DAVID LEWIS: A few tips from Jacob Zuma

US President Donald Trump doesn’t take lessons from shithole countries on shithole continents, but if he wants to capture a state, he could learn a thing or two from SA.

The Zuma-Gupta syndicate was a carefully constructed and sequenced heist. First, largely through Jacob Zuma’s use of his appointment powers, he captured our criminal justice agencies. Then, using the same powers, he captured the state-owned enterprises and ministries the Guptas had targeted; parliament and other oversight bodies were neutralised next.

Zuma kept his international allies, such as the Russians and Chinese, onside simply by throwing a few public contracts their way, and when the ANC was all that was left threatening Zuma’s absolute control, he destroyed that as well, together with the governance of the provinces. This took a few years, but then it was game, set and...

Well, not quite match. Our home-grown predators never successfully captured the judiciary or the media; civil society organisations continued to make a noise; a few pesky public institutions like the public protector got away; white monopoly capital never stopped grumbling; and there were a couple of irritating political parties that never understood that majority rule meant absolute control by the majority party.

Overall though, with nine years of relatively stress-free power and wealth, much loot stashed away in the Dubais of this world and not one important friend or family member in prison, the Zumas and Guptas must, in their more reflective moments, consider this a job well done.

So what would canny old Zuma advise Trump? “Brother, everyone knows that in your country the stakes are far higher and the rewards far greater (and in hard currency, nogal). But did you have to take on all of your opponents at once? You’d destroyed the Republican party; the Democratic party was doing a fine job of destroying itself.

“I get why you had to neutralise the FBI, CIA and National Security Council on the first day. I even get why, to demonstrate who was boss, you had to appoint a bunch of witch doctors, shock-jocks, bimbos and wrestlers to your cabinet, and why the youth vote necessitated employing a child as your spokesperson (remember “person”, not “man”). 

“You should have rested for a few months then”, Zuma would advise “and entertained these ‘American people’ you talk about so often (I see you also like dancing); you could have gone on a few international trips, played some golf. You could’ve chilled. There were no looming threats. But what did you do? You took on the universities, the law firms, the healthcare professionals, the environmentalists. You deported students. You fired thousands of American workers. You insulted the judges. You threatened Canada, Mexico and Denmark, people who wouldn’t have caused trouble. You have even managed to anger the military.

“And those tariffs! You have managed to piss off the Chinese and EU at the same time as much of the rest of the world. And who is going to make the deals with all those countries that you say are phoning you? Do you know what it is to negotiate a trade deal? Did you really become president to decide the price of pasta and T-shirts? You can’t leave it to those halfwits who advised you to impose the tariffs in the first place. In fact, they are so stupid that by following them you have even united the economists, something I was always told was impossible (if you need advisers, I can recommend two clever American firms, Bain and McKinsey — they helped me a lot).

“Now even the businessmen — I mean people — who a few months ago were spending millions just to have dinner with you, are starting to complain. And soon you’re going to discover how much ordinary Americans who voted for you care about the price of pasta and T-shirts. As we South Africans say, you are in deep kak, my brother.”

And Zuma would be right. Trump has seriously over-reached. Or it may be a deliberate strategy. But I don’t think we should waste time trying to work out what exactly is driving Trump. It may be his inability to understand international trade. It may be his advisers, like Peter Navarro (or as Elon Musk calls him, “Peter Retardo”) who have become the laughing stock of economists and trade officials the world over.

Who knows, it may be plain and simple market manipulation. After all, shortly before he announced his climbdown on the “reciprocal” tariffs he had, a few days previously, imposed on every country and penguin he deemed a threat to the US economy, he tweeted that this was a good time to “BUY, BUY, BUY!”.

The truth probably lies somewhere in his weird personality, “more id than ideology” is trade economist Paul Krugman’s best guess. He may have revealed the real rationale for his trade strategy when he told the Republican congressional caucus that global leaders were lining up to “kiss my ass”. Throw in a few university heads, CEOs and lawyers, and even his copious colon is going to start to feel a little constipated.

But one head that won’t be there is the biggest of them all — Xi Jinping. Trump, in characteristically theatrical fashion, has lined up a proverbial gunfight at the OK Corral between the US and China, between Trump and Xi. My money is on China. Though its enormous $290bn trade surplus with the US may suggest that it’s the vulnerable side in this war, the composition of Chinese and US exports suggest otherwise. One trade analyst has observed that US exports are largely industrial inputs that can be relatively easily absorbed. And the Chinese have planned for this day — for example, their imports of soya beans from the US recently declined hugely in favour of Brazil.

On the other hand, Chinese exports to the US are still predominantly consumer goods such as phones, computers and toys. One analyst calculated that when the US tariff on Chinese imports was “only” 54% — it’s now 125% — the price of the cheapest iPhone in the US would increase from $799 to $1,142. It’s not Trump’s ass that US consumers will be going for when they vote in two years. It will be his jugular.

Whatever Trump does now on global trade, the harm has already been done. Krugman writes: “Permanent tariffs are bad for the economy, but businesses can for the most part find a way to live with them. What business can’t deal with is a regime under which trade policy reflects the whims of a mad king, where nobody knows what tariffs will be next week, let alone over the next five years.

“Are these tariffs going to be permanent? Are they a negotiating ploy? Under these conditions, how is a business supposed to make investments or any kind of long-term commitment? Everyone is going to sit on their hands, waiting for clarity that may never come.”

“Chill, baby, chill”, is what Zuma would have said. “SA was not captured in a day. Nor will the US. And, by the way, before you make the markets go up and down again, please give me a
heads-up.”

• Lewis, a former trade unionist, academic, policymaker, regulator and company board member, was a co-founder and director of Corruption Watch.