The Glass Half Full

The coming us presidential election will be a referendum on globalisation whose outcome is already known. Regardless of whether Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain wins, the result will be a tie.

If that seems odd, it is because both candidates support some aspects of an interconnected world, while also representing elements of opposition to the same trend. Of the two, Obama has explained his position on globalisation in clearer terms, and demonstrated an acute understanding of the interdependent world. Yet, he has also taken positions on offshoring that run against the spirit of globalisation. McCain, an old-style free trader, is a much more ardent supporter of economic globalisation, but appears uncomfortable with some of the political and cultural components of the phenomenon.

Obama’s life story — as the son of a Kenyan father who came to the US to study and a white mother from middle America, growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia — makes him a living embodiment of globalisation. His experience and travels ensure that he is aware of the world outside the US and sensitive to its concerns. Well before the hurly burly of campaigning began, Obama explained his vision in a speech before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In a cogent passage he said: “In today’s globalised world, the security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people. When narco-trafficking and corruption threaten democracy in Latin America, it is America’s problem, too. When poor villagers in Indonesia have no choice but to send chickens to market infected with avian flu, it cannot be seen as a distant concern. When religious schools in Pakistan teach hatred to young children, our children are threatened as well.”

Yet, Obama’s experience in the US’s rust belt has taught him that charity must begin at home. As he put it, “We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans, burdened by the dislocations of a global economy.” This belief and the exigency of securing the backing of the Democratic ‘base’ of working-class Americans has led him to denounce offshoring. He said he would “end the tax breaks for companies that are shipping jobs overseas and provide a tax credit for every company that’s creating a job right here in America”. Obama, of course, should know that there is no tax break. Companies with overseas operations are allowed to defer their tax payment. But this is a campaign slogan that reassures millions of American voters worried about foreigners taking away their jobs.

McCain, a red-blooded patriot and a former prisoner of war, appeals to American patriotism and its basic laissez-faire economic beliefs. As he said during his campaign, “I am the biggest free marketer and free trader.” His solution to the dislocations created by jobs moving abroad is traditional free-market speak: “We need to have education and training programmes for displaced workers that work, going to our community colleges.” However, McCain’s free market speech accompanies an ‘America first’ message that runs against the grain of an interdependent world. McCain draws his support from segments of population who are angry about illegal migration, seeing terrorist threats linked to brown-skinned foreigners, and increasingly anxious about the liberal cosmopolitanism of the coastal US. By portraying the half-black, urban Obama as fundamentally ‘different’ in his outlook, and by extolling the virtues of small-town US, the McCain campaign has given voice to anti-globalisation anxieties. As some commentators have pointed out, the erstwhile undercurrent of anti-black racism of many has recently morphed into more abstract anti-foreign, anti-Third World sentiment embodied by the word ‘globalisation’.

If McCain wins over those who are concerned by Obama’s threat to reopen Nafta to enforce labour and environmental regulations, some countries will breathe easy and, perhaps, the WTO’s Doha round of trade talks can be revived. But if he hews to the agenda of his core constituents, McCain will continue a unilateralist foreign policy that has for the past seven years run largely against the grain of an interdependent world. An Obama victory would see the adoption of measures ostensibly aimed at protecting American workers, but which could damage both trade and a blossoming offshoring business. However, in the conduct of his foreign policy, there is little doubt that Obama would be a more popular leader in a globalised world. Whoever wins the US presidency, globalisation will score only half a victory.