Latest news with #isolationism
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
MAGA's Misguided Isolationists
The press is full of reporting on the 'MAGA civil war' over Iran, but what's notable is that the loudest isolationists appear to be losing the debate. It's worth considering how they've misread the historical moment, the views of most Republicans, and above all President Trump. Start with the threat and the mission. Like leftists after Vietnam, the new-right isolationists see every U.S. military intervention as a slippery slope to disaster. Instead of Vietnam Syndrome, they suffer from Iraq Syndrome: Every U.S. intervention will turn into a quagmire of 'nation-building,' or even catastrophe.
Irish Times
11-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
The US is discovering what it means to have an isolationist economy
The world's economic policymakers, Ireland's included, are navigating a bewildering and exceptionally misguided change of course by their counterparts in Washington DC. The White House has opted for a set of over-reaching economic policy demarches that are likely to weaken its dominance in economic and financial spheres, as well as damaging the economies of its trading partners, including Ireland. Thanks to the global, open, rules-based system that it has promoted and steered since the second World War, the US economy has been growing much more quickly than Europe's (though distributing the benefits very unequally). But now Donald Trump's administration has switched to a restrictive stance, relying on bilateral international negotiations backed up with threats. This abrupt change of policy orientation is unlikely to be successful. For one thing, the United States is no longer the unchallenged hegemon of a unipolar system: its rivalry with China is incomparably more closely matched than a quarter century ago. As a result of the barriers with which it is fragmenting the global trading system, the administration is discovering the vulnerabilities of an isolationist US economy as it scrambles to find substitutes for numerous inputs that it is not well-positioned to mine or manufacture at home quickly or at a reasonable cost. The challenges are becoming increasingly evident as container ships return half-empty across the Pacific. READ MORE Furthermore, growing corruption in circumvention of the prohibitive tariffs is inevitable. [ EU opts for bigger tariff stick as Trump turns up nose at carrots Opens in new window ] US dominance in finance is also being undermined. The global financial system has long been built around the dollar, giving the US government the 'exorbitant privilege' (as former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing called it) of much cheaper financing for its persistent deficit, thanks to the dollar being seen as a safe haven. But the chaotic actions and pronouncements from the White House have shaken financial market confidence, leading now instead to a retreat from the dollar into other assets. Creditworthiness is built slowly, but lost quickly: if there is much more of this confusion, the reputation of US treasury securities may not fully recover, adding permanently to the cost of financing those large deficits. This could open financial opportunities for Europe, but more immediately likely is a period of exchange-rate turbulence. Already in just eight weeks in March and April, the market value of the euro rose from $1.02 to $1.15. Other new dimensions of US policy are equally damaging to its economy. Large-scale deportation of immigrants, as threatened by the administration, will constrain US economic activity and increase prices. Undermining university autonomy and research programmes will weaken its academic leadership and hence the science-based innovation that has been an essential ingredient in the country's economic advance. Further aspects – for example, the suspension of measures protecting biodiversity and combating climate change, as well as issues relating to military security and political governance more generally – are even more alarming for the whole world. There will be no easy return to the status quo ante. If the policy flip-flopping is intended to generate uncertainty as a negotiating tactic, this is bought at the price of long-term heightened market suspicion. By violating long-standing norms, the White House is effectively giving the green light to further and different violations by future incumbents. An apparent fragility in the much-vaunted restraints provided by the US constitution's separation of powers is thus revealed. Expectations and behaviour on all sides will inevitably respond. Even if the retreats from the worst of its excesses, much damage has been done, both to the US and to the economies of its trading partners. [ No limits? Why the United States could be on the verge of a constitutional crisis Opens in new window ] On a realistic assessment, many of the objectives declared by the US president (not least the annexation of Canada) are out of reach. Several are mutually inconsistent. It is therefore unclear where the kaleidoscopic path of current US policy is headed. The bilateral economic negotiations are being accompanied by a sharp increase in the use of varying forms of coercion including linkages to unrelated areas. Military assistance to Ukraine requiring access to minerals; a tariff reprieve for Japan only if it promises to hold US bonds; unspecified trade restrictions against Denmark unless it cedes some control over Greenland. Such linking of issues weakens the hand of a small country negotiating with a powerful entity. On its own, Ireland holds few cards in terms of economic weight: only through the EU can that be brought to bear in a collective way. Ireland does have some soft power, based on the historic connections. But the fact that Ireland has had such good friends in the United States over the years seems little protection now. Indeed, close allies have been among the countries most affected by the tariffs. Less so for Ireland, but only because the tariff regime for pharmaceuticals – by far Ireland's biggest export to the United States – has not yet been finalised. Indeed, US pharma companies have accelerated their shipments from Ireland to get them delivered in advance of new tariffs (probably triggering a final boost to Irish corporation tax receipts from that sector). Tariffs are not the only threat to Irish tax receipts, and in any case are a matter for the EU. There is the wider specific Irish vulnerability to changes in the US corporate tax regime – though these would have to be voted through Congress and are not fully controlled by the White House. The centrality of the EU as the foundation of Ireland's economic relations is brought into sharp relief. That is not to ignore the need for greater governmental vigour in improving the social and physical infrastructure for supporting national economic prosperity. And it does not mean turning our back on the US or on the US-based firms that have established here. But it does mean contributing wholeheartedly to the common stance that will be taken by the EU. This applies both in economic negotiations with the Trump administration and as the EU attempts – as it must – to fill the leadership gap created by the US retreat from climate, security and other global public challenges. Patrick Honohan was governor of the Central Bank of Ireland from 2009 to 2015
