July 11, 2019
 
     The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 codified the economic measures that had been directed against Cuba since the Kennedy administration.  The measures seek to suffocate the Cuban Revolution and to effect political change in Cuba.   The Law allows the termination of these coercive economic measures when Cuba becomes democratic, granting the U.S. government the right to determine whether or not democracy exists in Cuba. 
 
     The Helms-Burton Act is widely interpreted as a violation of the UN Charter on two grounds.  First, the UN Charter prohibits coercive economic measures against nations in order to attain political ends.  Secondly, the Charter affirms the principle of the sovereignty of nations, and it does not allow for one nation to be the ultimate authority on the legitimacy of the political system of another.
 
     Title III of the Helms-Burton Act permits any U.S. citizen or entity, whose property was expropriated by the government of Cuba, to file suit in U.S. courts against companies engaging in commercial activities related to the expropriated property.  The Act has an extraterritorial character, in that it allows the filing of suits against foreign companies.  In reaction, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, and Cuba have adopted resolutions and laws that are designed to counter Helms-Burton.
 
     The Act gives the President the authority to suspend the implementation of Title III for up to six months, if would be in the national interest.  All presidents from Clinton to Obama have suspended the implementation of Title III on a continuous basis, concerned with backlash from trading partners and allies that do business in Cuba.  The Trump administration, however, recently has changed the implementation policy of more than two decades.  The full implementation of Title III has been in effect since May 2, 2019. 
 
      The Helms-Burton Act refers to Cuban “confiscations,” thus obscuring important legal and moral distinctions.  In the first place, there is the distinction between confiscation and nationalization.  Confiscation refers the seizing of assets by the state, without compensation, because the owner had obtained the property illegally or had been found guilty of some other criminal behavior.  On the other hand, nationalization refers to appropriation with compensation, undertaken for reasons of social utility or public benefit.    In addition, there is the distinction between foreign properties and properties held by nationals, which have entirely different political, moral, and legal contexts.
 
      On the basis of these distinctions, we can discern three types of property appropriations in Cuba from 1959 to 1962.  (1)  The first appropriations of property in 1959 were confiscations in response to criminal behavior.  From 1902 to 1959, corruption was rampant in Cuba, as government officials used their positions to enrich themselves.  Presidential candidates who promised reform were elected, but the administrations of the “reformist” presidents were notorious for their rampant corruption.  With the Batista coup d’état of March 10, 1952, political repression was added to the historic pattern of corruption.  Leaders of workers, students, and political organizations were arrested and tortured; and in the rural areas, peasants were subjected to brutal and repressive treatment by the army.  The Batista dictatorship enlisted the support of political parties and politicians in serving in the legislative and executive branches, who thus gave legitimacy to corruption, repression, and brutality.
     
     Following the triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959, the Revolutionary Government responded to the popular outcry for justice by developing Revolutionary Tribunals and confiscating properties.  With respect to the latter, the Revolutionary Government on February 28, 1959 approved a law proposed by the Minister of the newly created Ministry for the Recuperation of Embezzled Public Funds.  The Law authorized the confiscation of the property of certain persons, all of whom were Cuban nationals:  Batista and his collaborators; officers of the armed forces who had participated directly in the coup d’état of March 10, 1952; ministers of the Batista government during the period 1952-1958; members of the spurious congress of 1954-58; and candidates in the sham elections of 1958.  The revolutionary leadership believed that the corruption prior to the Batista dictatorship with justice could be addressed, but doing so would cast an impractically wide net, and the focus on the corruption and brutality of the Batista regime would be sufficient to satisfy the popular demand.  In accordance with the Law, the Ministry for the Recuperation of Embezzled Public Funds carried out confiscations, and it turned the properties over to appropriate state institutions, such as the National Institute of Agrarian Reform. 
 
     Article 24 of Law 851 of July 6, 1960 superseded and expanded the February 28 law by including counterrevolutionary crimes and activities, which were activities that today would be described as terrorism, inasmuch as they included violence against civilians and sabotage, for the most part carried out with the support of the U.S. government.  Law 851 authorized confiscation with respect to real estate owned by: Batista and his collaborators; persons who had committed crimes against the national economy or the public treasury, or who had used a public office to enrich themselves illicitly; and persons who had committed counterrevolutionary crimes (as defined by law), had abandoned the country in order to escape punitive action by the Revolutionary Tribunals, or had abandoned the country in order to carry out conspiracies against the Revolutionary Government. 
 
     The confiscated properties have been used as public buildings, such as primary schools, day care centers, medical clinics, multiple housing units, and embassies.  Members of the Council of Ministers did not personally benefit from the confiscations.
 
     (2) The second type of appropriation was the nationalizations of foreign properties in Cuba.  Nationalization of foreign property was a necessary precondition for Cuban attainment of true sovereignty.  Cuba at that time faced a situation in which most agricultural land was in foreign hands, and there was high concentration of land ownership.  Addressing this structural problem in the Cuban economy, the Revolutionary Government on May 17, 1959 emitted an Agrarian Reform Law that nationalized large-scale agricultural lands, making no distinction between foreign and national ownership, and providing for compensation in the form of “Agrarian Reform Bonds” that were to mature in twenty years. 
 
     In addition, banks, electricity and telephone companies, gasoline refineries, mining companies, and importing companies were under foreign ownership.  In response, the Revolutionary Government on July 6, 1960 emitted Law 851, authorizing nationalization of U.S. properties.  The Law established compensation through government bonds, and it required the Cuban government to contribute to a compensation fund through bank deposits equal to 25% of the value of the U.S. purchase of Cuban sugar in excess of the sugar quota.  On the basis of Law 851, the Revolutionary Government emitted three resolutions on August 6, September 17, and October 24, 1960, nationalizing all 197 U.S. companies in Cuba.  These decisive steps struck at the heart of the Cuban neocolonial condition.  They intended not the severing of relations with the United States but transformation of the Cuba-USA political-economic relation from exploitation and domination to cooperation and mutual respect.
 
     The U.S. government, however, refused to cooperate with the Cuban quest for sovereignty.  Rather than financing compensation through an increase in the U.S.-Cuba sugar trade, the U.S. government reduced sugar purchases to a level below the sugar quota.  At the same time, the U.S. government refused to negotiate with the Cuban government a mutually satisfactory agreement with respect to compensation for U.S. proprietors who were adversely affected by the Cuban nationalizations.  The U.S. government stood out in this regard, inasmuch as the governments of France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Spain negotiated agreements with the government of Cuba with respect to demands of their citizens resulting from the Cuban nationalizations.  The USA was not interested in negotiating reasonable compensation; its political agenda was regime change, which it sought to attain through what Cuba has described as terrorist activities and economic aggression. 
 
     In 1974, the General Assembly of the United Nations affirmed the right of states to nationalize properties, declaring that nationalization is an indispensable precondition for national sovereignty over natural resources.  It further declared that no state should be subjected to coercion in response to its exercising this right of nationalization.  The “Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order” affirmed the:

​     In an interesting article published in the New York Times on July 23, Adam Tooze, an economic historian and Professor of History at Columbia University, maintains that “Trump is wrong about trade” when he calls the European Union a “foe,” because of “what they do to us in trade.”  Tooze writes:  “To think, as Mr. Trump appears to do, of nations locked in mortal economic rivalry shows a grave misunderstanding of how competition actually works in the global economy. Competition is, of course, an ordering principle. . . .  But the protagonists aren’t supposed to be states . . . , but businesses, investors and workers.”  The role of states, he maintains, is to sign treaties that regulate what preferences can be shown to national firms.  Neoliberalism, as he sees it, “creates the largest possible economic space for competition;” and in the European Union, “national preference is outlawed as far as possible.”  Such neoliberal principles have become entrenched in the world-economy in recent decades, such that there have emerged “transnational production systems that make nonsense of economic nationalism.”
 
