And Yes, There Is Going to Be a New Trade Order
The reason that America has lost millions of jobs in manufacturing has to do with uncompetitiveness. It blames other nations, like China for producing products that American’s won’t produce, because to do so makes too expensive, even for Americans.
Americans like to blame ‘the other guy’, as if China exploited the United States. It was the ‘choices’ made by Americans, based on price that predicated what was bought, what was manufactured and where.
America is always in favour of growth, as long as it’s in America.
Robert E. Lighthizer in Foreign Affairs May/June 2026, suggests that ‘the rules did not apply equally’. He suggests that foreign nations protect their industry and production via tariffs. So instead of dealing directly with the nations or nations through negotiations that enable trade to ‘balance’,
He blames free trade, which to my mind, is ludicrous.
It is the United States that is not adhering to agreements, to trade law, to standards imposed on ‘all’, not just America. So now, America has decided that ‘it’ intends to simply ‘rip off’ other nations for access to the American market. But what is transpiring, is exactly the opposite.
It turns out that rather than be ‘ripped off by America’, the ‘others’ can simply realign their free trade in order to sell their commodities, products, minerals and materials with each other. That would be the 7.2 billion people who refuse to be subjected to Trump’s irrational and harmful tariffs.
Trade Is About Trust – Not Subservience
The problem with the U.S. is that it believes it can ‘impose’ its will on other nations, when the entire free world no longer accepts that premise.
Lighthizer suggests that;
“To reduced U.S. dependence on ‘hostile’ nations (that would be any nation that doesn’t go along with America’s extortion of their country and its resources), it is investing billions of dollars in public-private partnerships to develop mines and processing facilities, reaching agreements with U.S. allies(?) to jointly develop such resources. The result is a coherent defensive program that responds to the distortionary economic policies of other countries and builds economic security for the United States.”
The only problem with this ‘theory’, is that America has burned bridges faster than allies. In turn, the world’s democracies ‘sans U.S.A.’ Are building a new global trade order based on international law, not American interests and laws that favour the U.S.A.
The EU, U.K., Canada, Australia, NZ, Japan, the ROK and Malaysia are all of the same mind, as are many of the BRICS nations, that America’s exploitation is not the answer.
The intent by Europe and Canada, and the aforementioned nations to develop their own trade organization that allows trade in the currencies of those nations, without using the American dollar, catalyzes approximately 60% of global GDP. The U.S. accounts for only 10-12% of global GDP and its influence is waning, at an increasing rate.
Lightheizers “objective methods” of officially determining each other’s exports and imports, only works so long as the U.S. is the nation making the determination.
Those days are over.
The world is no longer interested in playing a game devised by the United States to disadvantage the other players. Instead, we’re simply going to move the game to a new venue where zero-sum gamesmanship has no place.
America, always likes to suggest that it is tolerant, understanding, fair and equitable. The truth is, that has never been true.
And just as Lightheizer suggests in the “New Trade Order” in Foreign Affairs, America will fight the new Global Trade Order now in creation because, “a new competitive system would be a far better outcome than the ad hoc tariffs imposed by America.
Yes, Trump has removed the sign from the United States window. And yes, there is no going back.
For those nations outside of the U.S., that path forward is truly clear, and that path no longer has any nations beating to America’s doors.
We have seen the enemy, and clearly appreciate its intent.
For that reason, the western democracies will trade with each other and yes, with China, India, Brazil and Turkey.
The future will be multipolar, not unipolar. It will not sustain, but fight hegemonies and their interests. America today, is simply a rogue state intent on abusing, stealing and extorting other nations for their resources and riches.
And yes, as Mark Carney stated in Davos?
Those days are truly over, and we do not mourn them.
Leave a Reply