By Akaninyene Esiere
Hello, and welcome! Like a lit candle in the wind, January has just breezed past. But not without some quakes. America gave us more of those first quakes than any other country on earth. First was the devastating fires in California that took the sail off the new year celebrations, and the plane crash. But all were localized compared to the Monday January 20, 2025 quake which is still reverberating across the globe.
It is no less than the second coming of Donald Trump as the President of the United States of America. All told, I am not a Donald Trump enthusiast, but I admire his daring spirit; that fearlessness. And if you must know, mentally and emotionally, I supported Kamala Harris, the first American female Vice President in the election. And just as she quickly moved on after the resounding defeat, I did not waste a moment crying over wetin no concern me (what does not concern me).
Until Inauguration Day! In just over one week, the world has started to change. It tells of the power of one man or woman to make things happen for good or for bad. Take this: as if he is in a hurry to push the world to its precipice, President Trump signed 20 Executive Orders on Inauguration Day, more than any previous United States President. Six of these Executive Orders are on immigration matters. These have unnerved the world, particularly Northern and Southern American countries and citizens who troop into America daily. An Executive Order is a directive of the President that manages the operations of the federal government.
In four years of his presidency, Joe Biden, the immediate past president signed 162 Executive Orders. Donald Trump signed 220 in his first term between January 2017 and January 2021. In fact, on his first term Inauguration Day, he signed only one executive order. What changed? Many things; and he does not want to repeat the mistakes of his past. He wants to change America (and by extension the world) as fast as possible for better or for worse.
Already Southern and Northern American nations are unnerved; Europe is on tenterhook; the Middle East is in a state of animation. Africa? He that is down needs fear no fall. We should be calming down.
The other executive order that is like a tsetse fly perching on the scrotum sac of the world is the reevaluation of US’s Foreign Aid. The World Health Organization is already on its knees begging Trump not to suspend aid to this important global agency. Tariff: when you hear a Donald Trump tell you that TARIFF is one English word that is better than LOVE, no one needs to tell you that he will do all he can, including policy summersaults, to defend his assumptions.
First and foremost, Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. He was elected only by Americans to govern America. He was elected by Americans to lead America and to solve American problems. As powerful as the American President is, he will not append his signature to any piece of legislation of any country outside of America. Within his defined, even if limited, prism, he has determined the things that ail America. And he wants to fix them the way he sees them.
Because our own “elected” officials work for their pockets, it does not mean that that is what obtains everywhere. Donald Trump wants to work for the American people. He was voted on the basis of these policies. He campaigned vigorously for these policies. Should we then expect him to do things differently? Because our people forget their electioneering campaign promises even before they are sworn into office does not mean that this is what obtains everywhere.
Let’s talk about Foreign Aids (aka Handouts). For decades, in fact since after the Second World War, the United States has been a handout nation. Apart from the Marshal Plan which brought Europe out of ruins after the war, all other American supports to several countries have been handouts, much of which does not trickle down to the people who really need it. Will the poor people in my village care enough about America stopping aids from reaching Nigeria? The answer is no; they have never even had one before. In most cases, it is the elites of poor countries who benefit from these aids; and it is them who are crying wolf!
What Donald Trump is simply saying is that he does not want America to continue being the Father Christmas of the world again. Is there anything wrong with that? If a philanthropist decides not to donate money again, what wrong has he done?
By cutting aids to many countries and organizations, there will certainly be temporal hiccups but in the long run, people will learn to live without the aids and be independent of others. They stand a chance of unleashing their ingenuities and taking advantage of the opportunities available in their environments. You cannot be a permanent beggar and expect to amount to much in life. There is no greater joy than having freedom and having your destiny in your hands. This is what the United States’s president is inadvertently trying to achieve.
Immigration:
Mexicans and people from poorer southern America countries are destabilized because of the immigration policies of Donald Trump. But this is to be expected. If there was nothing he promised Americans, getting rid of people who came into the country illegally is one. He is so consumed by this passion that nothing else matters to him.
Except in extreme cases such as war, persecution and such like, why would I go to another country to live illegally as a third class “citizen”? Why would I overstay my visa in another country. Trump is not saying that people of other countries should not travel to America, but that they should do so legitimately. Is that not what every nation does? Is there a country with no immigration or border control system? Do I want a stranger show up in my house unannounced? Do I expect a visitor to overstay his or her welcome? Not so.
Again, there will be hiccups here and there but have we considered the other side of the coin? Citizens of many poorly governed nations usually seek the easy way out such as migrating when their countries are in crisis. This attitude emboldens successive governments to continue to misbehave. If there are not many options such as running away, pressure on bad governments can lead to changes in those countries.
America is a great country. It has the biggest economy and the greatest fighting capability. For many decades, America has led the world. But that country has reached its peak. It’s infrastructure is no longer world class. When I started to study (monitor is a better word) the economies of nations, American economy was 25% of the world’s. Today, it is less than 15%. Though still the largest economy on earth with a GDP of $29 trillion, China, the second largest economy has a GDP of $18.5 trillion.
We saw what happened last week when China, now with the world’s most advanced infrastructure, launched its AI revolution; how America’s AI behemoth, NVIDIA was shaken. China is coming; India is coming also. Trump wants to reinvent his country to stay at the top. He may or may not succeed. But that is America’s problem. We have shiploads of ours; and we should find a way to fix them.
The other message Donald Trump policies are not telling the rest of the world is that it was time individual countries started to solve their problems by themselves and no longer depend on American handouts. Isn’t that real independence!
Esiere is a former journalist!
©️2025