      Tooze also believes that everyone, not only Trump. is confused about trade.  In spite of the integration of production and finance in the world-economy, there exists a cognitive dissonance.  “In the popular imagination and in the words of politicians, the world economy continues to be thought of like the World Cup: cosmopolitan and transnational, yet made up of discrete national teams competing for a single prize.”  Like Trump, European Council President Donald Tusk and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Tooze notes, speak of the world-economy as a competition among nations; as did Trump’s Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  Trump’s comments are upsetting, Tooze maintains, because he broke taboo by naming particular nations that are economic competitors to the USA, and by threatening to rupture the liberal order with a U.S. policy of economic nationalism.  He writes:

      Tooze does not mention the fact that the rules of the liberal order favor those corporations and nations with economic advantages, reinforcing a tendency of the world-system to increasing inequality.  The system could tolerate this defect as long as it could continually expand, which it did on the basis of the conquest of new lands and peoples, incorporating more cheap labor, raw materials, and markets into the system, combined with a tendency for higher wages of workers in the core regions.  But when the world-system reached the geographical limits of the earth, and overextended its ecological limits, it could no longer expand in the same way and at the same rate.  Symptoms of its unsustainability emerged: deterioration of small-scale rural production, urban overpopulation, widespread extreme poverty, uncontrolled internal and international migrations, and forms of political and criminal violence without precedent.  The post-1980 neoliberal turn did not alleviate these symptoms, but exacerbated them. 
 
       Meanwhile, the United States has experienced an economic decline relative to Europe since the 1960s, giving rise to the need for protectionist policies.  The U.S. power elite, however, has not addressed the problem.  Economic, fiscal, and taxing policies have favored factory relocation, foreign investment, and financial speculation, rather than investment in production and in communities that were dependent on old industries.  The power elite looked at the problem only from the point of view of its particular interests, rather than taking into account the long-term economic health of the nation.  As a result, the people feel betrayed, a situation that Trump has been able to exploit.
 
      The need for economic protectionism is hardly unknown to the great majority of the peoples of the world, whose nations of the world are among the disadvantaged.  They were put in this position by nearly five centuries of actions and policies that violated liberal principles, often proclaimed by those who carried them out: military conquest and occupation, control of economies through colonial domination, and penetration of economies through imperialism and the shoring-up of subordinate national elites.  When the colonized peoples attained voice in global affairs, they declared the need for a world-system based on principles different from domination and superexploitation.  Accordingly, the 1974 UN General Assembly declaration of a New International Economic Order envisioned a world in which sovereign states would protect their national industries and their national currencies and would seek mutually beneficial trade with other states.  The 1980 neoliberal turn dashed these hopes, as the global powers severely reduced the already limited sovereignty of the disadvantaged nations.  However, in the first decades of the twenty-first century, the Non-Aligned Movement has reemerged to reaffirm the alternative principles that are the foundation of the proposal for a New International Economic Order.  The governments of the Non-Aligned Movement, representing three quarters of humanity, consistently have rejected the liberal order that Tooze and Merkel defend.  They believe that economic nationalism, combined with mutual respect and a spirit of internationalism, is necessary for the future of humanity.
 
       The vision of the New International Economic Order differs from tendencies in Western Marxism, anarchism, and utopianism, in which national identities are viewed as a manifestation of backward and/or ethnocentric consciousness.  The Third World project envisioned not a utopian order without nations, but a world-system in which the sovereign rights and self-determination of all nations is respected.  Although appropriating important concepts from Marxism, the Third World project did not fall into the error of underappreciating the importance of national identity among their peoples.  In the Third World revolutions and social movements, Marxism was synthesized with nationalist visions, on the basis of which the sovereignty and the dignity of the nation was constituted as the underlying, unifying principle.  This stands in contrast to the ideological situation in the global North, where Leftist ideas could attain limited influence among the peoples, in part because they lacked full appreciation of the importance of national identities.  Consequently, Leftist intellectuals and organizations have not been prepared politically or ideologically to respond effectively to neoliberal globalism. 
 
       But neither do the neoliberal defenders of a corporate dominated international order with limited states appreciate the significance of national identities.  The defenders of the post-1980 globalized neoliberal order offend the peoples of the world by implicitly dismissing their nationalist and patriotic sentiments as parochial survivals of an earlier era; and by limiting the role of the states, which constitute the most effective political voice of the peoples. 
 
     The global neoliberal project has given rise to different ideological dynamics in different zones of the world-economy.  In the North, myopic forms of nationalism have emerged, provoking an intense political conflict between right-wing nationalism and neoliberal globalism, with the Left at the margins.  In the South, anti-imperialist Third World nationalism has emerged to challenge the globalized neoliberal order on the basis of the rights of the nations to sovereignty and the rights of peoples to economic and social development, with the imperialist governments of the North waging unconventional war in defense of its specific interests.  In the political conflicts of the South, the anti-imperialist Left occasionally notes and cheers on the Leftist popular protests of the North, without necessarily appreciating the limited political effectiveness of these protest actions.  In these global ideological dynamics, both the myopic nationalism of the North and the anti-imperialist nationalism of the South reject the assumptions of the globalized neoliberal order. 
 
      Trump, therefore, should not be dismissed as one who does not understand how competition in the world-economy works.  It is not wrong for the President of the United States, or for the chief of state of any nation, to seek beneficial terms of trade for companies based in the nation, or to protect national industries through tariffs.  Trump does not appear to understand, however, that states should protect their national economies in the context of appreciation of the importance and sustainability of the world-system as a whole.  States should defend their national economies not by aggressively pursuing economic interests, as do imperialist policies, but by seeking mutually beneficial trade with other nations, and by cooperating with other states in the development of a world-system that is just, democratic, and sustainable. 
 
      Such a vision of a cooperative world-system has been proclaimed by the Third World nations for more than fifty years, and it is the vision proclaimed by the foreign policy of China, as it seeks mutually beneficial trade with all regions of the world.  For this reason, Tooze is very concerned about China.  He does not express awareness that China is seeking ascent in the world-economy in accordance with rules different from previous cases of ascent in the modern world-economy; and that as it ascends, China is seeking to transform the rules of the world-system itself, basing them on cooperation, rather than domination and superexploitation.  But Tooze does recognize that the integration of China into the world-economy has not had the consequences that were anticipated in the 1990s.  He writes:

​      Perhaps in the 1990s Western politicians and economists did not understand the logic and aspirations of the Chinese socialist project, which has sought to construct socialism with Chinese characteristics, including space for foreign and domestic capital in a national economy regulated by the state.  Now, concerned with this “fearsome prospect,” Tooze hopes that Europe will take steps to address its trade surplus with the United States, so that the two can function as allies to block the ascent of China.  In effect, he is calling on the nations of the North to defend the liberal order against the efforts to construct an alternative world-system from below, in which the role of states as formulators of national social and economic development projects and as regulators of their national economies would be the international norm.
 
