Please watch the video above. It is is a unique discussion on Alexander’s Hamilton’s contributions to economic progress through examiningthe policies of China, Africa, and the U.S.
September 3, 2026
China believes it is better to contribute to the development of African nations, to not have their populations suffer in poverty, but rather experience a continuous rising standard of living. The West does not!
Contrary to constant maligning of China by the West, accusing it of conducting a new form of colonialism against the people of Africa, China has been an indispensable partner for development. There is not and never has been a “debt-trap “ policy to seize mineral resources of African nations. Any American official repeating this defamation is either an ignorant fool or a liar. The West dominated the African continent for decades, while China has only recently in this century, expanded its involvement with the nations of Africa. The creation by China, of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2003, has established a unique political, economic cooperative relationship with African nations.
As Alexander Hamilton understood, and his followers of his school of economic thought, which became known as the American System of Political Economy knew, the key to the growth of a nation, and its economy, is to increase the productive powers of labor. This requires a growth in manufacturing, it requires massive investments in infrastructure, and it requires nurturing the creativity of the population to discover new scientific principles, from which new technologies are derived. With the application of new technological advancements, the economy is able to leap, if you will, to a higher level of productivity, generating greater economic output.
This is what should be understood by Western officials. There are people in China who think this way. Presently, we don’t have people in the West, and the United States in particular, who refuse to comprehend these essential elements of economic growth. The Western political-financial elites are mired in a monetarist world dominated by making money, which they foolishly believe is wealth. They lack any understanding of what the requirements are to actually develop an economy physically, nor the necessity to promote a culture that fosters the creative potential of its people. They don’t understand the difference between making a so called profit from monetary speculation, the stock market, or manipulating the market, as opposed to increasing the profitability of the physical economy. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is attacked by the United States and the West, who fail to comprehend that the BRI is a modern day extension of Hamilton’s economic principles.
China has proved, beyond any question, that their investments in science and technology, infrastructure, and manufacturing in particular, have transformed their economy, their society. With the proven reality of this success, China can lead the Global South on a pathway of real economic development
The African continent is projected to have the largest population in the world-approximately 2.5 billion people by 2050. That’s not a burden. It is a resource of new creative minds, which are the real source of value for any economy, more valuable than minerals or artificial intelligence.
I believe watching this video will help you understand these principles that I have outlined above.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
View my discussion in the video above from July 30, with Grace Asagra on her podcast, Quantum Nurse.
August 20, 2026
Please view my video interview above, which is my first discussion since my three-week visit to several cities in China during June and July. I encourage all citizens, especially of the United States to visit China and see for yourself this interesting, shall I say fascinating society, with its rich culture and history, and its engaging people. This is the best way to protect your mind from being brainwashed by the anti-China propaganda spewed forth by U.S. media and our silly and ignorant politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties.
The reporting of China by the West, in particular the U.S., completely mischaracterizes this dynamic society with its mixture of former dynasties and ultra-modern cities that have emerged in China over recent decades. Most of what the U.S. establishment reports about China he is unfortunately contaminated with the zero-sum mentality of their rules-based international order. China has a different perspective for the world world, which is based on the idea of creating a common future for mankind.
Their development has been phenomenal over the last forty plus years since the opening up of China. China has become the leading nation in manufacturing, in high speed rail construction, in robotics, in nuclear fission energy production, in ship building, and in mining of critical and rare earth minerals. As well, a leading nation in space exploration, fusion research, and chip technology. In 2013, China reached out to the rest of the world with the Belt and Road initiative, which has eagerly been received by the Global South. In Africa, where the West was dominant in its control over the continent after the liberation movements of the 1960s, they did not invest in the future of Africa, they looted it of its natural resources. China has pursued a different policy. In this century, China has invested in Africa’s infrastructure, especially electricity and railroads. This cannot be denied. U.S. propaganda that China has used so called debt-trap diplomacy to seize African assets or its mineral resources is simply not true
It is crucial that political leaders in the West and thoughtful citizens in the United States and Europe, recognize that the western controlled system known as the rules-based order is declining, and the world is shifting towards development of the Global South. With this transformation taking place today, we should be wise enough to recognize that cooperating with China is in the self-interest of the United States and its citizens. We should define future missions of collaboration with China that will advance civilization, such as; the elimination of poverty in Africa, the colonization of the moon, and the full scale use of nuclear fusion energy. This is what American statesman and leaders should do.
The pillars of progress for all nations are universally identical: satisfying the material needs of the population and nurturing their minds through stimulating economic development, creativity, and agape in society.
All of this is discussed in my hour long podcast above, which I strongly recommend you view. I believe you will benefit.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Below is my article published by Xinhua news service on July 21, 2026
Column: Those who conjure up so-called “China Squeeze” ignore historical reality
Source: Xinhua-2026-07-21
A train stops at the Nagad railway station along the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway in Djibouti, Sept. 19, 2022. The Chinese-built 752.7-km-long Ethiopia-Djibouti standard gauge railway, also known as the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, is the first fully electrified trans-boundary railway on the African continent. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui)
by Lawrence Freeman
A recent article published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) conveniently ignores the historical burden imposed on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) under the United States-led “rules-based order” following World War II.
