Time & Perspective Quote by Donald Evans

The sentence performs a familiar diplomatic magic trick: it turns a plane ticket into policy. Evans opens with itinerary-level immediacy ("on my way to Ghana tomorrow morning"), then pivots to a reassurance meant less for Ghanaians than for a wider audience watching U.S. engagement with Africa. Travel becomes proof of seriousness; the act of showing up is framed as strategy.

The repetition is the tell. "This Administration is very focused" is Washington boilerplate, but here it carries defensive energy, as if answering an unasked question: focused compared to what, and after what period of neglect? The phrase "doing all we can" is maximal in aspiration and conveniently vague in obligation. It's the language of commitment without deliverables, a shield against being pinned down on aid levels, trade terms, debt relief, or governance conditions.

Then comes the geographic sweep: "in this part of the world, in Africa, throughout Africa, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa". It's an attempt to sound comprehensive while revealing the pressure to get the framing right. Africa is invoked as both a single "part of the world" and a set of distinct regions, a careful nod to complexity that still reads like a checklist. The subtext is signaling: to investors, that the U.S. wants markets; to domestic listeners, that engagement is about "economic development" rather than charity or military intervention; to African governments, that partnership is on offer, on U.S. terms. In the post-Cold War, pre-China-dominance moment Evans inhabited, economic development served as the polite, growth-minded banner under which influence could be renewed.