Story by thedailydigest.com
The new colonization
While Donald Trump remains mired in negotiations to end the Iran war, the world’s other two superpowers are making significant progress in dominating swathes of the African continent.
The engine of demographic growth
Demographically, Africa’s population is on track to swell from the current 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion by 2050, potentially making it one of the world’s largest consumer markets.
Zero-tariff policy
This has not been lost on China, which has just expanded its zero-tariff policy to cover 53 of Africa’s 54 countries, meaning goods can be traded between those countries and China tax-free.
Taiwan supporters snubbed
The outstanding country, Eswatini – formerly Swaziland – has been shut out of this duty-free zone due to its support for Taiwan, an island which China considers a breakaway province.
Trump trapped
Trump meanwhile is struggling to break free from a trap of his own making. His war of choice on Iran has only served to usher in a government more hard-line than its predecessor.
Iran’s bold move
Under Supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran has decided to run the risk of alienating the world by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a move his father, Ali Khamenei, refrained from to maintain international legitimacy, according to the Tehran Times.
A time-consuming conundrum
The closure of the strait, which has choked off 20% of the global energy supply as well as interrupted supply chains, is absorbing US attention as the global economy reels.
Opposing versions
Despite repeated claims by the US that a deal is close, this is invariably refuted by Iran, which stated on May 25 that a deal “is not imminent”, the BBC reports.
Advantage Iran
“Iran definitely has the advantage here,” Nicole Grajewski, who teaches at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in France and studies Iran’s foreign policy, told the New York Times. “The U.S. is just kind of flailing at the moment.”
Meanwhile, China and Russia are making great strides in Africa, a continent described in Newsweek by Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as “not a distant concern for American national security.”
China and Russia’s modus operandi
Wicker believes China to be using “economic coercion, debt diplomacy, and military basing,” while Russia uses “mercenaries and other proxies.”
“Trade over aid”
Rubio depicted this new approach as “trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance.”
The cobalt gold mine
Chinese companies now own 80% of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s cobalt, which they take back to China to refine and then sell for battery use to the rest of the world, according to the Central European Chamber of Commerce.
Russia’s arms deals
Russia meanwhile has moved in on Africa’s arms market and was its biggest supplier of arms between 2020 and 2024. The Kremlin also has an eye on an African coastline that would potentially give it influence over the Suez Canal.
A missed opportunity?
While Trump has been playing his cards in the Middle East, the other actors in this big league game have their eyes on a different prize.
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