Asia Times
04-04-2025
- Business
- Asia Times
After America: Redefining global leadership in an age of collapse
For decades, the world moved along a singular track of development laid down by the United States. As the geopolitical anchor and architect of the post–World War II global order, America not only offered security and investment—it also sold a dominant narrative of what progress meant. Liberal democracy, free markets, infinite growth—these were packaged as the only legitimate path to the future. But quietly, we began to realize the cost. Ecological destruction. Social inequality. A deepening crisis of meaning. The question now is no longer whether this model works but why we still cling to it even as its cracks grow louder and wider. As American dominance falters—marked by rising isolationism, trade wars and declining global trust—many will lament the vacuum of global leadership. But perhaps in that very vacuum lies a long-overdue invitation: a moment to pause, turn around and ask again—what kind of development do we truly need? Not just development that creates jobs or fuels GDP, but one that sustains life, heals the planet and restores human dignity in our relationship with each other and the Earth. The development model that America designed and spread—through institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO—quietly imposed a hierarchy of values. A country was deemed 'advanced' if its economy grew fast, its markets opened wide and its laws conformed to global standards set by a privileged few. But today, we live in a world fractured by climate crisis, ecological exhaustion and extreme inequality. In such a world, development can no longer mean expansion; it must become consolidation. Not scaling up extraction but rebalancing power and rethinking how we relate to nature, capital and each other. This reckoning reached a turning point in 2025, when Donald Trump returned to the presidency and declared what he called 'Liberation Day' on April 2. Standing at the White House, he announced sweeping tariffs on nearly all imports, framing them as an act of economic emancipation—an attempt to free the United States from what he called the shackles of unfair global trade. But beyond its protectionist aims, Liberation Day marked something far more symbolic: the world's leading superpower formally retreating from the very global order it had built and championed for decades. Suddenly, the stage lacked an anchor. And in that moment of rupture, a door opened—not just for trade realignments but for deeper reflection. Has global development ever truly been designed for all? Or has it long functioned as a mechanism to prolong dominance beneath the language of universality? We often associate sustainability with clean energy, green tech, and ESG investing. But true sustainability demands more than surface solutions: It requires structural change. The world cannot achieve ecological balance while its economic logic still rewards fossil fuel dependency, large-scale mining and supply chains that externalize harm. There will be no climate justice as long as financial systems continue to incentivize extractive growth. And there can be no real sustainability if it remains a corporate slogan rather than a core principle of global governance. America's dominance normalized inequality. Countries deep in debt were pressured to cut social protections to meet loan conditions. Environmental regulations were weakened in the name of competitiveness. Even the energy transition was calculated through the lens of profit, not collective survival. What the world needs now is not just redistribution of resources but a redistribution of direction. A reorientation of what development is meant to serve and whom. Still, a world without a dominant power carries its own risks. Multipolarity without ethics can easily descend into new forms of chaos. Those stepping into the void may replicate the very logic they seek to replace: seeking influence, expanding control and chasing growth. The question, then, is not who leads—but how we redefine leadership itself. Leadership not as domination but as collective responsibility. Leadership that serves life, not leverage. We need global institutions that are no longer beholden to geopolitical monopolies. The United Nations must be reformed to be more democratic and responsive. The IMF and World Bank must abandon their outdated logic of austerity and begin centering justice. Global trade must internalize ecological and social costs into its core pricing structures. This is not a technical reform. This is a transformation of values. Because no system can fix the crisis it was designed to protect unless it first changes what it believes to be valuable. At this juncture, we must find the courage to admit: sustainable development is not about balancing growth with the environment—it's about choosing the values that guide our lives together. Will we continue to measure progress through GDP? Or will we begin to ask deeper questions—about community resilience, ecological limits and our shared capacity to live with dignity? If American dominance handed us one model that dismissed these questions, then a post-American world must become the space where they are answered—honestly, urgently and together. Perhaps for the first time in modern history humanity stands at the threshold of redesigning the global order—not from the ruins of war, but from a consciousness quietly rising from within the wreckage of illusion. A consciousness that knows the planet cannot endure another century of extractive ambition. That the climate crisis is not just technical, it is moral. And that true sustainability cannot be owned by any single country, system or ideology. If we can see America's retreat not as a void but as an opening—for co-creation, co-responsibility, and collective redesign—then we are entering a new era of development. One not obsessed with speed but rooted in depth. One not built on control, but on shared stewardship. One that refuses to be dictated by markets alone and begins instead with meaning. From here, a quieter kind of hope can emerge. Not loud or triumphant, but grounded and enduring. A hope that does not seduce us with promises, but one that invites us back to what matters. The chance to build a world that no longer serves empire but serves life. Setyo Budiantoro is Nexus Strategist at The Prakarsa, MIT Sloan IDEAS Fellow 2024, and member of the Advisory Committee of Fair Finance Asia
