Japan Institute for National Fundamentals
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Speaking out

Tadae Takubo

【#405】Dark Clouds Loom over World after U.S. Election

Tadae Takubo ／ 2016.11.09 (Wed)


November 7, 2016

　　　　　Although it may be too early to predict, I envisage that the world after the November 8 U.S. presidential election will enter into the most turbulent period since the end of World War II.

U.S. leadership cannot be expected
　　　　　One problem is that one of the two presidential candidates both of whom exposed personal immoralities such as telling lies, betraying trust and revealing secrets will enter the White House. The new president will fail to unify even her or his own political party, while a deep grudge will be left between the Democratic and Republican Parties to invite political mud wrestling. The new president just cannot be expected to demonstrate international leadership. The morality that the United States had managed to demonstrate after World War II has been lost at least temporarily, affecting its relations with allies and friends in the time to come.
　　　　　Specifically, how far can the North Atlantic Treaty Organization be united in the face of threats paused by Russia that annexed the Crimea Peninsula under military domination, launched air strikes on Syria and began to send an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean Sea? Although members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, excluding Cambodia and some others, had seemed united in the face of China’s expansion into the East and South China Seas, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia have remarkably taken what are interpreted as conciliatory approaches to China.

Globalization is shaken
　　　　　Another problem is that the system of globalization that had seemed established after the war is being shaken greatly by the Trump phenomenon in the United States and the United Kingdom’s decision to exit from the European Union.
　　　　　On this problem, excellent analysis was made on The New York Times on October 20 by Javier Solana, a former EU high representative for common foreign and security policy (a former Spanish foreign minister), and Strobe Talbot, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state (who is now the president of the Brookings Institution). They pointed out that the 2008 Lehman Shock’s severe impact on U.S. and European economies, growing terrorist attacks and a rapid increase in immigrants and refugees resulting from poverty and wars have shaken the postwar system and produced unusual antagonism against governments and their surroundings that have supported the system.
　　　　　A similar analysis is seen in an article titled “Populism on the March” by U.S. journalist Fareed Zakaria on November/December issue of the Foreign Affairs magazine.
　　　　　Populist right-wing parties that have grown active in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland are anti-EU, anti-immigrants and drastically opposed to globalism. As I recall, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has opposed the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement from the outset. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has also reiterated her opposition to the TPP.
　　　　　Doubts are now cast over U.S. leadership that is most required to revive globalization, helping, as a result, China and Russia assume hegemon on the Eurasian Continent.

Tadae Takubo is Vice President, Japan Institute for National Fundamentals.