Anti-terrorism and transactional relationships are likely be the main features of US President Donald Trump’s Africa policy. But if Trump’s proposed cuts to the state department hold, the US will be less and less of a presence on the continent, according to <a href="http://www.businessofgovernment.org/bio/gregory-f-treverton" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Prof Gregory F Treverton</a>, who directed the US <a href="https://fas.org/irp/nic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Intelligence Council</a> in the Obama Administration.
Treverton, who is currently Professor of Practice at the <a href="https://www.usc.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Southern California</a>, is a world authority on security and intelligence. I put a number of questions to Treverton who visited South Africa recently to deliver the keynote address at a <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/docs/2015/dirco0714.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">South African Council on International Relations</a> conference on South Africa’s relations with Africa.
Why is Donald Trump’s foreign policy so incomprehensible?
I wish I knew! It’s a continual struggle between, on the one hand, the true believers, the American firsters who are anti-trade and anti-engagement in what they see as an unfriendly world, and on the other more traditional conservative Republicans.
The pattern has been that the more traditional conservative Republicans, like the Secretaries of State and Defence, tug policy in a more familiar direction, only to have the president blow the process up with a tweet condemning the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/paris-climate-agreement" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paris climate agreement</a> or <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/30/trumps-tweet-tirade-against-germany-could-backfire-on-us.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">labelling</a> Germany an unfair trader. The intensity of the struggle is reflected in the continuing haemorrhage of leaks, all from the very top of the administration.
Didn’t the post-Second World War liberal international order need a shake up?
Yes, and perhaps in that sense we’ll end up thanking Trump, if, and this is a big if, we get through the next years without a major crisis or too much broken crockery. Some of Trump’s complaints, like (America’s Western) allies bearing too little of the burden, have been true for a long time. And the reaction by Americans to the sense that they pay too much for the “public goods” of international economics and security has been going on for a long time.
Polls routinely show that Americans <a href="http://www.politifact.com/global-news/statements/2016/nov/09/john-kerry/yep-most-people-clueless-us-foreign-aid-spending/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">think</a> the country spends on foreign aid 20 or 30 times what it actually does. So, too, the questioning of what we all too easily call the “liberal international order” has been growing over time.
You suggested that Russia under <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/vladimir-putin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vladimir Putin</a>, is a declining power. Doesn’t the evidence point in the other direction?
It surely is a declining power, though Putin has played a weak hand extraordinarily well. It is in demographic decline, and far from modernising the Russian economy, Putin has only deepened its dependence on hydrocarbons. My fear is that as the country declines, it will be all the more tempted to turn to what tools it retains – cyber attacks and nuclear sabre-rattling.
How do you think Trump’s Africa policy will turn out?
In <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/11/rex-tillerson-pick-for-secretary-of-state-breaks-with-trump-on-key-issues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">testifying</a> before Congress, Secretary of State <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38281954" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rex Tillerson</a> probably was as clear as the administration could be given its disarray. Africa was in the “turning to other countries” category, and he began with the fight against terrorism. He did, though, mention the economic opportunities in Africa, mostly in the sense of business that might be done. I suspect those will continue to be the emphasis.
So does this mean that anti-terrorism and transactional relationships will be the main features of Trump’s Africa policy?
I think they will continue to be the main drivers, for better or worse, though not the only drivers. The country will have to respond to major humanitarian crises whether the administration wants to or not. And some of the legacy programmes of the last two administrations, like the <a href="https://agoa.info/about-agoa.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">African Growth and Opportunity Act</a>, or the <a href="https://www.pepfar.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief </a> have had bipartisan support, so we’ll see how they fare in the congressional budget process.
And, if this is so, what are the long-term implications of this for US relations with the continent?
If Trump’s proposed cuts to the <a href="https://www.state.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">State Department</a> and <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">USAID</a> hold, the US will be less and less of a presence on the continent. The main beneficiary, diplomatically, will be China, followed by the Europeans and perhaps even Russia, though it doesn’t have much to contribute except arms sales.
If there is any silver lining, perhaps it will be that Africans, and particularly South Africans, will realise they have to take more initiative on their own.
When it comes to the US itself, you raised the possibility that it might break up? Were you speaking in abstract terms, or is this a real possibility?
I meant it mostly as a metaphor and as a touchstone for thinking about the future. I don’t think it’s likely, but it does have to be considered.
What is certain is that the next few years will be a kind if a guerrilla war, one mostly fought in the courts, between the US federal government and the “blue” (read Democratic Party-controlled) states, led by California, over climate change, immigration and other issues.
What does the Trump presidency mean for these ideas?
So far it seems bound to increase the divide in America. Trump has talked and acted entirely to please his base. He has played on fear, fanning it by portraying the country in dire straits surrounded by a hostile world. So far that base – especially older and often poorer white Americans – seems to have been satisfied by word, words they see as validating them.
But we’ve known from the beginning that Trump can’t deliver on his promises: those “good” low-skilled jobs in manufacturing or mining (as he has portrayed them) aren’t coming back. So we’ll see, but I expect that realisation to only deepen the anger and disaffection. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-vale-189558" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Peter Vale</a>
The co-hosts of the conference Treverton addressed were the <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/JIAS" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study</a> (JIAS) and the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/wsg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wits School of Public Management</a>.
Originally published by <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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Look to China for the main beneficiary of America’s likely retreat from Africa

