Page 21 - CSA Speaker Bulletin January 2017 | CSA Celebrity Speakers

US ELECTIONS

WHY MULTILATERALISM
STILL MATTERS

Javier Solana is President,
ESADE Center for Global
Economy and Geopolitics and
Former High Representative for the
Common Foreign Security Policy of
the EU.

Across the West, faith in
international governance and
economic globalization is
declining. As Donald Trump’s victory
in the United States’ presidential
election showed, voters, driven by a
sense of injustice and inequality, are
increasingly rejecting openness, as
well as the political establishment that
has advanced it.

But, while the grievances fueling (WTO) – the main forum for time of independent nation-states
these choices are real – many have negotiating and implementing global will therefore carry massive costs.
been left behind by globalization – the trade norms and one of the only Indeed, the decline of the WTO,
treatment is likely to cause more harm international organizations with a together with the demise of deals like
than the disease. quasi-judicial dispute-settlement the TPP and NAFTA, would fuel the
entity. emergence of separate trade blocs,
Trump won by promising to pursue inaugurating a new era of great power
unilateral and inward-looking All of this ignores a crucial fact: in competition. Perhaps most important,
solutions, much like those advocated today’s world, turning inward is not a a retreat from global trade would
by proponents of the United Kingdom’s viable option, especially for Western bring about a generalized loss of
exit from the European Union. Voters liberal democracies. We are simply welfare.
were galvanized by the prospect of too interconnected; the problems,
rejecting new free-trade agreements challenges, and opportunities we face The good news is that not everyone is
like the Trans-Pacific Partnership have no regard for national borders. suffering from such a lack of vision.
(TPP), and renegotiating old ones Read more. n
like the North American Free-Trade Efforts to move backward to the
Agreement (NAFTA).

They rally against multilateral bodies
like the World Trade Organization

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