Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Proliferating Blocs: The E.U. and Mercosur

Words matter; they may not break bones, but they can wreak havoc if they are used carelessly or ideologically. Political labels can stick, and, if inaccurate, they can result in people having an incorrect impression of what something or someone is, politically. The war that began in North America in 1861, for example, has typically been labeled as a civil war, but it may be more accurately labeled as the C.S.A.-U.S.A. War because the Confederate States of America did not want to take over the U.S.A.; it was not as if the C.S.A.’s goal was to conquer and government the U.S.A. Having established itself as a functioning political entity even though U.S. President Lincoln refused to acknowledge the political existence of the C.S.A., that union could be said to have existed and been at war with the U.S.A. from 1861-1865. Two unions of states were at war with each other; it was not as if the Union Army was at war with individual seceded states. The C.S.A. had a government apart from the state governments. So “the war between the states” is an inaccurate label because it denies the existence of the two unions. But the common label of a civil war is also problematic because two political factions were not fighting each other for control of the U.S.A. If this criticism seems unusual and even perhaps rather strange, the reason may be because the victor’s labeling of the war has been so overwhelming. My point is that this does not mean that the labeling is accurate just because it has been widely accepted. Similarly, the labeling by E.U. officials (including the E.U.’s ambassador to the U.S.) of the European Union as a bloc is not accurate. 

That the label has been meant to placate anti-federalist Euroskeptics, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, so they don’t further weaken the Union renders the actual, self-inflicted weakening as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore, that the E.U.’s self-inflicted weakening-by-label has fit the militaristic agenda of Russia’s President Putin and the isolationist agenda of the American President Trump like a glove seems not to have disturbed the E.U.’s political elite. That the E.U. has never been an informal trading “bloc” of sovereign countries like the Mercosur trading bloc in South America is seems not to have bothered the European labelers, including the enabling media.

For example, reporting on a speech by E.U. President Von der Leyen’s to the Parliament, European journalists referred to both the E.U. and the coordination on trade by four countries in South America as “blocs,” as if the two were of the same political type or genre. For instance, Euronews reported that with regard to the E.U. helping Ukraine withstand Putin’s continuing invasion and signing a trade deal with the four countries in America, at “stake is the 27-member bloc’s credibility to shape its foreign policy and trade agenda.”[1] But it is the E.U.’s foreign policy and its trade agenda, not the aggregate of all of the states’ foreign policies and trade agendas, and this difference is backed up by the E.U. having an executive, legislative, and judicial branch of its own, albeit with state participation in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Blocs do not have governmental branches. The label of bloc does, however, fit “the South American Mercosur bloc” of four countries because that bloc is simply an alignment of trade policies.[2] There was not Mercosur executive, legislature, and supreme court, no Mercosur social policy, and not even a Mercosur federal system wherein governmental sovereignty is split between states and a federal level. The false equivalence of the European Union and Mercosur is a grave insult to Europe, and yet it has repeatedly been self-inflicted by the European political elite itself.

I contend that the E.U. has been a formidable accomplishment, not a perfect union, but far beyond what a bloc is and can muster, and that the potential of that union of states should therefore not be held back by a dominative label intended placate an anti-federalist minority. The costs of continuing to treat the E.U. as equivalent to a trading bloc of countries in South America may seem bearable, but President Von der Leyen’s point that the E.U. was then at a critical inflection-point concerning Europe’s security and independence, global image, and international standing means that the E.U. could no longer afford to label itself as a bloc as if were just another Mercosur group of countries.

For on the very same day as Von der Leyen was delivering a speech to the European Parliament, Russian President Putin was telling a gathering of his military brass, “European swine wanted to feast on the collapse of Russia” and—interestingly in echoing comments only recently made by the American President, Donald Trump—in referring to Europe and the E.U. in particular, “Today it turns out there is no civilisation there, only complete degradation.”[3] Swine degrading European civilization. Ouch! Unfortunately, Russian tanks, bombs, and troops in Ukraine combined with Putin’s rejection of the proposed American compromise because it does not give Russia all the territory is wants in Ukraine render the punch behind the insult more serious than mere words. It is ironic that words spoken outside of the E.U. have made the Europeans’ own use of their word, “bloc,” more costly because what bloc could expect itself to issue its own debt to help Ukraine militarily? What bloc can have a federal foreign policy? What bloc can do more than rely on state militias for a defense? Simply in degrading these expectations, the European political elite continued to shoot itself in its collective foot as Putin continued to apply his political theory that military might makes right in Europe.

The E.U. is neither a regional UN nor a trading bloc of sovereign countries, nor even an international organization. All of these claims are the result of ideological resentment and political expediency. These two vices in the E.U. are like water to a fish. That the member-states ceded some of their governmental sovereignty to be exclusive and even shared competencies of the European Union effectively relegates such false equivalencies to the dust bin, so it is strange that they persisted at least through 2025. In fact, the staying power of the principle of unanimity in place of qualified-majority voting on some major issues may stem from the continuing misunderstanding that the E.U. is merely a bloc.

So, labels do matter, and they can get in the way. This is especially problematic in hard times, for European integration in the E.U. has largely happened only times of crisis. The rhetoric of presidents Trump and Putin alone justifies President Von der Leyen’s statement, “Yesterday’s peace is gone. We have no time to indulge in nostalgia. What matters is how we confront today.”[4] Describing the E.U. as a bloc of member-states does not even qualify as nostalgia because the E.U. has never been a bloc; the self-defeating label sprang out of anti-Americanism (lest the E.U. be held to be equivalent to the U.S. as an empire-scale federal system characterized definitively by dual sovereignty) and the political fear of the domestic, yes, domestic, opposition of anti-federalist Euroskeptics that is ironically strengthened in its version of political reality by the label itself. Self-inflicted weakness in a partisan ideological battle hardly attracts support.

Monday, December 15, 2025

On the E.U.’s Mercosur Deal: State Obstructionism

After 25 years negotiating with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, the E.U.’s Commission sought to secure passage of the massive trade-deal in the European Council and the Parliament by the end of 2025. Even though the vote is by qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in both chambers, one state that was against the treaty sought to delay the vote in the Council, which represents states rather than E.U. citizens. The Commission rightly pushed back on the tactic because for one state in opposition to be able to put off a vote is tantamount to having a veto, which a mechanism only for E.U. competencies that are subject to unanimous approval in the Council.

