In Search of Order

I don’t know if we can place all the blame for the breakup of the American-led rules-based world order on Donald Trump. Russia and China and others have been trying to smash that world order for decades. But it does seem clear that President Trump is in agreement that the old world order has got to go and he is trying his best to help those autocrats achieve that goal.

The litany of his rule breaking in the first year of his second term is too long to list in a short commentary such as this. Let’s just look at this week. He wants Denmark to relinquish control of the frigid island of Greenland to the United States and would not rule out military force. NATO countries responded by dispatching troops to the island to defend it from an invasion by the US. He threatened any country that opposed his takeover of Greenland with additional punitive tariffs. He castigated Europe for Ttheir defence policies and called their environmental programs the “Green New Scam.” After capturing and arresting the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, the Wall Street Journal reports that he is plotting regime change in Cuba. He accused Canada of being ungrateful, saying Canada wouldn’t exist without the United States. He condemned Europe for cheating the US on prescription drugs, insulted the president of France and made fun of the female prime minister of Switzerland (and Switzerland doesn’t even have a prime minister).ru

President Trump’s speech to the gathered business and government elites at the World Economic Forum  in Davos, Switzerland may be the denouement of that glitzy get-together. He not only touted the economic performance of the United States under his administration spewing unverified statistics amongst outright falsehoods, he credited his breaking of the old economic order for enabling the sterling economic numbers.

At Davos he blamed the globalization of the old order for hollowing out America between the coasts (flyover country) and the decimation of our manufacturing industry, as did Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a separate panel. Lutnick pointed out that Europe’s net zero energy policy that shut down nuclear and hydrocarbon energy production made them reliant on wind and solar power that requires batteries to produce energy when there is no wind or sun. But Europe had no ability to produce batteries to supply power when the weather was uncooperative. That made their entire energy grid dependent on the world’s largest battery exporter – China.

Former WEF Chairman Claus Schwab said in his book, The Great Reset, that, after the Covid pandemic the entire world had a “unique window of opportunity to” reorient the global economy to make it greener and more fair, what he called stakeholder capitalism. But the window that opened was not toward a semi-socialist form of capitalism but a rejection of the neoliberal capitalist system and a move toward state mercantilism to support the spheres of influence of the great powers.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney lamented the breakup of the rules-based order in his Davos presentation and called for the middle-powers to form a new order to resist the threat to their sovereignty from regional hegemons. The middle sized countries in this new mini-rules-based order he said would share common values but the principal value they share is fear of the great powers.

The Wall Street Journal praised the speech made by House Speaker Mike Johnson to Parliament the day before Trump’s talk at Davos. Johnson’s speech emphasized the history and values shared by the United Kingdom and the United States. His speech harkened back to the principles and values on which America was founded quoting President Adams that the Constitution is suitable only for moral and religious people. I also liked Johnson’s speech (and I quote John Adams frequently as well) but the comments on the WSJ article by other readers generally trashed the speech as being out of step with the Trump agenda while pointing out the ineptitude of the House of Representatives under Johnson’s leadership.

Also while at Davos, President Trump inaugurated his Board of Peace, initially created to implement the peace plan in Gaza but now with expanded responsibilities for maintaining peace around the world. Although initially authorized by the United Nations, this expanded Board of Peace appears to be an attempt to supplant the UN Security Council. A wide range of countries have been invited to participate in this board, although many of them, such as Russia, do not share the same values as the United States. Most people would be ashamed at the blatant arrogance of the wording of the charter for this Board. The document names Donald Trump as Chairman (not in his capacity as President of the United States but him personally) and gives the Chairman (meaning Trump) sole power to authorize invitations to membership, convene meetings, approve decisions of the Executive Board and the sole right to name his successor. We should just call this thing the Board of Sycophants.

All of these world leaders are trying to create a new world order from the ashes of the old rules-based order. Some are tepid imitations of the old order (Carney) or a reinvocation of the old order (Johnson) or a new Board of Peace-led order (Trump). Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping did not give speeches at Davos about creating a new world order, they are busy recreating a mercantilist world order by their actions – not speeches.

Amidst all the turmoil it is hard to predict what type of world order will finally emerge. But as long as Donald Trump is President of the United States (and even longer if he has anything to do about it) the turmoil will continue. Great powers revel in turmoil because it justifies their autocracies. The rules-based order had many problems but it reduced global turmoil, improved the health and extended the life of people around the world while raising billions out of poverty. I would have approved of a reformed rules-based order rather than a return to great power rivalries.

Tyrants thrives amid chaos – ordinary folks not so much. Any successful world order however you might define it will require the active participation and probably the leadership of the Unted States. But we will have to wait to see what we actually get.