Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, Feb. 28-Mar. 5, 2020
By Anis Chowdhury and
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA
LUMPUR, Feb 25 2020 (IPS)
— Meeting the President
of the Republic of Korea in
September 2019, President
Donald J Trump bragged
that the “US economy is the
envy of the world”. Trump
reiterated such claims in his
State of the Union address
in early February, hailing
his own policies with typical
humility.
Trump touted US economic
success at the Davos
World Economic Forum in
January as “nothing short
of spectacular”, asserting
“I’m proud to declare the
United States is in the midst
of an economic boom, the
likes of which the world has
never seen before.”
Facts hardly matter
To the contrary, US economic
growth slowed after
Trump started the ‘trade
war’ with China, dropping
from 3.5% in the second
quarter of 2018 to 2.1% in
the last quarter of 2019,
much less than the 5.5%
per annum peak in the second
quarter of 2014 during
the Obama presidency.
Meanwhile, annual
growth declined from 2.9%
in 2018 to 2.3% in 2019.
Growth in Trump’s first
three years was well below
the Clinton era (1993-2000)
average around 4%, the
highest for any presidency
in the last half century,
although growth was even
higher at times in earlier
years.
Obama inherited a recession
following the global
financial crisis from September
2008, with the deepest
post-war contraction
when real GDP fell by about
-4% p.a. in the second quarter
of 2009. The US economy
then turned around by
the end of that year.
While US growth peaked
under Obama at almost 4%
p.a. in the first quarter of
2015, Trump’s peak in the
last three years was around
3% p.a. in mid-2018.
Making America
great again?
The United Nations, the
International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank all expect the US
economy to continue slowing
to 1.7-1.8% annually in
2020-2021. US manufacturing
growth slowed to its
lowest level in almost a decade
in August 2019 as the
purchasing managers’ index
(PMI) signalled contraction
for the first time since September
2009.
Meanwhile, with its agricultural
sector experiencing
higher levels of farm debt,
the number of US farm
bankruptcies grew by a fifth
in 2019, from 498 in 2018
to 595, despite the government’s
US$28 billion bailout
for farmers, double the
2009 bailout of its Big Three
automobile producers.
The US Congressional
Research Service doubts
that the supply-side incentive
effects of Trump’s Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act, mainly
benefiting the wealthiest
10% of Americans, will be
as significant as he claims.
Much of the funds
released by the tax cut have
been used for a recordbreaking
spree of stock
buybacks, worth more than
US$1 trillion in the first
quarter of 2019, augmented
by easy money policies.
In December 2019, the
IMF noted that “Global
growth recorded its weakest
pace since the global financial
crisis a decade ago”
despite monetary policy easing
all round.
Meanwhile, slower global
growth has been increasingly
blamed everywhere
on the US-China trade
war. Hence, while Trump’s
attempts to ‘make America
great again’ have largely
failed to lift US growth, they
have been harming the rest
of the world.
Election economics
President Trump kicked
off his 2020 re-election
campaign at an Orlando,
Florida rally in June 2019
with his characteristic modesty,
claiming that the US
economy under his watch
was “perhaps the greatest
economy we’ve had in the
history of our country”.
To enhance his appeal,
Trump has successfully
pressured the US Federal
Reserve to keep monetary
policy and credit conditions
‘easy’. However, the
funds have not gone into
productive investments, but
instead to portfolio investments,
mergers, acquisitions
and share buybacks,
transferring more wealth
and income to the rich.
Trump has also been
repeatedly promising more
tax cuts, ostensibly for the
“middle-class”. His economic
advisor, Larry Kudlow told
Fox News that Trump wants
to give the middle class a
10% tax cut in September,
weeks before the polls.
By Louis Charbonneau
Louis Charbonneau is United
Nations director, Human
Rights Watch
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25,
2020 (IPS) — United Nations
Secretary-General, Antonio
Guterres has long needed
to overhaul his approach to
human rights. Hopefully his
call to action announced in
Geneva yesterday is the start
of something new.
Guterres’ low-key approach
to human rights may have
been calculated to avoid conflicts
with big powers like the
United States, Russia, China,
and Saudi Arabia. But human
rights groups and former senior
UN officials have criticized
it for being ineffectual.
The secretary-general’s new
initiative contains some excellent
ideas. The link he makes
between human rights and
the impacts of climate change
is crucial, and those who fight
to protect the environment
are increasingly at risk.
Forest defenders in Brazil
and elsewhere are threatened,
attacked, and killed
by those who seek to benefit
from the forests’ destruction.
And Guterres is right to
highlight the risks posed by
new technologies, whether it
involves government surveillance,
artificial intelligence,
or fully autonomous weapons,
so-called “killer robots.”
The test for any initiative is
the implementation. No one is
suggesting the secretary-general
do everything alone. But
he needs to lead by example.
That means publicly calling
out rights abusers and advocating
for victims. Human
rights violations aren’t like
natural disasters.
They are frequently planned
and executed by government
officials or their agents –
whether it’s the mass arbitrary
detention of Uyghurs
in China, Myanmar’s ethnic
cleansing campaign against
Rohingya Muslims, indiscriminate
Russian-Syrian bombing
of civilians in Idlib, or the
forced separation of children
from their parents at the US
OP-EDS
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Continued on Page 11
Continued on Page 11
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Lucky Donald Trump
looking smug
UN chief should
lead by example on
human rights
Anis Chowdhury.
Inter Press Service
/schnepsmedia.com