The paper is riddled with historical distortions in a deliberate attempt to prove the authors’ presumption: China’s exports are responsible for crowding out space for the LMICs to develop their local manufacturing capacity. As a specialist in the political economy of sub-Saharan African nations and China-Africa relations, I can provide some light on this misleading narrative. While it is true that Africa-China trade reached a historically high level of 348 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, with African countries running a trade deficit of 102 billion dollars, the more important question is: how did this imbalance emerge?
Here the historical weakness of the paper under review is revealed. The opening sentence begins with a falsehood: “In the United States, President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs have drawn political force from the view that China’s surplus hollowed out American manufacturing.”
This is completely untrue. The U.S. willfully destroyed its own manufacturing sector beginning in the 1980s, when it adopted the policy of becoming a post-industrial society. The U.S. establishment decided at that time it would move away from being a manufacturing-based industrial society in favor of becoming the center of the financial world, with an expanding service sector, except for the production of armaments.
This was advertised in the Council on Foreign Relations magazine, Foreign Affairs, and implemented by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. At that time, China had no strong manufacturing capability. It neither possessed the ability to challenge the United States nor contributed to the shrinkage of America’s once powerful manufacturing sector.
Let us keep in mind the reality of the world economy: in the 1960s, the United States functioned as the world hegemon, leading the “rules-based order,” with a GDP around 10 times that of China’s. This only started to change in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the reform and opening-up drive led by Deng Xiaoping, which kicked off in China over the next forty years the greatest economic miracle that our planet has seen.
Again, taking Africa as an example, the United States and the West were in total control of the so-called free markets. The United States and the West had total control over the nations of Africa both politically and economically, as they did over much of the developing sector. China did not emerge as a major player in African economies until the 2000s. During the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the United States and the West ruled the financial institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, and they did nothing to build up the manufacturing capability of Africa. This is the truth, and this is egregiously absent from the PIIE report.
During that time there was no leader, except President John F. Kennedy, who was concerned to develop manufacturing capabilities in less-developed countries, especially Africa. What was done by the West, by the U.S., by the “rules-based order” was to extract wealth from African nations. Looting their natural resources, not development. This cannot be blamed on China.
Workers arrange clothes at a textile factory in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, on July 30, 2025. Lesotho is a small southern African country and one of the world’s least developed countries. Its economy is heavily dependent on textile exports. It exports over 50 percent of its garment products to the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Guansen)
Western policy never genuinely aimed to integrate Africa into the global manufacturing supply chain. Consequently, African economies today account for only about 3 percent of globally traded manufactured goods. This outcome is not a result of China crowding out lower-income countries’ industrial space. Rather, it is an uncomfortable reality that the PIIE and its ideologues are unwilling to confront, as acknowledging it would undermine their anti-China narrative, which is precisely why this factor is conspicuously absent from their report.
Africans suffer, actually die, from the lack of electricity, due to the willful decision not to invest in infrastructure by the West. This is what has prevented African nations from developing manufacturing capabilities. The lack of railroads is another element that is holding back the economic growth of African economies. Not China.
The failure to invest in the most critical component of an economy: infrastructure. This is the cause of the economic deficiency of African nations. Without infrastructure, you will not have a manufacturing sector. You will not have an industrialized economy. It is not the result of China squeezing Africa out of the market. The problems we have today in the LMICs, especially in Africa, are a result of willful decisions by the West not to develop these nations. This cannot be covered up by using mathematical formulas or refusing to report on what actually happened to the developing sector during the decades from 1960 through 2000, before China’s economy began to be a serious actor in the world economy.
“When the United States was the world’s economic hegemon after World War II, it created manufacturing and export space for others — first Japan, then the Asian Tigers, and eventually China itself,” claimed the authors in the conclusion part. However, there was never any intention by Western financial institutions to develop manufacturing capacities for low-and middle-income countries, and little to no investment in vital categories of infrastructure, which are necessary to build a robust manufacturing sector.
courtesy of pamirllc.com
The most irreconcilable historical reality that the authors failed to address in the narrative accusing China of preventing the development of the LMICs is this: From the 1940s until the year 2000, when China began to emerge as a successful economic power, the Western political-financial oligarchy had dominant control over the world economy. They, not China, failed to promote economic development in the LMICs for six decades.
China, to its credit, has advanced infrastructure development across our planet through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is unarguably the case that in Africa, without the BRI, the conditions of life for the majority of Africans would be much, much worse. To this day, no American president has joined or agreed to participate in the BRI, the largest global infrastructure program the world has ever undertaken.
Editor’s note: Lawrence Freeman is a U.S. political-economic analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over three decades. He is also a geopolitical analyst of U.S.-China relations.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.■
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Mr. Gyude Moore, in his essay below, has highlighted the most important challenge for African nations in determining their future. Will African nations create robust manufacturing industries? Manufacturing and infrastructure, especially railroads and power generation, are the two most essential elements to maintain a healthy physical economy. In order to feed the population and provide a quality standard of living, African nations must become industrialized. To achieve peace and prosperity, the level of the physical economy must be sufficiently developed to meet the material needs of its population. This requires eradicating poverty, eliminating hunger, and providing citizens with meaningful productive employment. Without a manufacturing sector and a density of infrastructure, nations will not survive, and the people will suffer undue hardships.
President Franklin Roosevelt defined freedom from want as the universal right to basic economic security: having enough food, shelter, jobs, and free from the threat of extreme poverty. No nation has attained prosperity nor has it become economically sovereign, without a robust manufacturing sector. Until recent decades, manufacturing thrived in the the United States, China has achieved this in the last two generations.
