How To Save America

“The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over.”

That was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last week, who would go on to compare the Donald Trump-led dismantling of America to Brexit.

"I have seen this movie before,” Carney said. “I know exactly what is going to happen … the Americans are going to get weaker."

Carney has an election to win, in a Canadian electorate fuming at the United States. But this is not hyperbole. If anything Carney understated the magnitude of our self-destruction.

I remember when U.K. voters approved the Brexit referendum how dumb it seemed—not so much that it passed but that everyone decided to treat that as a final word. No delay. No reconsideration. No more bites at the apple. But why? Democracy doesn’t end after one election. It is meant to be self-correcting. If a democratic polity makes a grievous mistake, the people can fix it before the consequences become irreversible. And the sooner they fix it the better they can contain the damage, not only in direct material terms, but also to their country’s place in the world.

The United States has mechanisms that would allow us to save ourselves quickly. Both from the immediate destruction of the global trade system (the taxes themselves, the shocks to supply, the higher prices) and the attendant unraveling of American power.

But it’s daunting to contemplate what that would look like.

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