¿Las políticas de Trump perjudican o benefician a la Unión Europea? (Parte II) (página 10)

By reopening debate on such previously taboo issues, Skidelsky concludes, "Trumpism could be a solution to the crisis of liberalism, not a portent of its disintegration." If so, "liberals should not turn away in disgust and despair, but rather engage with Trumpism"s positive potential." Trump"s "proposals need to be interrogated and refined," according to Skidelsky, "not dismissed as ignorant ravings."

In a similar vein, Kenneth Rogoff cautions against letting disapproval of Trump"s politics overwhelm economic judgment. Trump"s fiscal stimulus and emphasis on deregulation will boost demand in the classic Keynesian manner and are already making some business leaders "ecstatic." While deregulation will not necessarily "improve the average American"s wellbeing," and his tax proposals will "disproportionately benefit the rich," they could make the US economy "move significantly faster, at least for a while." That"s why "it"s wise to remember that you don"t have to be a nice guy to get the economy going," Rogoff concludes. "In many ways, Germany was as successful as America at using stimulus to lift the economy out of the Great Depression."

In my own initial reaction to Trump"s victory, I identified five possible economic benefits that could partly offset the obvious risks of higher interest rates, trade wars, an over-valued dollar, and the regressive distributional effects justifiably criticized by Stiglitz, Johnson, and Rogoff. The most important are the promise of a strong Keynesian growth stimulus, an easing of over-zealous financial regulations that locked many households out of mortgage markets, and some sensible tax reforms, particularly those aimed at encouraging profit repatriation by US companies and broadening the tax base.

Born to Lose

Trump"s success or failure as President may depend less on the evolution of macroeconomic variables such as growth, employment, wages, and tax rates than on the underlying socioeconomic forces that powered his campaign. In considering such forces, some Project Syndicate commentators focus on income inequality, while others emphasize cultural and demographic factors. But all conclude that, as a political program, Trumpism is unlikely to be a viable creation.

If widening inequality and declining middle-class incomes were the main causes of America"s populist revolt, Trumpism will ultimately aggravate, not ameliorate, these grievances. "Real (inflation-adjusted) wages at the bottom of the income distribution are roughly where they were 60 years ago," Stiglitz noted shortly before the election. "So it is no surprise that Trump finds a large, receptive audience when he says the state of the economy is rotten."

And yet, for two generations, Stiglitz continues, Democrats and Republicans alike insisted that "trade and financial liberalization" -the key reforms underpinning globalization- "would ensure prosperity for all." Little wonder, then, that voters "whose standard of living has stagnated or declined" concluded that "America"s political leaders either didn"t know what they were talking about or were lying (or both)."

The dilemma for Trump, Stiglitz maintains, is that while he clearly benefited from "the widespread anger stemming from that loss of trust in government," his policies will not assuage it. "Surely, another dose of trickle-down economics of the kind he promises, with tax cuts aimed almost entirely at rich Americans and corporations, would produce results no better than the last time they were tried."

Robert Johnson, President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, offers another reason why Trump voters aggrieved by widening inequalities of wealth and power are in for a rude awakening. It was no accident, Johnson observes, that during the party primaries, only Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side "set their sights squarely on what mattered most to voters: a political economy in which elected officials strongly promoted a broad-based prosperity that included them."

The other candidates, "constrained by a system that makes it extremely difficult to fund a credible political campaign without catering slavishly to the wealthiest sliver of American society," simply couldn"t go there. "That system invited rebellion," Johnson argues, "and Trump and Sanders -by self-financing and grassroots fundraising, respectively- were ideally positioned to lead one."

Now Trump "will need to devise remedies to the social, economic, and political problems that he has described," Johnson continues. "But to do that, he will have to work within the same "rigged" system that he ran against, and he will have to craft policies that are actually feasible and will have a positive effect on Americans" lives." And, because Trump"s fiscal expansion will "again disproportionately benefit the wealthy, without trickling down to the rest of Americans," disillusionment will set in.

But what if income inequality is not the main reason why swaths of middle-class voters rejected traditional party politics and turned to Trump? What if, as Michael Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher, argues, voters" "grievances are about social esteem, not only about wages and jobs"?

Edmund Phelps, another Nobel laureate economist, cites data supporting Sandel"s hypothesis. "In fact, since 1970, aggregate labor compensation (wages plus fringe benefits) has grown only a little more slowly than aggregate profits have," Phelps notes, while "average wage growth at the bottom of the income scale has not slowed relative to the "middle class."" On the other hand, "the average hourly compensation of private-sector workers (production and non-supervisory employees) has grown far more slowly than that of everyone else." Middle-income white, working-class men in non-supervisory production jobs have suffered the biggest losses.

These are also the workers who have dropped out of the labor force most rapidly, and are most likely to succumb to poor health, suicide, and drug dependence. "These men," as Phelps puts it, "have lost the opportunity to do meaningful work, and to feel a sense of agency; and they have been deprived of a space where they can prosper, by gaining the satisfaction of succeeding at something, and grow in a self-fulfilling vocation."

This is, of course, precisely the demographic group that secured Trump"s victory in the battleground industrial states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Phelps believes that economic opportunities for manual workers in such regions can be restored only if productivity growth is boosted in manufacturing industries by "opening up competition, not just cutting back regulations." He notes, however, that Trump"s policies of trade protectionism, political "bullying" to preserve existing employment, and tax cuts geared to large corporations are more likely to stifle innovation than to promote it.

The French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry reaches a similar conclusion from a different perspective. Noting that "the past suddenly seems to have much more appeal than the future," not just in the US, but also in Britain, France, and many other advanced and emerging countries, Pisani-Ferry proposes four explanations: weak economic growth, widening income inequality, technological change that eliminates manual employment, plus a fourth, less familiar factor:

The new inequality has a politically salient spatial dimension. Educated, professionally successful people increasingly marry and live close to one another, mostly in large, prosperous metropolitan areas. Those left out also marry and live close to one another, mostly in depressed areas or small towns. [As a result], US counties won by Trump account for just 36% of GDP, whereas those won by Hillary Clinton account for 64%. Massive spatial inequality creates large communities of people with no future, where the prevailing aspiration can only be to turn back the clock.

In the face of these multifaceted socioeconomic problems, Pisani-Ferry believes that "a sensible agenda must simultaneously address its macroeconomic, educational, distributional, and spatial dimensions." There is no evidence that Trump"s policy proposals can achieve anything of this kind. On the contrary, whereas Skidelsky cites Trump"s promise not to cut welfare entitlements, congressional Republicans are intent on doing just that. With Trump"s support and encouragement, they have already begun dismantling Obama"s signature health-care reform, the Affordable Care Act, with nothing to replace it – a move that the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated will cause the number of uninsured to rise by 18 million in the first year alone.

Capitalism 4.1?

All of this leads, finally, to the question of how Trump"s presidency is likely to shape global economic thinking and the future of capitalism. Phelps offers a grim prognosis. "American innovation first began declining or narrowing as far back as the late 1960s," he notes, owing to "a corporatist ideology that permeated all levels of government." True, "Silicon Valley created new industries and improved the pace of innovation for a short time"; but now "it, too, has run up against diminishing returns."

Phelps sees the solution in a restoration of the "individualist ideology upon which capitalism thrives" and a revival of America"s "innovative spirit – the love of imagining, exploring, experimenting and creating." But this, he believes, is not Trump"s agenda. Trump "has rarely mentioned innovation," Phelps observes, "and his team is considering a dangerous approach that could actually undermine it": an increase in government intervention, curbs on trade and competition, and "an expansion of corporatist policy the likes of which have not been seen since the fascist German and Italian economies of the 1930s." But any policy serving to "protect incumbents and block newcomers" will most likely "drive a silver spike into the heart of the innovation process."

I am more optimistic about the outlook, at least in the very long term. As I wrote last March: "Capitalism is an evolutionary system that responds to crises by radically transforming both economic relations and political institutions. The message of today"s populist revolts is that politicians must tear up their pre-crisis rulebooks and encourage a revolution in economic thinking."

Trump represents a comprehensive rejection of the economic thinking that has dominated the world for a generation. Shaping the new economic thinking will be the most important challenge for both economists and politicians in the years ahead. In my view, the defining feature of each successive transformation of global capitalism has been a shift in the boundary between economics and politics, and between faith in market forces and reliance on government intervention.

