The Marshall Plan remains one of the sparkling highlights of America’s WWII triumph. While revisionists have questioned how much it affected the pace of European economic recovery, and its scope is certainly not what the American exceptionalist crowd extols in their efforts to argue for permanent US moral righteousness, it was a visionary act of generosity. Without it, the speed of post-war economic recovery would have been greatly reduced, imperiling the vitality of democratic governments challenged by communist movements as well as remnants of right wing populism.
The $13 billion dollar program cemented American consensus away from pre-war isolationism, and underwrote a new global economy, as well as geo-political strategy. The free trade regime that emerged from Bretton Woods promised generations of US prosperity, as we exported the goods our wartime industrial machine was fully ready to produce. The synergy of post-war European potential and available US resources and capability was undeniable. George Marshall was no fool.
How we benefited from The Marshall Plan, and free trade, as well as how our political system allowed itself to be corrupted, wounding the golden goose we created at Bretton Woods, are particularly relevant to the folly Trumpism is currently pursuing.
The idea trade relationships, or for that matter any of our dealings with the world, happen in a vacuum, free of any systemic context history creates is infantile. Yet here we are, apparently held hostage by a POTUS convinced fulfilling his nihilist promises to a base of supporters almost as ignorant as he will deliver him from personal ruin. But where knee jerk protectionism is involved, the Democratic response is usually disheartening. To hear Chuck Schumer muse he wanted to give Trump “a pat on the back” for tweeting up a trade fight with China, and then meekly “urging the President” not to issue sweeping tariffs against our closest allies under arcane national security provisions, is to realize there exists no resistance to White House nihilism furiously destroying our position abroad. Allies who have lost soldiers fighting along side US troops in Afghanistan and the Middle East are now treated as threats to our security.
Trump presents trade balances as one would an invoice to a delinquent client (talk about surreal irony)… “You owe us! This isn’t fair.” One can only imagine Trudeau and Merkel et al feeling a punch in their stomachs at the full realization of how ugly, misinformed, and worst of all, unrestrained Trump is. That Trump panders to a base of nihilists is dangerous; that he actually believes the guff he’s selling is a crisis; worst of all, that he enjoys some degree of bipartisan support for his trade arson is truly ruinous.
Both the public and private tone of the allied response to US steel and aluminum tariffs is unprecedented. Sources disclosed a phone conversation between Trump and Macron of France “went terribly”. Macron, applying lipstick to the ugliest pig at the fair, said simply he has a “direct” style of communication. And we all know how well our POTUS takes criticism. Speaking of which, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, interviewed on Meet the Press, flatly labeled the actions “insulting and unacceptable.” As for any new deals the tariffs may be designed to motivate, Trudeau rejected out of hand the Administration’s preference for pacts that end just as the ink dries. “You don’t sign a trade deal that automatically expires every five years,” declared the Prime Minister.
Newly minted Administration lackey Larry Kudlow, fully channeling his Fox/AM skill set for misrepresenting facts, downplayed Trudeau’s dismay, while exposing his own weak hand. He called the whole thing a “family quarrel,” while adding the measures “may go on for a while or may not.” Whether that is Kudlow admitting he has no idea what Trump will do, or lays bare a strategy to simply bully our closest allies and trade partners into concessions based on a false narrative conjured up for Trump’s wretched core base, American credibility is being destroyed in chunks.
Schumer has maintained all along Dems will work with Trump where possible. When he initially made that pledge last spring most read into it a carrot for sanity: reward responsible governance with some degree of bipartisanship and legitimization of Trump’s Presidency. In other words, act like an adult, we’ll treat you like an adult. A year and a half later we have an unhinged, uninformed and wholly adolescent POTUS, who tweets hourly his disinterest in anything other than what reinforces the ardor of his partisans. In other words Chuck, he has failed miserably to live up to his end of the bargain.
Yet and still, Schumer and company, steeped in past myths of “unlevel playing fields”, and accepting of Trump’s “we’ve been taken to the cleaners” guff, seem willing to at least stay muted as 70 years of good faith and trust is assaulted in clear contradiction of the national interest. Which does little for their knight in shining armor bona fides. Last January, after Trump’s worthless 16-minute inaugural diatribe, I declared we are all alone. To be charitable, the “noble opposition” seems deliberately paced at allaying such concerns. Honestly, at this point there is a word for picking and choosing Trumpism you can live with… complicity! Get pissed for your country. BC