Due to concerns of possible unfair competition voiced by farmers in the E.U. state of France, that state’s government was “demanding strong safeguards to suspend tariff reductions if imports disrupt EU markets, so called ‘reciprocity clauses’ that align Mercosur’s environmental and agricultural standards with EU standards, and tougher EU sanitary and phytosanitary controls.”[1] Without a veto, making a demand would be too strong, and even presumptuous. So too is the statement that was made by the office of the state’s prime minister’s office: “While a Mercosur summit is scheduled for 20 December, It is clear that . . . the conditions are not in place for any vote by the EU Council on authorizing the signing of the agreement.”[2] This sounds a lot like a statement that the vote could not take place.

The Commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, Olof Gill, cut down the state’s claim that conditions were not in place. In fact, Gill told reporters that in “the view of the Commission signing the deal now is a matter of crucial importance economically, diplomatically, and geopolitically, but also in terms of our credibility on the global stage.”[3] The Parliament was due to vote the next day on a safeguard amendment, with some representatives set to add an amendment on reciprocity. With half of the month of December ahead, the only condition relevant to there being a vote in the European Council was whether the Parliament would vote in favor of the treaty. Whether or not the safeguard and reciprocity amendments pass in the Parliament is a legitimate concern to whether the state of France votes for or against the treaty in the Council, but whether the amendments pass should not pertain to whether the Council holds a vote. In short, the government of France was overreaching even if only in its rhetoric.

The problem of too many E.U. exclusive and shared enumerated competencies, including changes to the E.U.’s basic law, being subject to unanimity in the Council and thus contingent on no state wielding its veto in that upper chamber was already hampering the E.U., especially in the areas of foreign and defense policy even as Russia was invading Ukraine; the E.U. didn’t need the Council to set a precedent of delaying or cancelling a vote just because a state in opposition objects even to there being a vote. Such a precedent is as if each state would have a veto on matters subject to qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity. Even use of language that connotes or implies that the state of France could unilaterally control the European Council is troubling, given the power that the state governments continued to have at the federal level through the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Put another way, the E.U. was already “state-heavy” in terms of obstruction at the federal level; the E.U. could least afford a state in opposition deciding whether conditions for a vote in either of the councils have been met. Moreover, focusing too much on individual pieces of legislation without keeping an eye out for any negative impact on the federal system itself from how the legislative process is being carried out is short-sighted.


1. Peggy Corlin, “European Commission Turns Up Pressure on France over Mercosur,” Euronews.com, 15 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Friday, July 11, 2025

Negotiating from Weakness: The Plight of the European Union

To go to much effort to construct an economy on the scale of an empire only to refer instead to the economies within such a union, whether the E.U. or U.S. is to pay excessive homage to an ideology that can be termed Euroskeptic and anti-federalist, respectively. To refer to economies in one union and the economy in the other is just one means by which an ideology can distort a person’s reasoning and perception without the person being conscious of the underlying logical inconsistency. Such an inconsistency is incurred not only in “having it both ways” in the E.U. being a common market even as the states are referred to as economies even though many share a currency and thus a central bank, but also in referring to the federal system as if it were a mere “bloc,” or “network.”  In all of these cases of ideological word-games, the E.U. itself is minimized and thus implicitly marginalized from within. With Russia invading Ukraine and Israel eviscerating the Muslim residents of Gaza, self-marginalization for ideological purposes is indeed costly. Even referring to the federal official who is in charge of foreign policy as a “high representative” is implicitly denigrating and thus counter-productive to the E.U. being able to stand up to Putin and even Netanyahu in 2025.


The full essay is at "Negotiating from Weakness."

Saturday, June 21, 2025

The E.U. Stance on Tariffs: Pressure from the States

After the U.S. took the decision to impose reciprocal and car tariffs on the E.U., it did not take long for several of the E.U. states to pressure the federal executive branch, the European Commission, to punch holes in the E.U.’s counter-tariffs so favored industries in the E.U. would not face higher prices on supplies from the United States. As in U.S. states, E.U. states have their own dominant industries, whose financial interests it is only natural for government to protect, as jobs translate into votes. But pressuring the E.U.’s federal government to carve out exceptions for imports desired by favored industries at the state level, such as automobiles in the E.U. state of Germany, would deny the E.U. the full benefit of a united front that federalism can provide against other countries. For maximum leverage in trade negotiations, unilaterally removing counter-tariffs is not wise; it is like a person intentionally tripping over himself while trying to get to the grocery store. Given the regional pressures, trade is rightfully one of the enumerated powers, or exclusive competencies, of the E.U. rather than a shared competency or a power retained by the states.

At a basic level, first of all, to pretend that the E.U. is merely a confederation, in which governmental sovereignty still resides exclusively with the state governments, is a much more subtle way of enervating the E.U., whether out of denial or a desire by federal officials to appease purblind Euroskeptic governors, such as Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary. Fortunately, though for some people regretfully antagonistically, transparency is valued by truth-tellers. Both qualified majority voting and the exclusive and even shared competencies enjoyed by the E.U. government are incompatible with a confederation, not to mention a mere “bloc” or economic treaty like NAFTA. Correctly “mapping” the E.U. is a prerequisite to being able to get “maximum bang for the buck” (an American expression, wherein “buck” strangely means “dollar”) in terms of collective action at the federal level.

On the summer solstice, 2025, which by the way is not the first day of climate summer as some American meteorologists were claiming as if they were deer in headlights or cows chewing cud, the E.U.’s Commission warned state governments that some of their “sensitive goods” would not be shielded “from planned retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods” because the E.U. was “weary of undermining its negotiating hand in high-stakes trade talks with President Donald Trump, three E.U. diplomats and officials” said.[1] Not to resist the pressure would unilaterally weaken the E.U.’s negotiating leverage even before sitting down to negotiate with the Americans. In a confidential meeting at the Commission, it was determined that acceding to all of the state requests would mean that the E.U. “would only target €25 billion worth of U.S. exports . . . instead of the €95 billion” that the E.U. “initially targeted as a response”.[2] The sheer difference between €25 billion and €95billion attests to the leverage that collective action at a federal level has over the negotiating power that an aggregation of European countries would have. In other words, the dollar value lost in the shielding can point to the power that is gained by collective action from an exclusive competency residing at the federal rather than state level.

In seceding from the E.U., the former E.U. state of Britain lost any future benefits that can be gained from collective action at the federal level of an empire-scale union of states, for even a secessionist state is commensurate in scale and polity-type with the remaining states rather than the union of such states. A leap in scale from (early-modern) kingdom and empire, and a qualitative difference in polity-type between a state and federal union of such states are why Britain is not equivalent to the European Union. In other words, the United Kingdom is not a small E.U.

