This 22 minute speech by the Prime Minister of Singapore given on April 8 of this year explains why the world has no choice but to turn its back on the United States. I transcribed the intro. It's a measured and well thought out commentary:
We have known for some time that the world is in flux. The familiar signposts are fading, but the contours of the new global system have yet to take shape. So we are in a period of transition. Uncertain, unsettled, and increasingly unstable. But the recent Liberation Day tariff announcement by the US confirms this stark reality. The era of Rules-Based Globalization and Free Trade is over. This marks a profound turning point. We are entering a new phase in global affairs. One that is more arbitrary, protectionist, and dangerous.
For nearly eighty years since the end of World War II, America was the anchor for the free market economies of the world. It championed free trade and open markets and led efforts to build a multilateral trading system. This WTO system ushered in decades of global growth and stability. It allowed trade to flourish and lifted millions out of poverty. It benefited the world and contributed to America's own economic strength. And objectively, America continues to enjoy unrivaled economic heft. In fact, the US rebounded more quickly than other advanced economies from the COVID pandemic. It surged ahead of all its major competitors in the advanced industrial world.
But not all Americans feel this way about their economy. There are hollowed out towns in what was once America's thriving industrial belt. There are workers whose jobs have disappeared and whose incomes have stagnated. They believe that the American economy is fundamentally broken. Discontent was already visible in the 1990s, when protestors disrupted the WTO meeting in Seattle. Frustrations deepened following the global financial crisis of 2008 and more recently after the COVID pandemic.
To be clear, the global economic system is in need of reform. Singapore and many others have called for changes, and we have been working with like-minded countries and partners at the WTO to reform its processes.
A key concern in America is China. The sense that America has given away too much in allowing China to join the WTO and that China competes on an unfair basis, for example by heavily subsidizing its own companies, putting up non-tariff barriers, and restricting market access to US firms.
These concerns should be addressed within the WTO framework. In particular the trade arrangements and concessions made in the past when China was only 5% of the world's economy should be updated when China now makes up 15% of the world's GDP. And if there are disagreements, they should be resolved through the dispute resolution settlement system -- which has been paralyzed and urgently needs to be restored and reformed.
But what the US is doing now is not reform.
It is rejecting the very system it created.
www.youtube.com
