US President Donald’s Trump’s chest-thumping speech at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s annual meeting in late September is all the proof you need that history books are absent from his bedside reading list.
In his speech, he put friends and foes alike to the sword in spelling out his administration’s my-way-or-the-highway manifesto. Which entailed that America will honour no agreement or alliance that does not further its own geopolitical or economic interests, even at the expense of others.
For me, the key take away from his speech was the declaration “we reject the ideology of globalism. And we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.”
This statement presents the narrative that patriotism and globalism are mutually exclusive, and that focusing on the latter over decades pasthas compromised America’s sovereignty.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Given the state of affairs that predated World War II, there may in fact be nothing more patriotic than globalism.
But before we dive into the details, let us first qualify these glittering generalities since Trump has the unfortunate habit of throwing them out for effect as opposed to substance.
Patriotism is love for country, or put another way, the desire to see it prosper and the will to defend it with one’s life if necessary.
Globalism, meanwhile, according to American political scientist Joseph Nye, is acknowledging the “networks of connections that span multi-continental distances” and leveraging them to better human lives.
Going by the trade war he recently declared against China, Trump seems to confuse the philosophical underpinnings of inclusive globalism with those of exclusive, hard-nosed mercantilism. That he seeks zero-sum outcomes from international relations is even more troubling.
To argue why globalism is the highest form of patriotism, we first need to agree on the definition of a “good government.”
Conventional political science wisdom holds that a good government must satisfy three criteria: to protect the lives of citizens from internal and external threats, to create economic opportunities for its citizens that minimize wealth inequality and to ensure the supremacy of law and equality of all citizens before law while upholding fundamental liberties.
Conversely, the world Trump seeks existed from the Middle Ages all the way through the early part of the twentieth century. In that period, cut-throat competition for land and resources among the major powers of the time led to frequent cycles of devastating war.
Millions died in the name of God, king or country without fully comprehending why fighting had broken out in the first place. In Europe, France and Germany were forever unearthing excuses to invade the other. It was a time of unparalleled horror.
After World War II, the rise of centrist politics brought with it a new brand of patriotism- the belief that taming murderous cults and their agents was only possible through transnational cooperation based on universal human principles. This vision founded the United Nations.
In battered post-war Europe, politicians came to the sober realization that only by deeply interlinking the economies of France and Germany could they keep the specter of war at bay.And thus the European Coal & Steel Community was born, aprototype for the modern European Union (EU).
Only cynics and self-serving populists like Trump can claim that globalism has failed. Even if we limit the argument to sovereignty, international borders are today exponentially more robust thanks to the threat of multilateral force.
Collective defense pacts like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and UN Peacekeeping missions worldwide have thwartedwould-beaggressors from mounting global campaigns that could again endanger millions.
Yes, there have been failures like Rwanda, Darfur and most recently Syria and Myanmar, but those have reflected the power struggles within the UN Security Council in a throwback to the dark days of unilateralism, and not the system itself.
Next, international lending agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank,and the Asian Development Bank (ABD) have loaned billions to cash-strapped countries so the developing world once stripped dry by colonial powers could start to carve outits own economic identity.
Success stories like Bangladesh and Vietnam that punch above their weight in global garments and footwear manufacturing are testament to their impact. In fact, the World Bank now reports global poverty is at an all time low.
While critics often slam these agencies as tools of economic imperialism, we cannot deny they have triggered a virtuous cycle of economic growth in some of the world’s poorest nations.
Moreover, the international regulation of trade and commerce through the World Trade Organization (WTO) has, among other benefits, enabled technology and skills transfers from the developed to the developing world.
Going by the trade war he recently declared against China, Trump seems to confuse the philosophical underpinnings of inclusive globalism with those of exclusive, hard-nosed mercantilism. That he seeks zero-sum outcomes from international relations is even more troubling
Such initiatives significantly boosted national productivity and household incomes, which in turn kick-started domestic industries that could compete on the world stage. Just look at China and India.
Global health indices have also greatly improved,while the probability of “killer bugs”slaying millions has sharply declined thanks to the efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) and its international partners, most notably the US-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Finally, Trump conveniently sidesteps the reality that America’s bottomless consumerism is fueled by the efficiency of the global supply chain.
By emphasizing open markets, comparative advantage and economies of scale in trade, globalism offers consumers everywhere a greater range of goods and services at cheaper prices.
Thus the vast chasms in technology adoption between the developing and developed world that predated globalism have shrunk with every passing decade since the 1980s. This has been great for American businesses.
Globalism is why Apple Inc. is the world’s highest valued business today. It is also why Wal-Mart and other “mass discounters” that cater to blue-collar Americans can sell high-quality products at affordable prices.
Though Trump is addicted to bombast, let us hope those ‘resisting’ his worst impulses within the administration-as the controversial New York Times editorial in early September revealed-won’t let him undo eight decades of good work that ironically began in 1945, with America’snoble determination to lift the world out of the darkness.
The writer is an Ipoh-based independent journalist
Published in Daily Times, October 1, 2018.