Yoon Young-kwan, a former South Korean foreign minister, makes a similar point. "We are at an interregnum," Yoon writes. "Populism, nationalism, and xenophobia float on the surface of a larger sea change: a fundamental shift worldwide in the relationship between the state and the market." Reconciling these two domains of activity "is the central concern of political economy today, just as it was for Adam Smith in the eighteenth century, Friedrich List and Karl Marx in the nineteenth century, and John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek in their long debate on the topic through the middle decades of the twentieth century."

And, indeed, Trump is merely the most acute symptom of a global phenomenon. "Social and political discontent," Yoon rightly notes, "will continue to bubble up around the world until we return the state-market relationship to a healthy equilibrium."

The Trump presidency, like anti-establishment upheavals in Europe and elsewhere, will force the entire world to start asking fundamental questions about how the relationship between markets and governments in the next phase of global capitalism should evolve. Under Trump, US economic policies in the next four years are very unlikely to provide the right answer; but his administration may at least show the world what not to do.

In his first week in office, US President Donald Trump has begun wreaking havoc on the post-1945 world. Joschka Fischer, Nina Khrushcheva, Joseph Nye, and other Project Syndicate contributors navigate the emerging international disorder.

Editors" Insight: a review of the best thinking on current events and key trends.

– The God of Carnage (Project Syndicate – 27/1/17)

Donald Trump has already demonstrated his determination to demolish his predecessors" legacy – and not only at home. If one thing has become abundantly clear, it is that the world order he leaves behind will not be one in which America is first.

The Apocalypse didn"t arrive with Donald Trump"s inauguration as US president, but the rhetoric of divine wrath surely did. Rather than adopt the soothing or soaring cadences of Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan, Trump"s inaugural address invoked "carnage," "God"s people," and the "righteous public." He sounded less like Andrew Jackson, the 1830s populist US president to whom his supporters compare him, than the Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards preaching his terrifying sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

For Trump, of course, the "sinners" are not the adulterers and idlers Parson Edwards had in mind. They are the businesses, domestic opponents, and foreign leaders who have rejected "America first." They are, in short, the "establishment," much of which was in the congregation. As four of Trump"s five living predecessors -Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama- looked on, he defined their legacy as one of unmitigated greed, self-dealing, and corruption by an entrenched Washington elite that had immiserated ordinary Americans and brought the US to the brink of ruin.

This was no mere continuation of Trump"s incendiary campaign rhetoric. He immediately began eviscerating his predecessors" policy legacy. His first executive order took aim at Obama"s Affordable Care Act, threatening to leave 18 million Americans without health insurance within a year (and possibly wreaking havoc on many of his own voters – see chart). In the following days, he signed orders to withdraw the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); revive oil pipeline projects halted by Obama; construct a wall on the border with Mexico; and cut funding for family planning in developing countries. He also moved to boost a deportation force to round up undocumented immigrants, and has mooted the possibility of reviving secret detention sites and the torture of terrorism suspects. He"s even proposed reversing US efforts to combat AIDS in Africa (a George W. Bush initiative).

And Trump is not only keeping his promises. He"s also keeping his lies. The Orwellian term "alternative facts" quickly entered America"s political lexicon following his first full day in office, when Trump and his top advisers, channeling the spirit of Chico Marx, chastised journalists for believing their own eyes about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. On the second day, he repeated to congressional leaders his post-election lie that millions of illegal voters had denied him a popular majority by backing his opponent, Hillary Clinton – and called for an official investigation of "voting fraud" that even his own lawyers have said, in court filings, did not occur.

Trump and his Republican congressional backers are taking steps to police far more important "facts," by escalating what he calls his "running war with the media," and, more ominously, by barring government agencies from communicating with the public -or even gathering data- about climate change, housing discrimination, and much else. He appears determined to use presidential power to elevate "truthful hyperbole" -the credo he touted in his 1987 memoir The Art of the Deal– into a governing ethos.

But turning mendacity into national policy is a formula for creating, not halting, "carnage" – and not just at home. After all, in a crisis, what sane world leader would take Trump"s word?

Project Syndicate commentators suggest that anticipating and mitigating the Trump administration"s disruptive impact worldwide is now the central question of our time. But one fundamentally important outcome, they suggest, is already certain: in the world order that Trump leaves behind, America will not be first.

Anti-Global America

"America first," points out Princeton University historian Harold James, is an idea with an old -and disturbing- pedigree. "The nationalist thrust of Trump"s inaugural address," James observes, "echoed the isolationism championed by the racist aviator Charles Lindbergh, who, as a spokesman for the America First Committee, lobbied to keep the US out of World War II." Likewise, Trump"s speech "renounced the country"s historical role in creating and sustaining the post-war order." While his "objection to "global America" is not new," James rightly emphasizes, "hearing it from a US president certainly is."

Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and former Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio are alarmed by this vision"s likely global impact. ""America first,"" says Fischer, "signals the renunciation, and possible destruction, of the US-led world order that Democratic and Republican presidents, starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt, have built up and maintained -albeit with varying degrees of success- for more than seven decades." As Palacio puts it, by proclaiming a "right of all nations to put their own interests first," Trump wants to "turn back the clock" on the post-war "rules-based system." His vision, she argues, implies a reversion to a "nineteenth-century spheres of influence" model of world order, "with major players such as the US, Russia, China, and, yes, Germany, each dominating their respective domains within an increasingly balkanized international system."

Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, agrees. Trump"s worldview, says Haass, is "largely inconsistent" with the international cooperation that is needed nowadays to address the world"s most pressing problems. If Trump"s "America first" doctrine "remains the US approach," he argues, "progress toward building the sort of order that today"s interconnected world demands will come about only if other major powers push it – or it will have to wait for Trump"s successor." But this outcome "would be second best, and it would leave the United States and the rest of the world worse off."

May Day for the Special Relationship

The potential for harm to vital US relationships has already become apparent, with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto abruptly canceling an official visit in the wake of Trump"s order to begin construction of the border wall. On the other hand, British Prime Minister Theresa May, the first foreign leader to meet with Trump in the White House, seems intent on cementing ties with the new administration.

As Dominique Moisi of the Institut Montaigne in Paris notes, beyond their shared "distrust of Europe," they make an odd couple. May "believes in free trade and is suspicious of Russia, while Trump is calling for protectionism and wants to forge a special partnership" with the Kremlin. And yet, in embracing a clean break from the European Union since last June"s Brexit referendum, May, too, "seems to be driven by domestic politics to prioritize national sovereignty over the economy." In fact, "her argument to the British people is not unlike what Russian President Vladimir Putin tells his own citizens: no one lives by bread alone, and recovering sovereignty and national greatness is worth the economic risk."

Philippe Legrain, a former economic adviser to the EU Commission President, is not surprised by May"s choice of "a Brexit variant whereby Britain leaves both the EU"s single market and its customs union" – and not just because "she knows little, and cares even less, about economics." Like Moisi, Legrain believes that May"s "ultimate objective is to survive as Prime Minister." From her perspective, "controlling immigration -a long time personal obsession- will endear her to "Leave" voters," while "ending the European Court of Justice"s jurisdiction in Britain will pacify the nationalists in her Conservative Party." That such a stance jibes with Trump"s nationalist worldview seems to have provided even more incentive for May to abandon the EU after more than four decades.

"May claims that Brexit will enable Britain to strike better trade deals with non-EU countries," Legrain continues, "and she is pinning her hopes on a quick deal with Trump"s America." But he believes she is in for a rude awakening: given Britain"s "desperate negotiating position, even an administration headed by Hillary Clinton would have driven a hard bargain on behalf of American industry." As he points out, "US pharmaceutical companies, for example, want the UK"s cash-strapped National Health Service to pay more for drugs." More broadly, the mere fact that "[l]ike China and Germany, Britain exports much more to America than it imports from the US" will weaken May"s hand. "Trump hates such "unfair" trade deficits," Legrain notes, "and has pledged to eliminate them."

Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, wonders "if the UK"s pursuit of a bilateral deal with the US is just about economics, or if it implies a broader shift in British foreign policy." Indeed, Verhofstadt, who will be the European Parliament"s lead Brexit negotiator once May formally triggers the withdrawal process (most likely in March), suggests that "Trump"s Euroskeptic team are influencing" her approach. By staking "her own country"s future on an alliance with an unpopular, untested, and mendacious American president," he says, "May"s government is playing a dangerous and shortsighted game." After all, "[t]he vast majority of the UK"s trade is with the EU, not with the US; and this, like the UK"s geographical location and security environment, is not going to change."

Pulling Down the Pillars of Peace

On the latter point -the defense of the world"s democracies- Verhofstadt, like other Project Syndicate commentators, is unequivocal. "[N]ow that Trump"s presidency has cast doubt on US security guarantees," he says, "the UK and the EU should be forging a strategic partnership to ensure European security" and "must defend and promote liberal democratic values globally, not embrace populists" narcissistic nationalism." Iain Conn, CEO of Centrica (the parent company of British Gas), similarly believes that "it is more important than ever that the developed democracies come together," not only to address current and future global problems, as Haass suggests, but to preserve their security. "We must protect the ties that bind," Conn argues, "and place our hope for the future in our alliances and shared traditions."

The question is whether the world"s democracies can deepen their ties while struggling to manage the crises that are more likely to erupt in the absence of US leadership. Fischer believes that Germany and Japan "will be among the biggest losers if the US abdicates its global role under Trump." Since their "total defeat in 1945," he notes, both countries "have rejected all forms of the Machtstaat, or "power state,"" embracing their role as "active participants in the US-led international system." But their ability to reinvent and sustain themselves as peaceful trading countries has always been premised on "the US security umbrella."

Should that umbrella be removed, Fischer continues, "Japan"s peripheral geopolitical position might, theoretically, allow it to re-nationalize its own defense capacities," though this "could significantly increase the likelihood of a military confrontation in East Asia" – a particularly frightening scenario, "given that multiple countries in the region have nuclear weapons." But, in contrast to Japan, "Germany cannot re-nationalize its security policy even in theory, because such a step would undermine the principle of collective defense in Europe." And, as Fischer reminds us, that principle, by integrating "former enemy powers so that they posed no danger to one another," has been fundamental to peace in Europe.

It is not only post-war security arrangements that are at stake. Trump has called into question the two greatest diplomatic achievements of recent years: the Iran nuclear accord and the Paris climate agreement. "If the US withdraws from, or fails to comply with, either deal," says Javier Solana, a former NATO secretary general and EU High Representative for foreign affairs, "it will strike a heavy blow to a global-governance system that relies on multilateral agreements to resolve international problems."

For Haass, "cooperation on climate change" may be "the quintessential manifestation of globalization, because all countries are exposed to its effects, regardless of their contribution to it." The Paris accord, "in which governments agreed to limit their emissions and to provide resources to help poorer countries adapt," says Haass, "was a step in the right direction."

But the unraveling of the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), poses the most immediate danger. The "International Atomic Energy Agency," Solana notes, says that the Iranian authorities have permitted it "to inspect every site that the agency has requested to see -including those from which it was barred before the agreement- and has granted inspectors access to its electronic systems and chain of enrichment." Solana quotes a report by the International Crisis Group: "Trump is the first US president in more than two decades who enters office not needing to worry about Iran crossing the threshold to nuclear weaponization undetected."

But that conclusion, however well founded and widely shared, will not necessarily withstand the Trump administration"s "alternative facts." In that case, Solana argues, US withdrawal from the JCPOA, rather than "contributing to regional stability," would risk bringing about "an even greater nightmare" in the Middle East. Already, he notes, "Saudi Arabia would like to end its military intervention in Yemen," while "Iran is commencing a presidential election campaign" and "Turkey is seeking an outcome to the Syrian conflict that aligns with its own policy toward the Kurds." Meanwhile, "Russia needs to withdraw its troops from Syria – an intervention that has been bleeding its economy." All of these actors, as well as the EU -which, as Solana points out, "still needs to resolve the refugee crisis"- would be destabilized by the effects of nuclear uncertainty, and the possibility of an arms race, in the Middle East.

Moscow on the Potomac?

Perhaps the one foreign policy issue where Trump"s instincts may prove correct, if for the wrong reasons, is the US relationship with Russia, which he is determined to improve. Robert Harvey, an author and former UK Member of Parliament, notes that "Russia has generally upheld its arms-control agreements with the US," and that it lacks "the economic and industrial might to sustain any long-term war effort." Nonetheless, he is skeptical. "George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair initially saw Putin as a man with whom they could do business," he notes. "But, now in power for 17 years, Putin has shown himself to be a venal and violent leader," who "has reverted to Cold War tactics against domestic dissidents and foreign targets."

Yet the New School"s Nina Khrushcheva, no Putin apologist, thinks that Trump might nonetheless stumble into the right policy. Putin"s "immediate goal is to expose the West"s double standards," Khrushcheva argues, offering several examples, "thereby breaking down Western barriers to his pursuit of Russian interests." And she hopes that Trump"s obvious affinity for Putin will somehow lead the US to "devise a sound, thoughtful, and measured approach toward Russia – one that appeals to values not as propaganda, but as the basis of a more straightforward and credible foreign policy."

Like Harvey and Khrushcheva, the economic historian Robert Skidelsky focuses on the impact on Russia of NATO"s eastward expansion into Central Europe and the ex-Soviet Baltic states. Skidelsky, too, is highly critical of the Putin regime"s "human-rights abuses, assassinations, dirty tricks, and criminal prosecutions to intimidate political opponents." Nonetheless, he believes that "today"s anti-liberal, authoritarian Russia is as much a product of the souring of relations with the West as it is of Russian history or the threat of disintegration that Russia faced in the 1990s."

Skidelsky borrows an argument from the Russian analyst Dmitri Trenin. "The West," he says, "should fear Russia"s weakness more than its imperial designs." Harvey, too, believes that "Russia"s position today is even less secure than it was in the 1980s, when the Soviet Union"s weakening economy could no longer sustain control of an Eastern European buffer and satellites elsewhere." But whereas Harvey believes that "[s]ooner rather than later, Putin"s economic incompetence will catch up with him," and that the West should wait until it does, Skidelsky sees "no reason why a much better working relationship cannot be established."

There are three reasons for this, according to Skidelsky. First, "Putin"s foreign-policy coups, while opportunistic, have been cautious." Moreover, "[w]ith American power on the wane and China"s on the rise, a restructuring of international relations is inevitable," and "Russia could play a constructive role in this revision, if it does not overestimate its strength." And, echoing Harvey here as well, Skidelsky points out that "Russia has shown -on the nuclear deal with Iran and the elimination of Syria"s chemical weapons- that it can work with the US to advance common interests."

But Carl Bildt, a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, offers several reasons to be wary of any rapprochement with Russia. For starters, whereas Skidelsky sees in Putin a cautious leader, Bildt sees a shrewd one. "[W]henever opportunities present themselves," Bildt observes, "the Kremlin is ready to use all means at its disposal to regain what it considers its own." Even in the absence of "a firm and comprehensive plan for imperial restoration," he says, Putin "undoubtedly has an abiding inclination to make imperial advances whenever the risk is bearable, as in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014."

Moreover, Khrushcheva and Skidelsky are wrong, Bildt suggests, to question the wisdom of NATO enlargement. "Expanding both NATO and the European Union to include the Central European and Baltic countries has been essential to European security," he insists. "In any other scenario, we would probably already be locked in a profoundly dangerous power struggle with a revanchist Russia reclaiming what it had lost." He believes that "Russia will come to terms with itself only if the West firmly supports these countries" independence over a prolonged period of time." In that case, "Russia will realize that it is in its own long-term interest to break its historical pattern, concentrate on its domestic development, and build peaceful and respectful relations with its neighbors."

China First

Perhaps the most dangerous foreign-policy reversal that Trump appears to be undertaking concerns the US stance toward China. Christopher Hill, a former US assistant secretary of state, points out that Trump seems "to have concluded that the best way to upend China"s strategic position was to subject all past conventions, including the "One China" policy, to re-examination." Similarly, Yale University"s Stephen Roach, a former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, believes that Trump is "contemplating a wide range of economic and political sanctions – from imposing punitive tariffs and designating China as a "currency manipulator" to embracing Taiwan."

