Argentina’s president-elect, Alberto Fernandez, has renounced the country’s $11 billion IMF loans tranches.

“What I want is to stop asking (for money), and that they let me pay [back the loan],” Fernandez said in a radio interview last month.

With his presidency beginning on the 10^th of this month, Fernandez is Argentina’s return to Peronism. Following populist Peronist ideals, he vowed to “try to revive the economy to pay and solve the debt problem sensibly.”

Following the loan, current president, centre-right Mauricio Macri would implement austerity measures to fix Argentina’s economy, but they would be unsuccessful.

During the 2017 midterm elections, where Macri was victorious, the country’s debt was at 38% of the GDP. Its debt currently exceeds 90% of the GDP.

“I have an enormous problem. And I’m going to ask for $11 billion more? “It’s like a guy who drinks a lot and is a little drunk. The solution is not to continue drinking. The solution is to stop drinking,” Fernandez vocalised.

His election victory saw a drop in the peso’s value, with fears of a debt default of the country’s $57b loan package, borrowed by President Macri.

“I don’t want to sign agreements that I’m not going to fulfil. Those agreements were already signed by Macri. He signed one, two, three and fulfilled none,” said Fernandez.

“We want them not to lend us more money, but to let us develop. Let’s discuss the time I need to develop, but don’t give me more money.”

In September, the IMF suspended the release of $5.4b disbursement, because Macri had failed to meet inflation targets.

Addressing fears of a loan default, Fernandez promised not to default on the $46b loan repayment. Under his presidency, he promised to renegotiate the terms of the loan, promising voters that their bank deposits would be safe.

“I try to be a serious person. A person who tells you ‘I’m going to do such and such a thing, and you know he’s going to do it,” Fernandez stated.

Fernandez’s promises follow Bolivia’s ousted President, Evo Morales’ call to also regain financial independence for his country.

Speaking in Mexico, a day after he fled a military coup against him, Morales said: “We freed ourself of IMF and had big plans on exports.”

“The OAS [Organization of American States] is in the service of the North American empire,” he continued, blaming the USA for a strong desire to retain imperialist power over resource-rich Bolivia.

Socialist Morales accused the coup plotters of not accepting “the nationalization of natural resources.”

Capitalism v. Socialism

The fight for social justice in Bolivia and Argentina are ideals embedded in the politics of the region, a direct antithesis to the USAs’ modern and postmodern capitalist imperialism.

The postmodern, neoliberal political and economic policies of the IMF and the World Bank are in direct opposition to the populist governance of Morales, Fernandez and Venezuela’s former president, Hugo Chavez.

In 1823, US Secretary of State, and future-president, John Quincy Adams, would pen most of the Monroe Doctrine, a policy created by then-president, James Monroe.

It stated: “The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

“If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new Governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them.”

Following The Monroe Doctrine, the US would continue to subdue Latin America, in the place of Europe.

Sixty-one years later, Berlin 1884 would take place, solidifying the New World Order. Present at the international conference were representatives from every European country (minus Switzerland), the USA and the Ottoman Empire. The conference would set Africa’s political and economic trajectory as a continent for foreign conquest and domination.

To retain power over Latin America and Africa, the US’ militarised power and the IMF’s monetized power are used as a double-edged sword over both resource-rich regions. Latin America need not be colonized when it can be neocolonised.

L'articolo Alberto Fernandez to Fix Argentina’s Economic Dependence on the IMF proviene da InsideOver.

Former US President Ronald Reagan referred to African UN delegates as “monkeys” while on a phone call to President Richard Nixon in 1971, it was revealed last month.

A year before, President Donald Trump had referred to African nations as “shithole” countries. The racist and ultra-capitalist policies of all three presidents has been noted by many. At the root of the global disrespect for Africa is the continent’s economic dependence on the West.

Pan Africanism started with the visionary Marcus Garvey, who dreamed of black Americans returning home to Africa to build an African empire, completely distinct and separate from white societies. Born in the Caribbean, Garvey envisioned an Africa that would prosper politically, socially and economically.

Pan Africanism aims to banish the idea of black inferiority, by uniting African and black nations together with the aim of advancement. While later leaders like Malcolm X. and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. would win the cultural war over white superiority, the political and economic war on white superiority is still one that later leaders like Fela Kuti and Nelson Mandela would fight. Pan Africanism today is the fight for Africa’s economic and political power on the global stage.

Pan Africanism Today

Africa has the most amount of countries owing money to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Africa’s debt to the West began when, during the 1960s, it began accepting loans from the IMF and the World Back to fund “massive industrial development projects”.

According to African economic and political analyst Lawrence Freeman, “Western nations, the IMF, World Bank, Paris Club, etc., have ‘looted’ Africa of hundreds of billions of dollars in bloated debt payments and through the manipulation of currencies, and terms of trade.”

Under pressure from the US – an indisputable world power at the time – the IMF and the World Bank offered loans under the condition that poorer countries privatize their economies. Under this forced privatization, poorer countries also had to give free access to their market and their raw materials to Western corporations. Many African nations became financially trapped and encumbered by Western nations.

Although not all African nations are indebted to the IMF, for example Nigeria, China’s infrastructural investment in Sub-Saharan Africa in the last two decades has led to the continent being further indebted to another global power. Nigeria has the highest amount of Chinese debt at $44.65b, followed by Angola at $24.09b.

The US, Europe and China build their economies by financially exploiting Africa. The topic of international loans draws parallels to the topic of segregation in racially-charged America. At the forefront of the movement for black rights in the 1960s, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had opposing views on how these causes would be achieved. For Malcolm X., the solution was the complete separation of black societies from white societies. (This was the vision of Garvey who championed all African Americans returning to Africa.) For MLK, the solution was the full integration of blacks and whites into one society.

Globalisation, however, cannot work without integration. A globalised world means that when Africa suffers, the whole world suffers too, albeit in smaller doses. President Trump may rely on racist rhetoric to maintain the support of his ultra right-wing voters, but this has fuelled talks of a possible race war on American soil.

In a recent report, the All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG) for Africa revealed that visa applications to the British Home Office are twice as likely to be rejected when made by Africans. Britain’s hostile environment towards Africans is leading to “severe damage to UK-Africa relations across a variety of sectors,” according to British MP, Chi Onwurah.

Britain’s “hostile environment” for immigrants – a policy created by Theresa May, Britain’s Home Secretary at the time – further led to the Brexit vote. Five years later, now Prime Minister, May would begin a “trade mission” to Africa, to boost a post-Brexit trade between Africa and Britain.

A vote for Brexit was a vote for separation, especially separation from immigrants. Despite voting for Brexit, the UK relies heavily on foreigners to keep its economy afloat. Nigeria and Zimbabwe, for example, count towards the top ten non-UK nationalities working in the British NHS.

Across European and American borders, the global migrant crisis continues to be problematic, as Sub-Saharan Africans flee their countries for a better standard of living in the West. Africa is also facing a “brain-drain” problem, as African professionals flee the continent for better prospects in the West. There are more than 21,000 Nigerian medical doctors practising in the US alone, according to a study.

A stronger, unified, Pan Africa will protect African nations from being exploited by global financial powers, creating more stability at home for the African populace. Greater political and economic stability in Africa would equalize power relations between Africa and other global powers, leading to better Afro-global relationships. African migration to the West would also decrease, as Africa builds its continent for itself.

L'articolo Will Pan Africanism Equalise Western Global Power? proviene da InsideOver.