Éditoriaux de l’Ifri, September 1st, 2020
Looking back on the last few weeks, a famous quote by Goethe (from his report on the siege of Mainz in 1793) came to mind: “Better to commit an injustice than to countenance disorder.” In other words, disorder engenders more injustice than it eradicates. But, if one word characterises the world at the end of summer 2020, it is disorder.
The case of the United States is particularly noteworthy because the pandemic disorder is superimposed on the deeper one of a (not only racial) social fracture that existed before Donald Trump’s election, but which he amplified as if just for fun. The magic of the 45th President of the United States continues to work, however. He manages to pass himself off to half of his fellow citizens as the saviour of an America devitalized by the Democrats. His opponent Joe Biden is clearly destabilized by the situation as a whole. Trump’s autocratic counterparts, whom he admires so much, have nothing on his mastery of the art of fake news. The bottom line is that the world’s leading power has never seemed more divided since the Civil War. It is more violent than ever, and we do not see spectacular American disorder accompanied by a decrease in injustice. Whatever the outcome of the 3 November election, the United States will not suddenly come together the next day. And a divided America will not become a world leader again. This means that the international system’s disorder is not going away any time soon. Who could believe that it would advance the cause of justice?
Injustice begins with the selective gaze. Human beings are made in such a way that they feel more concerned about the “near” than the “distant”. For a few days this summer, the explosion in Beirut caught the attention of everybody in the world still interested in Lebanon, especially in France, for historical and emotional reasons dating back to the 16th century. Unfortunately, Lebanon has been experiencing a more or less latent civil war for almost half a century, with the only common ground between the communities being the plundering of the common good at the expense of any notion of Lebaneseness. As in other countries (I am thinking particularly of Algeria), its youth was rumbling with revolt long before the tragedy on 4 August, but in vain. And it is unsure whether the terms potential donors rightly set to pull the country out of the abyss will be implemented. In addition, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now on the periphery of Middle East politics as a whole, as illustrated by the spectacular rapprochement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, another highlight of recent weeks. In the new framework taking shape, revolving around the key interests of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and, outside the region, the United States, Russia and, increasingly, China, Lebanon no longer matters. In absolute terms, this is deeply unfair. Life is cruel to those who do not take sufficient care of themselves and indulge in disorder at best concealed by a trompe l’oeil décor. Here too, “history-in-the-making” reminds us that justice cannot spontaneously spring from disorder.
What can be said about Belarus? If disorder can only engender injustice, must it be deduced that one must give Alexander Lukashenko, one of those potentates who captured a part of the Soviet legacy, free rein to establish a sort of conservative monarchy increasingly out of step with the march of history? The answer is obviously no, for the fact that disorder engenders injustice does not justify preserving any order. Lukashenko has the same problem as all the regimes that, with time, have no other goal than perpetuating themselves — an illustration of Spinoza’s conatus. But if “one” must not give the Minsk dictator free rein, what must “one” do? The answer can only be political. And first of all, who is this “one”? In contemporary international relations, power still matters more than anything else. At most, it might be tempered by international law as expressed in the framework of the UN. Like it or not, “one” consists first and foremost of the States that are most interested in Belarus (other than for appearance’s sake, as is often the case in politics), starting with Russia. The Kremlin can be expected to back any formula allowing closer ties between Belarus and Russia. In the present international context, I objectively see no major player willing to invest in a Minsk Spring.
The dialectic between justice and order, or injustice and disorder, is an ever-recurring question. The news of the day, whatever it may be, can be relied upon to dissertate about it. Undoubtedly, “summer breaks” lend themselves well to such distancing. I began by quoting Goethe but, closer to us, I often think of Albert Camus, about whom much was said earlier this year on the 60th anniversary of his accidental death. Unlike Jean-Paul Sartre, the author of The Plague clearly made a distinction between revolt and revolution. In the most broadly accepted meaning of the term, revolt is above all an emotional attitude towards injustice. From the perspective of action, it is morally superior when expressed in forms of personal or collective commitment based not on hatred and blind violence – as happens in any revolution – but on ethics, necessarily winning in the long term as long as it is not corrupted. Such commitments are winning propositions because, through perseverance, they always meet their kairos, their propitious moment for success. I imagine Camus as a promoter of a philosophy of history that might be called dynamic equilibrium, like a spiral coiling around an axis of an essentially ethical nature. I do not think I am going too far in interpreting the great writer, for whom the world may have been absurd but not to the point of encouraging absurd policies.
This type of thinking is fundamental today, when, as UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres says, the spirit of international cooperation is at its lowest ebb. Violence manifests itself between but also within nations, as we see in countries as attached to the democratic ideal as France or the United States. In the face of disorder, democracies are often handicapped compared to authoritarian regimes. By dint of inefficiency, they can sometimes lose their legitimacy. Authoritarian States have immense vulnerabilities, but in certain circumstances such as the present, time can play in their favour.
I will conclude with an upbeat note on the European Union, which is once again demonstrating its ability to move forward – albeit painfully – with every major crisis. It is, on an already very large regional scale, the only living laboratory of international governance worthy of the name, which allows us to hope that in the long term democracy and efficiency will go hand in hand: economic and social efficiency, but also security efficiency, both from an internal and external point of view.
