Not only do you not understand economics, your basic premise that “the majority of the world is in very deep debt, not wealth” is false. The idea that the poor are getting poorer is a myth, and a harmful one. Bill Gates wrote a letter debunking this lie, and includes verifiable statistics to back up the truth of the matter, which is that poverty has been in retreat all over the world over the last 50 years.
Have a read: you might just change your pessimistic outlook.
“ It will be a remarkable achievement. When I was born, most countries in the world were poor. In the next two decades, desperately poor countries will become the exception rather than the rule. Billions of people will have been lifted out of extreme poverty. The idea that this will happen within my lifetime is simply amazing to me.”
Free Trade Capitalism is responsible for the World being better off today than it has ever been. Protectionist Capitalism is still Capitalism, but protectionism is interference in the free market that results in sub-optimal results for the World as a whole. Protectionism doesn’t contradict Capitalism, it just restrains it a little. Trump’s problem is that he wants the best result for the USA and American workers, and doesn’t care much about Mexican, Chinese or Indian workers who will be adversely affected by reduced access to the American market. Trump knows what the Democrats were never honest enough to say in public: free trade lifts wages in poor countries and restrains them in rich countries, and moves manufacturing to wherever it is cheapest to manufacture. Over time wages reach a point of equilibrium where other countries are no longer cheaper than America. Without tariffs or non-tariff barriers to trade, US wages would stagnate until they reach parity with Mexico. The American working class were not told their jobs would go to poorer countries, enriching them while impoverishing American workers, but that’s how a free trade market works, and it explains exactly why the rest of the World got so much richer, while Americans became relatively poorer over the last few decades. Trump is trying to change the free Trade deals to keep jobs in America, and keep US workers better off than those in other countries. That is a hugely popular idea in America, but will be seen as nationalist aggression by all of America’s trading partners.
So I’m against protectionism, but the Left have been protesting against Globalisation for decades, so to now oppose Trump’s anti-globalisation policies has the left contradicting themselves big time.
