NAFTA – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Review of 2018, Part 4 (October–December): Nationalism, Deglobalization, plus the US exit from Syria

OCTOBER Where US–Canada relations were concerned, as well as Trump’s trade strategy, NAFTA was the leading event opening the month of October. The US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) On Monday, October 1st, came the striking news that at the last minute the US and Canada signed a new agreement which, together with Mexico, would replace NAFTA. While […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Review of 2018, Part 3 (July–September): The Trade War plus Cold War II

JULY June was a month so heavily saturated with key turning point events, that it seemed like the longest month of the year—but then July came. Already, on the first day, we were treated to a very unusual sight: an obviously chastened and tamed John Bolton, just back from his visit with Vladimir Putin in […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Review of 2018, Part 2 (April–June): Dealing in Danger and Diplomacy

APRIL The Trade War Begins? April continued many of the same themes from March, beginning with the apparent start of a trade war between China and the US as China made good on its threats of retaliation in a major way. China expanded its list of tariffs, targeting 128 US exports with up to 25% […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Review of 2018, Part 1 (January–March): Unloading the American Empire

In memory of James Laxer, n. December 22, 1941, d. February 23, 2018, prolific author, and an inspiration to all Canadian academics to think for ourselves. JANUARY A US-dominated World Order in Decline At first it seemed as if the start of 2018 proved the existence of a deep continuity between Trump, Obama, and Bush […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Trade War is Here: Some of the New “Facts of Life”

In Madeleine Albright’s new book, dramatically titled Fascism: A Warning, she slams the anti-globalization crowd, claiming yet again that globalization is here to stay—it’s a “fact of life”. It must be another of those facts of life that we are seeing today, like “Donald Trump will never be elected president” or “UK voters will ultimately […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Better Off Without NAFTA, Part 3: Mexico—Armed Rebellion, Mass Migration, Flat GDP

Getting Past the Propaganda We are routinely told that Mexico has grown into the “one of the more robust emerging economies with exports of about $1 billion a day”, more than 10 times what they were in 1994. CBC News, like Trump, thinks Mexico is “the big winner” of NAFTA. If it sounds improbable that […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Better Off Without NAFTA, Part 2: Canada—Localized Profit, but a Net Outflow of Capital

In Part 1, details on trade and investment between Canada and the US were presented that showed the US has run surpluses in the trade in goods and services, and more investment came into the US from Canada than the other way around. Both of these have the effect of draining capital away from Canada. […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Better Off Without NAFTA, Part 1: Introduction—the US, Trump, and Facts and Fictions about Winners and Losers

Canada, Mexico, and the US: we could argue that any one of these nation-states “lost” because of NAFTA while the others “won”. That is Donald Trump’s position: that the US’ trade partners have “won” from NAFTA, at the expense of the US (which would also validate NAFTA as a “good thing” for both Canada and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Trade War and the Nationalist Exchange: Trudeau Trails Trump

“These tariffs are totally unacceptable. For 150 years, Canada has been America’s most steadfast ally. Canadians have served alongside Americans in two world wars and in Korea. From the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of Afghanistan, we have fought and died together. Canadian personnel are serving alongside Americans at this very moment. We are […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Donald Trump, Empire, and Globalization: A Reassessment

“Hey, I’m a nationalist and a globalist,” Donald Trump recently declared, “I’m both”. The only way in which the two (seemingly contradictory) positions can be reconciled is by introducing a third term, one that is absent from Trump’s vocabulary: imperialism. Trump might not be conscious of the implication of his statement (nor would he be […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

How to Read Donald Trump Like Donald Duck

If an alien were to land on Earth, and listen only to Donald Trump, the impression the alien would get is that a great, powerful, and cruel nation–Mexico–was dominating its neighbours unfairly, robbing them of their resources, cheating them through trade, and invading them with gangsters. “Mexico is killing us at the border”. “Mexico is […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Neoliberalism, Brexit, and Higher Education

Is Brexit bad for UK universities? This appears to be the question at the centre of an article from the Times Higher Education titled “UK researchers face uncertainty over EU grant applications” (David Matthews, June 29, 2016), which was approvingly reprinted in the Bulletin of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (Vol. 63, No. 7, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Wall: A Monument to the Nation-State

Reaction against globalization often takes a visceral nationalist turn in many parts of the globe, no less in the US where the impacts of globalization are increasingly registered as an increased “Third Worldization” of large parts of the society and economy. The nationalist reaction to peripheralization within the centre takes shape in ideas of “taking […]