      If the peoples of the nations of the North were to understand the issue in these terms, perhaps they would be less inclined to wage unconventional war against those who have less and are seeking a better deal, and more inclined to favor the cooperative approach of China and the Third World.  The vision of China and the Third World recognizes that the world-system, constructed on a foundation of conquest and domination, has reached its economic limits, because it has reached and overextended the geographical and ecological limits of the earth.  The unsustainability of a world-system driven since 1980 by the aggressive imposition of liberal principles is symbolized most clearly by such phenomena as uncontrollable international migration, terrorism, and criminal violence.  In contrast, the possibilities for the future are indicated by the pragmatic socialist policies of nations like China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, which have registered important gains in the construction of viable national projects.  Their delegates display dignified comportment in international fora, calling the nations and peoples of the world to the construction of a more just, democratic, and sustainable world-system.  Let us learn to listen to that voice, which expresses the essential dignity of the human species in its hour of crisis.

​      The modern world-system was constructed on a foundation of European conquest of vast regions of the earth (see the category World-System), and its essential economic structures were preserved in the twentieth century transition to neocolonialism, conceded by the colonial powers to the anti-colonial movements that had emerged in what the movements called the Third World (see the category Neocolonialism).  Accordingly, competition among empires, or competing imperialisms, has been and continues to be an integral component of the modern world-system.
 
      In the first place, there were the European colonial empires, larger and smaller.  Spain and Portugal took the lead in the sixteenth century, conquering the indigenous empires and nations of the “New World”, and establishing the basis for the first structures of a capitalist world-economy, in which the peripheral regions provided forced and cheap labor, raw materials, and markets for surplus goods.  Benefitting from the Iberian conquest, Holland was a financial center during the seventeenth century, but its territorial control was limited.  During the geographical expansion of the capitalist world-economy during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, England and France, which also had benefitted from the Iberian conquest, conquered vast regions of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, again in pursuit of forced and cheap labor, raw materials, and markets.  Germany and Italy, late in their unification as nation-states, had smaller colonial empires, as did Belgium. 
 
      In the forging of a world-system on a foundation of competing colonial empires, the Japanese, Russian, and American empires were special cases.  The Japanese and the Russian empires were both of regional scope, to a considerable extent confining their domination to their geographical regions, although both did confront American expansionism in the Pacific.  In the case of the American Empire, there were considerable ideological constraints to expansionism beyond the North American continent, such that the United States was oriented to economic and financial penetration, buttressed by military occupation, with indirect political rule, supporting client states in the peripheral zones.  This form of imperialism served the United States well during the twentieth century, because it was well suited to the global transition to neocolonialism.
 
      The Chinese Empire was a particular case.  The Chinese Empire was forged in ancient times by conquest and domination, providing the foundation for an advanced Chinese civilization.  However, the dynasties of ancient China extended their reach not by military domination or political control, but through commerce; and China did not participate in the forging of the modern world-system as one of several competing imperialisms.  To the contrary, China was invaded by the expansionist European empires, and it was compelled to make damaging economic concessions to the European powers and to Japan.  Such that during the course of the nineteenth century, China had become an underdeveloped country, and one of the poorest nations of the world.  The Chinese socialist revolution was forged in reaction to this national loss of honor and international prestige.  Its triumph in 1949 made possible the establishment of the definitive independence of China, on a socialist foundation, during the period 1949 to 1978.  From 1978 to the present, China, continuing on a socialist foundation, has reinserted itself into the capitalist world-economy with terms much more advantageous to the economic development of the nation, thus facilitating its ascent.
 
      All cases of ascent in the modern world-system have their unique characteristics.  But the recent ascent of China departs in fundamental ways from the norm, because it is not based on military domination, direct or indirect political control, or the superexploitation of peripheral regions.  As it ascends, China seeks to redefine the rules of the world-system and the rules of ascent.  Its foreign policy recognizes that the neocolonial world-system is not sustainable, and that human economic and social development can no longer proceed on a foundation of conquest, domination, and superexploitation, but on a foundation of cooperation and mutually beneficial trade.  China thus is forging alliance with the Third World governments and regional groups of nations, such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.  It is reaffirming the basic principles and concepts of the New International Economic Order, developed by the Non-Aligned Movement, and endorsed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1974, with the support of the socialist nations of the era (see the categories Third World, South-South Cooperation, and China).
 
      Russia also has been moving toward cooperation with the Third World, most clearly indicated by its participating in BRICS with China and by its policies and relations with respect to Syria, Iran, and Cuba.
 
      Thus, throughout its history, the modern world-system has been characterized by competing imperialisms, with shifting alliances among the empires.  During the territorial expansion and spectacular ascent of the United States, it forged what came to be known as the American Empire.  During the U.S. westward expansion of the nineteenth century, the emerging American Empire was in conflict and competition principally with the English, French, and Spanish empires, attaining territories that all had claimed.  During the course of the twentieth century, with the reach of the European and American empires global in scope, American imperialism was for the most part allied with English and French imperialisms, while on the other hand, it entered into alternating moments of alliance and conflict with the German, Russian (Soviet), and Japanese empires.  At the present time, in the context of the sustained structural crisis of the world-system, the major competing imperialisms are the American, German, British, and French, with Russia also present, but tending to ally with the new actor, China, which is seeking to ascend without imperialist policies.
 
      Into this scenario enters Donald Trump.  He took the presidency at a time in which the United States of America had declined from its hegemonic position of the 1950s.  Its overspending for military and consumer goods in relation to its actual productive and commercial capacity stimulated its relative decline.  It continues to be the world’s largest economy, but it no longer is the most competitive economy, and its international prestige has suffered enormous erosion since 1965.  In response to this relative economic decline and erosion of international prestige, and taking a political slogan that dates to the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Trump arrived to power on a promise of making America great again.
 
     Part of the Trump plan for a restoration of national greatness is a realignment of the competing imperialisms, a changing of the alliances and axes of opposition among the imperialisms.  The Trump realignment plan identifies China as the emerging threat to what remains of U.S. hegemony.  There is no sign that the Trump administration discerns that China is a double threat.  Not only is China seeking to capture a higher percentage of the world’s production, commerce, and influence.  It also seeks structural change in the world-system itself, seeking to establish new international norms of cooperation and mutual respect.  This represents a serious threat for the United States, because the Chinese project of ascent implies a mode of international relations for which the USA is ill prepared, having invested considerable resources in the preservation of its military domination, in order to preserve its advantage in the neocolonial world-system, in accordance with the established rules.
 
        The Trump administration appears to perceive China as a threat in the established form of competing empires, even though China was not among the competing imperialisms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  The Trump strategy appears to be the forging of an alliance among the major imperialisms against China, retarding its economic ascent.  For the moment, the strategy appears to be keeping the UK and Japan on board in an American-led anti-Chinese alliance, and trying to coopt Russia into the project. 
 
