The Democrats adopt Trump and Bannon’s economic nationalism
By
Josh Varlin
8 August 2017
The Democratic Party unveiled a new portion of its “Better Deal” program Wednesday, August 2, in which it adopted wholesale the economic nationalism of President Donald Trump and his fascist adviser, Steve Bannon. Many of the proposals are implicitly or explicitly directed against China, the main target of US imperialism in the Asia-Pacific region.
In a supplementary document, “A Better Deal on Trade and Jobs,” the Democratic Party adopts the economic nationalist demands promoted by Trump, the trade unions and Senator Bernie Sanders, including cracking down on countries that allegedly manipulate their currency (mainly China) and renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
“A Better Deal,” as the World Socialist Web Site wrote after its unveiling, “is a transparent exercise in empty sloganeering and threadbare rhetorical populism.” It combines the weakest “reforms” imaginable, such as a $15 hourly minimum wage that is unlikely to be implemented and would still be wholly inadequate, with blatant pro-business measures, including tax credits for businesses to train and hire workers.
At the unveiling on July 24, “progressive” Senator Elizabeth Warren called the Democratic Party’s new policies “pro-market.” In many ways, the economic-nationalist elaboration on the plan released last week is even more pro-capitalist.
The concrete proposals amount to trade wars against competitors—especially China—and open defiance of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and arbitration. “A Better Deal on Trade” calls for a supposedly independent trade prosecutor to receive petitions from businesses and unions and unilaterally punish countries…