Reaction and Capitulation

Countries like Japan, UK, and Israel whose economies are dependent on export trade with the USA, are lining up to try to get a deal. The answer from the USA is to simply cut any economic independence, democracy, endemic industrial program, taxes, and minimum wages.

It is pretty clear that if most of your companies export most of their product or services to the USA, then you are in trouble.

The only way that a population could face down such a barrel is if there was some interest in the global community finding local demand for those or similar products you currently sell to the USA. Something that the rush to protect your own economy is relegated to distant thoughts on blogs.

The world is being forced, in a very short period of time, to divide itself between those willing to bend strictly to American interests and non-American allies.

A strange, if not surprising result of an America that has lost all sense of reality, but keeps believing in its own myths.

The "strange" part is that free trade got us here. A trade regime those from the Right of the American centre forced on the world and now rail against. The unsurprising part is that the USA is cynically abusing it to their own advantage. Unsurprising since the Marxist/Classical analysis is that the USA has never played by its own rules, never believed in the neoclassical trade "ideology" for itself, and has always behaved as a petulant child holding an unpinned grenade.

One only has to imagine if China or the EU did the same thing as the USA's president right now. The USA has launched ground invasions for less.

Or, if you want, just put it into context of actual war (which this is a type).

• We will lower tariffs if you relent to our capital's economic interests.
• How unfair you respond to our tariffs.
• How dare you have a sense of economic sovereignty.
• We demand you buy our products and give raw inputs at a discount.
• To complain we apply different rules to you than are applied to us will only bring more pain.

It is the same as:

• We will stop bombing you if you relent to our invasion.
• It is very unfair of you to shoot back.
• How dare you even have a sense of sovereignty. We demand you also give us the materials to build our bombs for free.
• To charge us for the war crimes we commit is unfair.

It is classic American drunk rant of saying the quiet part out loud and then gas lighting everyone that you should have known they are an asshole.

Indeed, we did know, but that hardly excuses the behaviour.

An asshole petulant baby holding a bushel of unpinned hand grenades whose parent is into open carry.

So, it is a lose-lose for everyone.

My main concern continues to be that many on the Left (especially in Labour) cannot tell the difference between some of these protectionist policies and what we have been asking for in response to free trade.

Many on the left leaned on the "tariff" word and the "protection" line because we have leaned too heavily on the "de-industrialization" and "export of jobs" narrative spun by slight left of centre economics.

Unions and the left in the USA have (with the help of different brands of Keynesian) blamed the export of jobs on lack of "protection"—instead of understanding the actual economics at play around automation, investment, and productivity within actual existing capitalism.

Job loss are rarely examined in the context of complexity of production replacing labour-intensive American industrialism. The machine building is simply not happening where jobs are being lost to automation.

American workers are especially confused and do not seem to be able to the difference between any of this and just building industrial capacity. Their unions and liberal left parties have instead adopted the "they took our jobs" mantra.

It is also too easy to blame only the economic "capitalism" here. It is capitalist to allow the investment flows to move to where cheap labour is kept under American (or Western) imperial control. This is happening, but they hardly took your jobs. They took your investment, which wasn't yours to begin with because we continue to exist in unquestioned (even defended) capitalism.

But, modern industrial capitalism does not look like most Americans imagine. Because they live in a place where industry is stuck in the 1980s and they are nostalgic for an America fed by movies and bad USA pulp fiction.

Americans do not have the education or skills to drive most of the new production. Because they allowed the removal all the social protections, education access, and regulations that could have supported investment in new production. So, under any economic system with this orientation would have lead to the same thing.

Democracy over economics is rejected by Americans, an increasingly the entire world.

So, it is not at all surprising the USA is reverting to trying to drag down the rest of the world. When the entire world does not relent, they will start dropping bombs.

Trade has always been an important conversation on the left. We must be clear what our analysis is, now especially.

Trade with countries who have interest in letting their companies and citizens buy things without demanding control over your policies is the starting point. That is, commercial interests second to democratic ones.

Removing protections for your industries is not a net positive. So, falling victim to American economic aggression will lead you to poverty, not growth.

This is because, under the current ideology, American consumers and companies are not going to buy your stuff anyway. And will not want your stuff if your workers are as unhealthy and poor as American workers, but also do not have the education programs. And FDI from American capital is not going to flow as readily as before.

Because of the unique version of American "fairness".

The alternative is not just a rejection of this ideology, it is to not play their game at all. This too comes with costs, but those are the ones we believe in: the price for democracy and a chance of prosperity.

And, to be honest, it is not much of a choice because even relenting to the Americans is not going give a reprieve worth anything.