       The current tension with Germany and France reflects their overly competitive economic position vis-à-vis the United States, and their interest in a European-led anti-Chinese alliance.  However, in spite of this competition for a dominant position, the elites of both the United States and Western Europe assume a common interest in preserving the US-European centered neocolonial world-system, and in blocking the ascent of China, especially as a potential hegemon in an alternative world-system.  This common European-American interest has been evident since the onset of the sustained structural crisis of the world-system in the 1970s.  Since that time, the European Union and the UK, like the United States, have demonstrated their commitment to the preservation of the core-peripheral relation of the North with the vast regions of the Third World, and to the established neocolonial world-system, imposing draconian neoliberal measures in pursuit of this goal.  They have brushed aside persistent Third World calls for a more just and sustainable world order as unworkable and/or unimportant.
 
      So the question really is whether the USA, the UK, and the European Union can overcome their competitive differences and can coopt Japan and Russia into an alliance that would commercially isolate China and brake its ascent, before China can forge with the Third World and Russia  (and possibly Japan) an alternative, more just and sustainable world-system, based on cooperation.  Both Japan and Russia, with historical trajectories of regional rather than global imperialisms, which at important historic moments were excluded from power in the European-centered world-economy, will hear calls for cooperation with China and the Third World in their national debates. 
 
       The global realignment sought by Trump, in conjunction with his economic nationalism and xenophobic pronouncements, has provoked as strong reaction among certain sectors of the elite.  There appears to be a civil war within the U.S. power elite, with some sectors of the major news media virulently criticizing the President.  One would think that the military-industrial complex, which is the strongest part of the U.S. economy, would be in the President’s camp, given his escalation of the military budget and his ideological identification of enemies, such as China, foreign terrorists, and immigrants.  On the other hand, a sector of the U.S. elite is comfortable with the global neoliberal order that has been evolving since 1980, even though it has resulted in a continued decline in the U.S. economy, its international prestige, and the standard of living for those in the bottom half.

​     Twenty-eight years ago, Donald Trump expressed in a Playboy interview that the United States was stupid for spending for the military defense of Europe, when the European nations were not spending sufficiently for their own defense.  At a July 18 NATO meeting in Brussels, now President Trump expressed this belief in undiplomatic and sometimes careless language, castigating the European allies, particularly Germany, for not contributing more to the military defense of Europe.
 
     The workings of NATO have historic roots.  The North Atlantic Alliance between the United States and Europe was established in 1949, a time in which the United States possessed hegemonic dominance of the capitalist world-economy, enjoying a substantial productive, commercial, financial, and military advantage over all nations, even the more advanced European economies. Moreover, it was a time in which the prevailing Cold War ideology falsely defined the Soviet Union as an expansionist threat to Western civilization.  US foreign policy sought to extend and deepen its reach in a world-system that was in transition to neocolonialism; and as dimension of this, it sought to contain Soviet influence in the Third World.  Given the assumptions of US foreign policy at the time, the NATO alliance, with nearly total military and financial dependency on the United States, had advantages for the USA.  In the first place, it ensured the expansion of the military-industrial complex, on which the US economy had become dependent. Secondly, US military support made it possible for the European nations to focus on the rebuilding of their economies, thus increasing their capacity to serve as a consumer market for US products.  Thirdly, US global military presence, with military bases in Europe and in all regions of the world, guaranteed US dominance in international affairs.
 
      However, by the 1970s, the situation had changed.  The European economies, especially Germany, had become effective competitors to the United States, such that many European goods were marketed in the USA, and the United States began to have a balance of payments deficits.  In addition, the United States had become overextended with respect to military expenditures, principally because of the Vietnam War.  As a result, adjustments were made in the 1970s, particularly in the form of the devaluation of the dollar through the elimination of the gold standard.  However, the adjustments were insufficient for the new situation.  The United States continued to overspend on the military, relative to its actual productive capacity, including its disproportionate financing of NATO.  The European allies gradually contributed more, but much less than what the evolving situation required.
 
      Accordingly, it can reasonably be said, as Trump implies, that the US power elite has failed since the 1970s to defend US economic interests vis-à-vis Europe.  Trump was right when he declared in his undiplomatic discourse that no previous US president dared to speak to the allies in such a form.  If we accept the premise that Europe needs a strong military defense, he was right in maintaining that the European allies should pay more.  No doubt, many of his followers in the United States were delighted to see him set diplomacy aside and speak publicly in defense of the interests of the nation in a form unprecedented in the history of the North Atlantic Alliance.
 
     However, the debate occurs in the context of a limited and narrow frame reference.  It ignores another dynamic that has been unfolding since the 1970s, namely, the growing signs of the unsustainability of the world-system in the form in which it is presently structured.  The root of the problem is that the world-system has overreached the geographical limits of the earth, eliminating the possibility for productive and commercial expansion of the world-economy through the conquest of new lands and peoples, through which new sources of raw materials, cheap labor, and markets were acquired.  At the same time, the previously conquered peoples have increased their political capacity to resist and structurally transform the world-system, which has evolved to a neocolonial world-system.  In light of these dynamics, the world-system is increasingly making evident its economic, ecological, and political unsustainability, in the form in which it is presently structured.   
 
     The profound structural crisis of the world-system and the relative decline of the hegemonic neocolonial power require enlightened world leadership.  They require a reformulation of the necessary direction of humanity.  Whereas the world-system has been established on a foundation of conquest forged by competing empires, the future direction of humanity must be forged on a fundamentally different foundation of mutually beneficial international cooperation, if global chaos is to be avoided. 
 
      We have, therefore, a situation in which the leaders of the world are unprepared to attend to the issues of importance to humanity.  The situation requires lifting up of new leaders by popular movements, leaders who are prepared morally and intellectually to lead the peoples of the world on the necessary road.  This alternative direction is being constructed in theory and practice by the progressive and socialist governments and movements of the Third World, with the cooperation of China and Russia (see various posts in the categories Third World and South-South Cooperation).

     Donald Trump arrived to the presidency in a historic moment defined by the relative economic decline of the United States, the erosion of the legitimacy of the U.S. political process in the eyes of the people, and the sustained structural crisis of the world-system.  The Trump administration has responded with a political project that has coherence and that has a certain appeal in the context of the political culture of the United States, inasmuch as it connects to the concerns, anxieties, longings, and patriotism of the people.  

      Several components of the project were articulated by Trump in his State of the Union address before the U.S. Congress on January 30, 2018.  They include, first, creating jobs and expanding employment through (1) reduction of taxes for corporations, small businesses, and middle and working class families, thus stimulating consumption and investment; (2) reducing regulations on industries, so that corporations will have more incentive to expand production and to enlarge and build new plants in the United States; and (3) rebuilding the transportation infrastructure, a labor-intensive project. Secondly, the renegotiation of trade agreements so that they are more beneficial to U.S. economic interests.  Thirdly, expanding military spending, on the assumption that this will increase the U.S. capacity to defend its interests in the world.  The military increase is accompanied by rhetoric that repeatedly lavishes praise on military and police personnel.  Fourthly, defending “American values” and the U.S. concept of democracy, portraying nations that defend their sovereignty against U.S. interests as tyrannical, thus providing a pretext for sanctions.  Fifthly, enforcing immigration laws and curtailing illegal immigration, and developing a new system of merit-based immigration that favors individuals with more education and training.  The project is presented to the people as a revitalization of the American spirit and a renewal of the American Dream, making America great again.  He proclaimed:

     The Trump project, however, has been polarizing.  To some extent, this is an inevitable consequence of the fact that U.S. society itself is polarized.  Moreover, it is a consequence of Trump’s scapegoating tactics, which, it should be noted, were not employed in the State of the Union address.  But above all, the polarizing effect of the project reflects the fact that the Trump formulation lacks sufficient maturity to overcome the ideological and political divisions of the nation and to forge a popular consensus.  

