This week, my atten­tion was caught by a soul-crush­ing scene on tele­vi­sion. A weak moth­er stood out­side a Nairo­bi hos­pi­tal, clutch­ing her child in despair. The reporter’s voice trem­bled, fund­ing for life-sav­ing med­ical pro­grams had been frozen. Patients on HIV treat­ment, can­cer patients, and mal­nour­ished chil­dren were now star­ing at uncer­tain­ty. Yet, even more shock­ing than their plight was the reac­tion from our own senior min­istry of Health offi­cials, obvi­ous­ly trou­bled, scram­bled for answers. Their pan­ic sug­gest­ed some­thing far deep­er than the loss of for­eign fund­ing — it exposed a dis­turb­ing truth we have long ignored.

Kenya’s health sys­tem, like many essen­tial ser­vices, relies on for­eign aid. With one stroke of a pen, Wash­ing­ton shat­tered that illu­sion. Trump upheld his stance — Amer­i­ca first. For Kenya, this wasn’t just a finan­cial blow; it was a bru­tal wake-up call!

In my opin­ion, Trump under­stands some­thing that many ignore: America’s econ­o­my has been leak­ing mon­ey through inef­fi­cien­cy, cor­rup­tion, and unsus­tain­able for­eign aid pro­grams. Bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars have been fun­neled into inter­na­tion­al assis­tance, much of it wast­ed both abroad and with­in U.S. bureau­cra­cies. His admin­is­tra­tion sees this as a hem­or­rhage that must be stopped. He is not just cut­ting aid; he is forc­ing the world to acknowl­edge its eco­nom­ic vulnerabilities.

What does this mean for Kenya? For decades, we have struc­tured our nation­al plan­ning with the expec­ta­tion that some­one, some­where, will fund our gaps. While oth­er nations have built economies designed for long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty, we have built sys­tems that can­not func­tion with­out exter­nal crutch­es. Insen­si­tive­ly our uni­ver­si­ties pro­duce more grad­u­ates in “com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment” — a field designed to man­age aid — than in indus­tri­al inno­va­tion or high-val­ue entre­pre­neur­ship. Instead of train­ing our young peo­ple to cre­ate, we have trained them to man­age dependency.

I share this from expe­ri­ence because I began my eco­pre­neur­ship jour­ney at 19, build­ing solu­tions from noth­ing. I’ve seen busi­ness­es trans­form lives, restore dig­ni­ty, and cre­ate pros­per­i­ty. Yet, Kenya’s entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it is trapped in a cycle of wait­ing for grants, loans, for­eign deci­sions. It’s time to break free.

I con­sid­er America’s deci­sion not as an attack but a four-pronged oppor­tu­ni­ty for Africa to rede­fine its priorities.

First, Kenya must rethink how it treats for­eign aid. For too long, aid has been absorbed as sus­te­nance rather than invest­ment. When a nation becomes reliant on dona­tions for health­care, edu­ca­tion, or infra­struc­ture, it has lost a piece of its sov­er­eign­ty. For­eign assis­tance should be a tool for strate­gic lever­age, not an eco­nom­ic oxy­gen tank.

Sec­ond, we should not mourn USAID’s with­draw­al but ask our­selves, were we so vul­ner­a­ble? A resilient econ­o­my must ensure every aid dol­lar fuels self-sus­tain­ing invest­ments in man­u­fac­tur­ing, agri­cul­ture, and healthcare.

Third, our nation­al bud­get must reflect effi­cien­cy and inno­va­tion, not depen­dence on exter­nal grants. We must tax cor­rup­tion the way we tax busi­ness­es, ensur­ing that the bil­lions lost through mis­man­age­ment are rein­vest­ed in Kenya’s growth.

Fourth, Kenya must real­is­ti­cal­ly pri­or­i­tize eco­pre­neur­ship, agro-indus­tri­al­iza­tion, and tech­nol­o­gy as engines of pros­per­i­ty. Eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence will only be real­ized when we lever­age our nat­ur­al resources, agri­cul­tur­al poten­tial, and youth­ful work­force to build indus­tries that gen­er­ate wealth rather than wait for it to be donated.

Trump’s pol­i­cy is a chal­lenge — not to com­plain, but to com­pete. He is reshap­ing the glob­al order, push­ing nations to rethink their eco­nom­ic sur­vival. For Kenya and Africa, self-reliance is no longer option­al — it is fundamental.

Haven’t we learned from Sin­ga­pore, South Korea, and the UAE? They once strug­gled more than Kenya but reject­ed depen­den­cy and built thriv­ing economies. Today, Singapore’s GDP per capi­ta is ten times Kenya’s just because they cre­at­ed wealth, not wait­ed for aid.

If we tru­ly desire eco­nom­ic free­dom, let this be our turn­ing point. A well-root­ed tree doesn’t with­er when the rains stop, instead it draws strength from with­in. No 62 year old nation should trem­ble at for­eign aid cuts if it has built an econ­o­my that thrives on its own resilience, inno­va­tion and self-reliance. Think green, act green!