With a single tweet Donald Trump carved $4 billion off the market capitalization of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor. “The F-35 program and cost is out of control,” Trump grumbled on Twitter at 8:26 a.m. on December 12, attacking the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which at more than $1 trillion is the biggest defense project in history. Lockheed shares plunged 5% as investors fretted Trump would kill or maim the effort. Lockheed hopes to make more than 3,000 F-35s, at $100 million each, in the next 30 years.
Investors needn’t have worried. That 5% decline was a blip in comparison with the 170% gain in Lockheed’s share price since chief executive Marillyn Hewson took over in January 2013. During that period the company, based in Bethesda, Maryland, has delivered consistently higher profits and given back $12 billion to shareholders, despite declining defense budgets.
Trump will soon learn that the bullying tactics he uses at real estate closings don’t work so well with defense contractors. The F-35 was engineered not just for stealth but for congressional support. Assembled at a 14,000-employee complex in Fort Worth, Texas, the fighter draws 300,000 parts from suppliers in 45 states, with a total estimated economic impact of almost 150,000 jobs.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4413" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO012417_053-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Even if Trump cancels the program – about as likely as his nominating Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court – it would be painful but hardly fatal for Lockheed, whose 2016 revenues will likely exceed $46 billion. The taxpayers have already covered some $45 billion in development costs on the F-35, and Lockheed sells billions of dollars’ worth of other gear to the government, from Trident ballistic missiles to helicopters to highly classified spy satellites. Trump can tweet his displeasure, but Lockheed is one of a handful of companies on Earth that can both invent an entirely new defense technology – say, radar-evading stealth – and then mass-produce it on an assembly line.
“Our business is not all around who is the president of the United States,” says Hewson, 62, who’s the daughter of an Army hospital manager and worked her way through the University of Alabama as a night telephone operator. “We’re managing a huge supply chain, we have international partners around the world, and we expect a fair return for that.”
Hewson, who started at Lockheed in 1983 working on C-130 cargo turboprops in Marietta, Georgia, has long since mastered the vagaries of doing business with the government. For instance, Congress likes to break contracts into bite-size annual chunks, obscuring the total cost of huge weapons programs like the F-35, even though that makes them more expensive and less efficient in the long run. Lockheed’s internal systems are optimized to deal with this sort of governmental nonsense.
Hewson is all in on defense, which accounts for over 90% of sales. One of her boldest moves was the $9 billion purchase of the Sikorsky helicopter unit from United Technologies in 2015, securing the $3.9 billion contract for Marine One (the president’s personal fleet of 23 helicopters), which Lockheed had lost a few years before. That program is ripe for an outraged Trump tweet, but Sikorsky also helps president-proof the company: Sikorsky helicopters are popular with foreign governments as low-cost weapons platforms and should help push overseas sales to 30% from around 25% today.
Sikorsky also allows Lockheed to display some of its Skunk Works-bred technical prowess. Take autonomous flight. Lockheed engineers are masters at the technology. The pilotless K-Max helicopter, for example, has hauled more than 4.5 million pounds of cargo to remote military posts in Afghanistan since it was deployed in 2011. In a few years most of Lockheed’s helicopters could be pilot-optional.
R&amp;D is another defensive strategy. On average, Lockheed spends $700 million a year to come up with technology the Pentagon can’t afford not to buy. The company’s Silicon Valley presence dates to the 1950s, when its engineers were pioneering the ballistic missile technology designed to deliver nuclear warheads. Now engineers in Palo Alto and elsewhere are working on hypersonic aircraft that could traverse the country in less than an hour, as well as on directed-energy weapons to blast incoming missiles apart with laser beams and a compact fusion reactor that can fit in the back of a pickup truck and power a city of 100,000. “My job is to make sure that as our customers’ priorities change, as the environment changes, we shift that portfolio of products to meet them,” Hewson says.
But Lockheed isn’t just a massive research lab; it’s also a manufacturing giant, producing not only sophisticated aircraft like the F-35 at scale but also robotic submarines and high-speed combat ships for the Navy. It built the Patriot missile, the Aegis antimissile system and the Viking rovers still cruising around Mars. Trump will discover that if he wants programs like these, he has few other options.
The Pentagon can buy Sidewinder missiles from Raytheon and nuclear subs from General Dynamics, but Lockheed is probably the only contractor that can pull together a project the size of the F-35. Hewson’s biggest challenge is persuading Congress – and the Donald – to place larger orders so Lockheed can wring costs out of its immense supply chain and bring the price down to between $80 million and $85 million (less than the cost of Trump’s personal 757 jet).
“If you look at the global security environment and how challenging and crazy that is, and it’s our products that are going to help with that, I think we’re a great growth story,” Hewson says. “As I look at companies in our industry, I’d bet on us.”
&nbsp;

