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http://www.spiegel.de/international...low-to-trans-atlantic-ties-a-1207260-amp.html
What Spiegel doesn't realize is that the whole damn thing is coming down with or without Donald Trump and that even a large part of the Democratic Party is turning protectionist. Bernie Sanders was/is as much anti-free trade as DJT, the ideology is a bit different but result largely the same. It's for the simple fact that multilateral free trade, collective security and maintaining global order is rapidly exhausting the interest and even usefulness to the United States. Whether the 'empire' is dismantled abruptly or gradually is probably the only real factor to take into consideration but one thing is becoming clear: It'll be at America's own hand and doing.
Could Peter Zeihan have been more on point?
* America did not create the 'Bretton Woods' (Post-1945) system to become rich. The Americans already were rich, and had been the world’s richest country since the completion of Reconstruction in the 1870s. In the decades since, the United States’ economy never really internationalized: As a percentage of GDP, the United States is the most self-sufficient economy in the world. As of 2015, only 8.25% of GDP came from merchandise exports, and over one-third of that is bound up in America’s NAFTA partners. And that’s with old data. With the massive re-shoring and industrial manufacturing boom currently underway, many of the remaining aspects of Americans’ foreign “dependence” are being gutted without mercy or preamble.
* The Americans created Bretton Woods as a bribe. Since Bretton Woods was about swapping economic access for security control, the United States could not have used it to force-feed its products to its allies — instead it had to allow its allies to access U.S. markets unilaterally. The United States had to be a net importer. It had to run a trade deficit. To do otherwise would have eliminated the incentive for countries as wildly divergent as Korea and China and Sweden and Germany and Argentina and Morocco to participate in the first place. For the Americans, free trade wasn’t about economics at all, it was a security gambit that was designed to solidify an alliance in order to fight a war. But that war ended three decades ago. America’s security needs have evolved, and soon so will its security policies — and that spells the end of globalized trade.
* The United States dominates the oceans regardless of what the global power structure looks like. One American aircraft carrier battle group sports more projection-capable firepower than the combined navies of the rest of the world. As of 2016, the United States maintains ten of them. The Americans’ decision to put this force differential at the service of the global commons is what makes free trade work. When the United States does finally adjust its strategic policies and no longer makes global transport safety its top concern, it still will hold the capacity to intervene anywhere on the planet at a moment’s notice. It will become a country with global reach without global interests. For the 4 billion people whose economic and physical security are utterly dependent upon global trade, this is perhaps the worst possible outcome.
Spiegel said:
What Spiegel doesn't realize is that the whole damn thing is coming down with or without Donald Trump and that even a large part of the Democratic Party is turning protectionist. Bernie Sanders was/is as much anti-free trade as DJT, the ideology is a bit different but result largely the same. It's for the simple fact that multilateral free trade, collective security and maintaining global order is rapidly exhausting the interest and even usefulness to the United States. Whether the 'empire' is dismantled abruptly or gradually is probably the only real factor to take into consideration but one thing is becoming clear: It'll be at America's own hand and doing.
Could Peter Zeihan have been more on point?
* America did not create the 'Bretton Woods' (Post-1945) system to become rich. The Americans already were rich, and had been the world’s richest country since the completion of Reconstruction in the 1870s. In the decades since, the United States’ economy never really internationalized: As a percentage of GDP, the United States is the most self-sufficient economy in the world. As of 2015, only 8.25% of GDP came from merchandise exports, and over one-third of that is bound up in America’s NAFTA partners. And that’s with old data. With the massive re-shoring and industrial manufacturing boom currently underway, many of the remaining aspects of Americans’ foreign “dependence” are being gutted without mercy or preamble.
* The Americans created Bretton Woods as a bribe. Since Bretton Woods was about swapping economic access for security control, the United States could not have used it to force-feed its products to its allies — instead it had to allow its allies to access U.S. markets unilaterally. The United States had to be a net importer. It had to run a trade deficit. To do otherwise would have eliminated the incentive for countries as wildly divergent as Korea and China and Sweden and Germany and Argentina and Morocco to participate in the first place. For the Americans, free trade wasn’t about economics at all, it was a security gambit that was designed to solidify an alliance in order to fight a war. But that war ended three decades ago. America’s security needs have evolved, and soon so will its security policies — and that spells the end of globalized trade.
* The United States dominates the oceans regardless of what the global power structure looks like. One American aircraft carrier battle group sports more projection-capable firepower than the combined navies of the rest of the world. As of 2016, the United States maintains ten of them. The Americans’ decision to put this force differential at the service of the global commons is what makes free trade work. When the United States does finally adjust its strategic policies and no longer makes global transport safety its top concern, it still will hold the capacity to intervene anywhere on the planet at a moment’s notice. It will become a country with global reach without global interests. For the 4 billion people whose economic and physical security are utterly dependent upon global trade, this is perhaps the worst possible outcome.
