Jeffrey Sachs on bullies, thuggery

Jeffrey Sachs is an American economics professor, one of the world’s leading experts on economic development and on the fight against poverty. He served as special adviser to former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and was the leading architect of the Millennium Development Goals program. In spite of his support for population control measures, he is a papal adviser on sustainable development.

Last February he gave the keynote address at a Vatican conference on “New Forms of Solidarity.” His concluding remarks could be of interest to all of us. Here are portions of those remarks:

“Multilateralism is not under threat per se in most of the world. It is under threat because of the United States and I want to say this clearly because it’s not a game and it’s not to provoke, it’s to discuss. The US was the predominant economic and technological power of the world for decades. This is no longer the case. It is a powerful country economically and technologically but it is no longer a dominant power.

“The European Union is a larger market. China is a comparable market and the spread of technology is worldwide. The US is by far the most powerful military country in the world. Though, it learns war after war that the military can solve no political problems whatsoever. We have 6,000 nuclear warheads, 800 military bases around the world, we are involved in 14 shooting wars right now, have instigated multiple wars. The US is a problem. It became a far more significant problem with Donald Trump…

“The US has blocked every multilateral initiative of recent years. It is the only country pulling out of the Paris climate agreement; it is the only country that pulled out of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) with Iran. There is not a China-US trade war, there is a US trade war on China that is different. This was an unpremeditated attack because of China’s rising technological capacity, have no doubt about it. What is this about Huawei or about ZTE or about others, it is because the US realizes that China is gaining massive technological capability in artificial intelligence and other security-related areas because China’s talented smart, minting hundreds of thousands of PhDs every year, and that’s how the world works now. There’s no monopoly of knowledge, there’s no monopoly of talent. This is driving US strategists crazy because US grand strategy is based on primacy and that’s not some fantasy of mine. This is in our documents, our doctrines one after another…

“Last month when Iraq said it wanted the US military forces out. If you can imagine the Treasury said ‘we will confiscate your foreign exchange reserves at the New York Fed, if you persist in pushing our troops out.’ This is thuggery. This is a complete violation of every international rule. [Recent moves to terminate VFA come to mind.] This is truly what we are facing, and I’m sorry to say it, it’s my country. I’m not very happy to say it, but this is an imperial power in decline. And it is a dangerous country right now. It will be absolutely dangerous if Trump wins re-election… We cannot have one country that is 4.2 percent of the world population, and still 15 percent of world output but not 50 percent of world output, decide on the international structure on which the other 96 percent depend for their lives now.

“Moreover, in the United States, Mr. Trump does not have a majority backing so it is quirks of many things that give unilateral power to a small coterie of people to dismantle the International System right now. What I would just beg of you who are running the International System, have an open discussion. Don’t be cowed by bullying … There is fear of the United States. This is different. Well, that’s what bullies do, bullies threaten you—you step a little bit ahead you’ll get pummeled…

“Last time I checked the United States is 16 percent of the vote I believe, not 84 and there’s another 84 percent. The General Assembly routinely votes a hundred eighty-five against the United States on almost everything right now. One after another, it’s the US and two or three allied countries. And I know how that works because the ambassadors tell me about the threats that the US is putting on direct vulgar threats and I know about it one by one by one. So we are not in a crisis of multilateralism and it’s a bluff like bullies bluff…”

Bullies come in all sizes and skin colors. Some are white, others yellow, and there are brown ones. They prey on the weak and helpless. Beware!

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