As Mr. Moore writes, now is the time for African nations to fulfill that goal.
How China Forced Europe to Reconsider Africa’s Industrialization by W. Gyude Moore, May 28, 2026
Excerpts below. Emphasis added.
Europe’s retreat from slavery was not driven by moral enlightenment alone. Religious and philosophical objections to slavery had existed for centuries. They became politically decisive only when changes in production, power, and elite incentives made abolition compatible with Britain’s national interest. Societies often tolerate moral critiques for long periods until material conditions shift the coalition structure around them. A similar inflection point may now be emerging in the economic relationship between Africa and Europe.
For decades African leaders – Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Julius Nyerere – and academics like Samir Amin, made a simple argument to Europe and the broader industrialized world: a continent cannot sustainably develop if it participates in the global economy primarily as a supplier of raw materials and a consumer of finished goods.
That argument was often dismissed as ideological, or just nostalgia from the independence era. African calls for beneficiation, industrialization, and value addition were treated as economically unsophisticated or politically protectionist. The global division of labor was presented as natural and efficient. Africa would export ores, cocoa, timber, tea, oil, and agricultural commodities. Others would process, refine, manufacture, brand, finance, and capture the overwhelming share of value. That arrangement persisted for decades because it worked for those already occupying the commanding heights of the global economy.
When manufacturing migrated from Europe and North America to Asia, many African policymakers hoped this would create space for industrial activity on the continent. Instead, the old hierarchy largely relocated. Africa still exported raw materials. The processing, branding, financing, and technological learning moved elsewhere. Today, iron ore and bauxite still leave as direct shipping ore and concentrates. Cocoa leaves as raw beans. Timber leaves as logs or rough-cut lumber.
The argument African leaders made repeatedly was not complicated. A continent that exports low-value commodities while importing expensive manufactured products will eventually encounter structural limits to prosperity. It will remain vulnerable to commodity cycles, deteriorating terms of trade, foreign exchange instability, and persistent external dependence. More fundamentally, it will never accumulate the industrial capabilities that generate durable national wealth.
That argument rarely found receptive audiences in Europe because Europe occupied the advantageous end of the arrangement. Until now.
Europe is increasingly confronting a version of the same vulnerability African states have warned about for generations. China’s extraordinary industrial rise has altered the geometry of the global economy. Europe no longer faces merely a low-cost manufacturing competitor. It increasingly faces the prospect of strategic industrial dependence.
Chinese firms dominate or threaten dominance across sectors central to the next industrial era: batteries, solar, electric vehicles, refining, rare earth processing, steel, consumer manufacturing, and increasingly advanced industrial machinery. Europe now worries openly about deindustrialization, supply chain vulnerability, and excessive dependence on external manufacturing ecosystems.
That means Liberia should not remain an exporter of direct shipping ore if pelletization can be done near Buchanan. Guinea should not remain primarily a bauxite exporter if alumina refining can be financed. Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo should move beyond copper and cobalt concentrates into semi-fabricated products and battery precursor materials. Cocoa producers should export more cocoa liquor, butter, cake, and powder rather than raw beans. Kenyn tea, Ethiopian and Ugandan coffee tea should be exported as branded and semi-processed products rather than bulk commodity. Timber should leave as furniture, panels, flooring, and engineered wood products, not merely logs or rough cuts. African industrial policy should focus less on immediately replicating East Asian electronics manufacturing and more on systematically climbing value chains already rooted in African comparative advantages.
This does not require autarky. It does not require hostility toward Europe or China. And it certainly does not require pretending Africa can industrialize in isolation. The goal is not sudden industrial transformation, but a steady rise in the complexity and value of what Africa already exports. Every successful industrial region in history protected, financed, subsidized, and nurtured its movement up the value chain. Europe did. The United States did. East Asia did. China certainly did.
Africa now has leverage it has not possessed in decades. Europe needs diversified industrial partnerships. The whole world needs African minerals. Europe needs alternative processing ecosystems.
The test of Europe’s seriousness beyond the rhetoric of Macron in East Africa or Meloni and her Mattei Plan, is whether Europe is willing to support the difficult conditions required for African industrialization alongside African governments. Lower-cost capital, energy infrastructure, technology transfer, market access, logistics systems, and tolerance for African industrial policy will matter far more than speeches about sovereignty.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
April 10, 2026-Lawrence Freeman speaking at a forum sponsored by “Watch Democracy Grow,” at the National Press Club in Washington DC.
April 20, 2026
Watch my presentation in which I presented a brief overview of the necessity for the long overdue industrialization of Africa. This would require massive investments in infrastructure, especially in the manufacturing sector. Colonialism, neocolonialism, and the inadequacy l of the global financial institutions, have deprived Africa of these basic elementary building blocks for a developing economy.
I have discussed for many years the necessity of having an institution dedicated to issuing credit for infrastructure. In consultation with my African friends and colleagues we understand the need for the creation of an African infrastructure Development Bank. This institution would have only one lending purpose: providing long-term, low-interest credits for infrastructure. It would be prohibited from paying other outstanding debts or other expenses unrelated to this single objective. The need for such a credit bank is that there are no other financial institutions that will fund long-term investments in infrastructure. The private sector is not capable of making such investments. Although they can make significant contributions to the process of expanding the productive capacity of African economies. Historically, economic development has taken place with state-led industrialization. This has been the case in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The contributions of Alexander Hamilton and Sun Yat sun are exemplary.