In conclusion, subtly letting air out of the tire by insisting that the E.U. does not have a federal system or intentionally allowing states to shield certain imports from America at the expense of the federal stance is not exactly putting the best foot forward in arriving at the negotiation table. Given the sheer amount of benefit that would be lost were the Commission to acquiesce to every state request on carve-outs, proposals to expand the federal competencies subject to qualified majority vote instead of unanimity should be considered with greater urgency, and additional enumerated domains of power federalized from the states. Fears of a leviathan “central state” can be allayed by realizing that the E.U. has a federal system of divided sovereignty and that the state governments have significant access to policy-making at the federal level in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. even though the executive branch, the European Parliament and the E.U.’s supreme court provide less access and thus can protect federal prerogatives and thus the benefits obtainable from collective rather than associative action. Unity need not mean uniformity; collective action is possible at the federal level while states can retain the ability to reflect their own interests and cultures as long at the benefits from collective action are not unduly compromised.


1. Camile Gus and Ari Hawkins, “Brussels Resists Pressure from E.U. [State] Capitals to Shield Exports in U.S. Trade Fight,” Politico.com, June 20, 2025.
2. Ibid.

Sunday, May 18, 2025

On the Ideological Illogic of European Federalism

Europe may have contributed immensely to philosophy but logic seems to have been in short supply at times, as Europe ties itself in ideological knots in service of nationalism itself, as if that ideology had not given rise to two world wars in the twentieth century. I am not referring to the incendiary, irrational fear of the word, federalism, being applied to the European Union, but, rather, to the role of nationalist ideology in distorting the application of comparative institutional politics by journalists.

Take, for example, the following paragraph from Euronews: “Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hosted three-way transatlantic talks in Rome on Sunday, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted as a possible ‘new beginning in international relations between the two blocs.”[1] Scant reasoning is needed to conclude that the two blocs being referred to are the E.U. and U.S., and that the Italian prime minister represents the third party, Italy.

The logic begins to fray, however, because the E.U. state of Italy is not separate from the E.U., so the talks were not actually three-way. To treat a state in a union of states as equivalent to that or any other like union is to commit a category mistake. Politically, the other E.U. states might get jealous were the E.U. state of Italy to be reckoned both as a state of the E.U. and as a third party in the talks, as if an umpire between the two “blocs.”

Typically, European journalists refer to only the E.U. as a “bloc” in order to differentiate that union from the other empire-scale union across the proverbial pond. To refer to both unions as blocs defeats that purpose. In actuality, neither union is a bloc because neither union is temporary nor oriented around one issue, or pillar. Furthermore, the federal, yes, federal governmental institutions of both unions are more than merely a playground for intergovernmental relations among state governments. In other words, both the E.U. and the U.S. have the sort of federal system wherein governmental sovereignty is split between the federal and state systems. In Federal Government, Ken Wheare uses “systems” instead of levels to make the point that where sovereignty is divided up, one locus is not “above” the other. In fact, the system of state governments can act as a check on over-reaches at the federal level, and vice versa.

Therefore, the E.U.-U.S. talks were actually bilateral between two empire-scale federal unions comprised of federal and state governmental institutions. The same powers need not be federalized in both unions for the latter to evince what Wheare calls modern federalism to distinguish it from confederalism, wherein the states hold all governmental sovereignty. Nor need there be a balance of power between that of the “feds” and the states, although I contend that balance is important in both loci being able to serve as a check on the other. Neither the E.U. nor the U.S. has, at least as of 2025, achieved balance, and it may not be an altogether stable property of federalism. This does not relegate either union to being a “bloc,” and the E.U. ambassador to the U.S. agreed with me on this point when we met on May 1, 2025, when we met at Yale, whose European Studies Council takes the E.U. as being more substantial than does the counterpart at Harvard. The E.U. is neither mainly intergovernmental relations nor an alliance.

So in Rome on May 18, 2025, Meloni was simply playing host to the Vice President of the U.S. and the President of the E.U., both unions (not blocs) having distinct roles in foreign policy. The governor of Italy was not present to negotiate on behalf of the E.U. on tariffs pertaining to the U.S.; in regard to them, von der Leyen and Vance had their work cut out for them in dealing with both tariff and non-tariff barriers to E.U.-U.S. trade.

If the E.U. were a bloc, then the U.S. would be one too, but actually both claims would be counter-productive at a time when strength at the respective federal levels was needed. This is not to imply that any two empire-scale modern-federal unions are or even should be identical for them the be classifiable in the same political genus: modern federalism as distinct as a political “species” from confederalism, and also from instances of modern federalism at the “kingdom” (i.e., member-state) rather than empire-level. The inter-state heterogeneity in an empire-scale polity is a leap, or step, rather than degree, more than that which exists within a state, and this difference gives modern federalism at the empire-scale distinct properties, and in fact federalism itself is geared to such heterogeneity. This is not to say that regional differences do not exist at the state, or “kingdom” level, and a federal system can be useful there as well. Hence, California, for example, could benefit by adopting a federal system for itself. New York and Illinois could benefit too, as could the former E.U. state of Britain, which, like Switzerland, is (early modern) kingdom-level too. Hence UK-US or EU-UK is misleading in a way that E.U.-U.S. is not, even if nationalism goes down hard.

Monday, May 5, 2025

E.U. Statehood for Canada: Not So Fast

Even as the federal president of the U.S., Donald Trump, campaigned in 2024 in part on Canada becoming a member of the U.S., statehood in the E.U. was being discussed in 2025 on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Besides being perhaps a knee-jerk political reaction against Trump, the prospect of Canada becoming an E.U. state faced a few major hurdles—one of which being the E.U.’s Basic (aka constitutional) Law. Accordingly, working instead toward a closer trading relationship was a more realistic route.

Firstly, that U.S. President Trump had “taunted and provoked Canadians with talk” of statehood for Canada in the U.S. and even that 46% of Canadians in a February, 2025 poll favored accession in the E.U. instead of the U.S. are not sufficient rationales for Canada to become an E.U. state.[1] One reason for representative rather than direct democracy is that having a term of office protects elected representatives from having to capitulate politically to momentary passions held by the most impassioned in a population. Because Trump’s invitation to Canada to join the other states in the U.S. would likely go unheeded, and, moreover, Trump’s term in office would presumably end at some point, the Canadian interest in accession in the E.U. would likely dissipate rather than continue to build. I submit that such a momentous political change should not be made on the basis of a momentary political context.

