Conservatives See ‘Liberal’ World Order Fraying

By MARK ANDERSON

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) President Richard Haass, via video feed, was recently the special guest of a British House of Lords panel led by Lord David Howell of the Conservative Party. Representing North America’s most influential think tank — which was seeded by Rockefeller and Morgan interests and founded 1921 — Haass’ assessment of the status and future of the post-World War II “liberal” trade and financial system indicated that the system’s elite managers feel that either a shift in their power, or a loss of it, lies ahead.

Notably, Haass said that the Trump presidency is the main cause of the shift. This illustrates something that is being overlooked: President Trump, like him or not, is upsetting the elite apple cart in a manner that benefits populism.

In an “on the record” International Relations Committee discussion, Haass, Howell and the other Lords on the panel soberly agreed that Trump appears intent not only on weakening or trashing the World Trade Organization; he also seems bent on drastically overhauling the North American Free Trade Agreement, if not scrapping it.

The basic infrastructure of the monopoly capitalist, plutocratic “rules-based” trade and economic order was created at the June 1944 Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire. It is seen by the trans-nationalist class as the touchstone of the modern era, having ushered into existence the IMF, World Bank and what became the WTO. But Haas told the panel that this order is “fraying” at the edges.

“This is a particularly dynamic moment in history,” Haass said. “The institutions that shaped the post-World War II world are, by definition, 70 years old and they haven’t adapted. There are new issues that we simply don’t have new arrangements to contend with, from [cyber security] to issues like climate change . … For these and other reasons, the world had been moving toward greater disarray.”

Haass said the key to understanding this “disarray” is: “The United States, under the current president, is not prepared to carry out its traditional role — and, by traditional, I mean a role that was largely embraced by every American president from Harry Truman to Barrack Obama.”

However, “disarray,” in the CFR’s vernacular, means the establishment’s unwanted departure from the top-down, rigged system installed incrementally after the Civil War in the age of the robber barons—from which the CFR descended to integrate corporate power with government power. Money-creation authority was handed to the private Federal Reserve as of 1913. And Bretton Woods was the next paradigm shift, after the Fed’s creation.

The real traditional American foreign policy was announced by Presidents Washington and Jefferson as peaceful relations and fair trade with all nations, but entangling alliances with none. What the CFR chief defines as “traditional” is the system described above, which has led to entangling alliances, civilizational clashes, and perpetual, unwinnable war. Those of Haass’ persuasion basically assume that the world as they know it began with Truman.

“I do think that this is the first president [Trump] … who has fundamental issues or differences with the idea of the United States playing the leading role or the foundational role in many areas of international relations and supporting what’s widely described as the liberal world order,” Haass continued. “The United States has pulled back from that role. … And there’s no other country or set of countries, or set of actors, who are both able and willing to fully substitute for the United States.”

Therefore, the panelists and Haass wondered if foreign officials might just as well “wait it out” until Trump is either voted out in 2020 or is term-limited in 2024 — or suck it up and work with him as best they can.

What this means is that the American people — liberal populists, conservative populists, Democrats, Republican, Libertarians, etc.—may want to rethink the endless media-fed criticism of Trump at this juncture. True, he’s often tactless, rash, brutish, rather corrupt (a D.C. requirement) and many other things, for good or ill. But his nativism that many find so offensive also happens to offend the world elite that pulls the major levers of corporate-governmental power.

Politics indeed makes strange bedfellows. And given the CFR chief’s remarks, with the snooty House of Lords panel expressing agreement with him, the people of the US just might need Trump for a while yet. The very things that some people dislike about him just might subdue the free trade system that for too long has ravaged the American people, of all classes, races and persuasions.

Mark Anderson is a journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2018

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