In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has made much of the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, arguing that Mexico has been on the winning side of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). According to Trump, the U.S.’s 60 billion dollar a year trade deficit with Mexico demonstrates that most of the benefits of the agreement have flowed south. Indeed, given the apparent windfall accruing to Mexico, Trump has no qualms about demanding that Mexico pay for the wall he plans to build along the border. In a recent television interview (1), I suggested that a country like the U.S. could run a trade deficit for some considerable time without economic growth repercussions. Indeed, since the signing of NAFTA economic growth in the U.S. has been consistently better than Mexico’s. While it's important to acknowledge the fact that many workers in the U.S. have faced stagnant wages and job losses, Mexican workers have, on balance, fared even worse than their American counterparts. Hence, if workers in neither country have benefited, what does this trade imbalance between Mexico and the U.S. actually tell us? And, if workers in neither country have benefitted, who has?
Read MoreAs Donald Trump assumes office as the 45th president of the United States, widespread pessimism about the impact of his presidency abounds. The Donald has not backed off from (what appeared at the time) to be his most extravagant campaign promises. He has ramped up his rhetoric against China and Mexico as at the root of the decline of American manufacturing. He has announced that he will re-negotiate NAFTA and, if America does not get what it wants, will abandon it. The U.S. will not enter the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. The era of pursing free trade agreements with the rest of the world is gone, at least for now. Instead, we can expect his administration to slap tariffs on products manufactured abroad by U.S. companies and re-exported to the U.S., particularly in those sectors where it appears that companies have changed production location for the sake of reducing the cost of labor. Many commentators recalling the prelude to the Great Depression of the early 1930s, have raised fears about a decent into the protectionist policies of the past, a sharp deterioration of economic growth, and the onset of a severe recession. Others have opined that companies will simply seek other ways of reducing costs (and maintaining profits) such as through the use of robot technology. In general, most political observers place a great deal of blame on Trump himself for stirring up anti-trade public sentiments. Others focus on the racist/anti-immigrant and misogynist predispositions of Trump supporters, arguing that he has fostered these attitudes and rendered them legitimate.
Read MoreThe election of Donald Trump introduced border security and illegal Mexican immigration as crucial national issues. The Republican candidate garnered substantial political support for his promises to build a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, deport Mexicans in the U.S. on a massive scale, and slap tariffs on cheap imported manufactured goods believed responsible for the loss of American jobs. Most critics focus on the xenophobic, illiberal, nature of these policy pronouncements. However, Trump’s critics have said little about the role of the U.S., including powerful U.S. economic interests, in contributing to the very immigration problem that the incoming Trump claims it will solve. Blowback, often used to refer to the impact of various U.S. misadventures in foreign policy, refers to the unwanted/negative result of an action or series of actions. The massive Mexican immigration to the U.S. with its attendant political consequences, is a troubling case of blowback—in large part the consequence of past U.S. actions.
Read MoreU.S. president-elect Donald Trump has targeted Mexico as one of the main sources of job losses in the U.S., leaving many people with the mistaken impression that countries such as Mexico have been the winners in the global competitive game. However, today’s liberal trade and investment order, as I suggested in an earlier blog post, has not, on balance, benefitted Mexico. From 1996 to 2015, the Mexican economy has grown at the average annual growth rate of only 1.2 percent. With such lacklustre growth, the country’s poverty rate increased by 2.9 percent between 2008 and 2014. Inequality has also risen. While the top 10 percent saw their incomes rise, the bottom 50% of the population either failed to see their situation improve, or saw it deteriorate. In 2012, the total household income of the bottom 10 percent of the population was substantially lower than it was in 2008, despite some slight improvement in 2010.
Read MoreThe election of Donald Trump and the British vote to leave the European Union have coincided with a growing chorus of concern about “fake news.” It is tempting to lay much of the blame on social media in general and on the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of teenagers in a small Macedonian town, who churned out pro Trump “news” to make money by increasing traffic to their sites. However, politicians and their supporters, particularly of the right centre populist variety, have also gotten into the act. One Donald Trump supporter, for example, claimed that Clinton and her senior staff were involved in underage sex rings while Trump himself made many false statements during his election campaign. He declared that global warming was a “hoax invented by the Chinese,” said that Barak Obama was not born in the U.S. and then lied again, by denying that he had made such a claim. Fake news, some believe, played a role in the American election and in the Brexit vote. There is also a growing consensus that this type of phenomenon is dangerous to liberal democratic institutions and it is on the rise.
