Setting: An opulent, timeless lounge. Gilded chairs sit on plush red carpet under a crystal chandelier. Two men, starkly different in dress and demeanor, face each other. LINDEN FORBES SAMPSON BURNHAM, immaculate in a tailored suit, sips slowly from a glass of Demerara rum. DONALD J. TRUMP, in his signature dark suit and red tie, leans forward, a Diet Coke untouched on the table beside him.
TRUMP: So, Burnham. They called you the “Comrade Leader.” Sad. Very sad. I’m hearing tremendous things about your country now. Tremendous. They’ve got the oil, you know. Lots of it. A great American company, Exxon—the best, really—doing a fantastic job there. Making your country very, very rich. You never made it rich. Why not?
BURNHAM: (A slow, condescending smile plays on his lips. He takes a deliberate sip of rum before answering, his voice a smooth, articulate baritone.) Mr. Trump. One must first define “rich.” If by “rich” you mean a state of affairs where a foreign multinational extracts your nation’s patrimony while your government subsidizes the extraction through tax concessions, then yes—by that definition, we were never so “rich.” We chose a different path. The path of sovereignty. The path of the Cooperative Republic. A concept I suspect is as foreign to you as fiscal discipline.
TRUMP: Wrong. Wrong. I know all about cooperatives. Like a condo board. Lots of losers who can’t make a decision. You had your chance. You went with the socialists, the communists. Castro, the Sandinistas… all losers. I dealt with them. The “Troika of Tyranny,” my people called it. Great name. Very catchy. We put the screws to them. Venezuela, Cuba. We were very tough. Your new guys, they get it. They know who their friends are. They’re with us against Maduro. Smart.
BURNHAM: (He chuckles, a dry, academic sound.) You see, you mistake alignment for subservience. We stood with the Non-Aligned Movement. We stood with two-thirds of the world’s people against the imperialist machinations of both East and West. We championed the principle of non-interference. The government in Georgetown now invites the very fox that circles the henhouse to stand guard. They have traded sovereignty for a temporary security guarantee against a neighbor you’ve spent years provoking. It is a Faustian bargain.
TRUMP: A Faustian bargain? They’re going to be rich! It’s a deal! You nationalized the bauxite, right? Took it from the Americans and the Canadians. How did that work out for you? Your economy went down the drain. Sad. Per capita income of $380. I saw the numbers. My guys, they do the best numbers. You had nothing. Now they’ve got a deal with Exxon. A great deal. They get billions. We get billions. Everybody’s happy. That’s a good deal. They’re finally winning because they found the oil. They’re smart to work with us.
BURNHAM: (He sets down his glass with deliberate care.) “Found the oil.” As if discovery were achievement. As if geology were merit. Let us be clear, Mr. Trump: oil wealth is an accident—an accident of birth, of geography, of tectonic forces millions of years in the making. No government “earned” it. No leader can claim credit for what nature deposited beneath the seabed. The current administration did not work for this wealth any more than I could have worked to create it. They simply had the fortune of timing and technology.
TRUMP: So what? You take what you can get. That’s business. That’s life. They got lucky. Great. Now they’re making the right moves, working with the right people—
BURNHAM: (Interrupting, his voice sharpening.) No, Mr. Trump. Luck imposes responsibility. When wealth falls from the sky—or rises from beneath the sea—the government becomes a steward, not an owner. A trustee for generations yet unborn. The question is not “How do we extract maximum profit?” but rather “How do we ensure every citizen—every single Guyanese, from the Rupununi to the coastland—benefits from this accident of geography?” The oil belongs to the people. All the people. Not to a political class. Not to foreign shareholders. Not to a new elite driving Land Cruisers through Georgetown while the interior remains in darkness.
TRUMP: But that’s what they’re doing! They’re building roads, schools, hospitals. I’ve seen the plans. Beautiful plans. The money is flowing. That’s what you couldn’t do. You had the bauxite, the sugar, the rice—you had stuff—but you couldn’t make it work. Now they’ve got real money coming in, and they’re spending it. Smart.
