Beyond Liberal Internationalism Fear, Anger, Tribalism

Abstract

The post-1945 multilateral trade system was built on hundreds of rules about investment, state subsidies, non-discrimination, comparative advantage, predatory pricing and standards-setting. It is also a system of many legal silences and low-level unenforceable aspirational language about labour standards, safeguarding the environment and food security. Despite the shortcomings liberal internationalism has four main components: the free movement of goods, the principal of non-discrimination, the economics of comparative advantage and a system of commercial state dispute resolution. Now all are under concerted attack by the Trump administration. So what does it mean to tear up the trade rulebook by the Republican trade hawks? What kind of global system lies beyond liberal internationalism? The paper argues that without a common rulebook, the immediate danger to the international order is that the economically most powerful begin to it ‘eat’ the weak because global commerce operates according to Darwinian principles where only the biggest, most agile and best resourced survive. Beyond liberal internationalism is a very different world of loyalties prioritizing tribalism before nation, fear before reason, identity before solidarity and exclusion before inclusion. It is likely to be a darker kind of international order, fragmented into many warring trade blocs.

Keywords: Liberal internationalism, multilateralism, US China trade war, Braudel, debt diplomacy, BRI

JEL Classification: F53, F55, P11, P16, P47