Foiling the Counter-Revolution
The prospects for a Trump presidency in January currently look strong. The basic question that I have about this follows from my reading of the global situation for the past few years which is, in summary, that the US in alliance with its vassal nations has been engaged in a counter-revolution against multipolarity. This is the same multipolarity that began to take form in the 1990s. Its strength and pace were gravely underestimated by the collective West in the final most intense phase of globalization of the 2000s, exploiting the earlier collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s “capitalist turn” within the regulatory order of the World Trade Organization.
That counter-revolution, I have argued, underwrites the three major crisis points in international relations that we are currently experiencing: the NATO proxy war against Russia, over the pretext of Ukraine; the upcoming Washington/NATO war against China, over the pretext of Taiwan, and the continuing reshaping of the Middle East by US and Western support for Israel and hostility against Iran and other pro-Russian, pro-Iranian forces in the region.
A Trump presidency certainly suggests the emergence of a new trajectory on Ukraine and on Taiwan (see below), while the question of the Middle East will continue to be much the same for now.
Bloomberg Interview with Trump: Key Points (Bloomberg on Trump) (July 17)
Trump has a protectionist policy that he models on the US presidency of William McKinley, who was president from 1897 to 1901. Trump believes in tariffs (economics), not sanctions (politics), as the keystone to promoting America First interests. He talks of new tariffs against China, of up to 60%, and of imposing 10% tariffs on the goods of (almost all) other nations.
In other words this is a continuation of the policies that Trump began to pursue in his first administration. They are inspired by a belief in the power of tariffs to protect and to promote US trade and to jump-start the restoration of the US as a center of manufacturing. It is one thing, of course, to hitch one’s wagon to such a policy, but how or under what conditions can this be sold as an overall benefit for the US when consideration is given both to its brutal violation of the precepts of globalization, and to the historical dangers of protectionism, as experienced in the 1930s when protectionism, by most accounts, was responsible for the global depression that preceded World War II?
Trump’s policy has implications for the Atlanticist project of binding the US to Europe. The Atlanticist project has already been severely battered by neocon foreign policy, as manifested by US-instigated European largesse wasted on Ukraine, by US destruction of Nord Stream 2, and the consequent de-industrialization of parts of Europe, notably of Germany. In some senses therefore, the Trumpian path of protectionism has already been followed by a neocon Biden administration, albeit for different reasons and with different emphases. I note, however, that Germany is backing off from its plans to hand Ukraine $8 billion, reducing this to $4 billion for 2025, even as the EU is increasing its commitment by an equivalent amound. The benefits to the US of enforced European dependence on US LNG supplies has not gone unnoticed.
Europe has gone along with - has been an eager participant in - Washington’s designs on the Russian Federation, which it wants to break up into smaller, unthreatening fragments. Yet it is Europe that has been most afflicted by Washington’s criminal ambition, not Russia. It is Europe that binds itself ever more tightly and brazenly to policies that at their point of origin were wholly fabricated and are ever more transparently at odds with the interests of ordinary people in Europe. And now, this voluntary enslavement to Washington is to be rewarded by at least a partial Washington abandonment of Europe.
With what consequences? It is very difficult to say. Trumpian policies in the sphere of foreign policy would seem to prize transactional considerations above the confrontational, as some observers will have it, leaving Europe to saddle much more of the costs of their own “defense,” and learn to live with a rougher, more extremely market-driven US trade policy. Much has been made of the indications that Trump does not share the visceral dislike shown by Democrats towards either Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. If so, this is greatly to be welcomed, as it opens the door to a more realistic approach to foreign policy that depends less on neocon ideology and more on economic interests. On the other hand, if those economic interests exacerbate what many analysts say is a far less vibrant Chinese economic outlook (and demographic challenge) than we are used to, then this might drive China to a more confrontational approach to its relations with the West, not just directly, but through the influential forums of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS. And where China goes, Russia will likely follow.
On the other side of the ledger, the “realism” (an ideology of “America’s Business is Business”) of Trump’s talk on Taiwan suggests that he is not interested, as are the neocons of the Biden administration, in trying to dominate the world on the basis of what has been the prevailing ideology of neoliberal humanistic superiority in order to preserve US hegemony. He recognizes the merits of living in the grey area of a previous phase wherein China claimed sovereignty over Taiwan, and the US (following the Nixon visit of 1972) acknowledged China as having sovereignty over Taiwan, while in effect Taiwan has been allowed considerable freedom to do what it wants. (This freedom has been considerably distorted in the past few years by US color revolutionary antics). Tolerance of ambiguity helped drive the prosperity of both mainland China and Taiwan, their economies considerably interlinked.
For the moment, however, Trump is mainly obsessing about Taiwan’s supremacy in the manufacture of chips. His view that Taiwan is plenty able to afford its own defense (or, rather, to pay the US for its defense) is comparable to his views about Europe as a whole. Following this logic, therefore, Taiwan under a Trumpian administration, would have to ask itself whether it is really to Taiwan’s economic advantage to pay for a “defense” that is dictated to it by the US and that endangers its political, cultural and economic links to China, or wouldn’t it be better off simply kicking out the US color revolutionaries, making amends with the mainland, and allowing the mainland to provide for Taiwanese defense.
Defense against whom? Well, yes, it is the same old gang of Western marauders responsible for China’s century of humiliation, in alliance with Asian proxies (particularly Japan and the Philippines, both of whom have been defeated by the West and molded to serve its interests; also South Korea). The burden of Chinese defense, were it to be a requirement on Taiwan, would be both much cheaper and, because of the proximity (58 miles) of Taiwan to the mainland, much more effective.
Trump’s views on the costs of US support for South Korea are also comparable. One might extrapolate further in noting that Trump’s interest in ramping up fossil fuel production (dangerous as this is, of course, for the global environment, already overheating) further elevates America First interests above those of traditional US allies in the Middle East. The US has already hit an historical peak in the oil market, and Trump is looking to release more of what he calls the “liquid gold,” using measures such as the relaxation of restrictions on oil exploitation on government-owned lands. This could lead Saudi Arabia and other producers in the Middle East, including Iran, and not forgetting Russia, to cut back on their own production so as to maintain prices.
This does nothing to offset the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. Comments from both Trump and his recent choice of Vice-President, J.D. Vance, suggest both a visceral support of Israel and a visceral dislike of Iran. Israel apart, perhaps, I would say America First outlook is no friend to the politics of alliance-for-alliance-sake that have become the hall-mark of global polarization.
It is this transactional approach that appears to dominate Trump’s views on Ukraine. He behaves as though he wants the US to get out of the conflict by negotiation but, as Putin himself has very recently indicated, Trump does not yet know how he is going to do this. The thinking of his advisors so far (and I have critiqued their perspective in recent posts) is hardly encouraging. The main thing, though, is that Trump can appreciate not simply that Russia is winning but that the interests of the US are being damaged by this conflict. My guess is that Trump well understands and wants to avoid the dangers of a third world war in which an ultimate victory for the US, unlike in World War II, is extremely unlikely.
Some analyasts believe that Trump merely wants to ditch the problem of Ukraine so that he and the US can get on with the bigger game of war with China. That would be the classic neocon position. Perhaps Trump will succumb to Deep State pressure, just as he succumbed to living - with muted complaint - with the burden of Russiagate nonsense during his first administration. Collaboration with the Deep State would drag him along the inglorious path to military confrontation with China. Trump’s interview with Bloomberg, however, offer some hope that he might in preference steer a different course. Its principal characteristic would be national economic competition, within a protectionist global order, but keenly wary of mutual destruction.