In the updated edition of Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s new book, Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump, he argues that when Trump became president, he “threw a hand grenade into the global economic order.” We speak with Stiglitz about the impact of free trade agreements that Trump has criticized.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
We are speaking with Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz. Columbia University professor, chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute. Served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Joseph Stiglitz is the author of numerous books, including most recently, Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump, which is an update and expansion on his landmark book that played a key role in the debate over globalization, which was published in 2001.
The introduction to the new book begins, “Donald J. Trump became president of the United States on January 20th, 2017, and threw a hand grenade into the global economic order.” Professor Stiglitz, could you elaborate on that? What precisely did Trump do that threw a hand grenade into the global economic order?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: For 60 years, since World War II, we have been trying to create a rules-based system, a global economic system. We understand that what makes our economy function is what we call the rule of law, and what is true domestically is also true internationally. It is important to have rules by which we govern our relations with other countries.
What he has announced — that he is going to not obey those rules. He’s going to reject the treaties that we have had in the past. He is going to go from what is called a multilateral system, where we all work together, to trying to deal country by country and basically throw out what has been…