Alternatives to Corporate Globalization

Financialization, deindustrialization, extreme corporate concentration and political fallout from decades of damaging trade policy won’t be remedied by Trump’s Oligarchic First tariff chaos or a return to neoliberalism.

A new approach to international trade that breaks from both the NAFTA/WTO model and from Trump’s erratic tariffs is necessary to deliver economic security for American working people. The neoliberal global trade and finance systems make success nigh impossible for even the smartest policies to reverse financialization of the U.S. economy, create or even sustain well-paid American jobs and healthy Main Street businesses, or build green energy and transportation systems.

We need international trade arrangements explicitly designed to distribute production with more key goods made here and more diverse sources of imports, promote balanced trade, and set a floor of labor, environmental, and competition standards. This could benefit U.S. workers and producers while bolstering our national security, enhancing resilience, building fairer markets, and deconcentrating political power. This approach could also benefit workers and smaller domestic businesses elsewhere. The damage caused worldwide by corporate-led hyperglobalization has generated demand for a new approach.