[Author’s note: This was originally posted on LinkedIn November 28, 2016 a few weeks after tRump stole the presidency with Putin’s help.]
The proposed United States pull out from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] for trade will be the final kick in the teeth to American Vietnam Veterans – those soldiers who bravely served in distant jungles and mountains under horrific conditions. The U.S. pull out from TPP removes the lasting worth that those Veterans created – an Asian region made stable by continuing American influence. That is to say, Vietnam may have become a communist country. But the tide of communist insurgency in South East Asia was pushed back by U.S. forces. The region and our country should honor these men for a job well done. The proof of their victory was the opening of communist Vietnam to the rest of the world just a few short decades after the war. The stability in the region, even in the face of global terrorism, cannot be disputed, thanks to our Vietnam Veterans.
The lack of global strategic thinking that has led to the decision to pull out of TPP has far more serious consequences than the final indignation of giving up American made influence and stability in the region. Apart from its attempts to stop the communist domino effect, America has fostered peaceful cooperation throughout the region since World War II. We have very successfully curtailed China’s influence throughout the region while at the same time developing a positive economic relationship with that country.
Abdicating our influence and our ability to maintain stability in the western Pacific Rim will not help the “left behind” workers of the United States. In fact, the TPP should provide more opportunities for U.S. workers through its focus on opening up economies to one another and setting labor and environmental standards. No longer will American workers be disadvantaged by an uneven playing field tilted in the direction of low cost countries. The trade partnership will ensure a level playing field, thus empowering U.S. workers.
Such an abdication will set up an Asian Regional scenario very similar to what existed in Europe prior to World War II. Contrary to popular punditry and media claims, China is not ready, willing nor able to supplant the United States as a global super power.
“China … has an impressive imperial lineage and a strategic tradition of carefully calibrated patience, which have been critical to its overwhelmingly successful several-thousand-year-long history. China thus prudently accepts the existing international system, even if not viewing as permanent the prevailing hierarchy within it. It recognizes that its own success depends on the system not collapsing dramatically but instead evolving toward a gradual redistribution of power. It seeks more influence, craves international respect, and still resents its “century of humiliation,” but increasingly feels self-confident about the future. Unlike the failed twentieth-century aspirants to world power, China’s international posture is at this stage neither revolutionary nor messianic nor Manichean.
“Moreover, the basic reality is that China is not yet – nor will it be for several more decades—ready to assume the full scope of America’s role in the world. Even China’s leaders have repeatedly emphasized that in every important measure of development, wealth, and power – even several decades from now – China will still be a modernizing and developing state, significantly behind not only the United States but also Europe and Japan in the major per capita indexes of modernity and national power.”1
If the United States allows domestic politics to turn protectionist, it will create power vacuums in every region where it currently has influence and maintains stability. The globe will fall into a chaotic state as regional players vie to fill the leadership void.
Does the withdrawal from TPP indicate America’s “retirement from its role of global policeman”? The milieu that led to the recent election outcome would seem to indicate an American move toward protectionism. Our “retirement” would create major opportunities for regional powers to “go after” environmental resources greatly increasing the likelihood of resource wars. This could become a very explosive point between China and Russia over water rights.
A protectionist movement in the United States will also undermine its leadership in the fight against climate change. This will spell doom for many species on the planet and create an environment where conflict is more likely.
Think for a minute about the impact of protectionism at home. NAFTA has influenced our neighbors to the south in very positive ways. Our relationship and the situation with Mexico have become increasingly stable over the past two decades. If the U.S. pulls out of NAFTA, Mexico’s progress will disintegrate. That country will fall into social, political, and economic chaos. Just imagine how brutal things will become. No wall will stop that chaos and brutality from spilling into the United States. The poor and the needy along with the rich and the greedy will look at America as a land of promise to be entered and ravaged for safety or personal gain.
The United States cannot continue to be the global policeman. But America needs to be an exemplary global nation state. We need to maintain our influence and foster peaceful cooperation in the regions where we have a presence. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is one way to manifest this leadership.
The American people need to decide, not one man.
Write your representatives. Let them know that an unstable world is not the type of place for you, your children and your grandchildren. Tell them that you expect America to be exceptional in its example to the world. Consider asking them to support TPP and NAFTA in the face of ignorant, protectionist, pressure to pull out.
1 Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Strategic Vision: America and the crisis of global power. Copyright 2012. Basic Books.
November 28, 2016