The End of the End of History
For weeks now, we’ve watched Canadian politicians, at all levels of government, fall all over themselves and each other in their desperate and disparate quests to get Trump to back off on his plan of imposing 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods. Some think that he can be cajoled into backing off if Canada gives him things he says he wants from Canada: tighter borders, especially concerning illegal immigrants and fentanyl; increased NATO spending; etc. Much has already been done in this regard, and there are plans to do more. Almost everyone seems to agree that these tariffs will be very harmful to American Industries and consumers, as well as to Canadians. Some, assuming that Trump must be unaware of this, set out to educate him. Some think the best way to convince Trump of this is by imposing countermeasures and tariffs of our own on American imports. Others think that countermeasures might anger Trump, and make an already bad situation worse, and that perhaps reminding Trump of the longstanding friendship and history of cooperation between our two countries might do more to win him over. And there are also those who think he might be persuaded to exclude particular commodities like oil from the tariffs. Others think that, rather than appealing to Trump directly, we should lobby Americans and American business interests, who would also be adversely affected, to get them to persuade Trump to drop the tariffs. There is no consensus on which strategy is best. Most favour some combination of the these strategies. All are genuinely alarmed by the deleterious effect a 25% tariff would have on the economy of the entire country and its provinces.
All of these strategies assume that Trump wants a deal that will strengthen the hand of Americans in negotiating deals with trading partners. But what if that is not his goal at all? What if he intends to make America great by reinstating and implementing his own version of the Monroe Doctrine? Of incorporating Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal into a greater America? Hasn’t he said as much? Such a notion may be unthinkable to most Canadians, but that doesn’t mean it’s unthinkable to Trump. On the contrary! As likely as not, the 25% tariffs are a first step in his plan to economically annex Canada. The Panama Canal can easily be taken over militarily, as the military invasion to remove Noriega in 1990 makes abundantly clear. Details of the plan to annex Greenland aren't spelled out, and may involve some negotiation and perhaps a form of payment. Canada, unfortunately, is very much vulnerable to economic annexation, and it is the prevention of that contingency that Canadian politicians should be focusing on and prioritizing.
First of all, let’s begin by acknowledging that Trump is well aware of, but not in the least perturbed by, the negative effects his tariffs will undoubtedly have on American consumers and businesses. He wasn’t perturbed during his previous term in office, and he isn’t going to be now. On the contrary, he is planning on putting even higher, even more disruptive tariffs on even more goods. Any adverse consequences this may have are sacrifices he seems willing to make to position himself for the annexation of Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. Next we should examine the precariousness of Canadian sovereignty. Canadian politicians and governments have long been serving corporate interests. The outsized influence of the oil and gas lobby is probably the most salient example of this. Corporations finance the electoral campaigns of candidates and political parties. Once elected, these parties and politicians, beholden and indebted to their corporate sponsors, do their bidding: they lower taxes, deregulate and subsidize industries, serve court injunctions against indigenous and environmental protestors, shield corporations from the legal consequences of criminal actions (as exemplified by the deferred prosecution agreement granted to SNC-Lavalin), etc. Many of the politicians involved are later rewarded with lucrative positions in these corporations when they leave office, often sitting on the boards of directors of multiple corporations. But what would happen to this mutually beneficial arrangement between corporations and public servants if neither federal nor provincial governments seem capable of preventing a 25% tariff on Canadian exports? Would corporations then try to retain and protect their access to US markets by changing their loyalties to the US? At home and abroad, corporations have consistently demonstrated that their first loyalty is to their shareholders, not to their national hosts. Corporations cannot be counted on to oppose the annexation of Canada by the US. Not if dividends to shareholders are likely to be higher by changing alliances. Furthermore, many corporations operating in Canada are now wholly-owned subsidiaries of American and other foreign corporations.
So, if not the private sector, who then will provide the glue to hold Canada together in the face of threats to our national sovereignty? It’s not going to be NATO, whose continued existence is itself in question if Trump makes good on his promise to stop protecting members who aren't allocating enough of their GDP to defence spending. He has just upped the recommended target of 2% of GDP on defence spending to 5%. In any case, NATO wasn't designed to protect its members from each other, and our best friend and allie has turned against us. Let's not oblige Trump by further enriching the military insustrial complex.
