Many see Trump as recklessly disobeying all the rules that have allowed the Western World to prosper. The Western economic development model, demonstrably superior to anything before it, seems to have been completely abandoned by Trump and his administration. This became most apparent to his Western friends and allies when he threatened and began to impose tariffs on all and sundry, including America's staunchest friends and neighbours. Didn't he realize that America was already on the very top rung of the Darwinian socio-economic development ladder? Doesn't he understand that these tariffs will impede economic growth for America as well as her friends and allies? Is he crazy? Surely we can persuade him how illogical such tariffs are! If we Canadians can't convince him, surely his American businesses and state representatives will convince him! But they aren't saying much. What the hell is going on?!!
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| The rule-based world order has been reduced to one: Might makes right. |
The following is, I hope, a somewhat coherent answer to that question.
Ever since WWII, the West has considered the liberal free market development model to be the best. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union removed any remaining doubts. It was the end of history. Insofar as generating wealth is concerned, the unfettered operation of the global marketplace --the invisible hand-- should be what determines the optimal allocation of the world's resources. Interference in the marketplace impeded growth, deregulation, tax cuts and free trade increased it. For seventy-five years or so, that was the premise on which governments based their economic policy. For most of them, it still is. Most of them, but not the current administration in the US of A. They have a new, different economic theory: might makes right. They've abandoned the old rules and norms. Our leaders don't yet understand this paradigm shift, but when they do, they will be less discombobulated. Not at all reassured, but less discombobulated.
The problem is that this is outside our lived experience. It is much more akin to the way colonial powers related to their colonies. They called the shots simply because they could. They had more advanced technology and armaments. There was an extreme imbalance of power there, and they exploited it. They dispossessed their colonies of their resources, sometimes even human beings, and land, all in the name of God and King --civilizing the savages. For the most part, the only resistance they encountered was from rival colonial powers.
After WWII, most colonies were granted "independence", but in reality it was little more than a change of clothes on the part of their oppressors. The colonial powers had disabused themselves of the cost and responsibility of managing and looking after the populations of their colonies. That task fell to whichever dictator or local official that was in power. Noncompliant heads of state were quickly replaced. Or killed. The former colonial powers had become neocolonial powers. They no longer acted in the name of God and King, but rather under the guise of bringing development to the underdeveloped. The imbalance of power continued unabated. It was still all about the appropriation of weaker countries' resources, including land and labour, sometimes for the benefit of their former colonial masters, sometimes for the benefit of powerful multinational corporations, sometimes for the benefit of settler neocolonialists, or most often a combination of two or three of these. It was a rule-based form of neocolonialism. Institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), free trade agreements, G7 wealthy nations, and even "charities" like USAID, colluded to dictate the terms of trade with less developed countries (LDCs). These terms invariably favoured the neocolonial overlords.
Citizens of these Western nations who benefit from this exploitation are, for the most part, oblivious or willfully ignorant of the economic injustices that underwrite their lifestyles, preferring to believe the popular narrative that they are entitled to a disproportionate share of the world's wealth because of their hard work and technological ingenuity, or perhaps manifest destiny and exceptionalism. Furthermore, they insist that all dealings they have with LDCs are also of net benefit to the LDCs. While these arrangements often do provide some benefits to the LDCs, the lion's share of the benefits accrue to the neocolonial powers. The costs of these arrangements are almost borne entirely by the colonized, who are often forced to work for sub-subsistence wages, and sometimes pay with their lives and livelihoods. The dynamics of colonial and neocolonial power is evident in the ongoing, poignant, heart-wrenching story of Haiti, whose people successfully managed to emancipate themselves from the tyranny of French slavery, only to be re-enslaved by neocolonial powers, including Canada, where they remain today. (This link is a bit of a long read, but very informative. There are links within this link that take you to sources that corroborate the information contained in them.)
So, once you have absorbed the intricacies of how rule-based international relations really work, you are in a better position to understand Trump's transition from a rule-based world order to this simplified, bi-lateral transactional, might-makes-right, America first, development strategy. In the same way that we, and most neocolonial Western countries, use our relative wealth and power to exploit weaker nations, Trump and his cartel of centi-billionaires are going to exploit us; we are about to become the victim of our former ally and partner in crime.
