Dear President Trump, 

First, we would like to express our sympathies for the difficulties in your bid to purchase Greenland. Second, we would like you to consider purchasing our paradise island instead. We have plenty of golf courses here, whereas Greenland only has polar bears. 

Far be it from us to lecture the great mind behind the Art of the Deal, but we feel that your Greenland offer fell through because you chose to buy all in one go, rather than parcelling it out and buying it up bit by bit. We have found that the latter approach has proved spectacularly successful: we have been selling our land since 2002 and during the first quarter of this year, 90 per cent of the money coming in was by selling off our land piece by piece to rich high-net worth individuals such as yourself. And not a peep from the natives. At first, we thought of industry but then discovered our true calling as a nation: real estate. We would have sold off our passports too, but some populists/fascists/nationalists did not allow that. Now those poor people that were begging to flee s***holes like the UK by buying Mauritian passports will have to go elsewhere. We hope they don’t start squatting in Diego Garcia. All this is to say that if you would consider buying Mauritius, we can structure a deal to let you buy the country lot by lot. We are experienced in structuring such bulk deals. Just recently, an Angolan entrepreneur wanted to buy a large chunk of the country but it fell through because of the aforementioned populists/fascists/nationalists. 

Now as you Americans like to say, let’s talk numbers. Mauritius is 204,000 hectares (Rodrigues and Agalega sold separately) and we can divide it into villas of 0.5 hectares each at an average of US$1.6 million. That means you can buy up the whole of Mauritius with just US$652 billion. That’s 72 times less than what you spend a year in that other s***hole, Afghanistan. And Afghanistan does not even have good beaches. 

Aside from value for money, you will also find that you share more cultural similarities with us than with those Marxist Europeans.  Like your governments, our governments are for sale too. Like you, we too don’t like red tape. We let anybody in, as long as they are loaded.  We even share the same religion: just as in your country, we too share the gospel that the best way to give to the poor is to give to the rich first. Just as you seek to ignore problems by dividing your own people, we too like to ignore pressing problems by getting our people to reach for one another’s throats. Like your well-known hatred for Mexico, we too are not overly fond of our neighbors which is why we have called ourselves Ile de France or Little India, anything but the East Africans we really are. Despite our darker complexions, like you, we too enjoy a bit of racism. This won’t be just an investment; it will be your second home. Just without the red caps. 

Unlike the communists in Greenland, you will find that our natives won’t be much of a problem. If they don’t like it, they can just shove off and emigrate somewhere else. In any case, to guarantee the security of our investors, we have already put up plenty of cameras to keep an eye on our proles. 

We look forward to the day when there is a Trump Tower in Ebène. As an added sweetener, we can offer to rename our capital Port Donald. Please indicate when you can accept delivery. 

Yours sincerely, 

The Economic Development Board

For more views and in-depth analysis of current issues, Weekly magazine (Price: Rs 25) or subscribe to Weekly for Rs110 a month. (Free delivery to your doorstep). Email us on: weekly@lexpress.mu