Interview on January 27, 2025 with Lawrence Freeman by Addis Assefra on ‘Talk With OBN’, Ethiopia
February 12, 2025
You can hear in the 25 minute interview above, my preliminary thoughts one week after President Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States.
There is no indication from President Trump or from his cabinet members that indicate a significant positive shift in United States policy for Africa. The glaring failure of U.S.-Africa policy for the last six decades has been its refusal to promote economic development. Contrary to all the unfounded attacks on China-Africa relations over the last twenty-five years, China has invested in many vital infrastructure projects across the African continent. To achieve real economic growth in African nations, trillions of dollars have to be invested in vital categories of hard and soft infrastructure. The model of simply providing aid has to be replaced with a commitment to foster economic growth.
I have two proposals for the new Trump administration to implement, which would be transformative in contributing to the elimination of hunger and poverty on the African continent.
The most effective means for achieving the construction of necessary integrated-infrastructure platforms upon which African economies will develop, is for the U.S. to support the creation of an African Infrastructure Development Bank, capitalized at one trillion dollars.
The U.S. must cease using African nations as pawns in its strategy to counter China. The U.S. should break from the diseased outlook of the rules-based order, zero-sum mentality, and partner with China to assist in the development of African nations.
It is in the self-interest of America, and beneficial to U.S. industrial capitalism, for African nations to increase their economic productivity and physical output.
My interview also discussed AGOA, the BRICS, South Africa, regime-change, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the rules-based order, Horn of Africa, and China.
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, and also publishing on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World
Eritrea’s strategic location in the Horn of Africa (courtesy of dehai.org)
January 12, 2025
The following article, Eritrea Is the North Korea of Africa: America Must Act, is a naked call for regime-change against the nation of Eritrea. The author advocates for the incoming administration of President Trump, to support so called democracy movements to overthrow the government of President Isaias Afwerki. If the Trump administration were to follow this perilously foolish advice, it could result in igniting a catastrophic destabilization of the Horn of Africa that would affect the entire continent. Potentially hundreds of thousands of Africans could die from military combat, starvation, and disease, with even more Africans becoming refugees. This is a dangerous trap being set for President Trump, which he must reject. If he does not, the people of the most populous continent will hate him, and U.S.-African relations will be severely damaged for decades.
With this essay, Michael Rubin is exposing himself as a reckless fool, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), as a treacherous ally of the incoming administration, threatening the stability of East Africa. Both Rubin and AEI reveal themselves as tools of the West’s rules-based order.
Reject Madness
Look at a map! Look at the nations contiguous to Eritrea and its neighbors in the East African region. Hundreds of millions of Africans could be affected by such an irresponsible action as regime-change.
Sudan-48 million people, is experiencing a horrible internal war, threatening to destroy the nation of Sudan, sending millions of Sudanese fleeing into neighboring nations. Ethiopia-125 million people, after surviving a two year war that killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians (2020-2022) is suffering internal strife as the government continues to battle ethnic-nationalists over the last two years. South Sudan-11 million people, has been virtually a failed state since its independence in 2011. Somalia-18 million people, the government is struggling to achieve stability, battling al Shabaab for nearly two decades. Kenya with 55 million people, Uganda with a population of 46 million, and Djibouti with one million, would not be immune from an externally motivated removal of President Afwerki. It is sheer madness for Rubin and AEI to encourage regime-change in such a turbulent region. Either Rubin and AEI have no understanding of the dynamics of this region, and/or they are completely oblivious regarding the ill-fated consequences their proposal for U.S. sponsored regime change.
Eritrea’s coastline that borders the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, is a strategic trade route, which the rules-based order wants under the control of a more pliable leader than President Afwerki, who is deemed too independent.
President of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki (courtesy of shabait.com)
The article is filled with assertions and only one sighted source, Eritrea’s ambassador to South Sudan. Comparisons are made to Zimbabwe, which was also a target of failed attempts at regime-change; North Korea, one of the nations listed in the “axis of evil”; and Saddam Hussein, whose nation was invaded by the West, which led to the creation ISIS. Of course, Russia and China are not left out of Rubin’s diatribe. Although Eritrea has been subject to various sanctions over the decades, Rubin and AEI advocate additional sanctions, empowering and funding opposition groups for the removal of Eritrea’s President.