Hardened Target

Felix Sater is not a name that has come up much during the presidential campaign. That he has a colorful past is an understatement: The Russian-born Sater served a year in prison for stabbing a man in the face with a margarita glass during a bar fight, pleaded guilty to racketeering as part of a mafia-driven “pump-and-dump” stock fraud and then escaped jail time by becoming a highly valued government informant.
He was also an important figure at Bayrock, a development company and key Trump real estate partner during the 2000s, notably with the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium in New York City, and has said under oath that he represented Trump in Russia and subsequently billed himself as a senior Trump advisor, with an office in Trump Tower.
Usually such an association would ignite a political firestorm. From the Clintons’ Whitewater deals to Richard Nixon’s relationship with Florida banker and developer Bebe Rebozo, all the way back to 19th-century industrialist Mark Hanna’s influence over William McKinley, presidential candidates
have long suffered by dint of association.
Sater has been profiled in the Washington Post, on ABC News and in several other outlets. But few have taken much note of him, presumably because Trump has said, under oath, that he barely knew him. “If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked like,” he said in a deposition in November 2013. Asked how many times he had ever conversed with Sater, he said, “Not many.” And asked about a previous BBC interview, in which he was questioned about Sater’s mafia connections, Trump said he didn’t recall the interview.
This past December Trump went further: “Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it,” Trump told AP, referring questions about Sater to his staff. “I’m not that familiar with him.”
End of story? Not quite. Looking into Trump’s deals, FORBES has uncovered numerous e-mails and sworn statements that indicate Sater was closer to Trump, his organization and his children than previously revealed. Additionally, FORBES has connected three billionaire oligarchs from Kazakhstan to potential deals involving Trump and Sater.
Why does this matter? The story of Sater and the one involving billionaires quietly backing the Trump-Bayrock deals speaks to a key virtue of any good businessman – due diligence – that seems especially relevant for a candidate running on private sector acumen and the need to do “extreme vetting” of those seeking to get into the country.
It wouldn’t have taken much vetting to get the scoop on Sater. FORBES retained a highly regarded global-risk-assessment firm to conduct a background check, using only what was available to it in 2007 – the year the Trump-Bayrock relationship was promoted. The investigative firm (it asked not to be named for fear of political repercussions) discovered many facts that we’re revealing here and others that have come out before, including felony convictions and organized crime ties. Such due diligence on Sater could have been done for $5,000.

