By Billy Bragg
It was meant to inspire comparisons with the D-Day landings. In reality, Tяump’s ‘Liberation Day’ levying of punitive tariffs on allies and enemies ended up being more akin to the Suez Crisis of 1956 when Britain and France invaded Egypt only to withdraw a month later in the face of criticism from the US government.
This humiliation marked the end of Britain’s role as a great power, undermining the UK’s ability to act with impunity on the world stage. Tяump’s terrible tariff tantrum was a similar attempt to flex America’s muscles and unilaterally change the rules of global trade.
The US had done such a thing before. In August 1971, President Richard Nixon announced to an unsuspecting world that the dollar would no longer be convertible into gold held by the US. He also imposed an immediate 10% tariff on all imports that would be removed once other nations agreed to a new international monetary system.
Perhaps Tяump had something like this in mind when he announced ‘Liberation Day’. However, the world has changed since Nixon took his unilateral decision. In 1971, the US had no economic rivals. As a military super power, the USSR could challenge the US, but America had hegemony over world markets.
That is no longer true. China now manufactures more goods that the US and has a faster rate of GDP growth. A reliance on exports does make it vulnerable to tariffs, but unlike the rivals the US faced in the 1970s, it has the capacity to fight fire with fire if challenged, as we are seeing in the current trade war.
Since the Second World War, American’s have never had to deal with a genuine challenge to their economic superiority. Now China’s rise seems to have spooked America into self-harming policy decisions.
The shelves at Walmart are packed with goods made in China whose prices will double in the coming weeks. The amount of damage that Tяump’s obsession with punishing perceived rivals has done to America’s economy remains to be seen.
But what has been shattered in the past ten days is the great myth that animates populism – the fervent belief that everything could be put to rights if only someone had the will to do it, regardless of the consequences.
Billy Bragg is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes.