Tariffs are not just bad policy; they exemplify big-government rule by international elites.
Manafort is certainly correct that Brexit stood for national sovereignty above international bureaucracy, national democracy above global governance from above. But there is one problem: Brexit’s brand of anti-globalism isn’t Trump’s brand of anti-globalism. Conflating the two is both rhetorically dishonest and ideologically dangerous.
In TrumpWorld, “globalism” has been a buzzword bugaboo for months, ever since Trump dumped it in the middle of a foreign-policy speech. “We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism,” Trump thundered back in April. “The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony.”
So far, this definition of anti-globalism lines up with Brexit’s: prizing local sovereignty over a faraway, unrepresentative authority. Actually, it’s pure founding ideology — in Federalist 9 and 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, argued in favor of devolving most control to local governance, based largely on the ideas of Montesquieu. Internationally, the idea would be that each civilization ought to be able to control its future, something that certainly holds true for both Britain and the United States.
If that were all Trump meant by “globalist” — that we should not delegate control over our republic to Brussels or the assemblage of moral idiots at the United Nations — his critique of globalism would be inarguable.
But it isn’t.
When Trump decries “globalism,” he goes beyond mere allegiance to the notion of American sovereignty: He means rage at international relations generally, including trade relations. Those who celebrate Brexit could still be “globalists” in Trump’s world if they support free-trade agreements.
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The history of protectionism in the United States is long and inglorious. The so-called Tariff of Abominations, initiated under John Quincy Adams in 1828, helped drive distrust and conflict between the North, which wanted it, and the South, which didn’t. The McKinley Tariff of 1890 was so unpopular that it resulted in the Republicans’ being booted from control of Congress and the presidency. One of the worst political deals of all time — the passage of the 16th Amendment, allowing the federal government to collect an income tax — occurred only because Republicans were so addicted to protectionism that they agreed to accept the income tax in return for Democratic support for tariffs. The disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariff, which helped deepen and lengthen the Great Depression, was the last gasp of a failed ideology; the revival of protectionist ideology in Latin America has doomed the people of Venezuela, among others, to breaking each other’s heads in disputes over loaves of bread.
The history of free trade on the other hand demonstrates that, when unshackled from government bureaucracy, private parties trading with one another both see benefit. The American Revolution was fought largely in an attempt to break free of protectionist measures from the mother country. The early republic placed low tariffs on foreign goods to raise government revenue, but not out of a widespread desire to “protect” domestic industry. America’s economic growth during the Tariff of Abominations period came largely from territorial expansion to the West, not from locking out competitors from domestic markets. In the aftermath of World War II, free trade helped America outcompete the Soviet Union and raise the standard of living more dramatically both in the United States and across the world than ever before. America’s global power was built not on the back of protectionism, but on the back of free trade.
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But in reality, Trump’s “globalism” cry isn’t policy-driven. It’s just another insult to toss at anyone who opposes Trump — even if the insult itself makes no sense.
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Exactly. The protectionists are the real big-government elitists. https://t.co/p6ttwlrN9Q
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) June 29, 2016
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