Can everyone stop saying Donald Trump killed off the Trans-Pacific Partnership? He didn’t. It was already dead. Thanks to pressure from ordinary Americans – yes, it really does work – TPP already lay without a pulse on the floor of Congress. There is no need to congratulate Trump’s bigoted regime or pretend he has assembled a cabinet that isn’t teeming with corporate interests. The Republicans didn’t co-operate with Barack Obama, and it would surely be a mistake for Democrats to normalise a deeply unpopular demagogue who actively threatens an admittedly already compromised democracy.
That Trump has any ownership over TPP is a travesty, and a damning indictment of the Democratic establishment. The new president’s rightwing populism combines xenophobia, protectionism and policies which directly enrich the Donald Trump class. Yes, American workers have suffered years of stagnating or falling wages and the decimation of industries, devastating the communities they sustained. Both Republicans and establishment Democrats are responsible, and never considered the possibility they were creating anger and resentment which one day a vulgar demagogue would exploit.
If the Democrats had listened to the likes of Bernie Sanders and other progressives who opposed trade deals which benefit corporate elites at the expense of workers’ livelihoods, the United States might not be currently embroiled in one of the worst crises since its foundation. TPP underlined why Hillary Clinton – despite standing against a serial liar – was so widely distrusted. As secretary of state she backed the treaty, then sat on the fence, then belatedly opposed it, feeding a sense she lacked any firm beliefs and would shift positions for crude political advantage. Clinton’s supposedly inevitable victory was sunk by an industrially ravaged Rust Belt: if the Democratic candidate in the ballot had offered authentic opposition to TPP, the current trajectory of the United States and the world would not be so horrifying.
Progressives oppose trade deals like TPP because they cost jobs, shift wealth and power to large corporations, drag down workers’ terms and conditions in a race to the bottom and threaten democracy. TPP – like the hopefully fatally wounded Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership – gave multinationals the ability to sue elected governments in secret courts for policies that threaten their profits. Here is an example of capitalism on a collision course with democracy and sovereignty.
Trump is no remedy to these threats: quite the opposite. “Drain the swamp” was his rallying cry, but his presumptive administration is the swamp, stuffed full of Goldman Sachs ex-employees and tycoons like ex-ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. The president is committed to reducing taxes on big business and stripping away so-called “regulations” that protect workers and consumers. Trump may oppose treaties like TPP, but he blends xenophobia with the promotion of a low-wage, insecure economy.
A programme of investing in US infrastructure may provide a much-needed short-term boost to the US economy, but combined with tax cuts for wealthy Americans and big business, Trumpism represents a grave economic danger. As is the style of rightwing populists, scrutiny – let alone dissent – will be portrayed as treachery. All the more reason for US progressives to stand firm.
Nothing that Trump does is motivated by the interests of the average American. A megalomaniac plutocrat like Trump scapegoats foreigners while promoting policies which directly enrich his associates. Don’t fall for a single thing he does. Resist, don’t normalise, isolate him, exploit divisions within the Republicans. Don’t fuel the impression that Trump is anything other than a charlatan who encourages working Americans to blame anyone but the men like him who are responsible for the multiple ills that define this wealthy but unjust society.