Public or government backed credits can be allocated for low interest-rates for long-term loans necessary for infrastructure, particularly in the energy and transportation sectors.
I know that without this credit generating institution of development credits, African nations will not be capable of providing for the daily needs of its citizens. President Franklin Roosevelt understood this. That is why he advocated at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, for the creation of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Sadly, his policies died with him on April 12, 1945. Read: Franklin Roosevelt Intended to Industrialize the ‘Global South’: The Case of Ethiopia
Let me be absolutely clear. Without such a credit bank providing investments in essential, elementary infrastructure, Africa will not become industrialized. Thus, abandoning African nations to be plagued with the failure of abject poverty. However, with such a properly administered credit institution, we can eliminate hunger and poverty in African nations in one generation.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Emperor Haile Selassie with President Franklin Roosevelt, February 13, 1945,
March 30, 2026
It is my self-assigned responsibility to be brutally honest in discussing policies to create real physical wealth in Africa. I am aware of only one other individual, a former minister from a West African nation, who understands the importance of addressing Africa’s enormous infrastructure deficit. To be clear: without a massive expansion of infrastructure, especially electricity and rail lines in Africa, there will be no significant improvement in the material standard of living of the majority of the continent’s growing population. This is an existential imperative with Africa’s population projected to reach 2.5 billion people in twenty-five years, Without the capability to generate accessible and abundant megawatts of electricity, African nations will never become industrial nations, and extreme poverty will remain pervasive. This is reality. Expanding real-physical economic growth must become the primary focus of all those deeply concerned with the future of the African people.
This requires a facility, whose obligation will be to issue long-term low interest productive credit for the creation of physical, tangible wealth. Understanding the difference between productive credit as opposed to money, monetary stock market and real estate values is crucial. Personal accumulation of money, and financial holdings do not represent wealth, because they do not create. What one can buy or own is dependent on the existent productive process of society. Directed productive credit transfers a nation’s economy from the here and now to a time and place that does not yet exist, except in the mind’s eye. Productive credit properly invested takes a nation’s economy from the present into the future. Infrastructure, funded by long term low-cost credit, transmits new, additional physical value to an upgraded productive economic process. Infrastructure is the conveyor belt that transmits value from technologies derived from new scientific discoveries. Infrastructure augments the entire economic process, adding additional wealth to all sectors of society. This generates advancements in the productive process of the economy resulting in an increase in the production of physical wealth.
In summary, let me be unequivocally clear.
The lack of electricity is literally killing Africans every day.
Without abundant and accessible electricity for consumers and producers, African nations will not industrialize and will not eliminate poverty.
The scale of investments necessary to add a minimum of one thousand gigawatts of electrical power to the grid of African nations requires hundreds of billions of dollars in long-term low-interest credit.
Only government supported credit will suffice. Private sector credit alone will not be sufficient. Private sector investment schemes to electrify the African continent have thus far failed.
These are essential tenets of physical economy that African nation must address. The reality is indisputable. The nations and people of Africa are dying from the lack of electricity. Over decades I have argued with many so called experts on Africa, both African and non-African alike, who have proposed one or other schemes to avoid facing this reality. The fact that almost six hundred million Africans in 2025 still do not have access to on-grid electricity is proof of the glaring inadequacies of existing policies.
Every industrialized nation has successfully provided electricity to its consumers and producers. President Franklin Roosevelt transformed the United States with his New Deal, which included The Rural Electrification Act of 1936. In doing so, President Roosevelt was fulfilling his constitutional responsibility to promote the general welfare as stipulated in the U.S. Constitution.
President Roosevelt in 1936, campaigning to improve living conditions in the U.S. (courtesy of americansystemnow.com)
Roosevelt’s Bank for Development
The Bretton Woods System we know today is disliked by those of us committed to the physical economic development of nations. Unknown to many, the key feature of Bretton Woods was the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), known today as the World Bank, which was created to provide development credits for economic growth. Bretton Woods today, is not what President Franklin Roosevelt intended. Following his untimely death in 1945, it increasingly became a failed institution manipulated by the political-financial elites for economic control not development.
Prior to the entry of the United States into World War II, and years before the end of the war in 1945, President Roosevelt had already formulated in his mind the creation of a Grand Design of new political-economic relations for the world. His post-World War II design included not only crushing the British imperialist colonial system, but most importantly creating a new financial system to expand trade, promote economic growth, and increase the development of each nation’s productive economic capacity. His thinking was in part informed by his successful domestic New Deal that transformed the United States from a country wrecked by the 1932-1933 depression into the arsenal of democracy.
Could methods of public sector financing and state-led development, successful in President Rosevelt’s New Deal be used to promote international development? One of the forerunners to the Bretton Woods IBRD was his earlier attempt to create an Inter-American Bank (IAB) to promote economic development in Latin American nations. Under Secretary of State, Summer Wells, describe the purpose of the IAB: Its principal importance will lie in investigating and facilitating rather long-term development projects in other American republics…
An advisor to President Roosevelt working on the IAB, wrote: Without these projects, private investment, industrialization, and agricultural diversification would be impossible…there could not be an increase in productivity, and in the standard of living, which these basic development projects make possible. (emphasis added)
This view was coherent with the third of President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, which he outlined in his January 6, 1941, message to the U.S. Congress:
Certainly, this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world.
The third is freedom from want–which translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.
Far different from the regime-change policy of President Trump today.
