The story told to me by my eldest brother about an entrepreneurial innovation that went south in the 1950s in Lesotho resonates with the radical Trumponomics of trade wars. The consequences of the innovative policy of President Donald Trump is bound to take the US south in the not too distant future, and there will be no “ass to lick”.
Prof Jeffrey Sachs had no words left to define the make-as-you-go policy of the US. Save to say the 90-day pause on tariffs is Trump’s exit from a nonsensical penny-by-province tariff arithmetic. This new Trumponomics hit Lesotho with the highest tariff, of 50% for its exports to the US because the new trade textbook discovered that Lesotho had been the biggest “cheat” of the US based on its trade balance and deserved to be punished.
David Ricardo must be shaking with grief in his grave seeing trade economics heading to Trumponomics’ hill of ignorance. But so shaken is the universe that the US with all its supposed pause could plausibly have lost goodwill from the rest of the world.
If Trump sustains tariffs against China and China retaliates, the pause on other countries, including the biggest “cheat,” according to the miserable Trumponomics, is unlikely to secure the US any brownies. The trotter business is lost as the market shifts elsewhere. Accompanying this is the fact that the US dollar is bound to lose its global status as a reserve currency. The bull in the China shop tactic the US has displayed has undermined the then faltering but booming trotter sales.
In this least-known country, there once blossomed a trotter economy in the 1950s and early 1960s. It so happened that a formula for cleaning trotters, cooking them and delivering them to market by a tradesman of note in the district of Mafeteng in Lesotho, worked wonders. Sheep’s trotters from Mr Mangoaela were the in-thing for all. But this was especially so for those who would visit Mafeteng Hospital, where the trotters lay en route to this health facility. Trade was booming and daily takings compelled Ntate Mangoaela to find new ways of speeding up production to meet demand.
Trumponomics has sullied Europe-US relations, and China has made inroads and will maintain and win the tariff war against the US.
The formula was to clean the trotters with blue soap and this remains to this day. But the 1960s was a period of revolution in cleaning. Powder soap was discovered and created a revolution that saw insects of destruction such as lice and flees disappear. The abode of lice in their heyday would be the pleats on the waist of the khaki shorts where they would relentlessly disturb the peace. But OMO powder soap arrived and in no time made these unsavoury creatures history. While OMO challenged many who washed clothes in the rivers, its innovators introduced washing basins and methods of washing so that the lather and powder would not flow with the river before even rubbing in the clothes. So large OMO basins were won in music competitions. Women would collect water in these basins and then wash the clothes to greater brightness, and soon it was goodbye to blue soap.
Not to be outdone Mangoaela also tried OMO to clean the trotters. The efficiencies were significant and OMO did three times the stock blue soap would achieve in one wash. A content Mangoaela would be pleased in anticipation of the next day’s takings. As usual he went to the market early in the morning to catch primarily the Mafeteng hospital traffic. The sickly would always be accompanied by at least one or more people. But the sickly also were entitled to buy and eat. The trotters flew off the shelves and Mangoaela knew he had now innovated a working formula and would extend his market dominance.
Little did he realise a perfect storm was brewing. No sooner had the customers devoured the trotters than they complained of stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea. The additional dilemma was that they were all headed to a medical facility where they presented similar symptoms. The source of diet that morning for almost all was the Mangoaela cuisine.
Upon investigation, the health workers soon learnt that the new formula of OMO could have caused the trouble. Mangoaela tried to win the market back by reverting to blue soap, but the clientele could no longer trust that they are not being guinea pigs. They could not believe there was a pause in the use of OMO. Mangoaela had lost his trusted business clientele and never recovered the trotter share.
While Trump’s pause for 90 days is a paper tiger and may not unleash anything by the 91st day as Sachs says, it has opened a new opportunity for lack of trust and countries have begun to make alternative arrangements with partners they can trust and are not erratic bullies.
Trumponomics has sullied Europe-US relations, and China has made inroads and will maintain and win the tariff war against the US. This is because it had been preparing for the likelihood of such an outcome as early as 2013. Its growth and development strategy was to increase the number of children a woman can birth to two. It had by that token increased its domestic demand and manufacturing and all economic activity was geared towards rising demand based on relaxing the policy from one child to two. And China continued to drive export-led growth. It is inconceivable that Trumponomics can reverse the trend nor can other countries take the stench Trumponomics has emitted.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa
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