      In the first place, Trump’s economic nationalism and “America First” philosophy ignore the fundamental structural problems of the world-system, and the imperative need for all nations, especially the more powerful, to participate in the forging of fundamental structural reforms of the world-system.  The colonized and neocolonized peoples of the world have consistently maintained since the 1950s that to be sustainable, the world-system has to be just, respecting the true sovereignty of all the nations of the world, regardless of their size or power.  And they have maintained that to be sustainable, the world-system must be fully democratic, respecting not only political and civil rights but also social and economic rights.  Taking into account these historic claims of political leaders that represent the majority of humanity, the most advanced historical social science of our time recognizes that the neocolonial world-system, constructed on a colonial foundation, systemically denies the sovereign rights of nations and the basic human needs of millions of persons.  Such knowledge implies that enlightened and politically effective leadership in the world today involves not the aggressive application of military force in defense of nationalist economic interests, but forging cooperation among nations, working together on the basis of scientific knowledge in the construction of an alternative more sustainable world-system that respects the rights of all nations and persons.  

      In addition, Trump’s view of the central role of the American spirit of determination overlooks the actual economic and social dynamics that fed the U.S. ascent from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries.  As the most advanced historical social science of our time recognizes, the spectacular U.S. ascent was fueled by economic and political factors that provided an economic and social context for the American spirit of determination to express itself.  First, the conquest of the indigenous nations and Mexico and the expansion of U.S. territory to the Pacific Ocean.  Secondly, the U.S. insertion into the world-economy under favorable terms, in which middle class New England and mid-Atlantic farmers sold food and animal products to slave plantations in the Caribbean and in the Southern slave states, enabling the accumulation of capital, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Thirdly, the investment of the accumulating capital in the development of the highly profitable textile industry during the nineteenth century, with the U.S. South functioning as supplier of raw materials and as purchaser of manufactured goods.  Fourthly, the concentration of capital during the nineteenth century, a process forged by the “Robber Barons,” who used ethically and legally questionable methods to advance the national economy to a stage of monopoly capital.  Fifthly, the turn to imperialist policies at the beginning the twentieth century, establishing access to the raw materials, labor, and markets of Latin America and the Caribbean.  Sixth, war profits from commerce related to the First World War.  Seventh, investment in highly profitable industries, like auto and steel.  Eighth, the conversion of peacetime industries into military industries during the Second World War, establishing the foundation for a military-industrial complex.  Ninth, the permanent militarization of the economy and the society after World War II, justified initially by the Cold War ideology; and following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism, by the War on Terrorism.  

       Moreover, the Trump project makes the classic mistake of falling great powers, which simplistically believed that they could restore their former glory through military power.  Trump’s militarization of the economy and society is not new, for it has been an ongoing trend since the Second World War, except for the period 1973 to 1979, in the aftermath of the tragic and politically disastrous U.S. colonialist war in Vietnam.  But a stronger military does not always make for a stronger nation.  As advanced historical social science understands, excessive military spending has been an important factor in the relative economic decline of the United States since the 1960s.  In the first place, it reduced the possibilities for investment in new products, new industries, and new forms of production that would maintain U.S. competitiveness in the world-economy.  Secondly, the military expenditures have been and continue to be financed through government deficit spending that is excessive in relation to the productive capacity of the nation.  Foreign entities, including the government of China, are among those who purchase U.S. government bonds, raising doubts about the sovereignty and independence of the United States in the long term.  To make the nation stronger, it would be better to pursue a policy of expanding investment in productivity and competitiveness, and seeking to restrain consumption, including certain types of military expenditures.  And it would be better for the nation to diversify its investments and to reduce the dependence of the economy on the arms industry, taking into account that the governments and peoples of the world are increasingly recognizing the need to find peaceful solutions to conflicts.  As things now stand, the United States is emerging as the single nation in the world with a vested economic interest in promoting conflicts in the various areas of the world.

      Because of such limitations, the Trump project is not able to overcome the national polarization and forge a popular consensus in support of its project.  There is a significant sector of the people with a degree of political consciousness and a partial understanding, a legacy of the student anti-war movement of the period 1967 to 1972 and a consequence of the influence on popular consciousness of the African-American, women’s, and ecology movements.  This sector of the people senses that there are challenging global problems that the nation has a responsibility to address; that a focus on the American spirit of determination is a simplistic reading of American history; and that serious national and global problems cannot be resolved by increasing military expenditures.  

     So there has emerged a significant anti-Trump sector among the people.  However, like the Trump project, the anti-Trump forces do not have sufficient maturity to overcome the polarizations of the society and to lead the people in an alternative direction on the basis of a popular consensus.  The liberals of the establishment focus on questions such as whether or not Trump is mentally unstable, or if there was some obstruction of justice related to allegations with respect to the 2016 presidential elections.  On the other hand, “direct action” and protest-oriented liberals are more inclined to address issues, but they do so in a fragmented way, focusing on issues such as the rights of immigrants, police violence, environmental degradation, etc., without formulating a comprehensive frame of reference.  There has not been articulated an alternative, comprehensive, and politically intelligent national project that is rooted in advanced historical social scientific knowledge.  Such an alternative political project would seek to educate the people concerning the reasons for the spectacular ascent and subsequent relative decline of the United States.  It would promote popular consciousness of Third World movements, which are seeking to construct a more just, democratic, and sustainable world-system.  It would advocate a foreign policy that leaves imperialism behind and that is based on cooperation with the nations and peoples of the earth, seeking to develop mutually beneficial trade and cultural interchanges.  It would explain the necessary role of the government in defending the social and economic rights of the people.  And the alternative political formation would seek to take political power, and to subsequently use the powers of the state to defend the people, the nation, humanity, and nature.  

      The Trump project, although not based in scientific knowledge, possesses necessary characteristics, including a coherent vision and an emotional connection to the people.  Inasmuch as an alternative comprehensive visionary project connected to the people has not been formulated, the Trump project stands unopposed.  In this context, the Left has the responsibility to examine critically its discourse and its strategies and to formulate an alternative project for the nation.    

Posted October 23, 2017

     This is the first in a series of five posts on Donald Trump.  They reflect on two recent major addresses: Trump’s September 19 speech at the UN General Assembly, and his speech at the Heritage Foundation on October 17.

      Trump presents himself as an American patriot.  He calls upon the American people to treat the flag with reverence, honor the national anthem, and recite the pledge of allegiance.  He considers the Constitution of the United States to be the greatest political document in human history.  

     Moreover, he believes that all men and women should love their nation, regardless of what particular nation they belong.  “In remembering the great victory [the allied victory in World War II] that led to this body's founding [the United Nations], we must never forget that those heroes who fought against evil also fought for the nations that they loved.  Patriotism led the Poles to die to save Poland, the French to fight for a free France, and the Brits to stand strong for Britain.”  He called upon the leaders of the world to be patriotic, for patriotism is the foundation for the construction of a peaceful, better world.