Secondly, the Canada is “the most European of non-European countries,” given the “French and British roots” as evinced in Quebec and Newfoundland, for example, is not a sufficient reason, as the same could be said of Australia regarding its British roots.[2] In fact, that Quebec and Newfoundland are so culturally different is an argument that Canada could split up and be more than one state in the E.U. or U.S., since inter-state differences are supposed to be greater than intra-state differences in a federal system.

Thirdly, during a briefing in March, 2025, “a Commission spokeswoman pointed to Article 49 of the Treaty of the European Union which stipulates that ‘any European State’ can apply to become a state—“in other words, ONLY European states” can become E.U. states.[3] Canada lacks the geographical proximity to the E.U. necessary to satisfy Article 49. So whereas Cyprus is technically in Asia, the proximity to the E.U.—not just being culturally European—renders that state different than Canada with respect to the Article. 

Ironically, Hawaii as a member state of the U.S. is not only not in North America, but is arguably more Asian than American culturally. Not even Alaska, which is in North America, is contiguous with “the lower 48.” Europeans who like to point out the cultural differences between E.U. states while assuming that the other union, which stretches across a continent and then some, is culturally homogenous miss not only the tremendous differences between a member-state like Mississippi and that of Massachusetts, but also the distinctive culture and location of Hawaii! So, I’m not sure that Europeans are the best judges of how European Canadian culture is. Certainement, French speakers in the E.U. have strong opinions on the way the language is spoken in Quebec.

In a parliamentary question to the E.U.’s executive branch in 2025, Rep. Streit, a member of the Reform party, argued that Canadian statehood would “expand [the E.U.’s] single market, create sales opportunities, facilitate the exchange of goods and services, and be better able to withstand threats of tariffs and global security risks.”[4] A good trade agreement with Canada would satisfy all but the last benefit, and NATO could handle the last one without risking stretching the E.U. too thin, especially given the staying power of the principle of unanimity in the European Council.

Neither the U.S. or the E.U. evinces regional governance in the sense of covering a global region, as if a stepping stone on the way to a world government. Furthermore, both unions faced significant internal political strains in 2024, and enlarging either union rather than being focused on addressing internal pressures could be foolish rather than prudent. For instance, before adding more Eastern European states, the E.U. could be strengthened on the federal level by applying qualified majority rule to more E.U. competencies in the European Council and the ministerial Council of the E.U., and giving the E.U.’s Parliament more authority so it could be a check on state governments exploiting conflicts of interest through the councils.

Fourthly, allowing Canada to apply to become an E.U. state would open the door to Israel doing the same, which would embroil the E.U. in Middle East politics. That “Israel’s security cabinet . . . approved a plan to expand its military offensive” in Gaza after more than month of blocking humanitarian aid such as food and medical supplies from entering the enclave and in spite of rulings against Israel by the International Criminal Court and the U.N.’s International Court of Justice may suggest that negotiating with Israel in the European Council and the council of ministers could result in stalemate rather than decisions.[5] In other words, if you think Viktor Orbán is stubborn, try Ben Netanyahu. Given the staying power of the principle of unanimity, flexibility on the state level is a highly valuable commodity at the federal level, given the extent of state power there. Even giving Turkey the go-ahead would have introduced a Middle Eastern culture into the E.U. at the councils, and E.U. decision-making would have been much more difficult because of exogenous values would have to be recognized and respected even if they conflict with European culture. Moreover, no limit would exist as to how large the E.U. could become. At some point, diseconomies of scale could take a toll on the federal level in being able to realize benefits from collective action as distinct from merely aggregated benefits from states acting unilaterally, such as in foreign policy and defense.

Lastly, the British monarch is, at least as of 2025, the head of state of Canada. Even though the lack of geographical proximity renders that royal role difficult, that the United Kingdom had seceded from the E.U. renders Canadian accession both awkward and difficult. Although the royal role does not render Canada subservient to the British government, the question of Canada's loyalty to the E.U. could conceivably be raised by federal and state officials in the union because of the head of state is an official role in Canada. Perhaps the loyalist Canadians could push for Canada’s provinces, except for Quebec, to be made equivalent to Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland as regions in the United Kingdom instead of Canada becoming a state in the European Union. Does not having the king or queen as head of state mean that Canada is essentially within the monarch's kingdom, even if not subject to the British government? Of course, neither Canadian provinces becoming regional governments in a European kingdom nor Canada becoming a state in an empire-scale union is very realistic, given the sheer gravitas of the status quo. Radical political change is seen as momentous not only for its platforms being very different, but also because such change is rare. Nevertheless, in analyzing possibilities for significant change in how various scales (and scale-types) of polities are related, the prerequisite of relating stepwise regions, kingdoms, and empire-scale polities around the world is best done without category-mistakes foisted by political ideology (e.g., nationalism).[6]

1. Stefan Grobe, “Meet the MEP Who Wants to Bring Canada into the European Union,” Euronews.com, 5 May 2025.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. David Gritten, “Israel Security Cabinet Approves Plan to ‘Capture’ Gaza, Official Says,” BBC.com, 5 May 2025.

Monday, April 7, 2025

Tariffs as a Negotiating Tactic: Undercut by Wall Street Expediency

With all the economic and political turmoil from the anticipated American tariffs, it may be tempting, especially for financially-oriented CEOs and billionaires looking at quarterly reports, to call the whole thing off even though doing so would deflate the American attempt to renegotiate trade bilaterally with other countries. The concerns of the wealthy, whether corporations or individuals, have their place, but arguably should not be allowed to "lead the proverbial dog from behind, lest the dog run in circles and get nowhere." Moreover, the notion that any goal that is difficult and takes some time to materialize can or even should be vetoed by momentary passions at the outset is problematic and short-sighted. That U.S. President Trump's announcement of bilateral tariffs quickly brought fifty countries to the negotiating table is significant as a good sign for the United States, as long as that country's powerful business plutocracy (i.e., private concentrations of wealth that seek to govern) can be kept from vetoing the emergent trade policy, which at least in part is oriented to trade negotiation and ultimately to the notion that fair trade is conducive to increased free trade. 


The full essay is at "Tariffs as a Negotiating Tactic."

Saturday, December 7, 2024

Euro-skeptic Anti-Federalism: An Institutional Obstacle in the E.U.