All The (Potential) President’s Men

It was a usual Friday evening on July 1; I had just knocked off at work. Jersey City, in New York, was covered with American flags of all sizes, flying from car roofs, apartments and the front gardens of homes. Barely in sight in the morning, the red, white and blue flags suddenly mushroomed in my host city.
In the corridors of Forbes’ office, I overheard colleagues talking about their grand plans for the coming Independence Day long weekend – it meant nothing to me as a South African, I was just excited for the day off on Monday. I don’t hate my job, it’s just in a South African’s DNA to halt the capitalist machinery.
The South African public holiday on April 27, which marks the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, doesn’t have much significance to me nor my friends. We are happy to be duty free, unlike the careerist politicians who never miss the opportunity to sell empty dreams at rallies. While the voting fodder flocks into stadiums for a political party’s t-shirt or a small food pack, we catch up on household chores and a little fun later in the day. In the 22 years of this so-called freedom, I haven’t witnessed anything like the patriotism of the Americans.
Since 1776, without fail, over 300 million Americans still commemorate the Fourth of July, with pomp. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and the British Empire lost control of the 13 colonies that now make up part of the United States (US). Now, many countries were once colonized by the British Empire, but none come as close to celebrating their independence as the US. Sadly, independence didn’t apply to everyone; the US continued exploiting African slaves for a century. The country had now elevated itself to the colonizer until 1865, when slavery was abolished. Even this didn’t put an end to the lynching of African Americans. As a matter of fact, the brutality experienced by blacks is still pervasive today.
The longevity of the US independence can be attributed to John Adams, the lawyer and politician who would become president. While pleading with the larcenous British Empire, Adams penned a letter to his wife, Abigail, expressing his wish for independence.
“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more,” wrote Adams.
To this day, his wish lives on, Americans commemorate the day with barbeques, parades, and fireworks.
As I drew near to my apartment on that hot Friday’s night, looking forward to sundowners at Guillo’s Place, the local Mexican bar, there was a strange activity in the yard. My neighbors were out on the stoep having drinks.
They warmly invited me to their small soiree, but the sudden friendliness took me by surprise. I waited for two months to be invited for tea, but I was always the invisible African. I went up to my studio to grab the dusty bottle of South African dry red that was on top of my fridge.
From then, the long weekend was taken care of, with copious food and drink consumed, like the millions of other Americans. As America is going to the polls later this year, it was inevitable that politics was discussed. Despite voting in the New Jersey primaries, none of my new acquaintances were happy with Hilary Clinton nor Donald Trump. Who cares? At least they know who they are voting for. I am envious of their freedom to choose who can stand for president. I don’t see that happening in my homeland.
The long weekend culminated to the mother of all parties at 9PM on Monday. Even the rain couldn’t put a damper on the revellers that had gathered on Coles Street, in downtown Jersey City, nor the fireworks on the other side of the Hudson River in Manhattan.
Thanks to my neighbors, I didn’t miss Guillo’s tequila.

