The Trump administration is looking to create more and more tariff with other countries in the world one by one. It is made to show the strength of the United States compared to the others. However these measures show that the United States is a declining power which is using its current position but whose supremacy is threatened. The tariff measures, to this extend, look to be unefficient in the long run.
Benefiting from its current position of superpower can lead to advantages no other country can have. The recent deal with Japan, for instance, is made in terms no other country in the world, except China today, could afford. Moreover these countries can’t tell they are unhappy to the extend China is the other alternative, which is even worse. To this extend Trump can abuse from its position of superpower. However, if you put aside criticism about this abuse and the problems it can create in the relations between allies, it is a false remedy against the disease the United States, like many countries of the Western world, are suffering from. The high level of debt, the pauperization of the middle class, the decline of education are creating the conditions of a logical loss of statute of the United States, and more generally of the Western world which is today economically less powerful than Asia.
It looks that Trump is masking the realities of the real causes of the decline of the United States. He is not alone, as Macron is doing the same thing in France. Macron prefers for instance to maintain a financial aristocracy (I think bankers, traders, businessmen… should earn very well their lives, but not with disproportionate dividends or Golden Parachutes when they made sometimes their companies bankrupt). On the other hand, doctors, teachers… are underpaid with very bad working conditions. This unfairness is even not economically efficient, as it creates a long term decline as we see today. Another question concerns debt: the overwhelming amount of debt which is striking the United States is showing that leaders of the Western world of today are not really worried about the success of their countries, only about their own ambitions. If you compare with former leaders like Roosevelt in the United States or de Gaulle in France, these leaders were ambitious for themselves but wanted as well their country to succeed, and had real ideals ; they were also more honest than today, even if they could be very strategical politicians.
Trump is creating to this extend an illusion thinking than creating taxes will solve the long run threats of the United States. It may be reassuring for its voters, show the virile strength of the United States, but it won’t solve the real issues. The intellectual Todd told that the United States lost its protestant initial values, which included a massive alphabetization and education of the population. He said that the fact the reformers like Luther, Melanchton or Zwingli created massive education had a huge impact on the economic development of the Western world, and contributed to make it enter in modernity. The great amount of innovation, scientific progress and the rise of modern capitalism, which was mobiliary with the development of cities, businesses and also financial markets, for instance in Netherlands, was a consequence of this massive education. However today only Asia kept this old fashioned system, but we can see today the consequences economically and socially. If Asia it today the first economic zone in the world, its middle class has never been as powerful as it has been for many centuries. For instance the Chinese middle class can create great long term threats for the supremacy of the Western world in the future.
It looks that the tariff measures of Trump are actually an illusion and a false remedy. His will to isolate the United States from the rest of the world, which is a tradition for a country which has often been less expansionist than England or France, even if they do an economic imperialism, isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Focusing on economic development and not military interventions have often been good choices for countries and civilizations in history. But creating tense situations with allies and not focusing on the real problems is not leading to solve a lot. It participates to the decline of the Western world and a new phase of History led by Asia.
The observer 