A better world order is possible. Photo: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images To most on the U.S. left, globalization is a dirty word — the name of that Frankensteinian amalgam of forces that turned America’s industrial centers into Rust Belts, its trade unions into laughingstocks, and New Deal Democrats into anachronisms. And these associations are far from baseless. The model of trade liberalization that the United States pursued in the last quarter of the 20th century favored footloose capital over landlocked labor, financialization over industrial production, and, thus, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party over the progressive one. For this reason, Blue America’s internal debates over trade policy have traditionally pitted progressive protectionists against moderate globalists. From the battle over NAFTA under Bill Clinton to the fight over the Trans-Pacific Partnership under Barack Obama, centrist “free traders” advocated for ever-greater economic integration, while labor-liberals championed economic nationalism with progressive characteristics (in 2016, Bernie Sanders condemned “corporations who want to invest in low-income countries around the world rather than in the United States of America”). But since Donald Trump’s election, the decline in comity between Washington and Beijing has softened these intra-Democratic divisions. In the face of China’s growing economic power and political authoritarianism, many moderate Democrats have lost faith in “free trade” and have come to see industrial policy as a precondition for fortifying American global supremacy. Joe Biden’s recent Cabinet appointments testify to this convergence of “Establishment” and left-wing Democrats on questions of global trade. Not all progressives consider this a victory. In fact, some contend that America’s turn toward protectionism and “great power competition” will condemn its economy to ...
Nic global trends
How the ‘parasite’ QAnon conspiracy cult went global
By Gianluca Mezzofiore, Katie Polglase, Tim Lister, Frederik Pleitgen, Natalie Croker and Sergio Hernandez, CNN Updated 1426 GMT (2226 HKT) October 7, 2020 In a small town in northern Germany, the local yacht club isn't what it used to be. Many of the members -- mostly middle-aged men -- have been sucked into the conspiracy theories of the QAnon movement: that the coronavirus is a hoax perpetrated by secret elites and that President Donald Trump will save the world from the machinations of the "deep state." They've also embraced other themes that circulate among QAnon followers in Germany: displaying the flag of the pre-war German Reich, which is popular among neo-Nazis, and the false belief that German Chancellor Angela Merkel used to be a spy for the East German security service and will soon be arrested. These conspiracy theories and many more, which have spread across social media rapidly this year, led Facebook to take drastic action to curb the impact of QAnon on its platforms. On Tuesday the social media giant announced it would "remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content." Facebook said it is "removing content accordingly, but this work will take time and need to continue in the coming days and weeks." Three years later, Facebook says it will ban QAnon As part of a wide-ranging investigation into the dramatic growth of QAnon accounts outside the United States, CNN recently sent Facebook details of dozens of groups and pages that embraced QAnon conspiracy theories. Facebook said it would investigate them and had begun removing some pages. Read More Among the pages that may be removed in the coming weeks are several of the German yacht club's members, which CNN is not publicizing, and which had devolved into a cocktail of QAnon falsehoods. The son of one member, who asked not to be named to protect his family from further media attention, said his father had begun by ...
Global oil prices have fully recovered from the pandemic
A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business' Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here . London (CNN Business)After a rocky 12 months, oil prices — which got crushed when Covid-19 slashed demand for energy around the world — are roaring back. What's happening: Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, have breached $60 per barrel, their highest level since January 2020. The immediate catalyst appeared to be weekend remarks from President Joe Biden that the United States will not lift sanctions on Iran to get the country back to the negotiating table. But oil prices have been on the upswing for months thanks to optimism that coronavirus vaccines will unleash demand while producers avoid flooding the market with supply. "With Covid-19 cases now declining in certain regions, including the US and the UK, there will be a glimmer of hope that the worst is now behind us, particularly as the rolling out of vaccinations picks up," ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Wenyu Yao said in a recent note to clients. There are also meaningful signs of demand recovery in high-growth economies such as China, India and Brazil, UBS oil analyst Giovanni Staunovo told me. Read More The demand trajectory is definitely "pointing upwards," he said. Meanwhile, producers are working hard to keep supply in check so there can continue to be a meaningful drawdown in inventories, which filled up last year. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies agreed to keep production broadly steady in February and March, while Saudi Arabia said it would voluntarily cut its production by 1 million barrels per day from January's levels. Producers in the United States, for their part, are expected to need longer to get back up to speed. "Investment activity has been relatively muted, and it will still take time to see a bigger impact," Staunovo said. Taken together, this is good news for prices. The trend ...
FNC’s Carlson: Global ‘Lockdown Regime’ Is Trending Towards Authoritarianism
Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson commented on how countries around the world were headed down a path of authoritarianism in the name of stopping the spread of COVID-19. According to Carlson, the trend was the opposite of some historic norms and was impacting society and the environment. Transcript as follows: CARLSON: You’ve heard the name Naomi Wolf before. She has been a prominent person in this country and a prominent Democrat for more than 30 years. Wolf is one of the founders of third-wave feminism. She worked for Bill Clinton. She advised Al Gore famously. Late last year she voted for Joe Biden. You’ve almost certainly seen her book. She’s written a lot of them. A couple of years ago, we criticized Naomi Wolf by name on this show. We didn’t think we agreed on much to put it mildly. Yet less than a week after the last election, Wolf surprised a lot of people by tweeting this, quote: “If I’d known Biden was open to lockdowns as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic and a terrifying practice, one that won’t ever end because elites love it. I would never have voted for him.” Wow. Where did that come from? And more to the point, how did a faithful lifelong Democrat reach that conclusion? Maybe because whatever her preconceptions, Naomi Wolf has been paying attention. And that’s true for a lot of us actually, regardless of who we voted for. People who have been watching carefully may find they have very different views than the views they once had, and the reason for that is simple. Reality itself is changing very fast. All over the world, countries that once seemed like bulwarks of traditional liberal values: freedom of assembly, property rights, freedom of speech and conscience, have suddenly abandoned their long-standing traditions of protecting the individual and now resemble police states. It’s not an overstatement. The change has been sudden, and it’s been ...
Trump Hails New Era of Global Competition, Says ‘America is Going to Win’
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump warned Monday the country's greatness is being challenged by rival powers, but promised the country would use "every instrument" at its disposal to ignite what he portrayed as an American awakening. Laying out his new national security strategy during a speech in Washington, Trump pointed to Russia and China as his chief concerns, saying both countries "seek to challenge American values, influence and wealth." But he promised that Washington, under his leadership, would not back down. "Whether we like it or not, we are engaged in a new era of competition," Trump said, cautioning, "American success is not a foregone conclusion." "We are declaring that America is in the game and that America is going to win," he said. WATCH: New security plan ?Trump said the new national security strategy, which he described as a return to the wisdom of the country's founding fathers, would be a roadmap to greatness. In recent days, senior officials had promoted the new strategy, 11 months in the making, as a "clear and actionable playbook" designed to take on growing threats by focusing on safeguarding U.S. vital interests. "The global balance of power has shifted in unfavorable manners to American interests," a senior administration official said. "This new strategy presents a plan of how America can regain momentum to reverse many of these trends." Trump on Monday repeatedly criticized past U.S. leaders. "They lost sight of America's destiny, and they lost their belief in American greatness," he said. "They surrendered our sovereignty to foreign bureaucrats in far away and distant capitals." Confronting rivals In particular, Trump blamed previous U.S. administrations for failing to confront North Korea and its nuclear ambitions "when it was much easier to handle." And Trump renewed criticism of former President Barak Obama for what he described as a "disastrous" nuclear deal with Iran. "Pushing back ...
