ECONOMY: NAFTA OR PROTECTIONISM
Donald Trump
says no, yes and maybe
By Daniel Paquet dpaquet1871@gmail.com
MONTRÉAL – The Toronto-based daily newspaper, The Globe and Mail, reports last
Thursday, April 27, 2017, that “U.S. President Donald Trump has backed off a
plan to start the process of withdrawing from the North American free-trade
agreement after emergency talks with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican
President Enrique Pena Nieto.”[1]
Donald Trump was previously in complete contradiction
with the past drive of the bourgeoisie.
Marx and Engels in the Manifesto
of the Communist Party published in 1848, in London, stressed that “the
need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie
over the whole surface of the globe. It
must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere. The bourgeoisie has through its
exploitation of the world-market given a cosmopolitan character to production
and consumption in every country. To the
great chagrin of Reactionists (most surely
like Trump), it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground
on which it stood. (…) The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred
years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have
all preceding generations together.”[2]
Actually, there is a round of negotiations between the
three partners of NAFTA, which lead to be understood, that there will be a let
and take new NAFTA. For instance, “the discussions marked an abrupt about-face
after a week of touch talk and escalating tensions, during which M. Trump
repeatedly blasted Canada for taking advantage’ of the United States on softwood
lumber and dairy.”[3] But to some sources, it is a negotiating
tactic.
Frankly speaking, the opposition in USA to Mr. Trump
maneuvers is still organizing itself, while some “firms, workers and suppliers
to the protected industries would benefit initially”, from the new situation.
Even though, “the reduction in imports increases employment in the protected
industries, while lower output in other industries decreases employment. Thus while some jobs are created others are lost.
(…) Restrictive trade policies increase consumer prices and reduce overall real
incomes – directly, through higher prices of imported final consumption goods,
and indirectly, through a loss in the productivity of firms, etc.”[4] This is the economic approach of the Bank of
Canada; nevertheless they don’t have much room to intervene in the whole
process, though their evaluation of the situation is in accordance with the
reality.
It is sad to say so, but there is no real communist
opposition, neither in U.S.A. for stopping
the whole attempt of Trump and the trend of
US imperialism he speaks for; nor in Canada for that matter. Karl Marx in his booklet Wages, Price and Profit dealt with the question, especially about
the role of trade-unions. His conclusion
goes like this: “Trades Unions work well
as centres of resistance against the encroachment of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use
of their power. They fail generally from
limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system,
instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized
forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to
say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.[5]
It is especially worthy to recall what Lenin said in What is to be done? : “Class political consciousness can be brought
to the workers only from without, that
is, only from outside of the economic struggle, from outside of the sphere of
relations between workers and employers.”[6]
Let’s not forget, at last, that several enterprises
being labeled as Canadians are in fact branches of large US corporations,
operating in Canada, from where they compete with many US firms back home. The losers in this battle of giants are the
workers who will be pit against each other and threatened to be at their turn
unemployed in regions where there are no economic activities besides
exploitation of natural resources, and depending of their respective country, U.S.A.
or Canada. As for softwood lumber
industries, it represents almost 20 000 jobs (in Québec only) if there would
there be plants foreclosures.
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[1] Morrow, Adrian, Trump
changes course on NAFTA, drops threat to back out, page 1
[2] Tucker, Robert C., The
Marx-Engels Reader, W.W. Norton & Company, New-York – London, 1978,
page 476-477
[3] Ibidem, Trump… page A6
[4] Global Economy, Monetary Policy Report, Ottawa, April 2017,
page 2
[5] Foreign Languages Press, Peking,
1975, page 63; Reprinted by Red Star Publishers, New York, 2014,
[6] Foreign Languages Press, Peking,
1973, page 73
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