On December 6, 2024, the E.U. finally—meaning more than twenty years after negotiations had begun—reached a free-trade agreement with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The deal would cover 780 million people, but the completion of the negotiations between the E.U. president and those of the South American countries was “just a first stage before a long process”[1] that would require passage by a qualified majority vote—meaning 55% of the E.U. states and 55% of the E.U. population—in the E.U. Council and in the European Parliament and in enough state legislatures. Presumably if enough state ministers for trade in the E.U. Council vote yes, their respective state governments would go along and also be sufficient for final passage. I contend that the requirement that enough state legislatures also vote yes on the deal is excessive.

The most obvious point to be made concerning the excessiveness is that the state governments were directly represented in the E.U. Council, so for those governments then to need to approve the E.U.’s treaty is at best duplicative, and, at worse, enabling opposition yet another means of thwarting final passage. Moreover, the treaty is that of the E.U., rather than any of the state governments because the E.U.’s executive branch negotiated the trade deal. To be sure, the presence of non-trade terms in the deal, including binding commitments by the South American countries to stop illegal deforestation, explains why the Commission did not have exclusive competency, which the Commission had as of 2024 in commercial policy as when President Van der Leyen had the Commission enact tariffs on imports from China.  Even though the trade deal with four South American countries did not fall under the Commission’s exclusive competency (i.e., domain of authority), this only means that the E.U. Council and the Parliament had to approve the treaty too; non-exclusive competency does not mean that the state governments must or even should approve federal legislation (and E.U. treaties with other countries).

A subtle reason can also be cited for why the E.U. is too fettered by the excessive role of the state legislatures in being required to pass a federal trade treaty. Specifically, the ongoing Euroskeptic, or states-rights (or “nationalist”), ideology, which had been so unproductive for the E.U. precisely because of the extent of sovereignty that the states retained (i.e., had not already delegated to the federal union), relishes the duplication of the state governments’ power in passing federal trade treaties as indicating that the E.U. had remained merely an alliance of sovereign countries. Before Britain seceded from the Union, Prime Minister David Cameron referred to the E.U. as just one of the networks to which Britain happened to belong. With such a jarringly unreal notion of what the E.U. was politically, it was best that that state seceded. The state of France had not been wrong in halting Britain’s accession in the early 1970s.

In short, a bottom-heavy federal system awash in an anti-federalist ideology can really be paralyzing at the federal level. At the very least, having an excessive number of institutional hurdles for a bill (or trade treaty) to become law undermines the legislative process. Moreover, even dissolution is more likely to occur when the state governments wield a lot of power over federal legislation.  

This may seem trivial or even silly, but words matter because language can feed (and starve) an ideology. Let’s unpack the following passage from Euronews on the proposed trade deal: “Negotiators from the Latin American bloc were assembled . . . with the EU trade negotiation team to iron out the deal, that will cover 780 million people between both zones. But the deal will need a sign off (sic) from EU 27 member states.”[2] That European and American journalism often referred to the E.U. as a “bloc,” even though an informal grouping of sovereign countries does not have a constitutional (i.e., basic law) court, an executive branch, and a bi-cameral legislature whereas the European Union contains the governmental European Court of Justice, the E.U. Commission, the E.U. Council (like the U.S. Senate, representing the states), and a (lower) Parliament, implies that in using the word “bloc” to describe four South American countries as the Mercosur group, and we might think too of the BRICS countries, those trade groups are of the same genre as a federal union. That both the E.U. and U.S. cases of “modern federalism” include dual sovereignty, wherein two governments have domains in which they are sovereign for a given territory, nullifies the appellation of “bloc” or “zone” to either union, even if anti-federalists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have been in denial concerning this point.

At an academic talk at Harvard’s Center for European Studies in which the dean of Boston University’s School of Global Studies said that the E.U. does indeed have a federal system, a Harvard graduate student dismissed this point and, in “asking” a question, insisted that the E.U. is only an alliance of countries. I then asked the dean to confirm her judgment that the E.U. is not an alliance, which she did. Yet I doubt whether the Harvard graduate student had enough intellectual humility to let this point sink in. In fact, at another talk at the Center, another graduate student, who had been present at the visiting dean’s talk, insisted that economically, a Swiss (county-sized) canton could be compared to “a red or a blue state,” including Texas and California. That speaker, from MIT, had said that in looking at the economic inequality between rural regions and a metropolitan city, E.U. states should be compared with U.S. states rather than with the U.S. overall (as there is no focal city of the U.S.). That the European graduate student ignored this and implied that Switzerland is a United States of Europe (and thus as equivalent to the E.U. even though the latter treats Switzerland akin to a state in trade matters and free movement sans borders) stunned me. I had been thinking of applying to be a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Center for European Studies, but the stubborn, jejune disrespectful attitude of the two graduate students, as well as their abject ignorance and yet presumption concerning federalism theory, convinced me to cancel my application, for I was already too old for the grief (and passive aggression). Also, I was not about to buy an airline ticket to the E.U. only to be dismissed as a stupid American for claiming that the E.U. has a federal system of government and is thus not a “bloc” or “zone” equivalent to four countries in South America that have a trading relationship.

Given the excessive ability of state governments in the E.U. to styme federal legislation and treaties, misconceiving the E.U. as a “bloc” or “zone” can cement the anti-federalist systemic bias and thus render the E.U. itself as too paralyzed even with respect to federal policy, regulations, law, and treaties that are at the level of the E.U. and thus proper to it, with the state governments having direct federal access through not only the E.U. Council (of Ministers), but also the European Council, which sets the overall political priorities for the Union. Officials of the state governments sit on both councils, and may even have excessive influence over the political parties (not groups!) in the European Parliament. That one of those parties, the European People’s Party, has nonetheless been labeled as a “group” rather than a party from a state-level perspective is yet another instance of how federal law-making must brace against a head-wind of federal illegitimacy.

Lastly, it bears remembering that thirty years from the U.S. having instituted a federal system characterized chiefly by dual sovereignty in 1789 (before which the U.S. was an alliance, or confederation, unlike the E.U.!), the American state governments had too much sovereignty for the good of that union, given the multiple “Brexits” in 1861. To be sure, Lincoln was better off than General Washington had been in fighting a war, for Lincoln’s Union had dual-sovereignty whereas Washington had a confederation (i.e., the state governments were sovereign until 1789).  Connecting the dots for my European friends (and those Americans who are awake concerning the E.U. even existing), the E.U. in 2024 was of the same federal genre or type as the U.S. had been since 1789 but not since 1776! Now this should get several Harvard graduate students from Europe scratching their heads.


