Most of Trump’s Detroit speech was just traditional Republican tax cut and deregulation pablum; I will leave that to other commentators. The more interesting part was the segment on trade agreements, which, notwithstanding his focus on Obama and the Clintons, was actually an assault on the establishments of both parties.
Trump’s views on trade are an outgrowth of his Social Darwinian attitudes regarding life and the world in general. The syllogism works something like this:
- Life is an unending series of negotiations in which the strong impose their will on others with the objective, not of reaching a mutually acceptable outcome, but of showing their superiority (i.e., “winning”).
- Foreign trade in particular is subject only to the law of the jungle. Agreements, treaties, and business norms are just a veneer covering power relationships.
- For individual countries, “winning at trade” is measured by national surpluses or deficits.
While this line of reasoning is logically coherent, its purported “realism” bears no resemblance to the world as we know it. Buying and selling is about satisfying the needs of both parties, not “winning.” The world economy runs on confidence, agreements, and ethical norms, not just on power relationships. Finally, as I have stated before, in a democratic capitalist country, trade takes place on an entity to entity (not a nation to nation) basis, and both parties to every transaction view themselves as “winners.”