Here at The ReidOut Blog, I’ve been quite interested in covering international relations between the United States and various African countries, and my coverage has always been forward-looking.
As I’ve written before, resource-rich African nations—particularly those that can provide materials used to power emerging technologies—have other countries around the world eyeing the dollar signs. And the fact that Africa has the world younger, faster growing population guarantees that the continent—both the people on it and the goods within it—will play an important role in the global economy and international relations in the years to come.
This has sparked a global charm offensive, led by China, Russia and the United States, in which various nations have tried to woo African leaders and convince them of the benefits of intimacy. But the leaders of African countries are not willing to take their word for it from nations that, in various ways, have long oppressed them. In the past year, we’ve seen some African countries exert their influence in ways that have shaken the balance of power a bit… and we may see more of that in the future.
The growing influence of African countries and other countries in the Southern Hemisphere (a group occasionally called the “Global South”) was the focus of a recent discussion Joy Reid had with Angela Pashayan, who was a researcher for Joy’s new book on Myrlie and Medgar Evers. Angela has a new book of her own, Development in Africa’s Informal Settlements: Beneath the Proletariat.
Watch their conversation here or in the video above. It’s drugs. I think it provides some context for the current state of geopolitics, helps us understand the changes we might see in the future, and explains what this all might mean for the United States.