US 2016 election is a global risk
- By Dan Steinbock
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 15, 2016
The key question remains: Will Trump walk the talk? If, for instance, Trump would go after US allies Japan and South Korea, America's postwar defense system in Asia could crumble.
Moreover, there is another and far more realistic side to Trump's bullying rhetoric. Some of his murmurings - whether NATO is still relevant; that the Middle East would be more stable if Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were still in power; that he could get along well with Russia's Vladimir Putin, and so on - suggest that, in the final analysis, Trump would focus his attention on renegotiating better deals and undermining bad ones, not regime change and global empire games.
Clinton: Liberal interventionism
A few months ago, Clinton garnered a roster of some 200 domestic economy advisors. The goal was not to subvert the old policies of income polarisation, which escalated in Bill Clinton's era and have been sustained through the Obama reign, but to attract middle-class and working Americans, while ensuring campaign finance from Wall Street.
To her surprise, Clinton is now the establishment candidate. Her voters are greying demographics. The young, including young women, are behind Sanders. They no longer trust Clinton. As far as they are concerned, she has betrayed America's indebted students at home and the US military in Benghazi, Libya. Even State Department has been forced to halt review of her emails at the FBI's request. Despite his misgivings about Clinton, President Obama and the White House now support her candidacy by attacking Trump and the Republican candidates.
While Sanders argues that a return to inclusive growth would overcome income polarisation and boost US growth, Clinton's advisors - Paul Krugman, Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Christina Romer, Austan Goolsbee, and Alan Krueger - have sought to discredit the plan by condemning its "extreme claims," including an effort toward universal health care plan and responsible budget planning. Nevertheless, the effort is not devoid of self-interest. These economists have contributed to policy failures, including escalating health care costs, soaring debt.
Despite the leftist rhetoric (which is designed to defuse Sanders's transformative agenda), Clinton's economic policies - including her tax plan and banking policies - require only minor reforms and will not reverse the trend of polarisation, which has deepened in America since the 1980s. She is far too close to Wall Street to challenge the financial interests, which are behind the trend.
In China, Clinton is seen as something of an anathema, due to her role in the US pivot to Asia strategy and efforts to "contain" China's rise. That policy stance accounts for the ongoing transfer of 60% of the US Navy fleet into Asia by 2020 and the associated military build-up in the region. Internationally, it is aligned with Clinton's penchant for interventionism, NATO expansion into Russia's close proximity, more sanctions against Russia and Iran, as well as aggressive efforts at regime changes in Ukraine, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
