All sanctions on Zimbabwe as a country were removed in March 2024; only 11 targeted sanctions remain on individuals and entities, but not the nation.
More importantly, ZDERA is not a sanction but an act which, in Section 6 of S494 ZDERA document, actually asked for the U.S. President to impose sanctions on Zimbabweans. Now, ask yourself, why would an act that is a sanction ask the U.S. President to impose sanctions on Zimbabweans if Congress already had imposed sanctions through it [ZDERA]?
Itβs because ZDERA was never a sanction, as Congress has no power to impose sanctions, just as it cannot declare war. Only the U.S. President, through Unitary Executive Powers, has the power to declare war or impose economic war (sanctions) on another nation utilizing the National Emergency Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Right now, since March 2024 when the Zimbabwe Sanctions Program was revoked, the Zimbabwean government is able to:
β’β β Sell its minerals through MMCZ
β’β β Trade gold through Fidelity
β’β β Have Zimbabweansβ money cleared through U.S. and western banks, unlike under sanctions
β’β β Transact and get loans where its credit record is good
β’β β Engage in technology transfer and trade without restrictions.
This is why you see chemotherapy machines being repaired in Zimbabwe by U.S. companies for the first time since Executive Order sanctions were tightened in 2008.
Groups of businesspeople and government officials are currently crisscrossing the world, the U.S., and the West, doing roadshows to attract investment because sanctions are gone.
So, the problem is no longer sanctions but the government not wanting to acknowledge the people who removed sanctions and a desire to have sanctions as an excuse for their own failures to innovate solutions to rebuild the economy from sanctions.
They are also failing to sustain a currency because of unabated greed, black market forex trading, and externalization by elites, which is now self-sabotaging the currency we so need.
Situations like the President being broadcast speaking to Putin about needing protection from U.S. hegemony in Zambia or denying the removal of sanctions, makes Zimbabwe look like a fence-sitter, hence the U.S. will not endorse loans or aid packages for Zimbabwe despite their desire to re-engage.
We are an eastern-aligned nation, and the West knows that, so we should live like it.
As people with U.S. advisors as our partners, we have been trying to convince the government to emulate the Jews and Europeans who, after WW2 and five years of German oppression, sought reparations to build industry and support their weak currencies.
Our government has not been interested in pursuing reparations, which is one of the only solutions for economic recovery after years of sustained degradation.
One of the main reasons our government is struggling to get the nation back on its feet is that, even though the new dispensation is a listening government, it is unfortunately an unappreciative government that does not embrace the people who contribute the ideas they are trying to implement.
As a result, they are losing the future contributions of people who helped remove Mugabe, the people the same government engaged to remove sanctions that they are pretending are not gone β those who proposed a gold-backed currency, those who conceived the idea of rekindling our Mutapa heritage, those warning the nation of threats, and so many other ideas which are stolen and spoilt when the wrong people try to execute ideas that are not theirs.
A government that does not acknowledge and reward the bloodlines and people who contribute to advancing it, will struggle, as the exploitation of those sent to contribute without acknowledgement, aggrieves vadzimu ve nyika (spirits of the nation).
