LONDON
– So much for the end of history. Twenty-seven years to the day after
the fall of the Berlin Wall heralded the collapse of communism in
Europe, Donald Trump’s election as US president endangers the liberal
international order that his wiser, broader-minded predecessors crafted.Trump’s
“America First,” anti-“globalist” agenda threatens protectionist trade
wars, a worldwide “clash of civilizations,” the peace in Europe and East
Asia, and further violence in the Middle East. His nativist and
authoritarian views also undermine the shared values, faith in liberal
democracy, and assumption of benign American hegemony on which the
rules-based international system depends. Already in relative decline,
the United States is now poised for an angry retreat from the world.
Optimists
hope that Trump didn’t mean what he said during the election campaign;
that he will surround himself with seasoned internationalist advisers;
and that his wilder instincts will be tempered by the checks and
balances of the US political system. Let’s hope so. But nothing in his
temperament suggests as much. And with Republicans retaining control
over both the Senate and the House of Representatives, Trump will have a
freer rein than most presidents. That is especially true in trade and
foreign policy, where US presidents enjoy much greater discretion – and
where the damage he could do is potentially huge and enduring.
Start
with trade. Globalization had already stalled in recent years. Now
Trump threatens to throw it into reverse. At the very least, his victory
kills off the faint hopes of concluding the two jumbo trade deals that
Barack Obama’s administration had been negotiating: the completed but
unratified Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11 Pacific countries,
and the stalled Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
with the European Union.
Trump
has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Worse, he wants to slap tariffs on
Chinese imports, which would doubtless provoke a trade war. He has even
spoken of pulling out of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the
multilateral rules-based trading system.
Such
an agenda would not only threaten a global recession. It would also
tempt regions to split into rival trading blocs – a worrying prospect
for a post-Brexit Britain seemingly intent on tearing itself away from
the European Union to go it alone. In Asia, the collapse of the TPP,
from which the Obama administration unwisely excluded China, paves the
way for the Chinese to build their own trading bloc.
Trump’s
victory threatens East Asia’s security as well as its economy. By
retreating from free trade and casting doubt on US security guarantees
for its allies, he could prompt Japan, South Korea, and others to race
to acquire nuclear weapons to protect themselves against a rising China.
The Philippines is unlikely to be the last country in the region to
conclude that cozying up to China is a better bet than relying on an
increasingly isolationist America.
Trump’s
victory also undermines Europe’s security. His admiration for Vladimir
Putin, Russia’s authoritarian leader, is alarming. Putin laments the
break-up of the Soviet Union, wants to recreate a Russian sphere of
influence in the country’s neighborhood and has already invaded Georgia
and Ukraine. Trump’s suggestion that his commitment to defending NATO
allies is conditional invites Putin to go further.
The
Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, NATO members that
were once part of the Soviet empire and have substantial Russian
minorities, are most at risk. While a common external threat ought to
drive the EU to increase defense spending and deepen its security
cooperation, EU-skeptic, austerity-hit European voters may have little
appetite for this. Indeed, many European governments seem tempted to
seek to appease Putin, rather than stand up to him.
Trump’s
outright racism, hostility to Hispanic immigrants, and Islamophobic
rhetoric threatens a culture clash – and even violence – within America.
It could also set the stage for the “clash of civilizations” of which
the late Samuel Huntington warned. Bullying Mexico to try to force it to
pay for the huge border wall that Trump wants to erect would be an act
of hostility against all Latinos. Casting Muslims as enemies – and
denying them entry to America, as he vowed during his campaign – would
be a powerful recruiting sergeant for the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, as
is suggesting that the US ought to seize Iraq’s oilfields for itself.
Perhaps
the most enduring damage will be to America’s soft power and the appeal
of its liberal democracy. The election of a racist president with
fascist tendencies is an indictment of America’s political system. Trump
himself has shown himself to be contemptuous of democracy, saying he
would not accept the election result if he lost and threatening to jail
his opponent. Chinese officials will not be alone in thinking that a
system where lies, hatred, and ignorance trump sober deliberation is
defective. America is no longer the “shining city upon the hill” that
successive presidents have proclaimed it to be.
Anti-establishment
insurgents now have the wind in their sails. In the wake of the
financial crisis and wrenching economic change, many voters have
understandably lost faith in Western elites, who seem incompetent,
corrupt, and out of touch. They also, wrongly, blame immigrants for
their problems and feel threatened by social liberalism. In the absence
of positive alternatives to a deeply flawed status quo, the
risk of an even greater backlash is high. Unlikely as polls now suggest
it is, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front may well win
France’s presidential election next May. That would deal a hammer blow
to the euro, the EU, and the West.
Liberal
internationalists cannot afford to be complacent. Trump’s victory is a
disaster – and it can get much worse than this. We need to defend our
open, liberal societies and offer positive changes to win back anxious
voters.
Source: project-syndicate.org
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Ce blog est ouvert à la contradiction par la voie de commentaires. Je tiens ce blog depuis fin 2005; je n'ai aucune ambition ni politique ni de notoriété. C'est mon travail de retraité pour la collectivité. Tout lecteur peut commenter sous email google valide. Tout peut être écrit mais dans le respect de la liberté de penser de chacun et la courtoisie.
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