Read MoreReactions to Fidel Castro’s demise have been strongly polarized. Denunciations from the Cuban American community have been particularly harsh. The first Cuban-American elected to Congress, said Castro was a “tyrant and thug” and hailed his death as an opportunity to “work for a Cuba that is free, democratic, and prosperous”. In Miami, Castro’s death sparked celebrations on the part of the Cuban American community. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement praising Castro has been widely criticized for its failure to mention the repressive nature of the regime and its human right violations. While the tributes of Latin American left leaders were generally effusive, leaders of the centre and centre right, did not focus on the negative aspects of Castro’s legacy. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto praised Castro for being “a friend of Mexico” and for “promoting bilateral relations based on respect, dialogue and solidarity”. Chile’s President, Michelle Bachelet, whose democratic credentials are impeccable who was herself imprisoned and tortured by another dictator said: “Fidel Castro fought for the ideals of dignity for his people and social justice, indelibly marking the history of America”. Brazilian’s new right wing President Michel Temer called Fidel Castro a "leader of convictions," who "marked the second half of the 20th century with the firm defense of the ideas in which he believed". Despite the recent failures of the regime, including severe restrictions on political freedoms and deprivations such as food shortages, many in Cuba, did mourn his death. Recent televised reports showed long lines of mourners in Havana, many tearful, paying their respects.
Read MoreOn Monday of last week, President-elect Donald Trump, outlining plans for his first 100 days in office, declared that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and replace it with “fair” bilateral agreements. As the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, one of the 12 signatories to the deal, declared, the TPP “without the U.S, is meaningless.” The agreement aimed to lower barriers on trade and investment among twelve countries (bordering the Pacific Ocean: US, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru), accounting for approximately 60 percent of the world economy and 40 percent of the world’s population.
Read MoreThere has been a fundamental change in U.S. politics. It emerged with the primaries and came to fruition with last night’s election of Donald Trump to the presidency. The basis of support for the country’s two traditional parties has changed in fundamental ways, with the Democratic Party becoming the party of big business and foreign policy hawks, while the working class (at least the white working class) has moved to the Republicans. The nastiness of the campaign was without precedent. Trump called Clinton a liar and demanded that she be jailed. His rhetoric has been particularly vitriolic—misogynist, racist, and widely regarded as irresponsible in its lack of respect for the institutional process.
Read MoreRegardless of who wins the U.S. election, a new era in the U.S. approach to international trade agreements is about to emerge. Donald Trump has railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as the worst trade agreement ever signed by the U.S. and promised to withdraw support for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) if elected. Although not as strident, Clinton, in a reversal of her past pro free trade position, now says that she would renegotiate NAFTA and has come out in opposition to the TPP. Of course, rising opposition to economic globalization and trade integration is not confined to the U.S. as Brexit amply illustrates. We now face a critical moment in the history of global capitalism.
Read MoreIt is now apparent that neither democracy nor the neoliberal prescription of dismantling the state has been successful in mitigating widespread corruption in Latin America. In Brazil, Eduardo Cunha, the powerful politician and former leader of the lower house, who orchestrated the ouster of former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, has recently been arrested on corruption charges. Many more high-level Brazilian politicians and businessmen are currently under investigation, including the current president of Brazil, Michel Temer. Former President Lula has also been charged with corruption. Investigations of corruption in Argentina have reached top-level politicians and the businessmen closely allied with the Kirchner administrations. The Argentine federal prosecutor has indicted former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner, who amassed a fortune during her tenure in office, on corruption charges. These charges have included, among other transgressions, intervention in a currency trade involving Argentina’s Central Bank that may have cost the country billions of dollars. Distressing for many observers, is the fact that these governments had come to power through the electoral process and were part of the “pink tide,” left leaning regimes that promised social justice in the wake of the persistence of poverty and high levels of inequality. The mainstream media (optimistically) characterized the widespread protests in Brazil against the Rousseff administration as indicating growing public anger against the mismanagement and greed of politicians who had promised improved distributive outcomes. Hence, there is the expectation that the next stage will involve important changes in policy and institutional arrangements that will finally put an end to, or at least mitigate, corrupt practices. This thinking will be convincing only to those with short memories.
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