Both Hill and Roach foresee strategic failure if the US pursues this approach. While the Trump administration"s "anti-China biases are without modern precedent," Roach notes, its strategy "is based on the mistaken belief that a newly muscular United States has all the leverage in dealing with its presumed adversary, and that any Chinese response is hardly worth considering." But, as Hill puts it, "China is not a subcontractor on a construction project, and it has means at its disposal to apply its own pressure on the new US administration."

Roach spells it out: if the US "follows through with its threats, expect China to reciprocate with sanctions on US companies operating there, and ultimately with tariffs on US imports -hardly trivial considerations for a growth-starved US economy." China could also become "far less interested in buying Treasury debt- a potentially serious problem, given the expanded federal budget deficits that are likely under Trumponomics."

Even barring such outcomes, Trump, it seems clear, has begun his tenure by disarming key instruments of US influence in Asia, namely those stemming from America"s post-war security guarantees and its stewardship of the multilateral institutions that have nurtured global economic openness. And, given his protectionism and renunciation of the TPP, China is likely to end up with the regional hegemony that successive US presidents -Republicans and Democrats alik- have opposed.

Global leadership may not be far behind. As Palacio notes, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who addressed the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos for the first time earlier this month, is "now the default champion of globalization." Daniel Silke, a South African political strategist, goes even further. Already, "China"s rise has provided a new orbit for many countries around the world – particularly developing and emerging economies," Silke observes, and its "exceptional diplomatic skill across the African continent (and, increasingly, Southeast Asia) has made it an alternative hegemonic force." As the US disengages and squanders its soft power (for example, by cutting development aid), China will gain "new opportunities to cement its role as a provider of investment and all manner of infrastructure and assistance to a host of countries eager to develop."

But, whereas Silke sees a China that is "eager to find a soft-power niche in which it can gain a foothold of goodwill," the Indian strategist Brahma Chellaney sees only the froideur of strategic realism. China"s leaders have become extremely adept at "the use of economic tools to advance their country"s geostrategic interests," Chellaney argues, in order "to fashion a hegemonic Sinosphere of trade, communication, transportation, and security links." To do so, the Chinese government is ingeniously "integrating its foreign, economic, and security policies." If strategically important developing countries "are saddled states with onerous debt as a result, their financial woes only aid China"s neocolonial designs."

Pax Asiana?

What, if anything, can Asian countries do to resist China"s hegemonic designs at a time when Trump is calling into question US commitments across the region? New America"s Anne-Marie Slaughter and Mira Rapp-Hooper of the Center for a New American Security offer a sobering analysis. "Many Asian countries, through deep and predictable political engagement with the US, have grown accustomed to America"s commitment to their security," they point out. "And, in contrast to multilateral security arrangements like NATO, America"s Asian alliances are founded on individual bilateral pacts," which leaves them "particularly vulnerable to Trump"s vicissitudes."

But, instead of "falling into despair," Slaughter and Rapp-Hooper continue, "America"s Asian allies should take matters into their own hands and start networking." Creating a resilient regional security architecture has never before been a high priority, precisely owing to those bilateral US security guarantees. "By building and institutionalizing ties among themselves," Slaughter and Rapp-Hooper argue, "US allies in Asia can reshape their regional security network from a US-centric star to a mesh-like pattern, in which they are as connected to one another as they are to the US." That would give them "a system [that] can strengthen stability for unsteady times."

But it would also be a long-term endeavor. In the near term, Asia"s stability will be in the hands of Trump, who, according to Harvard"s Joseph Nye, should be "wary of two major traps that history has set for him." One is the so-called Thucydides Trap, named for the ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, who warned that "cataclysmic war can erupt if an established power (like the United States) becomes too fearful of a rising power (like China)." The other, Nye says, is the "Kindleberger Trap," named for Charles Kindleberger, who "argued that the disastrous decade of the 1930s was caused when the US replaced Britain as the largest global power but failed to take on Britain"s role in providing global public goods."

In other words, rather than being too strong, China may be too weak for global leadership. "If pressed and isolated by Trump"s policy," Nye asks, "will China become a disruptive free rider that pushes the world into a Kindleberger Trap?" In the 1930s, the trap -caused by US free riding- contributed to "the collapse of the global system into depression, genocide, and world war," he notes.

So, one problem for the world today is that Trump "must worry about a China that is simultaneously too weak and too strong." But another, perhaps more serious concern, stems from the fact that, given Trump"s willful ignorance and incorrigible indiscipline, neither the Thucydides Trap nor the Kindleberger Trap may matter in the end. As Nye acknowledges, wars often are "caused not by impersonal forces, but by bad decisions in difficult circumstances." In order to circumvent strategic traps, Nye concludes, Trump "must avoid the miscalculations, misperceptions, and rash judgments that plague human history."

Is Trump really capable of that? Judging from his first six days in office, his presidency itself appears to be a long parade of such human shortcomings. And on the seventh day, he is unlikely to rest.

Columbia University"s Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, discusses the failings of liberal democracy, the politics of immigration, and geopolitical threats with Slawomir Sierakowski, founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw.

Insider Interview brings prominent leaders and thinkers to both sides of the table.

– Navigating the New Abnormal (Project syndicate – 3/2/17)

The Trump administration lacks both a global strategy and anyone who could formulate and implement one. And unless anti-populists in general -and the center left, in particular- face up to some hard realities, the menace of a rogue US will only grow.

The Populist Backlash

SS: You"ve written that Brexit and Trump are the same phenomenon. Do you think the populist wave that lifted both will spread further?

JS: I think societies everywhere are very divided. Whether it"s 51-49 or 49-51, we are not seeing landslide wins for populism, but rather a reflection of deep social divisions. And, yes, I think we"re going to see more of this, because there are so many anxieties that we don"t seem able to overcome.

Even the foundations of foreign policy are giving way. The Middle East crises are the result of America"s failure and fading global power, which are part of the social anguish many voters feel. Likewise, Brexit reflects a collapse in belief in the postwar order in Western Europe, which was forged during the Cold War but has now basically disintegrated.

SS: You attribute populism to four factors: rising nationalism, the weakening of American foreign policy, the crisis of the center left, and the refugee crisis. Yet you"re an economist. So what about economics?

JS: Of all of the factors at play in today"s political upheavals, I don"t think economics is the main one. That"s illustrated by one important data point: Scandinavia. All of the Scandinavian countries, and their neighbors in northern Europe, have right-wing populist parties, with some approaching power. And yet you can"t do better than these countries in terms of living standards, social justice, and opportunity. So, if northern European countries, including the star performers of Scandinavia, are facing a populist backlash, it is hard to blame economic causes.

Even the Netherlands -affluent, peaceful, prosperous, educated- is now confronting a right-wing populist surge. Yes, massive inequality, erosion of public services, and political corruption are in some sense part of the local context in the United States; yet in northern Europe, these factors are largely absent.

For me, the most pertinent fact is that populist Scandinavians are calling for a social-democratic order, but one for Danes or Swedes or Norwegians alone. They like their society; they just don"t want newcomers. So, it"s explicitly anti-migrant – essentially a demographic and cultural reflex.

SS: Maybe their expectations are higher?

JS: No, looking from the Netherlands and to the north, I think people really like their social order – again, I don"t think we know how to make economies work better than those countries do. What many of their people apparently don"t like is Muslims living in their country. They don"t want mosques in their neighborhoods. That"s not true of everybody, of course, but that"s what the backlash reflects. And, of course, the terrible recent mosque attack in Quebec City shows the same phenomenon in another mostly tolerant society on the other side of the Atlantic.

Mainstream politicians like German Chancellor Angela Merkel say: We"re rich, let"s be generous. But it doesn"t resonate politically, because it doesn"t answer people"s fundamental questions: What do you mean by "generous"? How many millions of people will be allowed to enter? Is there any limit or is the generosity open ended? Are we to eliminate national borders altogether to allow in whoever wants to come?

In my view, a borderless world is plainly unrealistic. If people were told that they could move, no questions asked, probably a billion would shift around the planet within five years, with many coming to Europe or the US. No society would tolerate even a fraction of that flow. Any politician who says, "Let"s be generous," without saying, "We"re not going to throw the doors wide open," will lose. So, I think that"s where the left is tongue-tied, because it sounds chauvinistic to say we need a limit on migration. It would be better to say, "We must help the refugees; they are fleeing for their lives. But, yes, we must also step up efforts to end the Syrian war, and thereby enable the refugees to return to their homeland once the fires are put out."