1. Peggy Corlin, “Von der Leyen Clinches E.U.-Mercosur Trade Deal, in Face of French Opposition,” Euronews.com, December 6, 2024.
2. Ibid, italics added.

Monday, August 5, 2024

The European Union Is Not a Trading Bloc

The European Union can be distinguished fundamentally from the previous European Economic Community in several ways, just as the Articles of Confederation can be distinguished on a fundamental level politically from the U.S. Constitution. Both Europe and America have made a qualitative jump, rather than merely as a matter of degree or further extent. In both cases, politically speaking, governmental sovereignty has been split between a union and state governments. Furthermore, in both cases, the domains of power being handled at the federal level have increased. In the case of the U.S., the coverage has expanded beyond Washington’s Continental Army. In the case of the E.U. even by 2024, the union’s coverage had come to extend well beyond a common market and trade policy to include non-economic domains of power, or competencies, too. In this regard, the E.U.'s federal level resembles a government.

After her reelection as President of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, in 2024, Ursula von der Leyen had some jobs to fill. Among them, each state was to designate one person to be a commissioner. It was up to the president to assign each person to an area, or domain, of power, which were hardly all economic in nature.

Among the dream jobs, besides Competition and Economic & Financial Affairs is Foreign and Security Policy, which is a traditional domain of a government. To be sure, the Competition Commissioner has considerable power “to block mergers, fine big companies, and ban state subsidies that distort markets—and, unlike most other E.U. commissioners, [the Competition Commissioner] doesn’t need to sign off decisions with governments or [the European Parliament].”[1] This represents a transfer of governmental sovereignty has taken effect from the state governments to that of the European Union (which also means that the E.U. had indeed a government of its own distinct from those of the states). Even though I suspect this is most true for economic portfolios, because a majority of E.U. competencies are subject to qualified majority voting instead of the principle of unanimity, the E.U.’s governmental sovereignty extends beyond the economic domain.

Among the rising stars of portfolios are two: Defense and Enlargement, rather than only Industry and Digital. That defense in particular was projected to be enhanced in Von der Leyen’s second administration supports the point that the E.U. was indeed thought of as a government, even if behind a veil of Euroskeptic (i.e., states’ rights) denial.

Among the golden oldie portfolios are climate, migration and justice, rather than just energy and trade. To be sure, on immigration there was still “a lack of real E.U. power.”[2] But “with concerns about media freedom and judicial independence” on the state level “on the rise,” the justice portfolio could “set a bold new direction in protecting the rule of law” within the union—power that can hardly be reduced to economics. Indeed, in enforcing justice within states rather than only at the federal level, the Justice Commissioner’s position itself supports the point that governmental sovereignty was in fact dual in the E.U. even in 2024.

That there were Commissioners of Agriculture and Budget also points to the E.U. being a government, as governments typically have their own budgets and have agriculture policies. Indeed, having territory, which the E.U. does indeed have, is a hallmark of being a government. The portfolios of Cohesion, Neighborhood, Home Affairs, Environment, Health, and Social Rights all contradict the supposition that the E.U. was economic in nature even as late as 2024. Social rights especially do not reduce to economics, but, rather, are fundamentally political in nature. Whether or not natural rights exist as John Locke argued, governments can institute and protect (as well as take away) social rights. The additional portfolios of Demography, Foresight, the Mediterranean, and “the E.U. way of life” all also go beyond the economic domain. So many portfolios at a high level in the Commission are not expressly or even mostly economic that it cannot be said that the E.U. was an economic organization at least by 2024 when Von der Leyen’s second term began with an emphasis on defense at the federal level, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Among the plethora of implications, the European Union cannot be characterized like the EEC was, as a single-issue organization; rather, in part because the federal competencies had grown broadly by 2024, we can speak of there being a federal government. There are of course other reasons why this is so in contradistinction to both the EEC and the American Articles of Confederation, both of which were solely international rather than a blend of national and international as evinced by the E.U. and U.S. Whereas in the U.S., that the U.S. Senate is founded on international principles has been commonly forgotten, most Europeans conveniently look over the fact that the European Parliament is founded on national rather than international principles.

Ideology is a great distorter, especially in politics and religion. To refer to the E.U. as an economic bloc is the epitome of intransigence in the face of political reality. That such a psychosis has been perpetuated by journalists in the service of ideologues, giving the brain sickness (recall Nietzsche’s use of the expression!) a patina of official legitimacy, is truly astonishing given the breadth of portfolios in the Commission alone.

1. Gerardo Fortuna and Jack Schickler, “Demogra-what? A Definitive Guide to European Commission Portfolios,” Euronews, August 8, 2024.
2. Ibid.

Monday, December 16, 2019

The British Pound Reacts to Secession

When the E.U. state of Britain held a vote in 2016 on whether to secede from the union, the British currency plummeted. On the day of the December 2019 statewide election in the U.K., that currency initially jumped and held on the day after as official results confirmed that the conservatives had won a majority and thus would be able to see the secession through. I submit that uncertainty itself was a major factor in both swings, and that the market put too much emphasis on the matter of uncertainty at the expense of the substantive economic effects of secession.
According to The New York Times, the British pound plummeted after the referendum vote in 2016 due to “agitation over the economic and financial disruption that seemed to lie ahead.”[1] Such disruption would be an interim matter, rather than ongoing, because a new equilibrium would doubtless take hold. The agitation was thus about change, and more specifically about the uncertainty that is in any change. Alternatively, the drop in the currency could have been to analysts having determined that the British economy would not be as strong after the change. In other words, the drop could have been prompted by analyses of the new equilibrium more so than the uncertainty during the change. I submit that such a rationale would have been better, for it would have reflected economic fundamentals rather than merely an aversion to change.
The state’s general election in December 2019 took place after a long period of governmental stalemate on the matter of secession. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had secured an agreement with federal officials on a secession plan, but his own state legislature balked. The achievement of an outright majority in the House of Commons in the election meant that Johnson’s plan could finally be passed. The high probability of secession taking place at the end of the next month (and with a trade deal) removed the uncertainty concerning even whether the state would secede. According to Lee Hardman at MUFG, the election outcome “gives you more clarity over the direction of Brexit.”[2] Clarity, rather than how the state’s economy would be post-secession, involves a decrease of uncertainty.
To be sure, the governmental stalemate and the related uncertainty had been difficult on British businesses. Some even moved their headquarters to other states. That Johnson would be able to push his secession deal through his legislature means that the market could anticipate even less uncertainty. So it makes sense that the decrease in uncertainty would be a factor in the currency markets. Even so, what about how the state’s economy would be like after the transition? That the UK would secede with a deal suggested that the state’s economy would not only suffer less uncertainty, but also be stronger, with continuing trade with the E.U.’s states. How would the UK economy look? This, I submit, is what the currency markets could (and should) have reflected to a significant degree relative to the matter of uncertainty and transition.