BURNHAM: A road built with oil money is no more virtuous than a road built with bauxite revenue. The question is: who decided where that road goes? Who benefits? Is it the small farmer in Berbice? The Amerindian community in Region Nine? Or is it the contractor connected to the ruling party? When the oil runs dry—and it will run dry, Mr. Trump, perhaps in your grandson’s lifetime—what will remain? A Sovereign Wealth Fund drained by political expediency? Infrastructure that served only the coast? Or will there be schools that produced a generation of engineers? Hospitals that ensured a healthy population? A diversified economy that no longer depends on the accident of geology?
TRUMP: You’re overthinking it. It’s simple. You make the deals. You build the projects. You create jobs. The economy grows. People are happy. That’s what’s happening now. They’re not making your mistakes. They’re working with us, with Exxon, with the best companies. They’re being smart.
BURNHAM: (Leaning forward, his voice taking on a professorial tone.) Tell me, Mr. Trump: when Exxon’s contract was signed, did every Guyanese benefit equally from that signature? Or did a handful of negotiators make decisions that will reverberate for fifty years, decisions made behind closed doors, with terms that favor extraction over transformation? You speak of growth. I speak of distribution. Of equity. Of inclusion. This is not wealth that was earned through innovation or labor. It is a geological lottery win. And a lottery win demands that the winners—all eighty million barrels worth of winners—share the prize with those who had no hand in buying the ticket. That is the sacred duty of stewardship.
TRUMP: Sacred duty? Come on. People want jobs. They want money in their pockets. They want to feed their families. That’s what they’re getting. You’re talking like a professor. Nobody cares about your theories when they’re standing in a bread line.
BURNHAM: (His eyes narrow, the smile vanishing.) And you believe your system ensures they won’t stand in that line again? I read the projections from 2025. Over half my people will still live in poverty, even as the oil flows. Poverty amidst plenty—the oldest scandal in the colonial playbook. The wealth is not reaching the small man. It is creating a new class of comprador elites, beholden to foreign capital. This is precisely what we fought against. You speak of my methods, yet you embrace authoritarians who serve your interests. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
(He stands, refilling his glass.)
We wielded state power to build a nation on the resources we had—bauxite, sugar, the labor of our people. Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, the pressure from your government, from international capital, from internal divisions, overwhelmed us at times. But we understood something fundamental: the state exists to ensure that the accident of geography benefits the many, not the few. When you nationalized nothing, when you controlled nothing, you could not be a steward. You could only be a client.
TRUMP: But you couldn’t do it! You couldn’t feed them. You couldn’t house them. It was a disaster. People were lining up for bread. I heard about it. A total disaster. And you rigged the elections! My people told me. You were no different from the guys I was fighting. A strongman. I respect strongmen, you know. Some of them are very fine people. But you have to deliver. You didn’t deliver.
BURNHAM: (His voice drops, cold and precise.) We delivered sovereignty. We delivered the principle that our resources belonged to us. We delivered the idea that an accident of birth—being born on land that contains wealth—creates an obligation to share that wealth. Did we succeed in everything? No. But we tried to be stewards, not auctioneers. The government today auctions the patrimony to the highest bidder and calls it progress. They confuse the presence of oil revenue with the purpose of governance. Revenue is not the goal. Inclusive development is. A rising tide that lifts all boats, not a flood that drowns the poor while the elite build higher walls.
TRUMP: It’s called being a winner. You should try it sometime. Your country is finally winning. They’re on the right side of history—my side. They’re with America. They’re pumping the oil. They’re keeping the socialists in Venezuela nervous. It’s beautiful. A beautiful thing. You wanted to be a big shot in the “Non-Aligned Movement.” A bunch of poor countries complaining. I lead the world. The real world. And in the real world, capital is king.
BURNHAM: (He drains his glass and sets it down with quiet finality.) No, Mr. Trump. In the real world, the struggle for genuine independence is eternal. You have merely refined the mechanisms of control, made them more palatable, more “market-friendly.” You call it a “deal.” We called it imperialism. The language has evolved, but the objective remains the same.
(He stands, adjusting his cufflinks.)
The difference between us, Mr. Trump, is this: I believed the state existed to serve as steward for the people—all the people—especially when fortune smiled upon the nation through no effort of its own. You believe fortune favors those who can seize it, and that seizing it is itself a virtue. I believed an accident of geography created a sacred trust. You believe it creates an opportunity.
(He turns toward the door.)
History will judge which vision was worthy of the gift we were given. Enjoy your soda.
Guyana Business Journal
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