Effects of Politics and International Policies on Businesses

You know that feeling when sometimes it feels like your parents hate you? Let us not even get started on the number of instances in which we feel this way about our parents sometimes. Oftentimes, we hardly understand their reasons. A simple I want to go hang out with my friends can sound like an abomination to your parents' ears, per their reaction to your request. I just want to go hang out with my friend, what could go wrong with that? You are even lucky if you get an explanation for the reasons why they are saying you should not do what you want to do. It feels as if sometimes we are being forced to live their dreams for them, forgetting that we are also just as much humans as they are, with dreams and aspirations and goals and everything in between. And sometimes they just need to realize that times have changed and we live in a different world now compared to the one they grew up in. I am not saying they should not try to protect us, their protection is very much appreciated, and we can never pay them back for everything they have done and continue to do for us, but they should understand and come to terms with the fact that we have our own goals, dreams, aspirations, and everything in between, which (in many cases) are completely different from what they thought for us. And also come to terms with the fact that we also have completely different and unique ways of doing things: how we work is different, how we get paid is different, and how we spend our earnings is different.

Most importantly, they should understand and come to terms with the fact that some of the rules they set for themselves and us and some of the agreements or promises they made to themselves and for us are going to be broken, and they must learn to be okay with that because we have our own lives and we cannot live in the shackles of their (out-of-date) lives.

Not everything they think will benefit us really benefits us. You are lucky if they think about you at all while they make those commitments.

Let me just put it out there that I personally have a very open-minded and supportive family, so this is not my life. I am talking in general terms and about what I have come to learn about other people. I did not really get into trouble; I was always where I was supposed to be and doing what I was supposed to do.

That said, I hope you realized that “parents” is only used in this case as a metaphor to refer to our political leaders. And children, or kids in this case, are us citizens, we those who made them who they are to serve us. While they very quickly forget about what we really need and always start playing power games.

TikTok

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TikTok, the Web2 video-based social media application that has provided jobs and alleviated poverty for millions of people, has been “banned for use by federal employees and state employees in 34 out of 50 states” in the United States. ^source

This ban definitely denies some people the opportunity to feed their families and live better lives. And will also most definitely push away other opportunities for investments in the country. According to sources, the ban was due to a fear that the app’s owners might be feeding their country with America’s data.

Twitter

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Nigeria’s Twitter ban, on the other hand, was rather consequential. Sources say the ban was due to the social media app deleting a post by the president of the country. While the ban was not necessary, it was rather intuitive. I mean how will you feel as the president of a country of millions of people, where a business that has not less than 4.7 million of the citizens of your country as customers disrespects you like this?

The decision to ban or block the business’s operations in the country definitely affected the business and the consumers, even though it was only banned for seven (7) months. Many of the citizens of the country used the app as a market place to sell their products, to some it was a platform where they got jobs. The benefits of the app are endless, but the people just had to go through with it being taken away from them because the political powers said so.

Huawei, ZTE

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The case of Huawei and the US is also another story of a business suffering from international policies and politics. Another “national security threat” to the almighty United States.

Though it was only Huawei’s name that came out more, this particular ban exercise actually affected five Asian businesses. Those affected companies include ZTE, Hikvision, Hytera, Dahua, and Huawei.

I would not dare to discuss the reasons behind this ban but sources say America said they pose a threat to their security.

Crypto Exchanges

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Binance and other crypto exchanges have their fair share of international policy sanctions they deal with on a yearly basis at least.

Not even exchanges, cryptocurrency token projects like XRP has been in court since December 2020 defending themselves of an alleged sale of XRP without the proper registration by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This suit has basically put Ripple Labs, the parent company of XRP, on hold when it comes to projects associated with XRP. Plans have been shut down, and investors are worried. Not a position anyone would like to be in.

This post only highlights a few instances where politics and international policies affect business operations. Whereas we cannot exactly put blame on any party here, the powers in this case could go mildly to businesses.

Like the metaphor used earlier, our political leaders could consider more of what we, the people, want in their decisions like these that affect us directly and indirectly. We know they are protecting us with most of their decisions. Maybe they could be more decentralized in their decision-making processes. You might say, but the decision-making process is already decentralized, which is why we have representatives at the parliament, district, and assembly levels. I get you. And you are not wrong, but sometimes some of the decisions should be brought to our level, we the people, to make them for ourselves. Like the case of the Twitter ban in Nigeria. This was a decision that should have been taken with all the users’ views considered and not just how it makes one person feel.

Over 4 million people had to suffer collateral damage just for one person to feel good about themselves. A person who uses and benefits from the app himself.

That is not to say businesses should get out of their way to do anything to their customers. They should up their customer satisfaction game and show some respect to their customers, especially if that customer is the president of a country.

_{Divider by @doze}