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NOVEMBER 16, 2021

Meyerson on TAP

Our Global Accords: The Good, the Bad, the Meh, and the Huh?

The global corporate minimum tax was a real achievement. The Glasgow
accord was mainly a 'Huh?'

This year, the United States played a lead role in crafting agreements
to which the vast majority of the planet's nations signed on. The
first set a global minimum tax on corporate profits of 15 percent, as a
way to keep many of the world's largest firms from assigning their
profits to the relative handful of nations with little or no corporate
taxes. Ireland, Luxembourg, and various Caribbean mini-states had for
years provided havens to the Apples of this world, depriving every other
nation of the taxes that Apple et al. would otherwise pay them for the
profits they made in those countries.

Also this year, the just-concluded COP26 conference in Glasgow met to
address an even more fundamental concern, the escalating frying of
Planet Earth. On this, as a host of

**Prospect**writers have noted, not much really got done, other than a
pledge to continue considering what the world could do. Wealthier
countries did pledge some assistance to those less wealthy, but when it
came to developing standards comparable to the threat, to deciding how
to view nuclear power, and to a host of other key issues, no accord was
reached.

One obvious reason for the difference between our nation's two global
forays is that an overwhelming number of nations stood to benefit from
wiping out the tax havens that cost them needed revenues, and from no
longer having to wage a race to the bottom of tax rates in order to
attract corporate investment. Whereas, when it came to agreeing to
serious decarbonization standards, the clout of the fossil fuel
industry, combined with elected officials' fear of inconveniencing and
perhaps inflicting higher costs and job loss on their electorates,
effectively cowed Glasgow's visitors.

Another key difference was the role of the U.S. government. Led by
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the world's dominant financial power,
home by far to more globetrotting corporations than any other nation,
was pushing to limit the games global capital plays. In essence, the
U.S., under President Biden's leadership, provided not just a prod but
a shield to other nations, lest their own transnationals raise a stink.
Without American leadership on this measure, its adoption would have
been unimaginable.

On the other hand, the U.S. has long sounded an uncertain trumpet on
"aggressive" (i.e., adequate) climate change legislation. This was not a
cause on which the U.S. could take the lead, though the rest of the
world (with the exception of Saudi Arabia and kindred states) surely
welcomed America's return to the ranks of the climate-concerned, after
four years of Donald Trump's climate denial (Biden having thereby
cleared the world's lowest bar). But Biden knew that he couldn't
bring Congress very far along on this issue. For Republicans, the mere
recognition of climate change's existence is one of those PC things to
be weaponized against the Democrats. Moreover, absent Joe Manchin's
cooperation, Biden couldn't even get the Democrats to enact sanctions
for continued reliance on fossil fuels. At Glasgow, Manchin's
fossil-fuel-philia could not be overcome. Had the home of Exxon,
Chevron, and Texas endorsed stricter standards, the U.S. might have been
able to play a role more comparable to the role it had played on taxes,
but such was not to be the case.

What the world's nations at Glasgow did commit to was to make some
necessary but way insufficient reforms, and to continue to ponder the
more fundamental concerns. A little Good, more than a little (given the
escalating pace of climate change) Bad, and, really, more Huh? than Meh.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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The Stupid Technicality That Could Down the Biden Agenda

The Congressional Budget Office is restricted from scoring additional
tax enforcement as yielding stronger tax collection. BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

Connecting Climate Goals to Industrial Goals

Biden's Green Steel Deal with the EU is a model for future
progress-and it beats anything that came out of Glasgow. BY ROBERT
KUTTNER

Schrier Buys up to $1 Million in Apple Stock

She reported the purchase months after making it, an apparent violation
of federal law. BY DONALD SHAW

⏩ Women's Empowerment and Workers' Rights in a Post-Pandemic World

Editor-at-Large Harold Meyerson moderates an International Labor
Organization discussion on empowering women workers. BY PROSPECT STAFF

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