Rubin encourages pressuring allies of Eritrea, and invites the involvement of the National Endowment of Democracy, notorious for instigating regime-change across the globe, and judged by many to be an asset of the CIA. Rubin writes:
The State Department should make clear to the United Arab Emirates that it should cease its partnership with Africa’s most destabilizing state, one which is increasingly a partner for China. It might also convene, perhaps in conjunction with the National Endowment for Democracy, a “Future of Eritrea” project to identify and assess the areas of greatest need upon Isaias’ exit.
Human Development, Not Rules
It should be clear to any honest observer that overthrowing the government of Eritrea is not in the interests of Eritreans, nor the over three hundred million Africans living in East Africa-one third of the continent’s population. To deliberately inflict such harm and hardship on an African population that is already suffering from extreme poverty, is evil.
Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki, left, and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed talk during the inauguration of the Tibebe Ghion Specialized Hospital in Bahir Dar, northern Ethiopia, Nov. 10, 2018. (courtesy of voanews.com)
The core of the problem with Rubin and AEI, is their perverted worldview. More accurately, their demented belief structure, which is anti-human. Their diseased ideology views the world as composed of zero-sum relationships in a static universe. Only winners and losers, or victors, and victims exist according to this worldview. Or, as the saying goes, “you are either with us or against us.” Neither human beings, nor the physical universe, are organized in this fixed structure. Rather, it is change, transformation, development, negative entropy, and human creativity, which actually governs the human race and our universe. The ideological obsession of the rules-based order mind-set, which steers the actions of both U.S. political parties, and the self-destructed Biden administration, is the real danger to the wellbeing of the people of our planet. Not Afwerki, Mugabe, Hussein, China, Russia, and North Korea.
If we know, as we readily should: human beings are the only species endowed with the power of creative mentation, and nations are composed exclusively of humans. Thus, it is elementary that all foreign policy should be governed by the principle of development for the human race, not the so called rule of order dictated by Western institutions. U.S. policy has been driven by the insistence of imposing its so called rules and structures of democracy on the Global South. Ignoring that the most important principle is the promotion of life, which necessitates economic growth. When other nations, such as China, form a bond with African nations grounded in economic development, they are attacked by the rules based order and labeled a dangerous enemy. Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has been vilified, for among other strategies, his 2013 initiation of the Belt and Road Initiative and continuation of the successful, Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
In the last six decades, only U.S. President John Kennedy has shown a genuine concern for collaborating with African leaders to promote economic development.
Rather than initiating programs and visions to foster economic growth in the Horn of Africa, as I have for the last decade, U.S. governments had fueled the flames of conflict. Most egregiously: 1) the Biden administration’s de facto support for the Tigrayan army’s attempt to militarily remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from his elected leadership of Ethiopia; 2) Biden’s refusal to support the most important project for economic growth in East Africa, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Victims of regime-change. Libya President, Umar al Qaddafi and Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. (courtesy googlenews.com)
Not to be out done by Biden, the adherents to the rules-based order are proposing that the new Trump administration, should ignite the Horn of Africa, with U.S. support for Eritrea regime-change. How will that help Africans living in that region? It will not! Did the U.S. supported regime-change and assassination of President Gaddafi help the people of Libya and North Africa? Did the overthrow and murder of Saddam Hussein help the Iraqi people and the Middle East?
President-elect Trump has said that he rejects unnecessary foreign interventions by the U.S. If so, he should dismiss this murderously insane scheme, and work with me to bring peace and prosperity to the region through economic integration of the Horn of Africa.
As is the case with other African nations, I do not support all of Eritrea’s policies. However, thoughtful people of good will, should be able to understand the extreme harm that regime-change against the current Eritrean government would cause on the African continent. We should act, free from prejudice and the colonial past, to recognize the evil of the rules-based order, and unequivocally defend Eritrea from their assault on Africa..
