Your Eyewitness is avidly following the goings on in the international arena – and it’s now an ARENA more than anything else!! – after Trump’s latest ascension to the US presidency. He’s transfixed as he wonders every morning which leader’s toes he’s gonna mash. Mash…not step on!! The latest was Lula of Brazil, who’d just hosted the latest BRICS meet. Now, as we know some folks – who seem to include Trump – think that BRICS+ will be hitting the US where it hurts the most to seize world leadership – in the pockets. And as such they need to be brought to heel.
What precipitated that fear is there’s been murmurs of BRICS launching a new reserve currency to replace the US greenback that presently accounts for 87% of world trade!! That means, of course, that for America to buy ANY product in the world – from needles to spaceships – all it has to do is print pieces of paper and call it “greenbacks”!! And while some Jeremiahs wail about America carrying FOUR TRILLION dollars of debt – all America gotta do is print some more paper to service it (pay back)!!! To cover that contingency, Trump just had Congress authorise raising the debt burden to US$5 TRILLION!!
Now can you blame Trump for getting his buckta into a knot if that money tree would be trimmed by some alternative currency?? Hey…right away it would give the issuer of THAT currency the power to just print paper and collect real goods and goodies!! So to the BRICS supposed challenge, Trump slapped a further 10% tariff on their goods collectively – amounting to almost 50% of the entire world trade!! – above and beyond what he’s already done to them individually!! To which Lula responded: “The world has changed. We don’t want an emperor”!!
Well, who told him to suggest that Trump can’t do whatever he wants?? Lula was lucky President #47 didn’t have his B2s drop some of those Bunker-Buster Bombs he’d unloaded on Iran!! Instead he mildly slapped an additional 50% tariff on American imports from Brazil starting August 1st!! So what if Americans gonna now wake up to more expensive coffee and orange juice – which it gets from Brazil!! For good measure, Trump claimed that Lula was also conducting a ”witch hunt” against Brazil’s right-wing former President Bolsonaro!! Seems Brazil’s Supreme Court – not Lula!! – had made some rulings that went against Bolsonaro – who literally worships Trump. So what the heck – they’re all Brazilians, no??!!
So what does all of this have to do with us – apart from entertaining your Eyewitness?? Well, our political aspirants should ponder if the leader of the second largest economy in the hemisphere gets that kinda treatment – what about them?!!
…with Africa
Even though it’s widely known Trump thinks Africa’s full of “sh*thole” countries – as he confided during his first term!! – he’s supposedly trying to make amends since his big, bad rival China has been making economic inroads in the continent. So he invited the presidents of five West African nations – Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – to lunch at the White House.
He was surprised, however, when Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai said, “We want to work with the United States in peace and security within the region because we are committed to that and we just want to thank you so much for this opportunity.” Obviously believing Africans were “uncivilised” and couldn’t speak English “properly”, Trump responded condescendingly: “Thank you. And such good English. Such beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated? Where?”
He’s clearly ignorant of the fact that Liberia had been founded by Americans in 1822 and has a ruling elite descended from freed American slaves – with English as its national language!!
…among transgressors
Your Eyewitness was surprised that ANUG’s Chairman Dr Mark Defrance – who’s merged his party with Mohamed’s WIN – had been convicted of a transgression so serious he’d been suspended from practising medicine for two years. Birds of a feather…?