Hard Demographic Truths

SS: Many argue that immigrants are an economic boon, and that we Europeans need them because of our aging societies.

JS: I think there are several problems with that argument. One is that almost any major economic event like a large-scale migration has far-reaching distributional consequences. So, when people say that we"ll be better off, who"s "we"? Many lower-skilled, working-class, less-educated people certainly would not be made better off by open immigration. That"s not an illusion, just basic economics. New York City"s low-wage, low-cost service sector benefits me, a professional with a good income and economic security. But why should anyone employed in that sector and just trying to hold on -worried about paying the rent, keeping the utilities turned on, finding affordable childcare- welcome direct competition from migrants. They won"t. And as migrants do arrive, the fiscal system must ensure that the working class doesn"t bear the brunt of the adjustment.

SS: Yet they will come. Around Europe and the West, there are at least a billion hungry people. They will come. We"re deluding ourselves if we think we can stick to borders.

JS: I don"t believe it"s that simple. I think the trafficked or undocumented migrants coming into the US are able to come and stay mostly because a lot of people in the US make a lot of money employing them at very low wages. There are reportedly 11 million undocumented Mexican workers in the US. Why do people hire them? Those who make the choice don"t care about the consequences for anyone else. That"s the arrogance of the professional or business class in the US. They don"t think about the consequences for America"s lesser-skilled workers, who compete with the migrants. If such migrants do come, the tax-and-benefit system of the federal government and the states should help those who have been hit.

SS: But is it stoppable?

JS: Yes, borders can and should be policed. Of course, refugees fleeing for their lives must be helped. That"s not only basic human decency; it"s also international law. But refugees and economic migrants are two different matters. No rich country is under the obligation to open its doors to all of the economic migrants that would come. That is simply impossible. And please note that regulating borders is a different question from the mass deportation of the millions of people who are already in the US for years without legal permission. A mass deportation would be hugely painful and disruptive to millions of lives.

As for refugees, the most important thing to do is to stop the cruel, useless, and deeply misguided wars that have triggered the mass movements of refugees. The US bears the main responsibility for the recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria that have been the main cause of the mass refugee movements of recent years. Those were wars of choice (mainly of attempted regime change) and should never have occurred. Yet now the US shirks all responsibility for even a single refugee. Trump"s ban on refugees is disgusting and dangerous.

Yet when we consider economic migrants, it"s essential to note the long-term, slow-moving demographic aspect to what has happened to Europe and to the US. In 1950, Europe had more people than all of Africa and the Middle East combined. Today, it"s completely the reverse: the European Union has 500 million people, while Sub-Saharan Africa has a billion, the Middle East has hundreds of millions of people, and North Africa probably has 150 million or more.

Likewise, if you look at the US population compared to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America, we have a similar, if less dramatic shift over a 75-year period. So, with regard to economic migration, what we"re observing in the West is fundamentally a demographic phenomenon. For some people, the changing racial, ethnic, religious, and linguistic character of our societies is fine; for others, it"s profoundly unsettling. The divide is roughly half and half.

SS: You find this trend troubling as well.

JS: Africa"s demographic trajectory is deeply worrisome because it is built on an extremely high fertility rate that will hinder its own sustainable development. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the average fertility rate remains more than five children per woman, and the resulting population trajectory is roughly a quadrupling of the continent"s population by the end of this century. That means about four billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to a European population that might be around 500 million at the end of the century. One can only imagine what kind of pressures -perhaps completely irresistible- this would generate. And there"s almost no public discussion about it, because you can see how incredibly sensitive this topic is. It can be misconstrued as racist to talk about it, so the left doesn"t, religious groups won"t, and politicians -facing an issue that will ripen only long after they"re out of power- steer clear. Yet the first point is that Africa"s own economic, social, and environmental health depend on achieving a rapid and voluntary reduction of fertility rates, mainly by enabling Africa"s girls and boys to remain in school.

SS: So, because this is extremely sensitive politically, we"re trapped?

JS: There are two points. One is to recognize that these demographic changes are in nobody"s interest, and that they really should be a matter of direct policy attention. I say that at the risk of serious misunderstanding. But the bottom line is that Africa will never achieve successful development if it reaches four billion people at the end of this century. That trajectory would lead to unbearable environmental stress, hunger, war, water depletion, and destruction of remaining biodiversity. It would be a disaster first and foremost for Africa.

But it"s possible to promote a rapid demographic change by simple and utterly decent means. Most important, helping to keep girls in school through secondary school, thereby promoting an education revolution, would reduce the fertility rate within a generation – probably to below three, and possibly to below two, and all in a wholly voluntary manner. I raise this point all the time with African and European leaders, but there"s a great difficulty and reluctance to grapple now with a reality that"s 20 or 40 or 60 years ahead.

SS: And the second point?

JS: Trump"s announcement that he would construct a wall on the Mexican border horrified right-thinking Americans. It sounds so vulgar, like building the Berlin Wall. But to half the country, it made sense. Don"t countries have borders, and don"t you police borders? And that"s where I return to my critique of the center left. Would a fence or a wall work? To a large extent, yes, it would, actually. But the left doesn"t have a language that acknowledges the need for borders and the need to police them. I"m not in favor of a wall, per se, but I am in favor of regulated borders, not an open door to unregulated migration. All high-income countries need borders. Borders do not mean closed doors or bans (like Trump"s), least of all religiously based bans, which are deeply offensive and self-defeating. But borders do mean enforcement of limits to migration.

SS: And the left should say that? We need borders?

JS: Of course. And we should police them. We should have migration, because diversity is good; but we should not have open doors, because we can"t afford it, and we don"t want it. I think the most basic idea that needs to be worked out is managed migration, whereby people arrive legally at a certain rate that is proportionate to the country"s size and pace of demographic change.

SS: So who and how many should be welcome? Should the poorest receive priority, or should it be the best educated, the youngest, refugees? Perhaps those who are most culturally similar?

JS: The first distinction is refugees and non-refugees. We have international law on refugees, based on the principle of non-refoulement: you can"t return refugees to a place where they are likely to be persecuted. A refugee is someone who is fleeing persecution, and the first thing you want to do to resolve a refugee crisis is to stop the underlying cause. Europe has had a long debate over the last three years about Syrian refugees, but it has had no debate at all about the Syrian war, because Europe has no foreign policy and no capacity to address foreign-policy issues collectively.

Soberly into Syria

SS: So what is your analysis of the Syrian war?

JS: In my opinion, it is a US-Saudi-Turkish war of regime change that is essentially stupid and against international law. The reason we have a refugee crisis is not because of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but because the US, the Saudis, and the Turks said in 2011 that Assad should be overthrown. It was a stupid idea – just as stupid as the idea of overthrowing Libya"s Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011 and Iraq"s Saddam Hussein in 2003.

If I were a European politician, I would tell the US to stop focusing on violent US-led regime change, because that approach is flooding Europe with refugees and wreaking political havoc. But I would also reject the prevailing view that Europe needs to integrate its refugees for the long term. I think the right answer is to keep refugees safe, fed, in school, and healthy, and prepare them to return home to Syria as soon as possible. The mainstream argument in the US and Europe is that it"s not safe for refugees to return, because of the dictator. In my view, it"s not safe because of America"s pretentions that it gets to decide which governments rule in which parts of the world. We"re living out the disaster of that American fantasy again. Syria could be safe for Syrians, especially with the responsible unanimous backing of the UN Security Council.

SS: But Assad is a real danger.

JS: No, nothing like the danger of a continued proxy war in Syria and the open space for the Islamic State. Assad wasn"t such a danger from 2000 to 2010. Syria was a normal country with autocratic rule. It wasn"t a global humanitarian disaster. It became a disaster in the spring of 2011, and especially on August 18, 2011, when Barack Obama said that Assad must go. That was Obama"s worst foreign-policy blunder, and we"re still living with the consequences. Why would a US president say that another country"s president must go? The idea that the US can choose who should lead other countries has been a complete failure.

SS: So is Syria Obama"s Iraq?

