By Okoh Aihe

The American Elections are over and President Donald Trump won convincingly, literally blowing Kamala Harris out of the political space. The contrarians had their emotional expectations but the big boys who spent their money for Trump and the ordinary folks in the motley crowd had their way.

That is the way of politics.

Anyway, I don’t write politics; I write technology. But permit me to observe that people are attributing Trump’s victory to his unrepentant call for America First and Make America Great Again (MAGA).

Here is my point of interest this morning. Whether it is the Democrats or the Republicans, it has always been about America, it has always been about Americans, the flag and the country which they believe in and love so much. You can’t begrudge a leader for being lavish in his patriotic beliefs or being nearly psychotic in pursuing the details.

Instead, you blame your leaders for their horrendous policies which destroy every fabric of life, including education and healthcare, policies which pursue the intelligentsia and intellectuals out of their country, to sell their knowledge to countries that appreciate and can pay some life-sustaining amounts for what is despised by their country.

Trump has only accentuated that latent feeling with his maverick nature and star influence – real estate billionaire, billionaire friends with a large crowd who are waiting on the big boys to make choices for them while being allowed to romanticise about their involvement in the process. But let’s return to technology.

Under the title, Technology, always about National Interest, we wrote on March 22, 2023: “For some of these nations, technology is always about national interest irrespective of the government in power. They demonstrate the veracity of the statement, government is a continuum.”

At the time, we tried to demonstrate that no matter the government in power in America, they will always initiate policies that promote the American interest before any other thing or country. We had looked at Trump’s positon on 5G and TIkTok owned  by ByteDance, a Chinese company.

Today we shall add President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on AI and President J. F. Kennedy epochal declaration on Space Technology.  It is always about America First, and please, don’t misunderstand them, as there are different levels of patriotism.

We also gave a list of other countries who had trouble with TikTok by putting their National interest first, not out of spite or arrogated patriotic feelings, but out of pure love for their countries. They include: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Canada, United Kingdom and a host of other countries.

However, let’s restrict our interest to America for the sake of this writing. On September 12, 2019, President Trump took a very strong position on the development and deployment of 5G technology when he said America would never leave the industry to any other country to lead.

At the time, Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE were in clear lead globally, but Trump applied the brakes. He rallied the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Wireless industry whose promoters readily pledged the sum of $275bn to grow the industry.

“We cannot allow any other country to out-compete the United States in this powerful industry of the future.  We are leading by so much in so many different industries of that type, and we just can’t let that happen.  The race to 5G is a race America must win, and it’s a race, frankly, that our great companies are now involved in.  We’ve given them the incentive they need.  It’s a race that we will win,” he vowed.

Trump didn’t play games or appoint surrogates to drive the American dream. He challenged the industry which responded so spontaneously by pledging hefty investment which they projected could yield 3 million American jobs while adding $500bn to the economy.

Trump’s position on TikTok was not less vehement. August 6, 2020, he signed An Executive Order asking Chinese owners – ByteDance and Zhang Yiming to divest from the video sharing  platform of snackable contents for Americans to take ownership of the company which at the time was worth over $50bn.

There is the fear that the Chinese government laces Chinese equipment and platforms with spyware thus, for instance, making it possible for the Chinese government to exploit its relationship with TikTok to mine data which the company collects from its subscribers and gain an advantage over the US government or spy on journalists who report China, President Trump signed an executive order to the effect that TikTok cedes ownership to American investors. He has since adjusted his position of a complete ban, saying the company needs to exist to resist Facebook, which he described as “enemy of the people.”

This is further fuelled by the fact that China has national security laws that require companies under its jurisdiction to cooperate with broad range of security activities.

June 9, 2021, President Biden rescinded Trump’s Executive Order but continued with the scrutiny of the organisation. He would eventually ban TikTok from government platforms and terminals. He didn’t meddle with the sensitive idea of ownership change. Mind you, Biden didn’t also do anything that could affect Trump’s policy on 5G. It’s actually all about America in taking critical decisions affecting the people. It’s about America First.

On October 30, 2023, Biden issued an Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. Here is what it says in the introduction: The Executive Order establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more.

This wasn’t Trump speaking, it was Biden. Its not about the Democrats or Republicans, it’s about the country and her people. That is what leadership is all about. The people first before pecuniary advantages. In our part of the world, it’s reverse thinking and we blame the world for being unfair, never for once thinking that some of our actions undermine nationhood and the potency of people’s power.

Okay, let’s take a little walk back in time to May 25, 1961, when the race for space was boiling over. In his epochal  Man on the Moon speech, President John F Kennedy, declared: “Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share…

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

JFK, as he was popularly called, made a veiled reference to the Soviet Union which, in 1957, had sent the Sputnik into space. He challenged and committed America to lead the way, to put a man on the moon not a machine. The feat was achieved on July 20, 1969, when America landed Apollo 11 on the moon.

JFK was a Republican not a Democrat. There are major leadership decisions that must be driven by patriotism and a feeling for the people. The party is irrelevant. The people and country are the only constant in the equation. During the campaigns, Trump reached out to a segment of the people and secured their hearts. They may have helped him to win the elections but what he will do will be for America and Americans.

That formed the nexus of his campaign. There may be a little nastiness in achieving his goals but that is Donald Trump. You cannot change his character but you cannot also put his patriotism to question. It’s all about America, dear friend. Be rest assured a newly fired-up Trump is coming  with a mission where the rest of the world comes a distant second to the patriotic fire burning inside of him which only he can interpret to the rest of the world.