Photo Source pxl | CC BY 2.0
Donald Trump is a miscreant, worse than any president in modern times. Nevertheless, he is sometimes more right than Democrats and their media flacks. His express views on the multi-lateral institutions that regulate global trade in capitalism’s current neoliberal phase are an obvious example. Trump thinks, or says that he thinks, that American workers have been getting a raw deal. He is right.
The agreements in place are good for global capital and therefore for American corporate moguls and Wall Street financiers, but not for workers in the United States or anywhere else.
There are a few comparatively progressive Democrats who do want to make existing arrangements less harmful to workers and the environment. But even they don’t want to change anything fundamental. Mainstream Democrats support the neoliberal status quo more or less as is.
The American labor movement has opposed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, ever since its inception in 1994. The Clinton administration could have cared less. Neither could its successors, both Democratic and Republican. Democrats rely on organized labor for money, campaign workers, and votes, offering only malign neglect in return. The GOP’s hostility is more overt; Republicans don’t even pretend to care.
In 2016, Bernie Sanders opposed both NAFTA and the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership. Challenged from her left, even Hillary Clinton said that she would renegotiate…