JS: Yes, but it"s not seen that way, because we live in a world of illusions. The illusion here is that Obama failed because he didn"t enforce his "line in the sand," he didn"t do more or respond more aggressively. In fact, Obama signed executive orders -secret, but released in the media- directing the CIA to cooperate with Saudi Arabia to overthrow the Assad regime. The US pumped in a tremendous amount of weapons. The Saudis, Qataris, and Turks sent even more, and also sent in jihadists.

SS: Why were they interested in overthrowing Assad?

JS: Because he"s an ally of Russia and Iran, and because they thought that they could do it in 30 days. This was a geopolitical game, and it was both shockingly naïve and exceptionally arrogant. Obama, who"s a handwringer in general, said, "Okay, we"ll do this, but we won"t do that. We"ll do just a little bit, but we"ll let the Saudis, Turks, and Qataris take the lead." But half a war is not half a disaster. We needed no war.

SS: What was the fight in Aleppo about?

JS: Assad and Russia were trying to root out the anti-Assad rebels. Who are these rebels? Who is funding and arming them? The CIA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey. So if we were to turn back the clock, Aleppo didn"t have to be destroyed. The reason it was destroyed is that the so-called US-led coalition is funding an anti-government rebellion in another country. The last time I checked the UN Charter -which is pretty frequently, actually- this behavior is completely prohibited under international law.

SS: So this brings us back to Europe"s refugee issue and the question of why the refugees are fleeing.

JS: Name one European leader who has asked that question. The whole debate in Europe focuses on whether to absorb the refugees or keep them in Turkey. Nobody asks the most basic question: why is this war raging in the first place?

Trump and the West

SS: So now we have Trump. Is he an isolationist?

JS: No, he"s not a standard isolationist. I think American foreign policy is increasingly erratic and very dangerous, and I think it will become more so under Trump. I don"t predict anything except high variance.

SS: Do you think he will withdraw from Eastern Europe? Russia"s ambitions haven"t changed.

JS: I don"t quite agree with that.

SS: Then why did Russia invade Ukraine, annex Crimea, and back the separatists in Donbas?

JS: I think that the US made a huge mistake in trying to flip Ukraine to NATO.

SS: Ukrainians wanted to join NATO.

JS: I know, but the US should say: "No way."

SS: Why?

JS: Because that"s geopolitics.

SS: They wanted to liberate themselves from Russia. If that"s their will, isn"t it their right?

JS: Sometimes actions that you truly believe are defensive are viewed on the other side as offensive. I believe that we lost a historic opportunity in 1991. I recall my first days of engagement with Poland and Russia (then still the Soviet Union), and I think of Mikhail Gorbachev"s idea for a zone of peace extending from Rotterdam to Vladivostok. One could call that idea naïve; I call it setting a target that we should have aimed at.

Instead, after 1991, US neoconservatives viewed the Soviet Union"s collapse as America"s victory. So it was America"s job to pick up the pieces, and for a while I was in agreement. I definitely supported Poland joining NATO, along with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, which I thought was justified in terms of basic geopolitics and security. When NATO expanded to the Baltic countries, however, I started to have misgivings: the closer NATO got to Russia"s own borders, the more the geopolitical West was creating unnecessary tripwires.

SS: What about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine surrendered its post-Soviet nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from the US, China, Britain, and Russia?

JS: I think the big mistake really came with NATO"s approach to Georgia and Ukraine. At a fundamental level, Russia wants a security buffer. The Soviet Union"s brutal domination of Eastern Europe for four decades after World War II was not part of a plot to control the world; it was a strategy intended to prevent Germany from invading again. So my sense is that in 2008, the prospect of NATO positioned at Russia"s borders inside Georgia and Ukraine was the last straw for the Russian security state.

SS: Neither country was actually invited to join NATO. The Alliance sent an unclear message, and, where Russia is concerned, unclear messages from the West often create higher risks.

JS: The US was pressing -there were parties in the US that were pushing hard- to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili came to the US and gave a speech in New York, which I happened to attend, in which he envisaged NATO membership, trumpeted Georgia"s European identity, and even claimed that his country sits at the heart of Europe. Most of the attendees applauded loudly. "We"re with you," they declared. I thought all of this was a dangerous geopolitical fantasy; a couple of months after he gave that speech, Russia"s invasion of his country proved that it was.

SS: What should these countries do? Must they be subordinate to Russia?

JS: Imagine that Mexico"s leaders, having decided that Trump poses a grave threat to their country"s security, formed a military alliance with China. As far as I"m concerned, it would be their choice to make. But US policymakers -Republicans and Democrats alike- wouldn"t see it that way. I don"t know what would happen the next day, but I wouldn"t want to be in Mexico City, or perhaps anywhere in the world (which would all be threatened). This is reality. And it"s why a sensible US leader would say to the Ukrainians: we care for you, we love you, but we don"t want you in NATO, because we don"t want to provoke a conflict with the major power on your border.

SS: Let"s look at the situation today. Ukraine is not in NATO; Poland and the Baltic countries are. And I"m interested in whether NATO will be there for us or not.

JS: My guess is that it will be, and I pray that Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn"t put my guess to the test. If Putin were to send troops into a Baltic state, I believe we"d have a war that could end the world.

SS: Don"t you think Trump would tolerate incursions by Russia?

JS: Russian incursions in Europe would be a disaster of possibly world-ending dimensions. I don"t think it"s going to happen. But, to answer your question, I don"t see there being much of an out for Trump, given the way the American political system works, the way our state works.

SS: They could try to find a solution with Russia.

JS: I don"t think that"s the issue. If there were an invasion of a NATO state, I would pray for our very survival.

SS: Little green men speaking Russian could appear in Estonia, like they did in Crimea three years ago. They could work under the radar of Article Five.

JS: If that happens, we"ve got a world-class disaster.

SS: America would react?

JS: Yes.

SS: You"re sure of it?

JS: Yes.

SS: What"s your prediction about Trump"s role here?

JS: What I see are a couple of instincts that are at odds with each other. One instinct is that we should have good relations with Putin. I think that that"s basically a good idea. He says we shouldn"t have been in these wars in the Middle East. I agree with that, too. My view is that we should be working with Putin in Syria to end the war there. My goal isn"t to leave Assad in power, but I think that would be the outcome of halting the effort to overthrow him, which would bring peace.

But Trump also says that he"s going to tear up the nuclear agreement with Iran, which in my view is ignorant and belligerent, and, if he follows through, could lead to terrible trouble. He may try to find a pretext or a substantive reason to cancel the deal. And if you look at Trump"s appointments, his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, gets very negative reactions in the Muslim world. The incoming CIA director, Michael Pompeo, is reportedly a similarly crude Islamophobe, whose anti-Iranian stance is a kind of ignorant reflex.

No one should forget that the agency Pompeo will lead overthrew Iran"s democratically elected leader in 1953, installing a police state that lasted until 1979. Then the US backed Saddam Hussein in Iraq"s war with Iran from 1980 to 1988, and imposed sanctions that have lasted for almost 30 years. Attacking Iran has become a blind habit of US leaders.

SS: I gather you don"t think Trump has a grand geopolitical strategy.

JS: He"s a mass of contradictions and crudeness. One minute, he says the US shouldn"t have war in the Middle East; the next, he wants to escalate tensions with Iran. The US needs to pull back from the world, he says, but it also needs to build up its military and possibly have a trade war (or even a real war) with China. This is all a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas, not a strategy. And there are no statesmen on his team who could carry one out. It is all very dangerous indeed.

Reconstructing American Politics

SS: What does that say about the state of American democracy?

JS: The US is witnessing a serious failure of its institutions. Incoherent foreign policy is a symptom of this. Public trust in government is at an all-time low, while distrust of all political figures is extraordinarily high. The two major parties exist only to finance campaigns. Many elite Americans just want to make money, and seem ready to give up democracy for tax cuts. We"re definitely in uncharted waters.

SS: Do you think American civil society can stop Trump if he makes crazy moves?

JS: On some things, yes. And perhaps a few top Republicans will tell Trump that he is not a tyrant. But we also need a revolution in politics. Representation has broken down. Americans believe -correctly, more often than not- that their congressmen serve their donors" interests, not those of their constituents. And we have this extremely dangerous plebiscitary kind of presidentialism. If I could rewrite constitutions, I would replace presidentialism everywhere with a parliamentary system. If a country is lucky enough to have a traditional and respected constitutional monarch to promote the spirit of unity, even better.

