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Donald Trump nutzt den Unmut über die Missstände der Globalisierung sehr geschickt für die Umsetzung ganz bestimmter elitärer Interessen.
Comment from the English-speaking world
Donald Trump’s decision to launch trade wars against ... the United States’ closest commercial partners has brought depressingly predictable responses. China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union have all countered with tariffs on US products. The US economy is the biggest in the world and can deal with many of the responses...
However, Mr Trump’s political base is vulnerable — and the retaliating quartet have responded with actions designed to hurt communities that voted for the US president. This ... response confirms that trade is something he cares deeply about but also knows little about.
It does not help that Mr Trump is a narcissist with no time for the subtleties of global diplomacy . ... He calls the EU a “foe” because of its $101bn trade surplus with the US. A sensible solution for Washington is one that it vetoed when John Maynard Keynes proposed it in 1944: countries with surpluses ought to spend their extra money in deficit countries, thus boosting both private spending and export capacity. It is ironic that Mr Trump is attempting something similar by bullying rather than through what might have been achieved by multilateral arrangements . ...
This trend has been accelerating since the 1990s when both Republicans and Democrats accepted the expansion of wealth through trade, peddled false claims of globalisation’s inevitability and about the benefits of trade liberalisation. It was not accepted until far too late that not everyone gains, and these gains are unfairly concentrated . ...
The resulting polarisation has been staggering: the income of America’s top 1% is now 26 times higher than the average of the bottom 99% . ...
Mr Trump’s tax cuts will cost $1.9tn in revenue over a decade. Almost all the benefits flow to wealthy individuals and companies. It is trickle-up economics: there is nothing to suggest that there will be more jobs and better pay for ordinary workers.
© Guardian News & Media 2018