      Patriotism is not a sentiment with which the Left is entirely comfortable, in part because the Left has consciousness of the history of using patriotism to attain public support for imperialist wars.  However, Trump is right.  Patriotic sentiments are central to the construction of a better world.  We can clearly see this when we observe the Third World revolutions of national and social liberation, which were led by men and women who were patriotically defending their nations.  Great revolutionaries, like Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, were great patriots (see “Patriotism” 1/28/2016)
  
     So all of us in the United States ought to be patriotic, and as Trump asserts, this requires knowledge of its history and heritage, and commitment to its values.  However, Trump misreads American history, albeit in a common form.  In celebrating the U.S. Constitution and its opening words, “We the people,” he ignores the fact the Constitution, while partially recognizing the rights of the people, included components that ensured elite control of the political process (see “The US popular movement of 1775-77” 11/1/13; “American counterrevolution, 1777-87” 11/4/13; “Balance of power” 11/5/13).

     It indeed is the case that the Constitution of the United States is one of the great documents of modern popular struggles for democracy.  Moreover, as the constitutional foundation of the U.S. legal system since 1787, it ought to be regarded as sacrosanct by the people of the United States.  Trump, however, has a fixed image of the Constitution, without appreciation of the fact that it is a living document, influencing and influenced by an evolving national political process.  The U.S. Constitution has evolved, first, through new interpretations of the judicial branch and new applications by the executive and legislative branches, made necessary by economic and social national and international development; and secondly, through amendments to the Constitution, which have been enacted as a result of the demands of popular movements, particularly in historic moments of popular revolution in the United States.  The first ten amendments to the Constitution, for example, were enacted as a concession to the inquietudes of the people, who were concerned that the new Constitution would concentrate power in the hands of the elite (see “American counterrevolution, 1777-87” 11/4/13).  Later, reflecting the influence of the abolitionist movement, three amendments in the period 1865 to 1870 protected the rights of persons of color.  The XIII amendment (1865) abolished slavery; the XIV amendment (1868) ensured that no persons could be denied life, liberty, or property without due process; and the XV amendment (1870) ensured that no person could be denied the right to vote on account of race or color.  In 1920, the XIX amendment prohibited the denial of the right to vote on account of sex.  During the renewed women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s, an equal rights amendment (ERA) for women was proposed, but its passage was blocked by the conservative counterrevolution of the 1980s.

       So let us American patriots understand the Constitution as a sacred yet living document, which is amended in times of challenge and change.  On the basis such an understanding, we can discern that the current historic moment calls for further amendments to the Constitution.  Four new amendments are necessary, and they should be proposed by the Left.  These four amendments would guarantee (1) gender equality; (2) the protection of the social and economic rights of all, including education, health, nutrition, and housing; (3) the protection of the environment; and (4) respect for the sovereignty of all nations in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.  Such proposals from the Left for constitutional amendments would imply a recognition of the sacred character of the Constitution, as Trump rightly insists, but with awareness that the Constitution is a living document.  With such proposals, Leftists would be presenting themselves as constitutionalists with respect for American heritage, but as dynamic constitutionalists who envision a constitutional process that responds to the challenges that humanity today confronts.

      In his address to the UN General Assembly, Trump proclaimed: “It is an eternal credit to the American character that even after we and our allies emerged victorious from the bloodiest war in history [World War II], we did not seek territorial expansion, or attempt to oppose and impose our way of life on others.  Instead, we helped build institutions such as this one [the United Nations] to defend the sovereignty, security, and prosperity for all.”  This is a common interpretation in the political culture of the United States, but it ignores the characteristics of American imperial domination.  The territorial expansion of the United States ended at the end of the nineteenth century, and it was made possible the conquest of the indigenous nations and Mexico and by the acquisition of territory claimed by the French, Spanish and British colonial empires,.  With its extensive territory intact, the United States during the course of the twentieth century fueled its economic ascent through economic, commercial, and financial penetration, without placing the penetrated zones under formal political control as a part of U.S. territory.  Accordingly, the United States in the first half of the twentieth century was the originator of a new form of domination, which in the post-World War II era would replace the structures of the European colonial empires.  In this new form of neocolonial domination, the institutions developed under the U.S. tutelage (United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Organization of American States) were instruments.  In not seeing this, Trump is unwittingly asking the neocolonized peoples of the world to appreciate the new forms of domination, disguised by the apparent but not true sovereignty of their nations.

     With this myopic view, Trump is able to assert: “The United States of America has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world, and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security, and prosperity for all.”  This notion is central to the American narrative, especially believed in the United States and, to some extent, in the entire world, when the USA was at the height of its power and glory.  However, it has limited political and cultural viability today, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the imposition of the neoliberal project, the economic decline of the United States, and aggressive wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.  With these developments, the interest of the United States in preserving its global hegemony has been revealed.

     Trump is right in calling the people to moral responsibility on the basis of appreciation of American heritage and the American Constitution.  The true patriots, however, are those that recognize America’s limitations, in order that they can be overcome.  The Left has the duty to formulate an alternative narrative that, while recognizing American contributions to modern democracy, also educates the people concerning the limitations of the American theory and practice of democracy, calling the people to a responsible road in this historic moment of global crisis, on the foundation of an integrated philosophical-historical-social science (see “Universal philosophical historical social science” 4/2/2014).

Posted October 24, 2017
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​     Donald Trump believes in a strong military.  His administration recently attained passage of historic increases in defense spending, which, he maintains, will bring the annual budget for military and defense spending to $700 billion.  And he suggests that the military chiefs will have greater autonomy:  “From now on, our security interests will dictate the length and scope of military operations, not arbitrary benchmarks and timetables set up by politicians.” 

      In spite of the greater government spending involved in the military budget increase, Trump announced a massive tax cut at his Heritage Foundation speech on October 17.  Maintaining that the tax cuts of the Reagan administration unleashed the “economic miracle” of the 1980s, he argues that tax cuts result in higher salaries, more employment, and greater economic growth.  He proposes that the first $12,000 earned by a single individual, $24,000 for a married couple, be tax-free.  He proposes a reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35% to no more than 20%, maintaining that U.S. corporate taxes are 60% higher than major U.S. competitors, placing U.S. corporations at a disadvantage.  He also proposes a cap on the tax for small businesses at twenty-five percent, which he maintains represents the biggest tax reduction for small business in the history of the nation.  In addition, by proposing a low one-time tax on profits deposited in offshore accounts, his tax plan will bring back to the country more than 2.5 trillion dollars that are parked oversees, making it more feasible for American companies to stay and hire in America.  Moreover, he proposes an elimination of the estate tax and an increase in child tax credit for working families.  He maintains that the tax proposals will renew industry and unleash a new middle class America, and they will increase the annual income of American families by four thousand dollars.

