The U.S. administration has been rebuked for creating an authoritarian climate that endangers “liberal democracy” and the rules-based international system.
With regards to trade, the Trudeau administration in Canada, for example, says it has no choice but to retaliate with reciprocal tariffs and angry words because Canadians “will not be pushed around.” It equates the refusal to renew NAFTA and the specific U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum as an authoritarian attack on the longstanding friendship and security arrangements between Canada and the U.S. Other countries like Britain, Europe and China are doing the same.
But what is this trade dispute? the real dispute is among powerful private interests, not national private interests, let alone the interests of working people. The vast majority do not control their workplaces let alone international trade.
Many corporate private interests, plus others worldwide, have greatly concentrated their control and increased their social wealth to become global corporate private interests or oligopolies. They now feel powerful enough to negate the national rights of the entire world and do not need or want any rules-based order whether that be the World Trade Organisation or even the United Nations, especially if the rules do not favour and promote their private interests.
The Trudeau and Trump actions and reactions do not open a path forward and will end badly for both Canadians and Americans. Something new is required that brings control over trade. But control over trade cannot be established when nations do not control their own economy and its basic sectors, when supranational oligopolies control the steel and other sectors and engage in trade to suit their narrow private interests, not the public interests and needs of nations and their economy.
Plaintive cries for a, “return to liberal democracy” as a defence against authoritarianism are part of an outlook which is not only pathetic but limits thinking to what has already passed away, which is liberal democracy.
It is a lament similar in kind to those who wanted to go back to the horse and buggy and petty production to save the world from the negative consequences of modern means of industrial mass production. They miss the mark because the New is not a refurbished version of what has passed away.
The New is to build new institutions that can open a path forward. New forms of governance and relations among people to meet the needs of all humanity.
Rtuc's Blog 