Showing posts with label WTO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WTO. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Global MAGA-nomics | Francisco José Fernández-Cruz Sequera

The re-election of Donald Trump will lead to significant shifts in US economic and foreign policy, emphasizing unilateral protectionism and high tariffs aimed at boosting domestic production and safeguarding American interests. This 'MAGA-nomics' approach may impose tariffs of 10% to 20% on all imports and up to 60% on Chinese products, intending to reverse US deindustrialization and create jobs in key sectors.

MAGA-nomics: The war Trump will wage in 2025.

Trump's trade rhetoric portrays free trade as detrimental to the US economy, claiming trade deficits indicate weakness and job losses. His strategy seeks not only to protect the domestic market but also to pressure other nations to enhance market access for US goods. However, such mercantilism poses risks, including potential retaliatory tariffs from other countries, which could escalate costs and inflation both in the US and globally.

 Chronicles of Western Collapse.

A drastic tariff increase could harm American consumers by raising prices and potentially increasing inflation. The confrontation with China is particularly complex, as high tariffs may prompt China to devalue its currency, exacerbating internal economic issues while potentially triggering further trade conflicts.

The European Union, a major US trading partner, would likely suffer from these tariffs, which could significantly impact its economy amidst already existing challenges. Projections indicate that a 10% tariff on EU imports could reduce the Eurozone's annual GDP growth, further straining economic recovery.

 High tariffs, radical unilateralism, and the end of globalization as we know it.

Emerging markets like Vietnam, India, and Mexico may benefit as companies relocate production away from China, realigning global supply chains and potentially harming economies in Africa. The International Monetary Fund estimates that escalating trade disputes could reduce global economic growth, affecting millions worldwide.

Trump's approach extends beyond economics to form a coalition against China's influence, integrating defense strategies within economic policies (“Free and Open Indo-Pacific”). This could deepen geopolitical tensions and potentially lead to a new pro-China bloc. The historical precedent of protectionism, such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, illustrates the risks of such policies, emphasizing the interconnectedness of global economies and the potential for widespread negative repercussions.

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Facing Global System Change | Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary

It is a cliché that war is the continuation of policy with other means. It is important to add that war is the continuation of policy from a different perspective. So war, in its relentlessness, takes us to a new position from which to see things, to a high vantage point. And from there it gives us a completely different – hitherto unknown – perspective. We find ourselves in new surroundings and in a new, rarefied force field. In this pure reality, ideologies lose their power; statistical sleights of hand lose their power; media distortions and politicians’ tactical dissimulation loses its power. There is no longer any relevance to widespread delusions – or even to conspiracy theories. What remains is the stark, brutal reality. 
 
 » The war in Ukraine is our red pill. And now we must talk about reality. « 
Viktor Orbán - July 27, 2024.

[...] A change is coming, that has not been seen for five hundred years. This has not been apparent to us because in the last 150 years there have been great changes in and around us, but in these changes the dominant world power has always been in the West. And our starting point is that the changes we are seeing now are likely to follow this Western logic. By contrast, this is a new situation. In the past, change was Western: the Habsburgs rose and then fell; Spain was up, and it became the centre of power; it fell, and the English rose; the First World War finished off the monarchies; the British were replaced by the Americans as world leaders; then the Russo–American Cold War was won by the Americans. But all these developments remained within our Western logic. 
 

This is not the case now, however, and this is what we must face up to; because the Western world is not challenged from within the Western world, and so the logic of change has been disrupted. What I am talking about, and what we are facing, is actually a global system change. And this is a process that is coming from Asia. To put it succinctly and primitively, for the next many decades – or perhaps centuries, because the previous world system was in place for five hundred years – the dominant centre of the world will be in Asia: China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and I could go on. They have already created their platforms, there is this BRICS formation in which they are already present. And there is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, in which these countries are building the new world economy.


I think that this is an inevitable process, because Asia has the demographic advantage, it has the technological advantage in ever more areas, it has the capital advantage, and it is bringing its military power up to equilibrium with that of the West. Asia will have – or perhaps already has – the most money, the largest financial funds, the largest companies in the world, the best universities, the best research institutes, and the largest stock exchanges. It will have – or already has – the most advanced space research and the most advanced medical science. In addition, we in the West – even the Russians – have been well shepherded into this new entity that is taking shape. The question is whether or not the process is reversible – and if not, when it became irreversible. I think it happened in 2001, when we in the West decided to invite China to join the World Trade Organisation. Since then this process has been almost unstoppable and irreversible.
 
[...] What is the European response to global system change? We have two options. The first is what we call “the open-air museum”. This is what we have now. We are moving towards it. Europe, absorbed by the US, will be left in an underdeveloped role. It will be a continent that the world marvels at, but one which no longer has within it the dynamic for development. The second option is strategic autonomy. In other words, we must enter the competition of global system change. After all, this is what the USA does, according to its own logic. And we are indeed talking about 400 million people. It is possible to recreate Europe’s capacity to attract capital, and it is possible to bring capital back from America.