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, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, and also publishing on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World
Nigeria Getting Back On Track With Rail Revolution
May 18, 2018-ThisDayLive
Israel Ibeleme
Just days before President Buhari met with President Trump at the White House, history was made in Washington, DC, with the signing of a landmark infrastructure agreement between the Nigerian Government and a consortium of multinational firms led by the American digital industrial giant, General Electric (GE). The implementation of that agreement, worth US$45 million in the first phase, will ensure that within the next 12 months, passenger travel by rail from Lagos to Kano will be faster and safer, while for the first time in over a decade, contracted
and scheduled freight rail services can once again be offered.
This milestone project is the outcome of President Buhari’s single-minded determination to develop, upgrade and modernise Nigeria’s transport infrastructure, as well as the relentless push by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, to fully deliver on the President’s vision.
Since Mr. Amaechi took office in November 2015, as Minister of Transportation, there has been a renaissance in Nigeria’s rail industry, in line with the President’s oft-stated vision. This planned revamp of the Narrow-Gauge Rail Network by the international consortium comprising General Electric, Transnet of South Africa, Sino Hydro of China and APM Terminals (part of the Danish Maersk Group) – after two years of meticulous planning, negotiating and contracting, President Buhari in one of the coaches when he commissioned the Abuja-Kaduna train services offers strong proof of the seriousness with which the Buhari Administration is taking its railway
modernisation ambitions.
Nigeria’s Narrow-Gauge Rail System was conceived in the 1890s and built between 1898 and 1926, with a total length of 3,500 kilometres. It consists of two primary lines – Lagos to Nguru and Port Harcourt to Maiduguri– with spur lines to Eleme, Baro, Kaura Namoda and other places.
The Buhari administration, as part of its infrastructure development vision, has now finally taken the long overdue bold steps to modernise the rail network. On August 18, 2017, the Federal Executive Council, following a competitive procurement process, approved the concession of the Narrow-Gauge Rail System to the GE-led Consortium. The Government is advised by a multidisciplinary consortium led by the Africa Finance Corporation.
The initiation of that concession agreement is what has now finally taken effect following the signing in Washington DC yesterday, ahead of President Buhari’s bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday…
The benefits of this intervention are immense: increased economic productivity, job creation, private sector investment, human capacity development and much-needed world class expertise. Worldwide, rail infrastructure has been proven to reduce costs and wastage of goods; increase economic trade between farmers/miners and industry and between traders and consumers; and grow business competitiveness and increase operational efficiency.
May 16, 2018–Nigeria has awarded a $6.68 billion contract to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. (CCECC) for work on a major segment of a railway linking the country’s commercial hub Lagos, in the southwest, and Kano in the north, Xinhua reported May 15.
“The signing of the segment contract agreement today [May 15] concludes all outstanding segments of he Lagos-Kano rail line,” Xinhua quoted Nigeria’s Transport Ministry as saying. The work is expected to take two or three years. CCECC, a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corp., has been involved in other parts of the Lagos-Kano rail project, which started in 2006 and was broken into segments for implementation.
In 2016, Nigeria awarded work on a segment between the northern states of Kano and Kaduna with a contract sum of $1.685 billion. The railway line already receives funding from China Exim Bank which in April approved a $1.231 billion loan for network modernization programs. Nigeria is also negotiating with Russia, on projects within the ambitious national rail development program which requires investments totaling $46 billion.
China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation lands $6.68bn Nigeria rail project
China Investment Magazine, supervised by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, carried this article by Helga Zepp-LaRouche in its May issue. The article was distributed both in Chinese and in English to every participant in the May 14-15 Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. In this article Mrs LaRouche presents an excellent article on the importance of infrastructure in advancing economic growth and the necessity for public credit financing. She says:” The return on infrastructure investment is actually measured by the increase of the productivity of the entire economy. Therefore the financing can not be left to the private investor, but it must be the responsibility of the state, which is devoted to the common good of the national economy.
