations, baby, endlessly do!
Outro
With all this being said, naturally, I see you thinking about AfCFTA…
>>>Among others, Makafui Aikins is the CEO & Co-founder of Nvame, a premier business development consultancy and publication firm. She can be reached via [email protected], www.nvame.com. LinkedIn: Kafui Akutor (Makafui Aikins)