1. Amie Tsang and Matt Phillips, “Brexit Once Meant a Weaker British Pound, But Not Anymore,” The New York Times, December 12, 2019.
2. Ibid.

Saturday, September 7, 2019

A Strong State vs.The Market Mechanism in China

Under Marxist ideology, the Chinese economy was a command-and-control economy eschewing the market mechanism. Mao's collective farms provide us with a good example. The economy of the U.S.S.R., also Marxist, was based on production quotas and fixed prices. They changed by fiat rather than by changes in demand. State owned, or socialist, productive enterprises were given quotas based on the prior year's production (plus more). This push replaced that of producing more to sell more. Any hint of a market brought with it the stench of Capitalism. So one would suppose that China marked a significant departure when the government announced in 2013 that it would expand the range in which the yuan currency would float. Yet in 2019 in the midst of a trade tussle with the United States, the Chinese state demonstrated just how dominant the state still was relative to any market system.  
The reforms incorporating the market mechanism had begun under Deng Xiaoping. Although publicly-owned and state-owned-enterprises still dominated, they were set within a market economy. The mix of government-owned (i.e., socialist) businesses and a market mechanism has been uneasy in practice. Private or partially-privately owned enterprises could find it difficult to compete with competitors subsidized by the state. Widen the circle to international trade and foreign private enterprises could be found having the same complaint. Of course, the domestic and foreign consumers stood to benefit by the subsidized lower prices, so assessing the existence of state-owned enterprises is more complex than first meets the eye. In part, this is so because governments tend to emphasize the interests of business rather than consumers.  
The United States, for example, has protested against the Chinese government devaluing its currency. A low currency means that exports are less expensive in exported markets.  The complaint has been that "a weak yuan gives Chinese exporters an unfair price edge in foreign markets and helps swell the massive U.S. trade deficit with China."[1] In the face of the trade dispute with the U.S. in 2019, China promised in August "to avoid 'competitive devaluation' to hold down export prices in the face of of Trump's tariff hikes."[2] However, the yuan's low point of 7.0927 on August 23, 2019 was the currency's weakest rate since January 2008.[3] The heavy hand of the central bank could easily dominant market forces because the bank set the exchange rate every morning and let the yuan fluctuate only 2% against the dollar during the day. 
Interestingly, the Chinese government had announced in 2013, "The exchange rate is going to be more market-oriented" [4] People's Bank of China Vice Governor Yi Gang made this statement on a panel at the International Monetary Fund’s 2013 spring meeting in Washington. In other words, “China's central bank plans to widen the yuan's trading band in the near future," he said.[5] This meant that China's leaders would "press ahead with change despite the surprise slowing of the economy."[6] On the surface, this shows that the "Communists" were really serious about moving closer to a market economy. At a deeper level, this shows just how much power the government still had over its economy--power that could be used to restrict the market in service to state objectives. In the literature of international political economy, the Chinese government would be classified as a strong state because it could resist external pressure. By contrast, six years later, the U.S. Federal Reserve would lower a key interest rate due to political pressure from the White House, where concerns of a possible recession in 2020 were intensifying. The weak state classification could also explain the accumulating federal public debt (i.e., the failure to resist pressures to tax less and spend more). 
From a big-picture perspective, balance or equilibrium in the global economy is in everyone’s financial interest. Keeping a currency artificially low is like a dam keeping waters from reaching a balance. The pressure from the held-up water can be expected to destabilize the global economy. China’s policy to gradually let the yuan’s value be market-determined was thus taken to be a prudent step. However, American frustrations on state subsidies and a low yuan in 2019 suggest that the Chinese government rather than the market mechanism was still very much in control of the Chinese economy. 

1. Joe McDonald, "China Let Its Currency Sink to an 11-Year Low After Trump's Trade Threats," Time Magazine, August 26, 2019. 
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Natasha Brereton-Fukui and Bob Davis, “China Vows Wider Yuan Movement,” The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2013.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Anticipating a Recession: Economic and Political Indicators in the E.U.

Anticipation in August, 2019, at least among bond purchasers on Wall Street, of an impending recession in 2020 had at least in part to do with the E.U. In particular, a large state, Germany, had a disappointing second quarter in terms of contracting economic output, and the increasing prospect of Britain seceding from the Union was thought to result in the E.U. economy turning recessionary. I contend that both of these baleful indicators were over-emphasized. Additionally, adding the increasing political polarization in the E.U. as another contributor to an upcoming recession would be too much.

Germany’s economy contracted just 0.1% from the 0.4% growth rate of the first quarter.[1] Placing such emphasis on a change from 0.4 to 0.3 might strike some people as being petty. Yet Carsten Brzeski, chief economist in Germany of the Dutch bank ING said at the time, “Today’s GDP report definitely marks the end of a golden decade for the German economy.”[2] A 0.1% change ends a golden decade. How fragile golden decades must be!

To be sure, “industrial output for June dropped over 5% compared to the previous year. And the ZEW indicator of economic sentiment for August plunged sharply, hitting its lowest level since December 2011.”[3] Brzeski pointed to increased uncertainty from a large state seceding from the E.U. and the U.S.-China trade negotiations as the main culprit. Whereas the British economy would likely be negatively affected in the scenario of secession without coordination, the argument that the E.U. economy would contract as a result is more tenuous. Even if the British economy of a fully sovereign U.K. were to falter, the E.U. economy, being, like that of the U.S., made up of state economies, would hopefully be able to absorb interruptions in trade with Britain. Moreover, the empire-scale of the E.U. (and U.S.) is, as a cluster, much larger than the state-scale of political entities within the empire-scale union.[4]  Baleful economic predictions in 2019 for the E.U. post-secession may have been exaggerated in part due to conflating the two political scales. References to Britain’s “divorce” from the E.U. serve as perfect examples of the category-mistake. No, Virginia, the U.K. is not another E.U.; rather, pre-secession Britain was/is a political sub-unit in the E.U., whose laws and court (ECJ) trump(ed) British law and courts.

The pre-secession trend of business moving from the state of the U.K. to other states may suggest that the E.U. economy would actually benefit from a “no deal” secession. Furthermore, the E.U. trades with other countries, so disruption in trade with a former state could be viewed relatively and thus seen as less baleful for the Union than some economic forecasters were predicting in 2019.