Trump's cartel of plutocrats is in the process of gutting America itself of any institutions that regulate their behaviour and limit their power, and/or social services that cost rather than make money. They are simultaneously withdrawing their support for the global institutions enforcing the rules of a rule-based world order. Those rules were designed to benefit all wealthy countries. Global free trade policies allowed Western corporations and countries to offshore production, offshore pollution, and avoid their own stringent environmental and worker-safety laws, all while providing them with unfettered access to both cheap labour and resources. By externalizing production costs, they were able to provide goods at rock-bottom prices. However, it seems unlikely that this exploitation can continue without the considerable US support of the institutions that enforce the rules --without US support for the IMF, World Bank, WTO, NATO, etc.
But that is no longer the US modus operandi. These institutions only served to skew the balance of power in the favour of wealthy nations over LDCs, but did little to bolster the power of the wealthiest of wealthy nations --the United States. Trump and his cartel of centi-billionaires are going to change all that. They have come up with a way to monetize inequality --the imbalances of power between themselves and less-wealthy nations. They are going to make less wealthy pay for the privilege of access to the US market. Even the mere threat of tariffs was enough to extort concessions from Canada, who thought they might back off if Canada spent more on defence and tightened up its borders, which Canada is doing without any assurances that tariffs won't be imposed on some future date. Nor is educating Trump about the inevitable pain tariffs would inflict on his fellow Americans going to dissuade him. It didn't during his first term in office, and it isn't going to this time around. Trump et al. have very high pain thresholds, so long as it's somebody else's pain. He isn't governing for the benefit of all Americans; he is governing for the benefit of the uber-rich.
So what does this portend for the future of Canada and other privileged Western nations? It is unlikely that Canada can extricate itself from its reliance on access to US markets any time soon. We can expect those bullies to keep taking our lunch money until we have no more lunch money to give them. Canada, like the other trading partners that depend on access to the US market, has become a cash cow that can be milked any time, numerous times, whenever they want a little more cash. NATO's reliance on the US for defence will also be monetized. Much of the global industrial arms complex is located in the US, so any increase in defence spending is bound to benefit the US.
Trump is, as I write, negotiating a deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, not because he cares about Ukrainians, but because he wants to appropriate Ukraine's "critical" mineral wealth. (All minerals have become critical due to the climate crisis. Unfortunately, addressing climate change is not critical.) If it's any consolation, Canada may not become the 51st state; access to our resources can be gained without having to assume the hassle and expense of administrating the territory, much like the colonial powers disabused themselves of responsibility by granting "independence" to their former colonies. Therefore, Canada will probably remain a sovereign nation to much the same extent that Haiti has/hasn't. There are no guarantees however; some of Trump's actions seem to be purely vindictive, like his claim that South African whites are in need of asylum because they are under the threat of genocide --a preposterous notion that can only be construed as punishment for South Africa's audacity of taking Israel to court for genocide. Other examples include the firing of Department of Justice officials and staff who worked on criminal investigations and prosecutions of him, revoking the security clearances for intelligence officials to punish perceived opponents, the pardoning of almost all of the January 6 insurrectionists, removing government protection from Dr. Anthony Fauci, despite death threats, to name but a few.
Under the guise of populism, America itself has undergone a coup. A cartel of centi-billionaires has taken control of the executive branch, while eliminating or defunding government bodies that could limit their power. It's a world in which "wokeism" has no place, because "wokeism" identifies systemic injustices --considerations that distract from the focus on the accumulation and consolidation of power and wealth. Furthermore, centi-billionaire technocrats have acquired near absolute control of the narrative through their control of social media, where they can spread false information. Meta has now followed in the footsteps of X, both of which have abandoned even the pretext of weeding out false information (on the grounds that that would be a form of censorship, and therefore an infringement on freedom of speech).
We have entered into a new High-Tech Capitalism and Neo-Feudalism (Michel Valentin) The "good old days" were never that good for most of the world's citizens, but they just got worse. Hopefully, there is some way and the will to interrupt this agenda in favour of one that pursues global justice and a world in which all peoples and life forms can thrive, as described here by Kate Raworth. ______________________________________________________________
No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54).
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