President Roosevelt‘s likeminded thinkers included Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., and Department of the Treasury, Harry Dexter White. The task of outmaneuvering John Maynard Keynes, who was intent on maintaining the British colonial system, and opposed President Roosevelt’s post war strategy, was often given to White. Keynes who led the British delegation at Bretton Woods wanted to create an Anglo-American controlled global central bank, which would deny nations sovereign control over their own currencies.
Make no mistake, it was President Roosevelt’s conception of economic development that guided American involvement at the Bretton Woods Conference, which began on July 1, 1944.
Hamilton Present at Bretton Woods
Alexander Hamilton’s American System of Political Economy was present at the conference. President Roosevelt was a student of Hamilton’s American System and his great-great grandfather, Issac Roosevelt, was a close collaborator and friend of Hamilton in post-Revolutionary New York.
President Roosevelt’s ideas of economics were shaped entirely from his schooling in Alexander Hamilton’s economic principles, which he studied during his rehabilitation after contracting polio in 1921.
An excerpt from his short essay written in 1924 promoted Hamilton:
“Washington, the first President under the Constitution, made Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury- the greatest of the Cabinet offices. As he [Hamilton] had stabilized the problems of State, so now he ordered the finances of the country, and it was his impetus that removed for all time the risk of disintegration of the States.
None appreciated this solidarity more than Aaron Burr, who, defeated for the Presidency in his race against Jefferson [in 1800], largely through the efforts of Hamilton, saw in this greater financial security the banishment of his dream of establishing a Northern Confederacy Nancy Spannaus, author of Hamilton vs Wall Street, succinctly wrote of President Roosevelt’s application of Hamilton’s economic principles’
The economic policiesand style of governance which FDR needed in order to get out of the Depression, required adopting Hamiltonian principles. These included re-establishing sovereign control of the U.S. currency, banking regulation (against speculation), government credit for building infrastructure and raising productivity (through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation), and support for advancing the general welfare in myriad ways. FDR pursued all these objectives, asserting he was fulfilling the mandate of the Constitution—the very Constitution which Hamilton played a major role in bringing into being, and gave his life to defend.
President Roosevelt was informed by crucial Hamiltonian principles, which he believed would create a better world following the end of World War II. These were: 1) providing capital i.e., inexpensive long term credit to enable less developed nations to industrialize their economies; 2) recognizing that an essential responsibility of the nation-state is to intervene in promoting their economies, known as state-led development.
Historian, Eric Helleiner, chronicles this process leading up to, and throughout the conference, in his book, Forgotten Foundations of Brenton Wood: International Development and the Making of the Postwar order. Much of the historical material on theBretton Woods Conference in this article is from Helleiner’s book.
Harry Dexter White (l) and John Maynard Keynes (r) at Bretton Woods. (courtesy of nationalww2museum.org)
FDR’s Goal Was Development
Helleiner correctly argues that the poorer countries seeking to catch up economically had national economic strategies, often inspired by Frederick List’s advocacy of state-industrialization. It is important to know that Frederick List was an adherent of the Hamiltonian American System, contrary to the British free-trade system, whose goal was solely to maximize monetary gains. Roosevelt’s clear intention was to establish a new financial system, led by the United States, which would become a partner to the less developed nations.
Helleiner emphasizes that the commitment to promote development in poorer countries remained central to the US goals for the post war international financial system.
Harry Dexter White, in a January 1942 draft, wrote that a central purpose of “The Bank” was the provision of long term capital for desirable productive projects that served directly or indirectly to permanently raise the standard of living of the borrowing country. (emphasis added)
In a May memorandum, White stressed to President Roosevelt that his plan was to supply the huge volume of capital that will be needed abroad for relief, for reconstruction, and economic development essential for the attainment of world prosperity and higher standards of living. (emphasis added)
President Roosevelt and his team at Bretton Woods understood that to guarantee world security in the post-war era, required economic growth for every nation. They knew that for poorer nations to realize their full economic potential, to raise the productive power of their economies, they needed access to capital for long term investment in industry and infrastructure. Peace and security were inextricably bonded to prosperity.
Henry Morgenthau emphasized this conception in November 1943, observing that:
one great contribution that the United Nations can make to sustain peace and worldwide prosperity is to make certain that adequate capital is available on reasonable terms for productive uses in capital poor countries…It is imperative that we recognize that the investment of productive capital in the under developed and capital needed countries means not only will these countries will be able to supply at lower costs more of the goods the world needs but they will at the same time become better markets for the world’s goods
President Roosevelt had his team collaborate with China throughout the conference. He instructed military advisors traveled to the headquarters of the Communist Party of China in Yenan, during the Bretton Woods Conference. In November 1944, a U.S. Treasury official surreptitiously met with top Chinese Communist official, Chou En-Lai. Chou noted that with regard to China’s post war position, her greatest economic need would be for foreign capital. Exactly what President Roosevelt intended to provide
Roosevelt intended The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to be a lending intuition for development
A New Financial System is Born
President Roosevelt’s Grand Design proceeded, despite opposition from international banking interests, who were intentionally kept out of these deliberations, and Keynes, who represented the British Empire,
The conference ended on July 22, 1944. Morgenthau gave the concluding remarks, in which they accentuated the guiding principles for the establishment of this new system. He asked;
What are the fundamental conditions in which commerce among nations can flourish?