More crucial to the E.U., and less to its economy, were “insurgent movements from the anticapitalist far-left to the nativist far-right,” which have “made inroads” amid “eroding public confidence in mainstream conservative and social-democratic parties that for decades” had dominated at the state level.[5] Although it is tempting to label all this as political instability, the political institutions have funneled even parties like the 5 Star party, which came out of anti-corruption protests, into the nitty-gritty of coalition talks.

Even the political tensions in 2018 between the state government of Italy and the federal E.U. level, which “upset investors in Italian bonds and banks, hurting the flow of credit,” and the collapse of the governing coalition in 2019, which drive some investors into bonds, were not economic crises for the E.U. economy as a whole. Politically, however, Matteo Salvini of the League Party in Italy, could already be viewed as potentially damaging the E.U. federal system. He “challenged” the E.U. law on fiscal discipline for state governments, accusing the states of Germany and France of hypocritically getting away with exceeding the limits on state debt and deficits while the E.U. imposed austerity on the Italian government. His complaint was valid enough. On August 20, 2019, he repeated he would defy federal authorities on the tax-increase (rather than a decrease!) part of the austerity fiscal-discipline federal mandate.

In the early 1830’s, U.S. President Andrew Jackson was forced to deal with South Carolina’s Nullification Acts, which stipulated that the state government could defy federal law regarding laws that the state deems are detrimental to South Carolina. Jackson was aware that a federal system in which governmental sovereignty is split, as in the U.S. and E.U., cannot long survive when even just one state government can decide to defy federal law. So the political uncertainty regarding the growing power of the political extremes in the E.U. has primarily political implications. To put the economics before the political in such a case represents yet another over-statement of the economic. Politics does not reduce to economics. Although the former can obviously affect the latter, one of the domains should not be put foremost in the domain of the other. My thinking on political uncertainty is that its economic effects tend to be overstated. Even in political terms, political institutions have shown a remarkable ability to funnel, or normalize, what was once raw political conflict.

Related: Skip Worden, Essays on the E.U. Political Economy: Federalism and the Debt Crisis. Available at Amazon.

[1] Julia Horowitz, “German Economy Shrinks as ‘Golden Decade’ Comes to an End,” CNN.com, August 14, 2019.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[5] Marcus Walker, “Italy’s Government Collapse Sets Up a Power Struggle,” The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2019.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs in the White House: A Hidden Agenda?

Rex Tillerson, the U.S. Secretary of State fired by U.S. President Donald Trump and former CEO of Exxon, an international oil company based in the U.S., did not allow his difference with the president of tariffs on steel and aluminum to be a deal breaker. In this respect, the ex-CEO was not doing his company’s bidding. That is to say, he was not primarily in public service to serve the private interests of a multinational corporation. Unfortunately, this cannot be said of Gary Cohn, the ex-president of Goldman Sachs who quit as Trump’s chief economic advisor just after the tariffs were announced. Tariffs in general and especially to protect goods in another sector are not in the interests of a major American banks with substantial international business. If the former president of Goldman Sachs had taken the post in government to further Goldman’s interests, the question is whether public service is mere window-dressing at the highest levels of government—plutocracy being the real name of the game.
In a statement at the time of his resignation, Cohn wrote, “It has been an honour to serve my country and enact pro-growth economic policies to benefit the American people. In particular the passage of historic tax reform.”[1] That reform lowered the corporate tax rate and thus was a financial benefit to Goldman Sachs. Cohn left this point out and instead cited the benefit to the American people, which might thus have been a mere subterfuge designed to hide the possibility that the ex-president of Goldman Sachs was actually doing his firm’s bidding.
That Cohn was instrumental in getting the corporate tax rate reduced and that he resigned at least in part because President Trump acted aversely to Goldman Sachs’ interests in enacting tariffs—even just as a negotiating tactic in the trade negotiations then going on—suggests that Cohn had taken the governmental post to safeguard and promote the financial interests of Goldman Sachs. Perhaps President Trump had been obliged to fill the position with such a person in exchange for having accepted campaign contributions from the firm or even the financial industry more generally. It would then be no accident that the Secretary of the Treasury was also a Goldman alum.
The larger question regards whether the public interest can be served in a political economy in which large companies have substantial political leverage over aspiring candidates for office via campaign contributions. At the time of Tillerson’s firing, President Trump remarked that he was finally able to have a cabinet of his own—of his choosing. This statement implies that he had been obliged initially to hand over several cabinet positions to people not of his own choosing. Had Exxon purchased the de facto first chance to fill the Secretary of State position, and Goldman Sachs the U.S. Treasury and chief economic advisor positions? With public statements insisting on having served the American people, which would hardly be need to be said were it true, it should come as no surprise that the American people have been kept in the dark concerning the influence of “dark” money on “public” offices at the expense of the public good.

 For more on this topic, see Institutional Conflicts of Interest


1. Kate Kelly, Maggie Haberman, and Peter Baker, “Gary Cohn to Resign as Trump’s Top Economic Advisor,” The New York  Times, March 6, 2018.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

European Officials at the G20 Grapple with a New American Trading Position: Beyond the Joint Communiqué

It is perhaps only natural---only human—for us to take ourselves and our produced artifacts too seriously. Diplomats and other government officials, for example, fret arduously over mere words. When those words are etched in governmental or treaty parchment, the effort is understandable. The flaw of excess is evident in all the time and effort that go into the joint communiques of international conferences and meetings. I submit that the real politic at such occasions is much more significant even if nothing shows from it for some time.
At the March 18, 2017 meeting of the Group of 20, which includes the E.U. and U.S., the joint statement “became an unlikely focus of controversy” issuing in “a tortured compromise stating, in effect, that trade is a good thing.”[1] I submit that the use of such language is spurious—certainly much less than the attendees and even their principals back home supposed. The real politic was instead that the U.S. was “overturning long-held assumptions about international commerce,” and such transformational change takes time even just to register in minds ensconced in the status quo. That is to say, the real shift in power would need to play out in actual negotiations on trade, rather than in how to word a meeting’s joint statement.


A European official, Wolfgang Schauble, perhaps straining at the meeting to understand the new American position. (source: NYT)

The full essay is at "European Officials at the G20."

1. Jack Ewing, “U.S. Breaks With Allies Over Trade Issues Amid Trump’s ‘America First’ Vows,” The New York Times, March 18, 2017.





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