SS: So you want party rule?

JS: Yes. I want government with policies, with politics, with day-to-day accountability to the people"s elected representatives. That seems preferable to a system in which most of the electorate must agonize for four years over whether the head of government is crazy.

SS: At the same time, parties everywhere are totally demoralized and people don"t want to join them.

JS: The parties I most admire are the social-democratic parties, and they"re disappearing in most places, because their sociological base, which was trade unionism, has disappeared. We really need to reconstitute politics on a new sociological base that makes sense, given how people live, what young people do, how they earn their incomes, and so forth. So politics needs to be remade, I believe, through mass participation.

SS: People don"t want to participate.

JS: I believe they do. That"s what we"re going to find out.

Three weeks into Donald Trump"s blustering, flim-flamming presidency, a collective sense of grief has set in. Minxin Pei, Nouriel Roubini, Ngaire Woods, and other Project Syndicate columnists confront the psychic toll of a dark new epoch.

Editors" Insight: a review of the best thinking on current events and key trends.

– Mourning in America (Project Syndicate – 10/2/17)

Now that Donald Trump has challenged democratic institutions, violated American values of tolerance and openness, and questioned Western alliances, it is not unreasonable to feel a sense of grief for all that has been lost. An emotional reckoning may now be necessary to confront this new world – and to move forward constructively.

In her 1969 book On Death and Dying, the Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross famously described five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. After a tumultuous year in which the United Kingdom decided to quit the European Union and Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, many people have been left in a state of mourning. A deep sense of loss attends the realization that America might no longer serve as a pillar of global stability, economic openness, and social progress.

Bereavement follows no singular formula, of course, but as politicians, businesspeople, and citizens around the world grapple with our new age of uncertainty, they are experiencing some -or perhaps all- stages of grief. These sentiments are undoubtedly becoming more acute with each passing day of Trump"s incendiary presidency. With each new off-the-cuff tweet, executive order, and truth-challenged speech, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the international order or the global economy will come through the Trump era unscathed.

Worse still, there is no guarantee that an emotional reckoning will yield the practical solutions that the world needs to combat toxic populist politics. Over the past few weeks, Project Syndicate commentaries have shared insights that complement each of Kübler-Ross"s emotional stages. Considering them together may uncover a pathway through the anguish – and through the Trumpian chaos fueling it.

Denial

Although financial markets have (thus far) been giddy about, and easy marks for, Trump"s presidency, a point noted by the legendary investor Seth Klarman, Project Syndicate commentators are not in denial about what Trump will mean for world peace, stability, and prosperity. But some do caution against apocalyptic thinking, while others maintain hope that progress can still be made on some issues, despite the obvious dangers that Trump poses.

Michael Mandelbaum of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, for example, argues that it is simply too early to deliver a verdict on what Trump"s presidency will mean for American democracy. "Fearful pronouncements about the rise of incipient (or actual) fascism are misplaced," Mandelbaum writes. "The basic institutions of American governance have survived greater challenges than any that Trump may pose." In particular, Mandelbaum is reassured by Americans" enduring commitment to such core features of representative democracy as "free, fair, and regular elections and the protection of political, religious, and economic liberty," and he is confident that Trump will not be able to fundamentally undermine these institutions.

Ngaire Woods, the dean of Oxford"s Blavatnik School of Government, is as sanguine about Trump"s eventual international impact as Mandelbaum is about his eventual domestic record. While recognizing that the US, under Trump, "has begun to express a unilateralist creed, striking fear into the hearts of many countries worldwide," there is plenty of time, she argues, "for Trump to adopt a different mindset, as President Ronald Reagan did 25 years ago." Following the Latin American debt crisis, "Reagan began to recognize just how badly the US needed international institutions, and he moderated his positions." Like Reagan, Woods believes that "Trump"s deal-making machine will soon hit hard constraints," which could "enlighten him."

One hopes that Mandelbaum and Woods are right. But, as Princeton University professor Peter Singer observes, Trump"s executive order banning refugees and others from seven predominantly Muslim countries, will provide not only an "early test of the extent to which US courts can restrain the Trump presidency," but also of Trump"s fidelity to the rule of law. Will Trump accept the judiciary"s final ruling or spurn it and precipitate a constitutional crisis?

Although a sense of impending crisis has dominated the first weeks of Trump"s presidency, the economy isn"t reflecting this. Jim O"Neill, a former commercial secretary to the UK Treasury and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, points to six indicators from the US, China, Germany, and South Korea suggesting that the global economy is now experiencing "the fastest growth in a number of years." If so, the obvious question is why. "Some might say the trend is a result of policy decisions in the US and the UK, but far more would probably say that it is happening despite those decisions," O"Neill says. "Unfortunately, there are no indicators that provide an answer to this question – only time will tell."

Other Project Syndicate commentators see potential, if accidental, silver linings for the economy in Trump"s policy proposals. For example, Trump"s ballyhooed tax cuts and fiscal-stimulus measures will spur growth, and lead to inflation and a stronger dollar. And, as Harvard University"s Carmen Reinhart reminds us, "a steady dose of even moderate inflation will help to erode the mountains of public and private debt advanced economies have built up in the past 15 years or so."

Likewise, Daniel Gros, who directs the Center for European Policy Studies, welcomes the potential for increased demand in the US and an appreciating dollar, not least because this will "boost growth and employment in a eurozone where economic dissatisfaction is generating political turmoil." Moreover, Gros observes, "the gains will be most pronounced in the countries that most need them." And Gavekal Dragonomics Co-Chairman Anatole Kaletsky also believes that Europe, strictly speaking, has cause for optimism. "An economic rebound and a period of strong financial performance" in the European Union, he writes, could be the "biggest surprise of 2017."

Anger

But a Trumpian world is decidedly zero-sum, and the new president"s policies are causing as much fear and indignation abroad as they are in the US. The about-face in China"s reaction to Trump"s election is perhaps the starkest example of this. At first, China was very welcoming of Trump"s victory, says Claremont McKenna College"s Minxin Pei. "The advent of the Trump era -together with the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the rise of right-wing populism in other European countries- seems to herald the precipitous decline of liberal democracy"s ideological attraction." But as "[d]e-globalization now seems to be a given" under Trump, this will likely mean "some decline in China"s potential growth," which is always a deeply worrying issue for a Chinese leadership obsessed with potential domestic unrest.

"But what has China really worried are the worst-case scenarios," Pei argues. "Economic interdependence between China and the US buffers their geopolitical and ideological rivalry," he points out. "Should Trump make good on his threat to tear up trade agreements and unilaterally impose punitive tariffs," however, "the existing global trading regime will unravel, with China as one of the biggest casualties." Indeed, Trump has "convinced the Chinese leadership that he is itching for a fight."

At the same time, argue the University of Hong Kong"s Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng, the "strong dollar" that Trump"s presidency seems almost certain to bring about, at least for a time, "is not good for Asia." Sheng and Xiao are convinced that an appreciating dollar will only exacerbate problems in emerging economies that are already "suffering from low commodity prices, which are being suppressed by reduced demand."

Of course, Trump"s policies will also worsen the plight of many working-class Americans who voted for him. As New York University"s Nouriel Roubini notes, "the US dollar"s appreciation since the election could destroy almost 400,000 manufacturing jobs over time."

But Trump"s "America First" nationalism will likely make him deaf to such arguments. As Harvard"s Dani Rodrik points out, Trump"s isolationist economic instincts are the opposite of what is needed in a US president. "[I]n most economic areas -taxes, trade policy, financial stability, fiscal and monetary management- what makes sense from a global perspective also makes sense from a domestic perspective," Rodrik notes. "Economics teaches that countries should maintain open economic borders, sound prudential regulation and full-employment policies not because these are good for other countries, but because they serve to enlarge the domestic economic pie."

But, rather than expanding the pie, Trump"s flirtation with protectionism will wreak havoc on the US and global economies. As J. Bradford DeLong of the University of California at Berkeley demonstrates, Trump"s "alternative facts" about supposedly job-destroying trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement are belied by reality. According to DeLong, NAFTA is "responsible for only a vanishingly small fraction of lost US manufacturing jobs over the past 30 years." DeLong, baffled by Trump"s proposed solutions to the plight of American workers, suggests that, "it is almost as if Trump"s economic strategy […] has been designed to reduce manufacturing employment in America further."