What about the population in general? Are they unified by a commitment to defend Canadian sovereignty at all costs? Our federal government is both unpopular and in disarray. The relationship between the federal government and some of the provinces is strained, to say the least. So are the provinces’ relationships with each other, some of which are far more reliant on unfettered access to the US market than others, and for different reasons. As a whole, most Canadians feel at least some loyalty to both their nation and their respective provinces, however, members of some provinces have at times flirted with the idea of separation. Can we be sure that some provinces, to avoid an economic crisis, wouldn’t opt to join the US? If Trump were to pursue a divide-and-conquer strategy, would now not be a very auspicious moment to do so? Would he find enough fissures within the country to drive wedges into? The tariffs amount to a virtual siege. How long can we maintain a united front against this aggression?
Whatever happens, it is not going to be just another chapter in the long history of the US Empire. The sort of empire that Trump envisions bears little resemblance to how the US Empire was structured in the past century. While it is likely to employ many of the tactics of neoliberalism, its aim will not be to convert the entire world to a universal neoliberal socio-economic development model. Nor will it promote free trade or use other institutions–the World Bank, IMF, WTO, etc,-- to ensure access to the resources it wants. Instead, it will rely on power: hard and soft power, economic and military power. Ideological proselytization belonged to the previous era. The new order doesn’t subscribe to any ideology whatsoever, nor will it encourage others to do so. Its focus will be entirely on the accumulation and consolidation of wealth and power. It makes no distinction between these two. In this scenario, whether Ukraine is under Russian or European control is of no consequence, nor is anything else that doesn’t interfere with the US's ability to accumulate and consolidate wealth and power. European countries will no longer be protected by the US, so they will have to defend their own territory at their own expense. The US will not invest in anything unless they are guaranteed good returns on their investments. Initially, at least, most of the focus will be on the Western Hemisphere.
Most citizens of this new empire should not expect to share in the bebefits of this great amassment of wealth and power. As is obvious to citizens on both sides of the border, the tariffs will hurt people on both sides. The benefits will accrue primarily to Trump, Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and a small cohort of centi-billionaires --a cartel of sorts. It will maintain its populist veneer, and rhetorically string along its un-woke base for as along as long as possible.
Two things will greatly facilitate this task. First and foremost, near absolute control of the narrative. Now Meta, like X, has abandoned even the pretense of protecting its users from misinformation. Their excuse is that efforts to do so would amount to censorship, and they're committed to protecting freedom of speech. This means that a combination of AI and bots posing as users can post anything they want, as often as they want, on these social media platforms without any constraints whatsoever. Secondly, near absolute control over the US government. On at least two occasions so far, one before Trump even took office, they have blocked the passing of a bipartisan bill for funding of the federal government. Republican senators that weren't cooperating were quickly brought into line. We are also witnessing the systemic dismantling of the civil service. Entire agencies are being defunded, thereby increasing the reliance on, and power of the executive branch --part of the Heritage Foundation's plan 2025, which Trump claims he never read. As their power increases, so does their wealth, and vice versa. The Commander In Chief will probably co-opt, rather than dismantle the military. Meanwhile an unelected centi-billionaire --Elon Musk-- is put in charge of government spending (Department Of Government Efficiency), complete with an office in the White House.
Maybe Trump will even reach the end of his term before his populist support base has its rude awakening. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has been actively proselytizing fertile ground among ultra-right populist groups in Europe, probably in a preemptive attempt to reduce resistance from the EU block.
To be sure, there will still be other global players on the board, but that will not distract the cartel from its objectives. The objective and expectation is no longer converting all the world to free market economics; it is simply to accumulate wealth and power in a self-reinforcing feedback loop. This may well culminate in global hegemony, but that is not the main objective in the short or medium term. I don't even rule out hammering out a deal with China, in some kind of an agreement on how to divide up their respective spheres of influence, much like France and Britain did under the Sykes-Picot agreement at the end of WWI (In which their Arab and Palestinian allies, who were promised independence, were thrown under the bus). It is looking more like a reincarnation of the Monroe Doctrine, with the initial focus on hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Canada may well be betrayed and dispossessed, as the Palestinians and Arabs were at the end of WWI. The fact that the tariffs being placed on China are only 10 %, while those on Canada and Mexico are at 25 %, seems to corroborate this theory.
In short, the imperative of globalizing the neoliberal socio-economic development model is no more. It is being displaced by something even more sinister --might makes right.
P.S. Most of this was written over a week ago, but nothing that has happened since has alleviated my concerns. On the contrary.
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