Donald Trump’s latest Executive Order, issued last week, could foreshadow a dangerous trade war with China and the European Union. It suggests that the nationalists in his administration have got the upper hand for now, and their ideology – for all of their bashing big trade deals like NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) – is no more conducive to a fairer or more peaceful world than the neoliberals they replace. Far from it. Trade is an issue on which Trump’s cabinet is particularly divided. Unfortunately, neither side in this battle is worth rooting for.
The neoliberals vs the nationalists
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Gary Cohen, Wikimedia[/caption] In one corner is Trump’s economic advisor Gary Cohn, an investment banker and former president of Goldman Sachs. Cohn got a $284million severance package to join Trump, and has a reputation for aggressive, risky behaviour. Also in Cohn’s corner is Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin – Goldman partner and hedge fund founder. Both are keen to remove Obama’s post-crash financial regulation and slash corporate taxes, policies which have helped their former corporation’s share price rally to the point that the Financial Times describes as “embarrassing.” Cohn and Mnuchin are the neoliberals we’ve got used to – they want free trade, free markets and an easy life for their corporate friends. How do you lose a popularity war with these guys? Well, in the other corner stands Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Ross is a billionaire investor known as the ‘bankruptcy king’, because of his aggressive asset-stripping strategy – buying up failing companies and selling them on without regard for jobs, pensions or safety standards. Ross was fined in 2016 for breaking financial regulations and his company sued for negligence when, in 2006, 12 miners died in an explosion. He made millions during the financial crisis, both from mortgage foreclosures and bank bailouts. In Ross’s corner is Peter Navarro, at the National Trade Council, author of ‘The Coming China Wars’ and ‘Death by China’. [caption id="attachment_909" align="alignnone" width="667"]
