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SIMON BARBER: Why Team Trump’s Agoa threat is not righteous
Kleptocrats love it when popular anger is distracted by foreign devils
Joel Pollak, Donald Trump’s slavish South African-born mbongi, thinks the US president "may be able to help" bring the Zuptacracy to heel. "As he wrestles with the swamp creatures of Washington, Trump has some leverage to drain the swamps in Pretoria and Cape Town as well," the would-be ambassador to Pretoria recently posted on Breitbart. And that leverage would be? No, not a promise to Trumpify Nkandla if Zuma would agree to retire there quietly. Something even wackier: "President Trump could use his discretion to suspend SA’s Agoa [African Growth and Opportunity Act] eligibility until the country can reliably hold its elected officials accountable to the law. That might prompt Zuma to clean up his administration, or embolden voices for reform within the ANC."It’s not obvious Tony Leon’s one-time speechwriter has much grasp of SA’s political dynamics. Were I Zuma or a Gupta, I’d tell the orange mountebank to bring it on. I’d want him as an enemy. Kleptocrats love it when popular an...
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