Mercantilism

My favourite bleat of Trump supporters trying to explain the oncoming economic catastrophe or his dalliances with far right dictators or threats to annex his neighbours is "I'll wait and see what happens".  This is possibly the dumbest political slogan of all time as the entire purpose of politics is to predict and control the future.  If you're just going to take a "wait and see" approach to who you elect you may as well elect anyone or indeed go the whole hog and go for government by sortition...

Runner up amongst dumb commentator bleats is "we don't know what his plan is with tarrifs".  This usually comes from Newsnight contributors or other elements of the Commenteriat... and is complete nonsense.  Trump told us many times before his election his plans and outlined them in his Project 2025 documentation.  Just as George W Bush told everyone of his plans to invade a middle eastern county simply because he could via the Project for a New American Century.  All you have to do to find these people's policy aims is read and listen.  Bad political ideas don't come from nowhere, vast committees of the great and dubiously moral must cogitate them for years and publish them in plain sight.  For example Hitler's "My Struggle" contains a detailed blueprint of the Naxi Germany & Europe he aimed to create... Not that I'm comparing Trump to Hitler - Trump doesn't have the same level of strategic acumen.  Hitler used salami tactics to pick off rival powers while Trump is taking the whole world in one economic war at once which is a doomed venture - as we know because it's been done before.

Trump's plan (for those of you who don't listen or read) is simple and clearly articulated on numerous occasions.  He plans to bring back Mercantilism - the economic system that abided before free trade.  There probably is some argument for some level of protectionist policies in some industries but Trump is trying to use an economic sledgehammer to crack a very small nut by introducing tarrifs that are so high they are ludicrous.  This has caused the immediate collapse of multiple supply chains.  The very supply chains the manufacturing sector he claims to want to protect relies on.  How do you build cars with massive import taxes on steel?  The immediate effect of his policies (instituted by emergency powers which the Governor of California points out are probably not legal because it isn't an emergency - just the creation of an unnecessary one) will be to decimate US industry, ramp up consumer prices and create shortages and empty supermarket shelves.  Worse it's easy to impose a 125% tariff (effectively a trade embargo) on China but if you U-turn it's not automatic that China will drop retaliatory tarrifs.  They may keep them (for a while) to punish you.

Anyone with any real historical political knowledge knows Mercantilism doesn't work.  The most famous example being the British Corn Laws which were brought in to protect British farmers from being undercut by imported corn but instead hampered the British economy for decades until their final abolition. Here's Richard Cobden MP explaining his rationale for the abolition of the Corn Laws in the 1840s...

"First, it would guarantee the prosperity of the manufacturer by affording him outlets for his products. Second, it would relieve the Condition of England question by cheapening the price of food and ensuring more regular employment. Third, it would make English agriculture more efficient by stimulating demand for its products in urban and industrial areas. Fourth, it would introduce through mutually advantageous international trade a new era of international fellowship and peace. The only barrier to these four beneficent solutions was the ignorant self-interest of the landlords, the "bread-taxing oligarchy, unprincipled, unfeeling, rapacious and plundering""

It's not really such a surprise that protectionism would appeal to an extremely wealthy Real Estate magnate like Mr Trump, is it?  But Mercantilism had other dimensions which we can also see at play in Trump's overall policy platform.  If you have high tarrifs on other countries goods but you need raw materials that are not available in your own country, how do you get them?  The answer is ... You need satellites or colonies.  Hence Trump's obsession with annexing Greenland for it's rare earth metals and blackmailing Ukraine into signing a rare metals deal.  Ultimately the only way such a policy can work in the global economy is conquest and war.  And it's a-coming.  Gaza and Ukraine being in states of perpetual war are not geopolitical accidents, they are signals of growing world political instability.  And the wars will get bigger and closer and closer....

Unless we get lucky and Trump's administration implodes.  But that would require Republican Senators and Congresspersons to grow a backbone... Something that shows no sign of happening soon.  After all, Trump is pursuing policies completely at odds with the free trade platform they always stood for ... or at least gave lip service to... and they do...?