First there must be reasonable stable standard of international exchange…
Second, long term financial aid must be made available at reasonable rates to those countries whose industry and agriculture have been destroyed…
The institutions proposed by the Bretton Woods Conference would indeed limit the control which certain private bankers have in the past exercised over international finance.
The effect would be to provide capital for those who need it at lower interest rates than in the past and to drive only the usurious moneylenders out of the temple of international finance.(emphasis added)
The U.S. Congress voted up the Bretton Woods Agreement Act in July 1945, and President Harry Truman signed it into law on July 31, 1945. President Roosevelt did not live to see the enactment of his Brenton Woods. He died on April 12th, 1945, only a few months into the first year of his unprecedented fourth term as president of the United States. However, on February 12, 1945, two months before he died, President Roosevelt urged the Congress to adopt the Bretton Woods agreements. There was no ambiguity in his remarks in outlining how to achieve peace and security in the post-war world. President Roosevelt told the Congress:
These proposals for an international Fund and international bank are concrete evidence that the economic objectives of the United States agree with those of the United Nations. They illustrate our unity of purpose and interest in the economic field. What we need and what they need corresponds–expanded the production, employment, exchange, and consumption–in other words more goods produced, more jobs, more trade, and a higher standard of living for us all.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a great infrastructure accomplishment for Africa
Roosevelt Supported Ethiopia vs British
In contradistinction to Roosevelt’s intent of addressing the question of poverty for nations of the developing sector, Keynes was more concerned to uphold the dominance of the British Empire. The British wanted to keep their empire intact and continue through colonial policies, to deprive developing sector nations of the means to develop their own industrial capability. British imperialist interests compelled underdeveloped nations to remain agrarian based, subject to raw material and cheap labor exploitation by colonial structures. Thus, depriving them of the opportunity to free themselves from poverty by denying their economies productive infrastructure and industry to generate their own economic wealth.
At the conclusion of the Bretton Woods Conference, Ethiopia expressed, over American CBS radio its aspiration to raise our standard of living. To achieve that goal Ethiopia would require the sovereign right to control its own currency in order to manage its own money supply and credit. The British had other ideas.
Helleiner, in his book reports the little publicized history of U.S. support to free Ethiopia from British colonialism. Keep in mind, Ethiopia attended the Bretton Woods Conference as a fully independent sovereign nation; the only such nation in sub-Saharan Africa at the time.
After Ethiopia was liberated in 1941, from five years of Italian occupation, their banking system needed reorganization. They desired to have a new national currency controlled by the Ethiopian nation-state. The British, in April 1942 proposed the creation of the “Ethiopian pound” for their national currency, whose management would be modeled on the currencies of British colonies in East and West Africa. This currency would be pegged to the British sterling and was to be managed by a London-based currency board run by two British officials and one Ethiopian representative. Foreign exchange from Ethiopia’s exports would continue to be surrendered to the British exchange control board.
Refusing to accept this, Ethiopian officials reached out to the United States to support a plan independent of the British. After meeting with White, and without notifying the British, they developed a strategy for a strong Ethiopian currency pegged to the US dollar, which was introduced on Emperor Haley Selassie’s birthday in July 1945. The United States had already printed up bills and coins denominated in dollars behind the backs of the British.
A memo written by a member of White’s staff made clear Roosevelt’s intent was to help Ethiopian develop their nation. The United States viewed the financial reorganization of Ethiopian currency as central to Ethiopia’s future: if the Ethiopian government intends to engage directly in the financing of internal industrial development of the country.
The British were forced to accept this new currency despite their earlier intent to control the Ethiopian economy. United States officials welcomed this new currency stating that the new Ethiopian monetary legislation was well adapted to step towards economic emancipation of Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, local British officials were very resentful of the Americans, who they accused of pandering to the worst Ethiopian instincts rather than advise in accordance with the British full masterly tradition. The British maligned the Ethiopians who were in charge of their economic affairs as nothing more than unqualified incompetent and greedy amateurs. U.S. officials responded and complained that the British advisors in Ethiopia were dominated by crude concepts of Empire, and no effort is made to help the country develop.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney is credited with publicly proclaiming the final expiration of the rules-based international order. His so called alternative, wrongly acclaimed by the West, might be called rules-based order with a “democratic face,” since it still adheres to the axioms of the old discredited international system minus President Trump.
Column: While “rules-based order” has failed, China’s GGI provides a new vision
Source: Xinhua-January 30, 2026
This photo taken on Aug. 12, 2024 shows the Drum Tower seen from the Jingshan Hill on the Beijing Central Axis on a sunny day in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Xin)
Humanity desperately needs, nay, demands a new paradigm for global governance, which prioritizes economic development, free from wars, regime change and dictates, says a U.S. political-economic analyst for Africa.
Below please review my article published by Xinhua. english.news.cn
by Lawrence Freeman
It should be more than obvious by now that “the rules-based international order” created by the West has failed. Its demise, which has been accelerating in recent years, sounded its death knell at last week’s Davos conference.
This year, 2026, will continue to be turbulent and fraught with the peril of more wars. As the death agony of the international order, which has been controlling relations between nations through its military and economic might, unfolds, civilization is given the opportunity to create a new system founded on the principles of economic development.
“The rules-based order” was established under the control of the political-financial elites of the West that dominated the rest of the world for decades. It may appear to some that it was the actions of the current U.S. president, Donald Trump, that caused its demise. However, that would be inaccurate. President Trump may have accelerated the final stage of the collapse of the rules-based order, but it was always doomed to fail because of its underlying diseased ideology.