The Night African Wine Trumped Tequila

The gray concrete slabs dominating a construction site, a stone’s throw from Kotoka International Airport, don’t look like much right now. By June, they’ll be the foundation of the first Marriott Hotel in sub-Saharan Africa—a symbol of the progress of Ghana’s economy. A brand like Marriott “will put Ghana on the map”, says Nii Ampa-Soware, chief of research at Databank in Accra, who says he “would not be surprised” if other luxury global hotel brands like Sheraton are already planning their own entrance, seeing Marriott as an example of the success to be had in Ghana. “It cements the country’s position within a certain class. Having those international brands gives the country a sense of credibility that it has ‘arrived’.” 
It’s the baby of 62-year-old entrepreneur Eissame Halabi-Ahma, who was raised in Damascus and educated in Scotland. He owns half of African Hospitality Ltd (AHL) and has spent 11 years on the Marriott project. 
The half-Ghanaian, half-Syrian son of a textile factory owner, he lives near the site in a home overflowing with expensive Persian rugs. 
Speeding through the streets of the capital in a sleek BMW, clad in a flowing Arab robe, Halabi-Ahma describes Ghana—the continent’s fastest-growing economy, with government predictions of a 14.5% GDP growth in 2011—as the “Wild Wild West”, a place where any businessman with vision and capital can make a fast return. 
While South Africa’s hotel industry suffers from oversupply in the wake of the 2010 World Cup, an influx of business travelers into Ghana has created the opposite. More than 800,000 visitors came to Ghana in 2010 and this year, that number is expected to rise. 
Halabi-Ahma estimates a shortfall of 10,000 hotel rooms. 
“There’s been a tremendous growth in the hospitality sector in Ghana in recent years,” says George Ayittey, a Ghanaian economist and author. “Oil and gas discovery, a daily non-stop flight service from North America and turmoil in neighboring countries have contributed to the tourism boom. So has Ghana’s political stability, especially as compared with government dysfunction and poor social services in the rest of West Africa.” 
The Marriott, which will have cost $120 million to develop by its opening day, is the first major project under African Ventures, a subsidiary of AHL, and its equity value is put at nearly $200 million. 
Halabi-Ahma says he’s looking for the Marriott to turn a profit of $200 million within 10 years through 221 rooms and a casino. 
A self-made entrepreneur who came to real estate and hospitality development late in the game, Halabi-Ahma is a risk-taker who forewent a university education to follow his father into the textile business. 
At one point, he tried his hand at rice farming and lost his entire $2 million investment. In 1981, he was left bankrupt in the aftermath of a military coup and sought a new venture. 
“I was always looking at Howard Hughes, how he had to fight to succeed,” he says. “If I’d had the knowledge I have today, 40 years ago, I’d be the richest person in the world.” 
He focused on real estate development, scooping up cheap land and watching it appreciate. Then there was a fortuitous meeting with a friend, who suggested he try his hand at hotels. As foreign investment swelled, business—and businessmen—poured into Ghana. But those who landed at Kotoka faced a dreary landscape of guesthouses and supposedly brand-name accommodation luxurious for Accra but considered budget-class in the West, ill-run and in need of facelifts. 
“I would never have believed Ghana would be what it is today,” Halabi-Ahma says. “People are waking up. Chinese, Koreans, Lebanese, Americans. Ghana has opened up, the whole place has become a magnet. 
When you go to Johannesburg, you see 10 people standing by the side of the road doing nothing. You come here, you see everyone running and selling by the side of the road. People want to work.” 
On a rainy August morning, not far from his home, Halabi-Ahma strolls the warren that is the Marriott building site, currently at 80% completion. More than two weeks into the Ramadan fast, he’s weak but climbs five flights of stairs with ease to a hall of rooms with glass-walled showers and bold red-orange finishes designed by Cape Town designer Les Harbottle. 
Standing near the lip of the building, he admires the view. As the urban sprawl below continues to grow and stretch, his business—bolstered by his crown jewel—will look to keep up. Halabi-Ahma is looking to put a substantial amount of his return-on-investment from the Marriott into developing other hotels in the city, along with Radisson projects in Benin and Guinea. With his showman’s flair” and the casino site below us, it’s not hard to imagine him as West Africa’s Donald Trump. 
He’s interrupted by a plane roaring overhead on its way out of the nearby airport. Accra is the rare city where proximity to the airport signals prestige—and safety for travelers more accustomed to European boardrooms than West African highways. Down the street, a dwarfed Holiday Inn—which stands to lose a healthy chunk of its business to the Marriott—seemed to shudder.
<h3>Too Much Room At The Inn</h3>
The boom days of the World Cup are over and across South Africa the hotel industry is facing closures and reality. The Grace Hotel, in the smart Johannesburg suburb of Rosebank, is the latest of many to close. 
The average occupancy rate of South Africa’s hotels is hovering around 48%, leaving a massive oversupply. Other hotels that have had to shut their doors in Johannesburg and Cape Town: the Alphen Hotel, Hotel Le Vendome and the Green Dolphin. The Southern Sun Grayston and the Lakes Hotel are to close by the end of the year. 
There are just too many hotels in Africa’s biggest economy. The reasons: ambition and pride. When FIFA named South Africa as the host of the 2010 World Cup, the wheels started turning. There was money to be made. Millions of visitors needed a place to stay and hotels mushroomed. 
The signs were good. According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), overall spending in the hospitality industry grew by 16.7% to $1.9 billion in 2010. The number of overnight foreign visitors grew by 15.1%, while domestic visitor numbers grew 14.3%, giving a total of 15.33 million visitors in 2010. 
A year later, most of these visitors have gone and revenue has collapsed. 
African Sun Limited has blamed the closure of The Grace Hotel on fewer travelers, escalating costs and the recession. The company declared a $1 million loss in the first half of this year and blames the surplus of rooms. 
The strength of the Rand hasn’t helped, making South Africa more expensive for foreign visitors. 
The future looks a little brighter, with numbers expected to improve. 
“The market will definitely pull through; it’s just a question of how long it will take. It’s going to be a tough two years, but the following three will be very interesting,” says Brett Dungan, CEO of the Federated Hospitality Association.

Tag: Donald Trump

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Look to China for the main beneficiary of America’s likely retreat from Africa

Hardened Target

All The (Potential) President’s Men

The Night African Wine Trumped Tequila

West Africa’s Donald Trump?