     Although Trump has fond memories of the Reagan years, when the Reagan administration slashed taxes while increasing military expenditures, U.S. corporations did not become more competitive, and the government deficit grew significantly.  By 1988, the USA became the world’s most indebted country (LaFeber, 1994, 645, 711-12).  Faustino Cobarrubia, of the Center for the Study of the World Economy in Cuba, observes: 

And as LaFeber writes, “The world’s great moneybags between 1914 and 1970, the United States, after 1971, lost much of its ability to compete in the world marketplace and then, between 1981 and 1987, shockingly turned into the world’s greatest debtor” (1994, 737).  Similarly, as expressed by Paul Kennedy in his study of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers:

      In addition, the Reagan administration launched the era of neoliberal policies, which facilitated the free flow of capital into and out of countries, thus making possible enormous profits through financial speculation.  Investments in productive and commercial enterprises in recent decades have been lower than what they previously had been, and they have been lower than investments in financial speculation.  In search of profits, capital has moved to financial speculation, further eroding production and commerce.  This has given rise to a continuous expansion in financial speculation, which has resulted in the transformation of historic high-low cycles of financial speculation into an ongoing trend of increasing financial speculation.  Neoliberal deregulation of financial transactions was in the interests of the corporations, banks, and finance agencies, because it facilitated the fast and easy money that comes from financial speculation.  However, elevated levels of financial speculation direct capital away from investment in the real economy, which creates the goods and services that satisfy human need and stimulate real economic growth (Martínez 1999, 2010).

      Given the trend in recent decades toward financial speculation, what assurance is there that additional capital in the hands of U.S. corporations would be directed to invention in the production of goods and services?  A tax cut per se does not ensure investment in national production; a reform of the tax code must include incentives and regulations that are designed to stimulate investment in the nation and in sustainable forms of production.

      At the same time, the Trump administration is eliminating what it proclaims to be unnecessary environmental regulations that restrict the growth of the economy.  It is true that ecologists sometimes display an unconcern for the economy, and Trump exploits this for political purposes.  But the steps that Trump is taking in weakening the Environmental Protection Agency implies destroying necessary mechanisms for environmental protection, in defense of corporate interests.  The corporations, however, have demonstrated in recent decades an orientation to short-term profits and an unconcern for protecting the environment.

     The reduction in environmental regulations, combined with tax cuts without regulation, imply a program that responds to corporate interests, notwithstanding Trump’s rhetoric that, with his election, the people now rule.  In spite of these contradictions, however, Trump has an effective populist discourse, which we will explore in the next post.

​

​References
 
Cobarrubia, Gómez, Faustino.  2006. “Economía de los Estados Unidos: Una retrospectiva de las últimas cuatro décadas” in Libre Comercio y subdesarrollo.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
 
Kennedy, Paul.  1989.  The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000.  New York: Vintage Books
 
LaFeber, Walter.  1994.  The American Age: USA Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to the present, Second Edition.  New York: W. W. Norton.
 
Martínez Martínez, Osvaldo.  1999.  Neoliberalismo en Crisis.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
 
__________.  2010. “La larga marcha de la crisis económica capitalista.”  Unpublished paper.
 

Posted October 25, 2017

     In his September 19 address to the UN General Assembly, Donald Trump proclaimed, “In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign.  I was elected not to take power, but to give power to the American people, where it belongs.”

     We have seen that the Trump project places the interests of U.S. corporations above the interests of the people, in that Trump proposes significant reductions in corporate taxes, without conditioning the cuts on investment in national production; and inasmuch as his administration takes the side of the corporations in their battle with ecologists and environmental regulation (see “Military strength and tax relief: Trump and Reagan” 10/24/2017). 

       Nevertheless, the rhetoric of Trump has considerable popular appeal.  His call to patriotism, his affirmation of American heritage and values, his belief in the historic “greatness” of America, his belief that a strong nation needs a strong military, his proposal for massive tax cuts, and his efforts to reduce government regulation have resonance among a significant sector of the people (see “America as seen by Donald Trump” 10/23/2017; “Military strength and tax relief: Trump and Reagan” 10/24/2017).  These are divisive issues, in that there is a liberal constituency that stands resolutely against the proposals, particularly in the form that the issues are framed.  There is nonetheless a sizable sector of the people, perhaps approximately one-third, that are strongly in Trump’s corner with respect to these issues, constituting an important political force.

     In addition, Trump connects to a sector of the people with respect to other issues.  He maintains, for example, that laws are the foundation of the nation, and he calls on the people to support men and women in law enforcement.  In taking a “pro-police” position, he clearly is siding with those who believe that law enforcement officials are constrained by rules that restrict them in the performance of their duties; and he is siding with those who believe that liberals are overly critical of the conduct of police.  This “law and order” platform has a degree of popular appeal in the United States.

      Another issue in which Trump’s rhetoric has resonance among a sector of the people is that of uncontrolled international migration.  In his October 17 Heritage Foundation speech, he reiterates his call for strong borders and a crackdown on sanctuary cities.  In his discussion of this theme during the electoral campaign and his presidency, Trump displays no understanding of the sources of uncontrolled international migration, and he does not have sensible proposal.  However, he effectively has exploited the issue politically, albeit in a form that has been conflictive and divisive, provoking liberal opposition.

    Rather than taking the liberal side in the political and cultural division of the nation, the Left should seek to reframe the issues in a form that has more resonance with the sector to which Trump appeals.  The Left should formulate an alternative narrative: that calls for true American patriots to develop a thorough knowledge of American history, including consciousness of the limitations of American democracy in theory and practice, and including appreciation of the historic struggles of popular movements to overcome these limitations; that demonstrates a solid understanding of the factors that explain the spectacular economic ascent of the United States and its recent relative productive and commercial decline, debunking “American exceptionalism” and making evident the preparedness of the Left to lead the nation in the present context of sustained global crisis; that includes comprehensive law enforcement proposals based on analysis of the causes of the militarization of policing, connecting law enforcement issues to the social and economic development of local communities; and that affirms the rights of immigrants in the context of an analysis of the causes of uncontrolled international migration, proposing comprehensive solutions (see “A Left narrative on immigration” 3/9/2017 in the category Trump).

     Spiro Agnew, the polemical vice-president of Richard Nixon, once referred to “radical liberals” as “effete snobs.”  We should show that we are not, by demonstrating our commitment to the nation and its people, through the formulation of an alternative narrative that could only be created through hard work and self-sacrifice.

Posted October 26, 2017

     In his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 17, Donald Trump declared, “As President of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries will always, and should always, put your countries first.  All responsible leaders have an obligation to serve their own citizens, and the nation-state remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition.”  He proclaimed that the success of the United Nations “depends on a coalition of strong and independent nations that embrace their sovereignty to promote security, prosperity, and peace for themselves and for the world.”  

     However, the independence of nations that Trump affirms is not true sovereignty.  Like numerous predecessors in the high office that he holds, Trump expects a form of international peace that is subordinate to the interests of the United States and its transnational corporations, as can be seen in the following proclamation: “We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government.  But we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties:  to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”  In his view, respecting the interests of the people requires that nations adopt representative democracy, as against popular democracy; and it requires that nations place few restrictions on free trade, that is, on the access of transnational corporations to their natural resources, labor, and markets.  Socialism, accordingly, is unacceptable.  “The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.  From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure.  Those who preach the tenets of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems.”

    In Trump’s view, the nations that ignore the rules of an international Pax Americana are evil, and the Unites States has a duty to confront them.  “If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph.  When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.”  In accordance with this conception of American confrontation of evil, Trump identifies several “rogue regimes”: North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela.