“RULES-BASED ORDER” WAS DOOMED
The fatal flaw of “the rules-based order” is its axiomatic belief that people and nations are merely manipulated players in a zero-sum game of victims and victors. Contrary to this false belief, our universe is governed by the human species, uniquely endowed with creativity. We were not created to be ruled by the mighty and the powerful, but by the power of reason. We are human beings, not animals to be culled and controlled. We are not fixed in our behavior, nor is the universe in which we exist. The physical world is not a zero-sum game board of winners and losers, but a developing and expanding universe that is continuously transformed through human creative intervention.
With the inevitable demise of “the rules-based order,” what will come next? This is not an academic question to be leisurely pondered. No, this is a call to arms for all of us to act in creating a new “international order” which corresponds to our unique human quality of creativity.
Unlike the oligarchical formation of “the rules-based order” after World War II, when a large number of nations were still under colonial rule, the new international system must represent the interests of the Global South, the majority of the world’s population.
CHINA’S CONTRIBUTION
Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) in his address to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Sept. 1, 2025. He called for a more just and equitable global governance system, echoing the efforts by the developing nations in the 1970s to establish a “New International Economic Order.” Significantly, President Xi introduced a new concept not previously explicitly discussed by world leaders: that the goal of this new governance should be to advance toward a community with a shared future for humanity. This is true because all human beings are universally alike in our most fundamental inborn quality: creative mentation.
This concept represents a fundamental leap in the understanding that all nations have a common self-interest that should guide domestic and foreign policy. As a physical economist, I understand that policy should mean improving the physical standard of living and nurturing the creativity of the population of every nation.
President Xi also said that China is committed to the well-being of all humanity, rejects dividing the world into opposing blocs, and essentially discards outdated notions such as Western centrism.
CHINA’S COMMITMENT
China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI) states unequivocally in the opening sentence of its concept paper: Development is the eternal pursuit of human society. The GDI also emphasizes the eradication of poverty, sustainable development of agriculture and food security, and most importantly, improving industrial production capacity and manufacturing. Economic development is a core pillar of China’s concept of global governance.
There is no clearer demonstration of China’s commitment to the development of all nations than the success of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), introduced by President Xi in the fall of 2013.
In 2025, the BRI achieved new records of economic activity totaling 213.5 billion U.S. dollars, according to a report by the Green Finance and Development Center at Fudan University. It had 128.4 billion dollars in construction contracts, an increase of 81 percent over 2024, and recorded 85.2 billion dollars in investments, an increase of 62 percent. Oil and gas engagements reached 71.5 billion dollars.
Africa was the top region of economic activity for BRI engagement at 61.2 billion dollars, an increase of some 283 percent, with Nigeria at 24.6 billion dollars in construction contracts. Since its inception in 2013, the BRI has had cumulative economic activity of 1.399 trillion dollars in 150 countries around the world, according to the report.
It is indisputable that China, through advancing fundamental principles of economic development, has alleviated the suffering of millions of people in the Global South, where BRI trading partners are concentrated. All Western nations combined have not achieved this level of success in such a short period of time.
Many accept the outlook that we live in a world governed by strength, force and power, according to Stephen Miller, President Trump’s special advisor. That is categorically false. Homo sapiens developed over thousands of years by creative reason, not by force, or survival of the fittest.
Humanity desperately needs, nay, demands a new paradigm for global governance, which prioritizes economic development, free from wars, regime change and dictates. Let the GGI provide the framework for such an enlightened discussion.
Editor’s note: Lawrence Freeman is a U.S. political-economic analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.■
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump at the White House in October 2025 last year. (courtesy of community.triblive.com)
Below you can watch my freewheeling discussion of the Davos Economic Forum on the Winers Podcast, January 22, 2026
January 26, 2026
In a freewheeling discussion in the podcast video above, you can listen to my analysis of the significance of events that occurred at the Davos World Economic Forum from January 19-23, 2026. Most people do not really understand what took place, which I explain in my video discussion.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a momentous announcement, something I already knew but most people did not. That the rules-based international order was dead. Its demise has been proceeding at an accelerated pace in recent years. The proclaiming of its death was made official in public by Carney at Davos. That is good for the world. However, most people are deceived by the content of Carney’s alternative. He is not proposing that the West give up their belief that economic and military might govern a zero-sumworld. Rather Carney is attempting to change it cosmetically. You might call Carney’s proposal for a coalition of middle level countries running the world, the rules-based order with a democratic face. That is, minus the overt ugliness of Donald Trump’s conduct. It is important to understand the rules-based order was in a state of collapse before President Trump took office. The rules-based order was already doomed due to its diseased ideology that power and strength govern civilization, rather than the love and creativity of humankind.
Carney’s new altered international order will do nothing to prevent the ideological motivation for more military conflicts nor improve the quality of life for billions of people. It does not address the urgent need for a new global paradigm of development and a new just economic order dedicated to ending all forms of poverty and hunger. Africa alone has almost five hundred million people living in extreme poverty and six million people without access to electricity. These are the issues that must be addressed by a new international order.
