billion last year. and china long since passed the u.s. as a major trading partner for africa. but there are criticisms, needless to say, of china s work in africa that they are investing without regard to human rights and in some ways support supported regimes that abuse human rights. some look at it as a model of development, where you can grow economically, c demockratizing. egypt, libya, others that dominate our news cycle, we think of them as mideast regimes and think of themselves of that way geopolitically. partly of the african continent. we re talking about subsaharan africa. and chinese focus on natural
resources. and to extract. and much of the criticism, most recently from jacob zuma has been that china s relations with africa are not different from european relations in the past. colonial. exactly. where they extract natural resources, oil, member rmineral, et cetera, and send in inexpensive manufactured goods. by seconding out natural resources, africans aren t able to gain the value of those resources by further developing them. turning oil into gas. or minerals into electronics goods. congressman meeks, perhaps u.s. business and u.s. policy can say, okay, yes, of course, we need humanitarian work, and refuse maniy crisis and the health issues, and hiv/aids, and let s develop a model for
business investment that allows for your constituents in new york. and i want to do something on the continent that s in addition to the charity. absolutely. that will cause the nations of africa to continue to grow. we need to have the kind of investment in africa that will create jobs for africans. what s taking place when you take a look at china, masses of chinese workers with them, so africans not being employed. it s important for, example, we just had a bill pass out of senate committee and think we ll have it on the floor. and african growth and opportunity act, we have american businesses doing businesses in various countries, creating jobs for africans and teaching them so they can grow and become manufacturers of their own products and keep the wealth within their own nations and also tremendously important, i talked to the african development bank so they can
africa. much of the fron assistance is focused on alleviating the reach of the hiv krids. meanwhile, the chinese government says it will invest a staggering $20 billion in the african continent for agricultural developments and infrastructure projects. signifying developmental dominance in the region. here with me is south sudanese supermodel al electric wek, gregory meeks, mark quarterman and michael ralph. mark, this distinction as we look at how other nations spend money on the continent, $20 billion from infrastructure in profit no, human rights strings attached. on the other hand, it is was about medical care. this 20 billion is a three-year program, doubled their last program. china trade hit a record $166