     In light of the large increase in the military budget and the threats against North Korea, Trump appears to be inclined to use military force to implement the American vision.  When the United States was at the height of its power, it balanced military action and military presence with economic penetration, financial control, American prestige, and cooperation from national elites of the countries of the world.  However, in recent decades, the relative economic decline and the waning of U.S. prestige has made necessary an increasing reliance on military action in the U.S. conduct of its foreign policy.  This dynamic has been expressing itself since the 1960s: the Vietnam War, the increased military expenditures and the brief wars of the Reagan administration, the Iraq War of the Bush I administration, the “humanitarian interventions” of the Clinton administration, and the wars of aggression in the Middle East by the Bush II and Obama administrations.  Trump represents the culmination of this turn to military action, which may appear to be a sign of strength, but in reality is an indication of economic decline.

   In response to Trump, the Left should creatively formulate a politically intelligent alternative narrative that calls the people to the taking of power, so that United States can conduct its foreign policy on the basis of solidarity with the peoples of the world and respect for the true sovereignty of all nations.  This is the only foundation for a just and sustainable world-system.

      For an indication of a possible alternative narrative based on the taking of power by the people in Cuba, placing the Cuban Revolution in global historical context, see my book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The light in the darkness.

Posted October 30, 2017

     In his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations of September 19, 2017, Donald Trump declared, “In some cases, states that seek to subvert this institution's noble aims have hijacked the very systems that are supposed to advance them.  For example, it is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council.”

      The dominant ideology in U.S. political culture assumes that the United States has an advanced theory and practice of democracy.  However, if we compare and contrast the evolution of the idea of democracy in various nations and regions of the world during the last two centuries, we see that the USA has a limited understanding of democracy.  In the United States, human rights are understood as pertaining to political and civil rights, such as the rights to vote, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, due process of law, and freedom of religion.  Education, medical care, housing, and nutrition are not conceived as rights, neither in the Constitution, nor in law, nor in the political culture.  In contrast, the UN 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms social and economic rights as the inalienable rights of all persons of all nations.  Said Declaration reflects the influence of the socialist governments of Eastern Europe of the time, the emerging Third World movements and independent states, and the working class movements of the representative democracies of the West.  Accordingly, the U.S. conception of human rights is more narrow that that of the majority of movements and nations of the world, such that the belief that the United States is the model for democratic theory and practice is a myopic view (“Social and economic rights” 11/7/13 in the category American Revolution).

      Similarly, the U.S. concept of human rights does not affirm the right of nations to sovereignty and to control of their natural resources, nor does it include the concept of the right of all peoples to sustainable economic development.  The United Nations, however, has affirmed these rights in various documents, as a result of the persistent demand and proclamation of the nations of the Third World.  One such document is the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which proclaimed:  “All peoples have the right of self-determination.  By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.  All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic cooperation” (see “Right of nations to self-determination” 11/8/13 in the category American Revolution).

       Although scarcely known in the United States, Cuba, in contrast, has developed an advanced theory and practice of democracy.  It has made significant investments to ensure that all of its citizens have free access to education and health care, and that their minimum housing and nutritional needs are met.  In the conduct of its foreign policy, Cuba seeks cooperation with other nations, on the basis of mutual respect in the development of economic, cultural, and diplomatic relations.  It regularly proclaims in various international fora, in a dignified and informed manner, the need for an international norm of cooperation and respect for sovereignty.  In addition, Cuba has developed a system of popular democracy, an alternative to representative democracy, in which delegates of the people are nominated and elected by the people at the local level, without the participation of political parties and without the need for electoral campaigns and campaign financing.  This alternative process of popular democracy ensures that the elected delegates of the people are not compelled to respond to the interests of their largest campaign contributors (see “Cuba, United States, and human rights” 4/9/2015 in the category Cuba Today).

      U.S. foreign policy is imperialist, that is, it seeks economic and financial penetration of the economies of the nations of the world, so that it will have access to their natural resources, labor, and markets (see the category US Imperialism).  In the pursuit of its imperialist objectives, the United States uses the strategy of political manipulation of the issue of human rights.  The strategy involves selectively distorting the political reality in particular nations, presenting a false image of human rights violations, in order to justify sanctioning nations that refuse to submit to U.S. imperialist objectives.  In the case of Cuba, the manipulation involves repeating the fact that there are not multi-party elections in Cuba, without noting that political parties do not participate in the elections of delegates, and ignoring the fact that multi-candidate elections are held every two and one-half years, with a voter participation rate in excess of 90%.  On the basis of decades of distortions of the Cuban political process, Trump refers to “the corrupt and destabilizing regime in Cuba” that suppresses the freedom of the people.  Armed with similar distortions, Trump mentions a “false guise of democracy” in Iran and an authoritarian regime being imposed in Venezuela.  Such charges cannot be supported on the basis of observation of the actual political processes in these nations.  They are ideological manipulations, constructed in order to justify policies that seek imperialist objectives.

      During the period 1990 to 2007, the UN Commission on Human Rights stigmatized and castigated countries on the basis of false U.S. ideological manipulations.  However, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the revolutionary project of Third World national and social liberation began to experience renewal (see the category Third World).  As a result, Third World governments insisted on a Commission that would not function to serve the political and economic interests of a superpower, but would be a true international forum for the analysis and recommendation of policies with respect to human rights in the world.  Accordingly, in 2006, the United Nations abolished the Commission on Human Rights and established the Council on Human Rights.  The UN General Assembly elected Cuba to the Council, in spite of opposition from the United States.  The USA, with its international prestige at its lowest point since the founding of the United Nations, was not a candidate to serve on the Council. 

     Trump’s protest of the makeup of the UN Council on Human Rights does not refer to the claim of Third World governments that the United States ideologically manipulates the issue of human rights in pursuit of its imperialist interests.  Nor did his commentary refer to the successful effort of Third World governments to establish a new Council on Human Rights, with a different mission and membership.  As a whole, his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations demonstrated no awareness that, from the vantage point of the Third World and the socialist and progressive movements and governments of the world, the United States has a limited theory and practice of democracy.

     The Left has the duty to formulate an alternative narrative that places the interpretation of the American nation on a scientific foundation.  Such a formulation should include explanation of the differing understandings of democracy that have emerged in the world, with each understanding emerging from a determined social base of particular classes and nations.  Perhaps many of the people of the United States, upon knowing the various conceptions of democracy, would insist on restricting the scope of human rights to political and civil issues.  Some perhaps would feel that the government of the United States does not have a duty to protect the social and economic rights of the people, believing it an individual responsibility to secure them.  Perhaps some would feel that each nation should protect its sovereignty with its own military and economic power, and that no government has a moral obligation to respect the sovereignty of other nations.  Perhaps some would feel that a more limited concept of democracy is a fundamental American value.  

     Nevertheless, the Left should put these issues before the people for debate, giving its reasons for believing that the government of the United States should protect the social and economic rights of the people and the sovereignty of all nations, maintaining that a more comprehensive understanding of democracy is necessary for the good of the nation and for humanity.  Moreover, the Left should explain that the deeper and expanded understanding of democracy has been an aspiration of many of the people of the United States since the birth of the nation, as can be demonstrated through study of the various social movements that the people have formed.  Certainly, many of the people of the United States would support a proposal for a national project based on a deeper meaning of democracy, if it were to be presented to them in a clear and politically intelligent form.

      If the Left could present a scientifically and historically informed narrative of the nation to the people, it would establish the possibility of reasoned discussion over the meaning of democracy, moving the nation beyond the present political scenario, in which the people are divided into two hostile camps that shout at each other, both armed with superficial arguments. 
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