President Donald Trump plans to impose 50% tariffs on Lesotho, a tiny country entirely surrounded by South Africa.
Why? Lesotho’s population is 150 times smaller than America’s, its land mass 324 times smaller, its gross domestic product 4,221 times smaller. It doesn’t pose much threat.
But then why bash Lesotho during Trump’s March speech to Congress as “a country nobody has heard of?” Why double down by insisting that we gave them $8 million a year to promote LGBTQI ? (That’s simply a lie. According to NPR, most of the aid goes to prevent new HIV infections, which in Africa are overwhelmingly due to heterosexual contact.)
These are instances of sadopolitics, more characteristic of bullies than leaders. No target is too tiny to smash. The bigger the disparity, the more it reinforces the bully’s fragile self-worth.
In my opinion, if the target’s skin color is darker than some people like, even better. It’s no coincidence that Trump already invited white South Africans who don’t like being ruled by a Black majority to emigrate here.
An economist interviewed by Reuters says that the proposed tariff will “kill the tiny African kingdom.”
All in a day’s work for racist sadopolitics.
Eugene V. Torisky Jr.
Latrobe