Politics & Power Quote by Donald Evans

There is a peculiar emptiness to this kind of diplomatic enthusiasm: Africa appears less as a lived, plural place and more as a “region” - a market category - that can be activated by the right blend of investment, trade, and presidential “passion.” Donald Evans, speaking as Commerce Secretary in the Bush era, is performing a familiar Washington ritual: arrive, signal goodwill, and translate geopolitics into the language of business opportunity. The intent is straightforward brand management for U.S. policy - reassure African governments and American firms that this trip is about partnership, not pity, while also laundering strategic interests through upbeat economics.

The subtext is where the sentence bites. Evans begins with “my first visit,” an accidental confession of distance: the U.S. official charged with commerce is new to the continent he’s about to narrate. That gap gets papered over by borrowing credibility from Bush’s “deep passion,” a phrase that reads like a press release trying to sound human. “Fostering and encouraging” doubles the same idea, padding the statement with benevolence while avoiding specifics - no countries named, no industries, no commitments, no acknowledgement of existing local economic ecosystems.

Contextually, this is early-2000s soft power: post-9/11 foreign policy seeking friendlier packaging, and an administration eager to frame engagement as development-by-market rather than aid or reparations. “Economic development, investment and trade” is a neat triad that casts the U.S. as catalyst, but also centers what the U.S. can do and gain. Africa becomes a stage for American intent, not an actor with its own agenda.