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Click above for: "Trump Derangement Syndrome:
America's most prifitable syndrome" |
Just the other night, a couple of us Trump supporters get confronted by a self-described liberal-progressive Trump Hater. (Let's call him our "LP friend").
None of us is an American citizen, but some of us live there, and all of us are into US politics. In my case I'm a convert to Trump support, from life-long support of the Labor Party in Oz, and of the Dems in the US. The other Trump supporter has always been so, I believe, even though living in the very Blue State (aka "Democratic") of Massachusetts.
The Anti-Trumper, our LP friend, is an Aussie, living in China, with a lot of business in the US. He has a deep case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Nothing that Trump does -- not even the release of the last of the Gaza hostages -- gets any credit.
He had a sharp and immediate go at us, we TS guys, claiming that Trump is "destroying" the world economy. The specific charges: "Trump is destroying the global rules-based order of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and the Paris Climate Agreement."
This view is a bit odd to us Trump supporters. We don't necessarily disagree with our LP friend. Just that we consider the "destruction" (aka "disruption") of the WTO and Paris Agreement very much a Good Thing!
We think, or at least I think we think, that shaking up this "world order" is not at all a bad thing. After all, it's in creaky old life. Disruption -- or "destruction" if you must -- is not something to decry, to regret, to cry over, as did our LP friend. He thought that of course it's a Very Bad Thing,
LP friend was on a tear, and very upset by all this "destruction" of the Rules Based World Order.
We tried to get our say in, during LP mate's diatribe. To no avail. For example, my point about differential tariff rates in the US, China and the EU was dismissed out of hand.
So let me put down here some thoughts on these. I do hope our LP friend will look at them at some stage.
Before I do, let me say that we TS couple were the targets of very hostile ad hominem from our LP friend. We were called "arseholes", "wankers", "delusional", "wrong", and "stupid". Really! Even though we'd hardly had a chance to make a case.
Our LP friend should contemplate: over half the United States thinks as we Trump supporters do. Half the world thinks as we do. Are we all know-nothing ignorant arsehole wankers?
We did not reply in kind. No ad hominem from us. As my TS pal said: "You can disagree without being disagreeable". I specifically said to LP friend: "let it be recorded that we have at no stage offered any gratuitous, rude ad hominem".
On the WTO and Paris Agreement, some thoughts below.
By the way, I worked from within the Australian government on WTO issues, as a rep of the Australian Foreign Service, so I've some direct involvement and experience. These are the facts, as well as I know them.
Operating Outside the WTO Framework
The WTO has become a dysfunctional, sovereignty-eroding institution that systematically disadvantages the United States.
Since China joined in 2001, America has lost millions of manufacturing jobs -- in Middle-class middle America and in the middle
of America -- while running the world’s largest trade deficit—over $18 trillion cumulatively—largely because WTO rules prohibit the aggressive tariffs and industrial policies that built America’s economy in the 19th century and that a mercantilist China itself uses today. As does the EU.
WTO dispute settlement is rigged: the Appellate Body (now defunct thanks to U.S. blocking) repeatedly overreached, inventing obligations never agreed by Congress and striking down legitimate U.S. national-security measures (e.g., steel tariffs).
China gets "Developing-country status" which is crazy, given it is now the world’s second-largest economy. It claims special breaks while subsidizing state-owned enterprises at levels that would be illegal for any true market economy. Dumping is a daily deal. Intellectual property theft is standard practice for China. Again, I've had experience of it, directly, in the case of Australian companies.
Operating outside the WTO framework—through bilateral deals, unilateral tariffs under Section 301, or new
plurilateral arrangements—restores leverage. Trump’s Phase One deal with China extracted more concessions in 18 months than 15 years of WTO complaints ever did. The
USMCA replaced NAFTA’s weak provisions with strong labor, digital-trade, and currency rules that never would have survived WTO consensus.
In short: the WTO locks the U.S. into a 1990s ruleset that assumes perpetual American hegemony and benevolent trading partners. Reality has proved otherwise.
Going outside it lets America use its massive market as a weapon again, protect strategic industries (semiconductors, steel, EVs), and negotiate from strength rather than beg for permission in Geneva.
Operating Outside the Paris Climate Framework
The Paris Agreement is a diplomatic triumph for everyone except the United States.
It is legally binding only on emissions reporting and aspirational “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs)—but politically and economically binding on U.S. industry through endless domestic regulation justified as “meeting our Paris commitments.”
China, India, and other major emitters face no hard targets until 2030 and beyond, yet they build coal plants unabated (China permitted two per week in 2023). The U.S., already the global leader in emissions reductions since 2005 thanks to the natural-gas revolution, pledged the most aggressive cuts while subsidizing competitors via the Green Climate Fund ($3 billion pledged, mostly unfulfilled under Trump).
Paris creates a one-way ratchet: every five years countries must increase ambition, but there is no enforcement mechanism against cheaters—only moral pressure that never falls on Beijing or Delhi, only Washington. Remaining in the accord keeps activist lawyers and international bodies claiming U.S. fossil-fuel restrictions are required by “treaty obligation,” even though Paris explicitly is not a treaty under U.S. law.
Withdrawal, as executed in 2020 and reversed in 2021, proved costless: U.S. emissions continued falling faster than most Paris signatories without the accord’s bureaucracy.
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Carbon emissions dropped during Trump 1.
They rose during Biden presidency |
In fact, opposite of our LP friend's assertions, the emissions of Carbon Dioxide dropped under Trump's first presidency, and are falling under his second. While Biden's presidency brought an increase in emissions.
It signals that US climate policy will be set in Congress and statehouses, not by unelected UN negotiators. America can still lead—through innovation, methane reduction, nuclear deployment, and bilateral deals—without surrendering energy competitiveness to rivals like China who treat Paris as a free pass.
President Trump is all about reducing regulations, making energy cheaper, and supporting technology. It turns out that this market-based approach achieves much more than international bureaucratic diktats do.
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I offer our LP friend any space he'd like here to counter my points. I've done this before to other LP friends, but almost never an answer. I expect the same this time, but if he'd like to, the space is here waiting.
