The global toll of Biden’s green enthusiasm
Amid the violent challenges to the world system in Ukraine and the Middle East, it’s easy to overlook the corroding economic pillars of international order. Under President Biden, American economic policy is morphing into a toxic combination of protectionism and green activism guaranteed to slow growth and create global friction. That matters.
Seventy-five years ago, in 1948, the wheels were coming off post-World War II American foreign policy. Moscow was toppling democratic governments in Europe. Mao Zedong was marching on Beijing.
Violence stalked the Middle East as fighting between newly independent Israel and its neighbors created a massive humanitarian crisis and threatened a wider war. As the global system teetered precariously, President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of State George Marshall understood three big truths.
First, peace in a nuclear age could last only if the U.S. and its allies had the power and will to deter the enemy powers seeking to overturn the world order. Second, at least on the basics, foreign policy had to be bipartisan.
Third, the American-led world system had to raise living standards both at home and abroad. At home, we could never sustain the necessary defense budgets or limit polarization unless the economy delivered for the average American family. Abroad, only rising living standards could promote the political stability and pro-capitalist sentiment that our system needed to survive.
That’s not how the Biden administration does business. Even as threats mount, it plans to shrink the defense budget in real terms. No one in the White House seems to be engaging with people like Sen.
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