samedi 12 janvier 2019


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, reported (on 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, year 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,  negotiations took place between the three partners of NAFTA, which lead to be understood, to 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 was a negotiating tactic.
Frankly speaking, the opposition in USA to Mr. Trump maneuvers were 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, when 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, especially in U.S.A.  for stopping the whole attempt of Trump and the trend of US imperialism that he speaks for; neither in Canada for that matter.  Karl Marx in his book 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 noteworthy 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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