A 1973 trade agreement among 178 countries sought to control trade of endangered species such as elephants. The brutal slaughter of elephants was not for sport, but for the ivory tusks that, in the end, are harvested, sold, and carved into some sort of trinket. International trade has origins that still create heated timeline discussions, but suffice it to say that mankind has always seen the benefit of giving his best good in exchange for his neighbor’s best good.
Currently, there are three ongoing movements in trade policy that are currently impacting the world: Brexit, NAFTA/USMCA, and TPP/CPTPP.
Brexit was voted into place by the United Kingdom parliament in June 2016 under the leadership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This severing of dependence from 27 other European countries under the governance of five separate and distinct councils was an attempt to leverage the British pound in its own right for separate bargaining power from EU influence.
Set to take effect in March of 2019, but derailed by bureaucracy, the recent measures were put into place on January 31, 2020. Notwithstanding some loose ends regarding how citizens would now measure up against the new system from border checks to fishing rights, along with other financial new orders, there is a current deadline that is upcoming. Prime Minister Johnson is willing to walk away from any further trade dealings with the European Union in order to finalize UK Independence and has issued an October 2020 deadline for a friendly agreement to be put into place.
Also looming in international trade discussions is that of the restructuring of President Bill Clinton’s NAFTA, signed into agreement in December 1993. Exactly 25 years later, President Donald J. Trump expressed discontent from the 2016 campaign trail until his third year in office and vowed to restructure a deal that would boost the middle class again. This was achieved by a vote of a Democratic-operated Congress on December 19, 2019, just one day after the same body voted to impeach him.
NAFTA, in its earlier form, has shipped away America’s prosperity to other countries by virtue of outsourcing jobs in return for cheap labor and creating wealth for other countries instead of the homeland. Congress followed suit with President Trump’s agenda to reverse the decades old unfair trade deals by signing this order on the heels of the G20 conference, a world powerhouse think tank operation for climate change, global economic agenda, and world prosperity and peace. The announcement was made to reporters by President Trump on the Air Force One flight out of Buenos Aires and even lauded by presidential contender Joe Biden for the USMCA agreement, the NAFTA restructuring treaty that involves Mexico and Canada.
Finally, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) promoted by President Obama in 2016 was a free-trade agreement involving 11 countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. The countries named were Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. The original intent of the deal was to act as a catalyst in continuing to push investments that consisted of 40% of the global economy firepower. The TPP was never ratified with the United States’ name on it and was finally executed in March of 2018 without U.S. participation.
Trump was of like mindset of one time opponent Hillary Clinton, a once presidential hopeful, who also felt that U.S. prosperity was at stake with jobs being shipped overseas to the tune of more risk for the United States that would potentially embolden drug countries and currency manipulation. Despite his earlier withdrawal, President Trump revisited the benefits of TPP by January of 2017; however by December of 2018 he made the call not to ratify due to the negative impact to U.S. farmers, specifically cattlemen that were being overrun with the products of spacious pasturelands of Australia. Now that the COVID-19 has likely irreversibly impacted beef farmers, the chances of an American reconsideration of a new Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) may have vanquished for all times.
While it may seem two steps forward and one step back for progress, there are varying opinions about the obvious trend from globalism. First and foremost, a forced push to make the break in the face of a deadly virus, but secondly, a self-imposed return inward for established global powers.
That American protectionism has grown significantly under President Trump should come as no surprise to the world, as he made no bones about his agenda from day one. Included in his agenda, besides defending borders, are policies that do away with unfair trade deals to the United States and lead toward sustainable American middle class prosperity in the homeland. While old-world mercantilism will most likely not be completely reestablished, elements of mercantilism and a separation from the current dependence on other countries created at the pinnacle of globalism looks to prove a necessary roadmap into the foreseeable future of emergency preparedness.
While some economic strategists, such as Nicolas Véron, a senior fellow at Bruegel think tank in Brussels and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, are critical of the Trump administration in his protectionist policies, Trump’s slow timeline on any further globalization at this time may be the very unforeseen measure that creates the type of self-reliance for the United States that will provide homeland sustenance and security in a world that is hellbent on bringing a new world order that would love nothing more than one world currency and one world religion.
The elephant in the room for the 2020 election is that President Donald J. Trump did what he said he would do in making America great again. Those who hate President Trump pretend it’s about killing an elephant, when it was about the ivory all along—big money and motivation for themselves, trinkets to America.
Time has shown Trump as a man to which even his enemies come to be at peace with him. Though he squashed the years long fight for the Broadcom-Qualcomm merger in the name of national security, President Trump recently placed Malaysian Chinese CEO Hock Tan on his economic revival task force. After denying the United Arab Emirates ownership of six major U.S. seaports, a deal in the works since Bush 43, he invites the U.A.E. to the White House lawn to sign a peace treaty alongside Benjamin Netanyahu. After her festering vitriol toward Trump in the 2016 election, he strategically removes Nikki Haley as Governor of South Carolina and sends her over to the U.N. to finally become one of his biggest cheerleaders.
If you think this election is about Trump, think again. This election is the last stand of America before the protection of God is debunked by those who enshroud themselves in well-meaning movements, but have nothing but hatred of God and country in their hearts. This, stirred within minutes by the mere report of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and something tells me the elephant in room is that this battle is already won.
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