Flashback: Obama in 2013 Tells Africans To Not Buy Air Conditioning to Help Save Planet

The president tells Africans to be suspicious of American businesses seeking trade relations

Obama Lectures Africa About Job Creation: 'Make Sure It's a Good Deal for Africa' (The Weekly Standard)

At a press conference today in Pretoria, South Africa, President Obama lectured about job creation -- and how to look out for your own national interests:

"Now, I do think that it's important for Africans to make sure that these interactions are good for Africa. Because -- let me just take the example of natural resources. I think there has been a long history of extracting resources from Africa. You take raw materials, you send them to some place else, where they get used, processed, sometimes sold back to Africa. The profits stay there, the jobs stay there, and not much stays in Africa. There's a long history of that," Obama said.

"Well, the truth is, the United States at this point on issues of energy, for example, frankly, we don't need energy from Africa. Because of advances that have been made, we're seeing oil production and natural gas production as well as clean energy production all growing at a rapid rate in the United States. So, our primary interest when it comes to working with Africa on energy issues has to do with how do we power Africa so that it can be an effective market creating jobs and opportunity in Africa but then we also then have somebody to trade with with and sell iPods to and airplanes and all kinds of good stuff."  The audience laughed.

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