Trump’s duties: a chance for a new international order

Trump, as previously announced, has just implemented a huge global increase in import duties, with the risk of a protectionist shift, a shrinking of world trade and a potential global economic recession. Is it only a threat for the EU and Africa, or is there any chance to see this move also as an opportunity? We asked Fabio Masini, Professor of Theories and History of International Political Economy at Roma Tre University and academic coordinator of the CIDRA Project.

It is both an opportunity and a threat, as most crises are. Much depends on how actors behave, and if they are able to act like actors on the global field. This means, for both Europe and Africa, that the national dimension is too small to react to any major shock like the one that Trump is imposing on the world economy. Only at the regional level can credible strategies be implemented to offset the damage of US protectionism.

The WTO, in theory, stands for avoiding a protectionist bias in the global economy.

You are right: “in theory”. All international institutions have been delegitimized by an aggressive nationalistic behaviour of the new Trump administration, which is even threatening to quit the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

That would mean the end of multilateral global organizations.

Yes, but there is a logic behind this behaviour. After 80 years of US and dollar hegemony, which allowed the US to enjoy the “exorbitant privilege” (as De Gaulle used to call it) of running systematic balance of payments and internal deficits without ever needing to adjust its economy and domestic prices, drawing savings from the rest of the world, especially from the least developed countries, the US debt is reaching the unsustainable figure of $40trillion. Trump’s challenge is to have the rest of the world pay for such unsustainable debt. Which must be resisted, as it is the result of a precise choice of the US administrations, consistently pursued for the last 80 years. You cannot now ask the rest of the world to bear the costs of such choice.

What do you see as an opportunity in this scenario, and what does this mean for the CIDRA project?

As a Washington Post article recently argued: “Trump’s global funding cuts leave a void in Africa for rivals to exploit”. The EU, with its high degree of interdependence with Africa and geographical proximity, is in a key position to fill that gap. But it must heavily invest in Africa, promoting a regional approach to EU-Africa relations, strengthening both the African and European regional institutions. For example starting with an immediate free trade agreement between the AfCFTA and the EU single market. To be later opened to ASEAN, Mercosur and other regional players.

This would also represent a first block upon which a new multilateral/multipolar economic infrastructure may be built, based on regional powers with equal dignity and representativeness. A sort of global Westphalian system of States that may replace the hegemonic solution we experienced after WWII, which eventually failed to deliver the global public goods we are increasingly in need of: peace, financial stability, distributive justice and balanced growth, struggle against climate change, management of the digital transition and AI-related technological shift avoiding it becomes a global threat to humankind, etc.

Europe and Africa, for different reasons and with different degree of chances of success, have a huge responsibility in this. The CIDRA project was precisely designed upon these ideas, and we are committed to enquire into the critical aspects for the implementation of such roadmap.