Of course, the Trump administration will likely obscure this fact. As Simon Johnson of MIT Sloan observes, Trump"s press secretary, Sean Spicer, refuses even to "say what the unemployment rate is." And Trump himself claims that the "true" unemployment rate is 42% – an absurdly inflated figure that factors in all Americans outside of the labor force, including students and retirees.

"If Trump insists on dispensing with fact-based decision-making," Johnson warns, his base of supporters should expect to feel the "brunt of the pain." When high inflation erodes their standards of living, "Trump will not blame his own incoherent and counterproductive policies for a stronger dollar," DeLong predicts. "He will blame China and Mexico."

But if Trump"s propagandizing fails, blue-collar Americans could join the opposition, which, according to Columbia University"s Jeffrey D. Sachs, will be led by American millennials. Sachs expects that younger Americans" frustration will only grow in the coming years, as Trump pursues "corporate taxes and estate taxes that would further benefit the elderly rich (who are amply represented in Trump"s cabinet), at the expense of larger budget deficits that further burden the young."

But, whereas Sachs is confident that a new political movement can render Trump"s presidency a historical footnote, "not a turning point," Ian Buruma of Bard College is less optimistic. "Anti-Trump demonstrations in big cities will no doubt annoy the self-loving new president," he writes. "But without real political organization, mere protest will go the way of Occupy Wall Street in 2011; it will peter out into ineffectual gestures."

Bargaining

Beyond taking to the barricades, people and countries that are worried about Trump could invite the soi-disant dealmaker-in-chief to the negotiating table, or strike their own new deals without him. As Allianz Chief Economic Adviser Mohamed A. El-Erian puts it, "If Trump is to succeed in delivering the high growth and genuine financial stability that he has promised, he will need some help from abroad." In particular, Germany, China, and Japan will have to join with the US in a coordinated pro-growth strategy, or investors holding low-return German and Japanese bonds will flee to higher-yielding US bonds. This, in turn, will further strengthen the dollar and undercut any gains from Trump"s economic policies.

Another option for ameliorating Trumpism (at least for Americans) is simply to cut the administration out entirely, through what the University of California at Berkeley"s Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca, Senior Adviser at the Presidio Institute, call "progressive federalism." This strategy implies "the pursuit of progressive policy goals using the substantial authority delegated to subnational governments in the US federal system."

Even if Trump is unwilling to address significant social and economic problems, Tyson and Mendonca remind us, state and local governments still can. Moreover, a large, economically powerful state such as California can resist the Trump administration, or extract concessions from it, "by refusing to carry out federal policies that it opposes."

Internationally, US allies are also surely preparing to renegotiate certain elements of their relationship with America, and with each other. Given reports that Trump recently held an acrimonious phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans was prescient when he wrote, just after the election, that his country"s government could no longer "take coherent, smart American leadership for granted." To adapt to this new age of uncertainty, Evans advises Australia to "build closer trade and security ties with Japan, South Korea, India, and especially Indonesia, our huge near-neighbor."

Echoing this point, New America CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter and Mira Rapp-Hooper of the Center for a New American Security believe that, rather than "falling into despair, America"s Asian allies should take matters into their own hands and start networking." Slaughter and Rapp-Hooper propose a multilateral system -a form of diplomatic collective bargaining- whereby small US allies that could never individually confront the US instead band together to demand transparency and respect for their national interests.

Deeper multilateral integration will be equally important for US allies in Europe. Whereas the US was once known as the "indispensable nation," former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer thinks that France and Germany will now have to share that title. With Trump having cast doubt on the US transatlantic security umbrella, Fischer predicts that the EU will be forced to see to its own economic and military affairs. Such an arrangement would entail a new "compromise on both sides of the Rhine," whereby Germany leads on financial matters and France leads on security.

Depression

Still, even if America"s subnational governments and foreign allies can negotiate the troubled domestic and international waters of the Trump era, the world will still be adrift. And, as former Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio cautions, "before attempting to chart a new course forward, we must make our way into calmer waters." Unfortunately, there is no telling when that will be. For starters, Richard Baldwin of the Graduate Institute in Geneva points out that Trump"s economic-policy advisers have misdiagnosed the problem afflicting American workers by singling out trade, and not automation. Given that Trump"s advisers are desperately beholden to twentieth-century thinking, Baldwin laments, they will remain "intent on imposing tariffs, which will disrupt international supply chains, possibly lead to trade wars, and only hasten US industry"s shift abroad."

To be sure, Trump has enjoyed a strong stock-market rally since his election. But Roubini believes that "the corporate sector"s animal spirits may soon give way to primal fear." Investors, he argues, will soon realize that, notwithstanding the potential short-term gains, "the president"s inconsistent, erratic, and destructive policies will take their toll on domestic and global economic growth in the long run."

A key cause for concern is Trump"s interference in the corporate sector, where he has already bullied firms like Carrier and Ford over their plans to offshore production. As Princeton University"s Ashoka Mody warns, Trump"s actions threaten to "destroy the norms and institutions that govern markets," not least the "principles of transparency and fairness." Assessing Trump"s protectionist and corporatist policy inclinations, Mody concludes that Trump "will erode the international institutions and rules that underpin the US and global economies, causing massive long-term damage."

And yet, looking beyond the economic forecast, there are even more ominous clouds on the political horizon. After watching Trump"s first few weeks in office, former Polish finance minister Jacek Rostowski is convinced that the new administration "intends to roll back the progressive-egalitarian agenda" – and "not just in the United States, but globally." Rostowski suspects that Trump"s nationalist chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is "calling the political shots, and is more interested in building a permanent populist "movement" than he is in getting Trump reelected." If this turns out to be the case, the current American administration will have burned many bridges, at home and abroad, by the time Trump returns for good to his Manhattan penthouse.

Acceptance

Accepting that this worst-case scenario is a distinct possibility, worried people everywhere can at least push their leaders to start crafting a plan to deal with it. Kaletsky sees a silver lining in the fact that "Trump"s election could force Americans to recognize flaws in their own democracy" and "re-energize efforts to reform the Electoral College," which has now, for the second time this century, elected a Republican president who lost the popular vote.

For Andrés Velasco, a former finance minister of Chile, there is much to learn from Latin America"s own history of economic populism. Over the past 75 years, a long line of leaders in the region, starting with Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina, "engaged in trade protectionism, ran large budget deficits, overheated their economies, allowed inflation to rise, and eventually suffered currency crises." As Velasco notes, populists can sustain themselves for longer than one might expect, owing to an inconvenient fact that will have to be absorbed before Trumpism can be effectively confronted: "bad policies pay off, both economically and politically, long before they become toxic."

Following the same logic as his Peronist predecessors, Trump will try to keep his base of supporters on his side by bestowing on them a sense of special status, and a number of handouts, that will come at the expense of others. Eventually, however, debt will pile up, the effects of his stimulus policies will peter out, and his post-factual spectacle will succumb to reality. The working- and middle-class Americans who voted for Trump will need someone to turn to when his mystique evaporates.

It may seem unlikely that Trump supporters, having imbibed populist attacks on the motives and authority of "experts," would ever listen to academics. But perhaps they should. "Politicians, the media, and the public may have neglected the white working class," argues Helga Nowotny, a former president of the European Research Council, "but social scientists did not." Nowotny sees immense promise in ongoing investigations into the causes of inequality, the roots of terrorism, and countless other social and economic issues that weigh heavily on millions of Americans" minds. This research could yield real solutions down the road, so long as honest, fact-based scientific analysis is supported and defended in the meantime.

On a similar note, Parag Khanna of the National University of Singapore views the rise of populism as "a symptom of political leaders" failure to address voters" economic grievances," and proposes a new governance framework that connects citizens directly to committees of experts. According to Khanna, such a system of "direct technocracy" would ensure that citizens are regularly consulted, and that public policy is properly executed, using all available data and knowhow.

And Kemal Dervis, a vice president of the Brookings Institution, sees a potential alternative to right-wing populism in Emmanuel Macron"s independent bid for the French presidency this spring. "A Macron victory," Dervis suggests, "could launch a counter-trend to the populism that is sweeping the globe, by giving hope to all who are sympathetic to the left or right, but anxious about populism and hyper-nationalism."