Democracy without authority is a breeding ground for authoritarianism. How can I not finish with Pascal’s famous thought: “Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical. Justice without might is gainsaid, because there are always offenders; might without justice is condemned. We must then combine justice and might, and for this end make what is just strong, or what is strong just.” In this regard, global governance still has a long way to go. So does the European Union.
PARIS – It would be foolish to start celebrating the end of US President Donald Trump’s administration, but it is not too soon to ponder the impact he will have left on the international economic system if his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, wins November’s election. In some areas, a one-term Trump presidency would most likely leave an insignificant mark, which Biden could easily erase. But in several others, the last four years may well come to be seen as a watershed. Moreover, the long shadow of Trump’s international behavior will weigh on his eventual successor.
On climate change, Trump’s dismal legacy would be quickly wiped out. Biden has pledged to rejoin the 2015 Paris climate agreement “on day one” of his administration, achieve climate neutrality by 2050, and lead a global coalition against the climate threat. If this happens, Trump’s noisy denial of scientific evidence will be remembered as a minor blip.
In a surprisingly large number of domains, Trump has done little or has behaved too erratically to leave an imprint. Global financial regulation has not changed fundamentally during his term, and his administration has flip-flopped regarding the fight against tax havens. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have carried on working more or less smoothly, and Trump’s furious tweeting did not prevent the US Federal Reserve from continuing to act responsibly, including by providing dollar liquidity to key international partners during the COVID-19 crisis. True, Trump has repeatedly spoiled international summits, leaving his fellow leaders flummoxed. But such behavior has been more embarrassing than consequential.
But, Trump will be remembered for his trade initiatives. Although it has always been difficult to determine the real aims of an administration beset by infighting, three key goals now stand out: reshoring of manufacturing, an overhaul of the World Trade Organization, and economic decoupling from China. Each objective is likely to outlast Trump’s tenure, at least in part.
Reshoring looked like a costly fantasy four years ago, and it still is in many respects. As my Peterson Institute colleague Chad Bown has documented, Trump’s chaotic trade war with the world has often hurt US economic interests. But reshoring as a policy objective has gained new life after the pandemic exposed the vulnerability entailed by depending exclusively on global sourcing. Biden has endorsed the idea, and “economic sovereignty” – whatever that means – is now a near-universal new mantra.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer claims that a “reset” of the WTO has been a high priority for the administration. If so, it has made some headway. The other G7 countries now share the long-standing US dissatisfaction with the WTO’s leniency toward China’s government subsidies and weak intellectual-property protection. There is also a recognition that some US grievances against WTO dispute-settlement procedures (and in particular the so-called Appellate Body) are valid. But whether the battle ends with a reset or the deconstruction of the multilateral trading system remains to be seen.
The major watershed is US-China relations. Although bilateral tensions were apparent before Trump’s election in 2016, nobody spoke of a “decoupling” of two countries that had become tightly integrated economically and financially. Four years later, decoupling has begun on several fronts, from technology to trade and investment. Nowadays, US Republicans and Democrats alike view bilateral economic ties through a geopolitical lens.
It is not clear whether Trump merely precipitated a rupture that was already in the making. He is not responsible for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian assertiveness, and he did not devise the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s massive transnational infrastructure and credit program. But it was Trump who ditched his predecessor Barack Obama’s carefully balanced China strategy in favor of a brutally adversarial stance that left no scope for events to take a different course. Whatever the cause of decoupling, there won’t be a return to the status quo.
A Biden administration would also not find it easy to achieve its goal of restoring ties with US allies, like-minded democracies, and partners around the world. Until Trump’s presidency, much of the world had become accustomed to regarding the US as the main architect of the international economic system. As Adam Posen, also of the Peterson Institute, has argued, the US was a sort of chair-for-life of a global club whose rules it had largely conceived, but still had to abide by. The US could collect dues, but was also bound by duties, and had to forge a consensus on amendments to the rules.
Trump’s trademark has been to reject this approach and treat all other countries as competitors, rivals, or enemies, his overriding objective being to maximize the rent that the US can extract from its still-dominant economic position. “America First” epitomizes his explicit promotion of a narrow definition of the national interest.
Even if the US under Biden were willing to make credible international commitments again, its outlook may change lastingly. The former Trump adviser Nadia Schadlow recently argued that Trump’s tenure will be remembered as the moment when the world pivoted away from a unipolar paradigm to one of great-power competition.
It is by no means obvious that if Biden wins, he will be able to restore the trust of America’s international partners. For all its aberrations, Trump’s presidency may indicate a deeper US reaction to the shift in global economic power, and reflect the American public’s rejection of the foreign responsibilities their country assumed for three-quarters of a century. The old belief among US allies and economic partners that Americans will “ultimately do the right thing,” as Winston Churchill reputedly said, may be gone.
In any event, Trump’s peculiar behavior has made it easy for America’s allies to postpone hard choices. That seems particularly true of Europe. A Biden-led US might seem like a familiar partner to most European leaders. But if it asked them to take sides in the confrontation with China, Europe would no longer be able to put off its own moment of decision.
Read the article on Project Syndicate’s website