(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Destroying the Pax Americana and the Primacy of the U.S. Dollar in the First 100 Days [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-22
Bloomberg is calling it the Trump “Sell America” trade (see pic above). Yesterday, U.S. stocks, bonds, and the dollar fell simultaneously. Again. Wall Street also calling this the “de-dollarization” or “capital flight.” This global re-balancing away from U.S. financial assets makes our nation poorer.
Likewise, since February, projections for Q1 U.S. GDP growth (our broadest measure of economic activity) have gone from about 2 Percent Growth to about Zero Growth, per the nowcast from the the Atlanta Fed:
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis www.bea.gov/... and Atlanta Fed GDPnow www.atlantafed.org/… (accessed April 21, 2025).
Meanwhile, Trump continues to undermine NATO and threaten even our closest allies (Canada?).
Trying to make sense of Trump’s seemingly idiotic economic and geo-political moves so far? Here are Trump’s “Big 5” revolutionary policy changes, in no particular order:
1. Declare economic war on the world via tariffs, including on our closest (former?) allies.
2. Attempt to destroy the U.S. government’s capability from within via incompetent appointees and mass firings of civil servants.
3. Harvest tax and payment data on virtually all Americans and U.S. companies.
4. Freeze or cut science and health research; favor conspiracies over scientific knowledge; attack and de-fund U.S. research universities.
5. Discard long-held security alliances with democracies — the Pax Americana, in short — and favor dictatorships instead.
The list could go on, of course. Dismantling USAID will severely hurt the CIA’s covert intel capabilities. Turning ICE into an all-purpose domestic goon squad will thwart all sorts of economic possibilities, as well as terrorize ordinary people. And so on, and on.
But the Big 5 are enough to start.
What theme or theory pulls these five revolutionary, destructive policies together? Power. Pure, raw authoritarian or, to use a more well-known term, dictatorial power.
A recent guest essay in the NYTimes explains how Trump’s economically and geopolitically suicidal Big 5 policies are not uncommon among de-democratizing countries. Here is a gift link:
In Trump’s America, There Are No Rules, Only Access
To those familiar with policymaking in countries where authoritarianism is emerging, the seemingly irrational exercise in wealth destruction rings all too familiar.
The author gives examples from Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina, and Turkey:
Starting in 2003, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela imposed draconian price and exchange controls that severely hampered productivity and ultimately led to rising scarcity of goods and the evaporation of a massive oil boom — yet gave him the power to control the private sector’s access to government-subsidized foreign exchange. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe instituted large-scale expropriation of white-owned farmland in 2000, devastating agricultural productivity in a country once known as Africa’s breadbasket, but allowing him to reward political allies by giving them the land. Argentina’s central bank nationalized all bank deposits in 1946, fueling double-digit inflation and a run on the currency but giving President Juan Perón the power to decide who received loans. In 2018, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave himself the power to fire central bank governors, which he later used to push down interest rates ahead of elections, boosting near-term growth while undermining longer-term macroeconomic stability.
Side Note — Turkish inflation is currently running about 40% per year.
The Republican Policy Goal is Complete Dictatorial Power
Trump may be their current vessel, but Republicans have completely fallen in line, so the whole Republican party owns his administration take-down of U.S. democracy.
It’s certainly true that Trump’s Republicans may never achieve a full dictatorship. For now, at least, there are still elections; public opinion is shifting; world events may temper his drive toward full power.
But we have to recognize that there is no method to Republicans’ madness other than the lust for power. That’s the goal. Fostering the collapse of the rule of law is a means to that end. And the end of the Pax Americana and the primacy of the U.S. dollar are simply unfortunate side effects.
The economic and geopolitical policies of Trump Republicanism are just about the acquisition of unquestioned power, not about making America great, keeping America good, or even helping ordinary Americans.
It’s all about them, and it’s all about power.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/22/2317860/-Destroying-the-Pax-Americana-and-the-Primacy-of-the-U-S-Dollar-in-the-First-100-Days?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
