Disbelievers in New World Order mythology have long recognized
that this new China is fiercely nationalistic. Indeed, with Marxism-Leninism
dead, nationalism is the Communist Party’s fallback faith. China has thus kept
her currency cheap to hold down imports and keep exports surging. She has run
$300 billion trade surpluses at the expense of the Americans. She has demanded
technology transfers from firms investing in China and engaged in technology
theft. Disillusioned U.S. executives have been pulling out. And the stronger
China has grown economically, the more bellicose she has become with her
neighbors from Japan to Vietnam to the Philippines. Lately, China has laid
claim to virtually the entire South China Sea and all its islands and reefs as national
territory.
In short, China is becoming a mortal threat to the rules-based
global economy Americans have been erecting since the end of the Cold War, even
as the U.S. system of alliances erected by Cold War and post-Cold War
presidents seems to be unraveling.
Germany, the economic powerhouse of the European Union, was
divided until recently on whether Greece should be thrown out of the eurozone.
German nationalists have had enough of Club Med. On issues from mass migrations
from the Third World, to deeper political integration of Europe, to the EU’s
paltry contributions to a U.S.-led NATO that defends the continent,
nationalistic resistance is rising.
Enter the Donald. If there is a single theme behind his message,
it would seem to be a call for a New Nationalism or New Patriotism. He is going
to “make America great again.” He is going to build a wall on the border that
will make us proud, and Mexico will pay for it. He will send all illegal aliens
home and restore the traditional value of U.S. citizenship by putting an end to
the scandal of “anchor babies.” One never hears Trump discuss the architecture
of our rules-based global economy. Rather, he speaks of Mexico, China and Japan
as tough rivals, not “trade partners,” smart antagonists who need to face tough
American negotiators who will kick their butts. SPECIAL: We must declare war on
those who want to desecrate on our Constitution and eradicate our freedoms.
They took our jobs and factories; now we are going to take them
back. And if that Ford plant stays in Mexico, then Ford will have to climb a
35-percent tariff wall to get its trucks and cars back into the USA. Trump to
Ford: Bring that factory back to Michigan! To Trump, the world is not Davos; it
is the NFL. He is appalled at those mammoth container ships in West Coast ports
bringing in Hondas and Toyotas. Those ships should be carrying American cars to
Asia. Asked by adviser Dick Allen for a summation of U.S. policy toward the
Soviets, Ronald Reagan said: “We win; they lose.” That it is not an unfair
summation of what Trump is saying about Mexico, Japan and China. While the
economic nationalism here is transparent,
Trump also seems to be saying that foreign regimes are
freeloading off the U.S. defense budget and U.S. military. He asks why rich
Germans aren’t in the vanguard in the Ukraine crisis. Why do South Koreans,
with an economy 40 times that of the North and a population twice as large,
need U.S. troops on the DMZ? “What’s in it for us?” he seems ever to be asking.
He has called Vladimir Putin a Russian patriot and nationalist
with whom he can talk. He has not joined the Republican herd that says it will
cancel the Iran nuclear deal the day they take office, re-impose U.S. sanctions
and renegotiate the deal. Trump says he would insure that Iran lives up to the
terms.
While his foreign policy positions seem unformed, his natural
reflex appears non-ideological and almost wholly results-oriented. He looks on
foreign trade much as did 19th-century Republicans. They saw America as the
emerging world power and Britain as the nation to beat, as China sees us today.
Those Americans used tariffs, both to force foreigners to pay to build our
country, and to keep British imports at a price disadvantage in the USA. Then
they exploited British free-trade policy to ship as much as they could to the
British Isles to take down their factories and capture their jobs for U.S.
workers, as the Chinese do to us today. Whatever becomes of Trump the
candidate, Trumpism, i.e., economic and foreign policy nationalism, appears
ascendant.
http://www.teaparty.org/buchanan-trump-new-nationalism-115205/16413
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