Mark Carney is a member of the political-financial elite, oligarchy if you will, and has already been praised as the spokesman of the West by Jeffrey Sachs, and western media. He has been anointed the new leader for the Liberal Establishment. This will not do. Do not be deceived by Mark Carney’s more friendly manners compared to the odious behavior of President Trump. The world is crying out for real change, not Carney’s con job.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Watch above, my heard hitting, provocative discussion with Rasheed Muhammad, and learn the secret to all domestic, economic, and foreign policies, which the rules-based international order stubbornly rejects at their own peril, October 16, 2025
October 31, 2025
The planet is undergoing massive change–the political and economic tectonic plates are shifting. As we go through this incredible phase change across our planet, Africa is in a position to help determine its own direction and how it will cooperate with other nations. The western centered rules-based international order is no longer the dominant determinant force in the world. Its power and control are weakening. The emergence of the Global South, which represents the overwhelming majority of the world’s population, resources, and number of nations, is on the rise. In many ways, the leader of the Global South is the BRICS, and China in particular.
This creates an opportunity for Africa to develop its full potential, which will require massive investments in infrastructure, particularly energy and rail. Africa needs at least one thousand gigawatts of additional energy, and an additional 100,000 kilometers of rail lines. Despite what some people think, we will not achieve democracy or so-called good governance, without an improvement in the standard of living of the majority of the population of African nations. This requires an increase in the production of physical goods to satisfy the material needs of a population projected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050. All the hundreds of billions of dollars spent fighting violent extremism has not worked.
President Franklin Roosevelt had intended the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development-the World Bank, to lend capital to the developing sector, to assist in building up their economies. After his death, the Bretton Woods system rejected Roosevelt’s outlook, with the Western financial institutions refusing to provide the necessary credit for economic growth.
Therefore, we need a new paradigm. A paradigm that understands that the most important aspect of our global economy is the improvement in the material standard of living of the world’s population. This will require a new credit system, a new financial architecture dedicated to bringing about economic growth and development. The West has done nothing to reduce the poverty level in the world. China has, by lifting over seven hundred million people out of poverty. Either out of ignorance or intention, the so called advanced sector has allowed world poverty to reach almost seven hundred million people—a crime against humanity. The extreme poverty level in Africa is approaching five hundred million people, which is immoral!
As a result, in our multipolar world, with the emergence of the Global South, we may come into a new phase where we will have two systems operating at the same time. The failed rules-based international order and Bretton Woods will compete against a new system, one based on development and led by the Global South and the BRICS. Andsupported by the majority of nations. During this process, the rules-based international order with its zero-sum ideology has to be weakened to the point that nations will no longer be treated like pawns on a chess board. The ideology of the rule-based international order is extreme. Their belief structure, that only the strongest should dictate policy according to their rules is actually evil. It is against the natural ordering of the world.
The essence of foreign and domestic policy must be the elevation of human life. Human beings are the only species uniquely endowed with the power of creativity. If policies are not promoting the development of the material existence of human beings, which is the prerequisite for the nurturing of his or her creative powers; it is the wrong policy and will fail. It is only the human species bequeathed with the power of the creative imagination that is in harmony with the development of our planet.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lfreemansafrica
Watch the podcast above hosted by Matthew Ehret, risingtidefoundation.net, scholar, Dr. Uchenna Ekwo, and Lawrence Freeman for a discussion of Africa’s future in a multi-polar world, conducted on October 5, 2025,
The future for Africa lies in the new dynamic of the Global South and the expansion of the BRICS. For the majority of the past century, Western nations have primarily seen Africa as a looting ground to extract natural resources, in particular fossil fuels-hydrocarbons. In the existing non-reversible multipolar world, there are now new possibilities for real economic growth, driven by investments in infrastructure, especially electricity and expansion of rail lines.
The current ruling political financial elites, presently referred to as the “rules-based international order,” are declining in their hegemony over the planet. They have lost their dominance over Africa and their policy to counter China in Africa. There policies advocated by both Democrat and Republican administrations, have failed, and will continue to fail. Presently, Ethiopia, Egypt, and South Africa are full members of the BRICS, and Nigeria Uganda and Algeria are partners of the BRICS. The BRICS, the leading institution of the Global South, whose membership of African nations will likely increase in the future.
These global tectonic shifts towards new institutions in a changing multi-polar world, offer Africa a unique opportunity to increase African agency in determining their own future. There are many good proposals for Africa’s future, such as the African Union ”Agenda 2063,” and the “African Continental Free Trade Area” agreement. However, these policies will not succeed unless there is a massive expansion of investment in critical areas of hard infrastructure, most especially electricity, and rail lines across the continent.
Democracy, peace, and prosperity will only be aspirational unless the type of infrastructure programs that I discuss in the podcast above, are implemented in a concerted way by the nations of Africa. The reality is that the development of Africa, the building of a manufacturing sector and industry, and expansion of agriculture, which will lead to an increased standard of living for the population, is the only pathway forward to achieving peace, stability, and prosperity. Policies emanating from the West have for decades either not understood this principle of physical economy or opposed it. The former is gross ignorance; the latter is pure evil. In either case, the reality, evident by their refusal to fund infrastructure projects is; the West has not supported development, i.e., true economic growth for Africa (and other underdeveloped nations).
When President Franklin Roosevelt died, so did his intention to have the “International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) to become a financial institution to provide low interest capital for developing sector nations. I have proposed the creation of an “Africa Infrastructure Development Bank,” to provide long term, low interest credit for construction of vital infrastructure projects on the African continent. Such a new credit lending institution would be coherent with the calls by the Global South for a new financial architecture that would correspond to the multi-polar world’s commitment to create a new paradigm for economic growth.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lfreemansafrica
