The world isn’t laughing at us. It’s marginalizing us.
Donald J. Trump promised to make America great again, whatever that means and for whatever that’s worth. (The “peace president” also promised not to involve the U.S. in any more foreign wars, after all.) A driving motivator for this undereducated, amoral dolt for decades has been to relieve the nepo baby’s nagging sense that the world is laughing at us (him).
Well, no, the world is not laughing now. It’s horrified. Trump shot the United States’ reputation in the middle of Fifth Avenue and killed its trust in us. Now the world is working at shunning the United States like it would a sex offender or murderer in the neighborhood.
Dean Blundell reported on Wednesday that in the wake of his stunning speech at Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is building “a 40-nation alliance totalling 1.5 billion consumers across 40 countries, representing almost half of the world’s GDP.” The object? To render reliance on U.S. trade irrelevant:
The combined EU-CPTPP bloc would represent about 40% of global GDP and 1.5 billion people. The U.S. economy is about 25% of global GDP. China is about 18-20%.
Read that again. This alliance is bigger than the American economy. It’s bigger than China. It is, by raw economic mass, the largest trading bloc ever assembled. Trump’s tariff threat — “buy from us or else” — loses its teeth when these 40 nations can buy from each other instead, at zero tariffs, with harmonized supply chains that don’t need American ports, American consumers, or American approval.
According to the World Bank, the two blocs together account for almost a third of all world trade. That’s trade that can now flow between them — without touching the United States.
The 39 nations of this coalition, for the record: the EU’s 27 member states, plus the 12 CPTPP members — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam. Canada holds memberships in both. Which means Mark Carney isn’t just a participant in this alliance. He’s the architect sitting at the intersection of both blocs, holding the blueprints that he laid out in Ausralia [sic] last week if you were paying attention.
Global supply chains would avoid Trump’s tariffs by routing component parts and finished products around the U.S. Politico reported last month on this effort to bypass the mercurial (or do I mean insane?) U.S. president (Politico):
The middle powers are taking action. The EU and CPTPP are starting talks this year to strike an agreement to intertwine the supply chains of members like Canada, Singapore, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Australia with Europe.
It would bring nearly 40 nations on opposite sides of the globe closer together with the aim of reaching a deal on so-called rules of origin.
These rules determine the economic nationality of a product. A deal would allow manufacturers throughout the two blocs to trade goods and their parts more seamlessly in a low-tariff process known as cumulation.
“The work is definitely coming along,” a Canadian government official granted anonymity told Politico.
Blundell explains:
Here’s the piece that doesn’t get enough attention: this alliance won’t just trade differently. It will set the rules for how global trade works going forward. Digital trade standards. AI governance. Supply chain transparency. Green technology. Environmental rules. Labor standards. Investment protections.
When 40 nations representing 40% of global GDP agree on standards, those become the de facto global standards — whether Washington likes it or not. American companies that want to sell into this bloc will have to meet those rules. Not Trump’s rules. Not the rules of whichever MAGA donor wants a carve-out this week. The coalition’s rules. “Governor” Carney’s rules. And there’s nothing the Pedophile rapist felon in the Oval Office can do about it.
This is the point at which Trump declares victory and (with Stephen Miller and Russ Vought) turns back to dismantling our democratic republic and replacing it with a white, Christian-nationalist homeland ruled by tech oligarchs.
U.S. trading partners are looking to marginalize Trump and the U.S.:
This is the long game, and Carney knows it. The country that sets the rules for digital trade, for supply chain accountability, for AI — that country shapes the world economy for a generation. Trump abdicated that seat at the table. Carney walked in and sat down.
“In a world of great power rivalry, middle powers have a choice: compete for favor or combine for strength,” Carney told leaders gathered in Davos. He meant it like the labor union slogan, “United we bargain, divided we beg.”
Trump’s entire leverage model requires countries to come to him one at a time, hat in hand, desperate for access to American consumers. Carney just gave those countries a different market — bigger, rules-based, and explicitly engineered to function without American participation.
The tariff is only a weapon if you need what the person threatening you has to offer.
Canada’s Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is floating his own proposal for marginalizing Washington. The handwriting is on the wall for Trump. But he can’t read it.
(h/t SR)