MAGA champion: Donald Trump’s solution is to “permanently” ban
immigration from all “Third World” countries.
Here we go again. Two National Guards are shot, and Donald Trump’s solution is to “permanently” ban immigration from all “Third World” countries.
Are we on that future list? Hard to be sure. But in the MAWA (Make America White Again) universe the criteria are simple: if your melanin matches the upholstery at Mar-a-Lago, you’re ok. If not, please put your hands up and step away from the border.
While more people are being barred from entering the United States, India’s richest family is extending the opposite invitation, but to animals. Vantara, Anant Ambani’s vast private zoo, is collecting species the way other billionaires collect beachfront property.
You remember him: the groom whose wedding last year attracted everyone from Khloé Kardashian to Mike Tyson to Tony Blair, dutifully touring Vantara as if conservation comes with canapés.
Vantara presents itself as a grand act of compassion, an homage to Swami Vivekananda’s jeev seva, “caring for animals” as a spiritual principle. It claims to protect critically endangered species, restore habitats, and contribute meaningfully to global ecology.
Its model is reportedly Myrtle Beach Safari, another vanity zoo run by Doc Antle, who calls himself (in true swami fashion) Bhagavan Mahamayavi, meaning Lord of Illusions. You may remember Antle from his central role in the Netflix documentary Tiger King. Despite his name, Antle insists that his animal magic is 100% authentic.
The two operations are in vastly different solar systems. Myrtle Beach Safari has 100 animals on 50 acres. Vantara, which only opened in March this year, covers an area of 12 square kilometers (about 3000 acres) and claims to have more than 150,000 animals from more than 2000 species. It also claims a profusion of big cats: 70 lions, 56 cheetahs, 60 tigers – and counting.
Also more than 200 elephants in a hospital staffed by 500 vets (again, Vantara’s numbers), nutritionists and pathologists offering treatments such as hydrotherapy pools, oxygen chambers, laser therapy, an elephant jacuzzi, and massages. Tell a MAWA the elephants are getting better healthcare than your average American and see how they react.
The expansive conservation unit features cutting-edge healthcare facilities, hospitals, research institutions, and academic hubs and employs more than 2000 people, again more than the number of specimens in the centre. It features a more diverse range of resources: MRIs, CT scans, X-ray and digital radiography equipment, ultrasound, endoscopy, intensive care units, operation areas with special rubber flooring for intensive surgeries, and much more.
All of this is wrapped in noble language about endangered species and habitat restoration. But allegations have piled up: illegally acquired exotics, questionable transfers, and environments that aren’t suitable for some species.
There’s even a controversy about the numbers of animals, with some sources claiming it’s in the low thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands.
The Pulitzer Centre breaks these down into categories: 3000 herbivores, 1200 reptiles, plus “a huge number of birds.” Still, these figures don’t add up nearly to Vantara’s vast claims.
South Africa is part of this Gujarati-Carolina carnival. We’ve become a quiet pulse feeding Vantara’s ark, exporting lions and other wildlife under “conservation agreements” that environmental groups like the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum of South Africa (WAPFSA) say look suspiciously like profit pipelines disguised as ecological virtue. WAPFSA may be Vantara’s loudest critic globally.
When the suppliers have histories of breeding big cats for commercial gain, the halo dims quickly.
Part of the problem is that locals here are more concerned with profit than progress. Another issue is that the international market is taking precedence over local needs.
Adey Hailu, the Convener of the Annual Wildlife Conservation in Africa Conference puts it this way: “Real conservation keeps animals living in African landscapes and strengthens the communities who live beside them. African wildlife policy must be led by African scientists and communities, not curated for private facilities an ocean away.”
Speaking of undue foreign influence… Two Mondays ago, the US officially took over the G20 presidency from South Africa. Within hours, Trump announced that South Africa would not be welcome next year, boldly exercising powers he does not actually possess.
Why did he do this? Was it the imaginary “white genocide” he loves referring to? Or our presidency’s theme: “Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainability,” that echoes a DEI sensibility totally at odds with his administration?
As if to underline the insult, the US seized the G20 website and erased the advances of the past year: our agenda, the meeting logs, the 30-page Johannesburg Declaration.
The site now shows Trump, fist raised, next to a “G20 Miami 2026” logo and the
slogan “THE BEST IS YET TO COME.” But for whom, exactly?
There is speculation about whether Ramaphosa’s team should gate-crash the first sherpas’ meeting this week. Smart money says no. Courageous money says: absolutely.
Speaking of courage: another member of the G20, and the previous host before us, Brazil, has resisted exporting exotic species to Vantara.
A dispute erupted between Brazil and Vantara over the transfer of Spix’s macaws, with Brazil severing ties with the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (from Germany) due to concerns that the non-profit had sent said macaws through what Brazil considered commercial channels.
At this point a pattern reveals itself. India, South Africa, and Brazil aren’t random players in this wildlife
tapestry, they’re BRICS members, the bloc promising a “new global order” rooted in solidarity and mutual respect as an antidote to Western hypocrisy.
Yet on the ground, parts of this alliance are starting to resemble a luxury wildlife distribution network serving the ultra-rich, while America, BRICS’ foil and favourite punching bag, is going all-in on exclusion.
In short, BRICS’ second biggest member is opening its gates to illegal animal immigrants, while America slams its doors to make human immigrants illegal. The irony!
If America is a zoo, and it increasingly resembles one, it’s a zoo that cages itself to stay safe from its fears and trade its future for one last flash of light before the darkness settles.
India is building a bigger ark. Brazil is supplying the controversy. And South Africa is wondering, not for the first time, how on earth we ended up in the middle of this story.
Michael Lee is the Mail & Guardian’s US correspondent, currently based in New York.