Written by Comrade Kask
Earlier this year, Kenya’s neocolonial President Uhuru Kenyatta met with one of his masters, U.S. President, Donald Trump in Washington to “negotiate” a “free”-trade agreement.
Notably, this will be amerikkka’s first such deal with an African country this side of the Sahara. You know Kenya’s neocolonialist rulers looooooove them some colonialist BS.
This deal will precede the end of the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2025.
This planned agreement is a breach of regional and continental trade protocols. East African partner states were to give up their national AGOA strategies and shift to a collective regional one. But noooooo. It’s fuck fellow Africans and yay Amerikkka. I hate it here! (Sometimes).
AGOA 2025 would have necessitated new negotiations with the U.S. aimed at securing better trade agreements with the East African region but Kenya seems to have bailed out and opted to do it alone. A selfish, individualistic move that is very much on-brand for the capitalist compradors governing this country.
Whew! It’s the blatant need for proximity to white power for me.
On the heels of the announcement of the Kenya-US FTA negotiations, Kenya Private Sector Alliance chairperson Nick Nesbitt put out a disingenuous statement that claimed “A free trade agreement will not only benefit Kenyans but Africa at large, and that it will complement regional integration efforts within the East African Community (EAC)”.
Nesbitt didn’t offer an in-depth explanation of how this agreement will supposedly “benefit Kenyans and Africa at large”. Surely, a greedy capitalist like him should be aware that an agreement like this puts two strikingly unequal countries on a path of exploitative “trade”.
A Free Trade agreement with the U.S.A. is for the shits and will be lopsided. It will threaten cottage industries in the country as well as informal jobs known as Jua Kali. This will negatively impact the lives of millions of working-class Africans dependent on what is referred to as the “informal sector”.
Our markets will be swamped into oblivion by highly subsidized raggedy amerikkkan made goods. Agriculture and small scale manufacturing will take a beating. In agriculture, for example, America wants to secure access for US agricultural goods to Kenya.
This will threaten our food security and the preservation of indigenous crops as local farmers’ ability to produce will be limited by vicious competition from Roundup laced agricultural products from the US.
Recently, an amerikkkan dairy lobby group urged the U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, to “stay the course” in negotiating a free trade agreement with Kenya., It argued that a deal with Kenya will help its members fight protectionist measures in the country and combat the European Union’s market dominance.
“An FTA with Kenya is all the more important to U.S. dairy exports’ global competitiveness when considered in view of two primary factors: 1) Kenya’s protectionist measures over its dairy sector, and 2) the market access advantages enjoyed by the European Union,” the group said in an Aug 5th, 2020 letter. “With no other full and comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) in place in sub-Saharan Africa, the U.S.-Kenya negotiations have the potential to provide tangible market access for U.S. agricultural exporters to a growing economy while also leveling the competitive playing field for dairy exports to Kenya and beyond.”
This will hurt poor dairy farmers in Kenya already choking under the dominance of the Kenyatta family dairy industry monopoly.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Will Kenyatta allow the U.S. to destroy his family’s dairy empire for other concessions? Y’all know this selfish capitalist knows no bounds.
We must reject imperialism veiled as a “free trade agreement.”
The US has made it clear that they’re on an “amerikkka first” mission. Why would our (mis)leaders be naive to believe this will be of any benefit to us? But they’ve demonstrated many times before that their individual needs come first before the interests of millions of poor Kenyans.
Fuck this stupid ass “agreement.”
Down with imperialism! Down with colonialism!
#Landback!
