The time’s a-changing
Dear Editor,
It is a time of trepidation. Besides the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the global order, we have the farewell tour of the Pax Americana.
Pax Americana or American Peace is the idea of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere, and later the world.
It began in 1944 with the Bretton Woods Agreement that created the current international architecture like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, to build on the prevalence of the United States power.
It is also called the rule-based international system.
The farewell tour was punctuated by US President George Bush with his Iraq war that was not United Nations-sanctioned, then US President Barack Obama’s Syrian war, and everyone was emboldened by US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies.
The order was intended to keep the US as the global leader, but China’s and Russia’s re-emergence threatened that status.
Without the support of the US, China would not have become the factory of the world. The US gave China most-favoured nation status and supported China’s acceptance into the World Trade Organization.
Today, China has the second-largest economy and the largest in purchasing power (parity) according to the IMF. With the rise of China and Russia in the Pax Americana, the US has little incentive to sustain it.
In 159 days the US national debt increased by US$1 trillion on April 1, 2020. This is the fastest increase in history.
The US national debt has been growing exponentially. On October 22, 1981 US debt topped US$1 trillion. On September 5, 2007 US debt top US$9 trillion. On October 31, 2019 US debt topped US$23 trillion.
US national debt is currently US$24.2 trillion. It is mathematically impossible to pay off all this debt at once. The US knows this, and therefore has been binding key countries it thinks it requires with trade deals, such as Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Japan, and soon the United Kingdom.
Jamaica and Caribbean are slow to adapt to the global reality that has massive local consequences.
The US is Jamaica’s most important trading partner, and among its mains source of tourists and remittances. The world has changed and the COVID-19 pandemic will only escalate the trend.
The IMF expects global gross domestic product (GDP) to decrease by three per cent, which is a cumulative 6.3 per cent decrease from January 2020. We need to wake up, grow up, man up, and become more self-reliant.
Brian Ellis Plummer
brianplummer@yahoo.com
