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@ Louis Dupont
2025-02-19 02:24:26
This article by Thomas Piketty has, in a way, convinced me that the tariff war will indeed take place. Moreover, the Trumpist nationalism-capitalism he describes—authoritarian and the most aggressively extractivist—places Canada in the position of a coveted target.
The fact that “if the Republican Party has become so nationalist and virulent towards the outside world, it is primarily due to the failure of Reagan-era policies, which were supposed to boost growth but instead reduced it and led to the stagnation of incomes for the majority” is of little consolation.
\*“Let’s be clear: Trumpist national-capitalism loves to flaunt its strength, but in reality, it is fragile and on edge. Europe has the means to confront it, provided it regains confidence in itself, forges new alliances, and calmly analyzes the strengths and limitations of this ideological framework.
Europe is well-positioned for this: it has long based its development on a similar military-extractivist model, for better or worse. After taking control of maritime routes, raw materials, and the global textile market by force, European powers imposed colonial tributes throughout the 19th century on all resistant countries, from Haiti to China to Morocco. On the eve of 1914, they engaged in a fierce struggle for control of territories, resources, and global capitalism. They even imposed tributes on each other, increasingly exorbitant ones—Prussia on France in 1871, then France on Germany in 1919: 132 billion gold marks, more than three years of Germany’s GDP at the time. As much as the tribute imposed on Haiti in 1825, except this time, Germany had the means to defend itself. The endless escalation led to the collapse of the system and European hubris.
(…)
If we reason in terms of purchasing power parity, the reality is quite different (…) With this measure, we (…) see that China’s GDP surpassed that of the United States in 2016. It is currently more than 30% higher and will reach twice the U.S. GDP by 2035. This has very concrete consequences in terms of influence and investment capacity in the Global South, especially if the United States locks itself into its arrogant and neo-colonial stance. The reality is that the United States is on the verge of losing control of the world, and Trumpist outbursts will change nothing.”
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/02/15/thomas-piketty-trump-s-national-capitalism-likes-to-flaunt-its-strength-but-it-is-actually-fragile_6738187_23.html