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Will the US under President Trump change the essence of its being?
Comment on the post-election gloom that had befallen us, first drafted on Dec. 6, published on Dec. 15, 2016
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Dear Reader,

You may have wondered why we have gone quiet on this site for such a long time. You did not hear from us
when
François Fillon won the Republican primary.  We did not comment on the all-time highs the Dow Jones
reached not long ago.  And certainly you have not heart from us since Donald Trump won the US presidency
on Nov. 8. In fact, it was the outcome of that particular election that had us go into a soul searching mode.
Although we had flip-flopped on his candidacy during the campaign,
first endorsing him then disavowing him,
we cannot deny that
the sheer misguidedness of his views on free trade as well as the xenophobic undertone
of some of his rhetoric had us wonder whether we may have ever so slightly been an accomplice in creating a
monster which you really, really do not want to see in the top job. Obviously, it is still very unclear where the
Trump Presidency will actually be heading for. His pronouncements in the campaign were so light on substance
that a moderate Trump is still just as much possible as is the out of control one.  In any case, one can only
hope that the advisors who have his ears will be clever and adroitly enough to steer him into a reasonable
direction.

On the free trade issue, however, it will not be dependent on his advisors whether Mr. Trump will be able to
avoid making the worst protectionist mistakes. In our humble opinion, it will be the historical legacy of the US  
which will stop him from undermining let alone dismantling the WTO system and spirit. After all, it was the United
States of America itself which fathered the World Trade Organisation rightly arguing that free trade will be
instrumental to bring nations closer together, increase their understanding of each other and thereby
contribute to the spread of universal values such as rule of law and world peace. Woodrow Wilson was the first
to suggest a supranational approach to international relations. His League of Nations concept was the
beginning of what later, after yet another devastating world war, became the United Nations, the Worldbank,
the IMF and yes the WTO. Mr. Trump may be a great deal maker but he certainly does not have the intellectual
depth and analysis to understand the tectonic implications that come with undoing a cornerstone of US policy
which has defined probably forever what the United States actually stands for. In other words, the unilateral and
arbitrary undermining of WTO rules which the United States had earlier subjected itself to not just by law but
also in spirit will not come to pass. The consequences of this would be too preposterous that any such thing
would indeed be allowed to happen by the wise men establishment in the US. In that respect, there is reason to
hope that the financial markets will do to an out-of-control Mr. Trump what they are supposed to, i.e. force him
into doing the right thing just as much as they earlier forced Mr. Tsipras and Mr. Hollande to give up their
adolescent pipe-dreams of redistribution for budgetary responsibility.

Be that as it may, this still does not explain why we are back in action now. Well, the answer to that simply is
that you have to do what you have to even if
the latter seems quite futile meanwhile.   
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Keywords:

The free trade legacy of the United States, Can President Trump challenge the free trade
legacy of the US, Trump challenges the WTO legacy of the United States of America, Will
financial markets allow the US to pivot to a protectionist trade policy