08-09 America First

It is the summer of 1940, and my mother is laughing with a group of ladies who were on their way to Buffalo to buy nylon stockings. Something that was being used for parachutes in Canada, because Canada was at war and the US was not.
The laughing was about one of those Buffalo jokes being told at the time. Apparently, Joe Lifschitz was asking a lawyer to change his name to Bill Lifschitz, which made no sense to the lawyer. “Why Bill Lifschitz?” “Well”, he replied, “I am sick of everyone saying hey Joe, what do you know? When did you get back from Buffalo?”
“Non-interventionism”, “Isolationism”, “America First” are all political terms essentially describing a nation’s foreign policy that is opposed to alliances or international involvement that detracts from its own domestic agendas. And it is a big part of American history.
It is 1940 and the newsreels are all about Canadian troops fighting with British Forces in France. And about Franklin Roosevelt trying to help Britain in various ways without committing the US to war because of all the isolationist political sentiment he was dealing with at the time.
And I remember stories of WW1 told by my grandfather living in the trenches, and fighting with other Canadians, Brits and the French. Again because of isolationist politics back home, the US did not enter the war for three years after hostilities began.
And son of a gun, the US did not sign the Versailles Treaty that ended WW1, which meant the US was not a member of the League of Nations, the first attempt to create some sort of global governing body. Talk about isolationism.
When the US was pulled into WW2 when the Japanese invaded the naval base at Pearl Harbour on December 8, 1941, the era of isolationism was over. And when victory in Europe and the Pacific was achieved, the US was a key force in creating the new global organization called the United Nations.
My history teacher made the point that isolationism in the US kept them as a nation from confronting militarism in Japan and Germany which led to WW2. Heavy. I loved my grade 9 history teacher.
Over the years as a small business leader, I was continuously engaged in the issue of globalism. Not hard for Canadians to think globally because we are members of the British Commonwealth and a trading nation.
And joining the US in a free trade agreement and later Mexico in a North American Free Trade Agreement, was not difficult because in all cases the big momentum came from the US.
Small firms tend to support trade because it leads to growth. And there are always more winners than losers. I remember calling on a member that shut down his manufacturing firm because of NAFTA and invested in a Dairy Queen franchise. Owners are flexible and can take hits.
It was never a surprise that workers in developed countries face a lot of dislocation associated with trade agreements, especially when trading partners have labor costs a fraction of what is paid in their home country.
Unfortunately, globalism is a hard sell over time unless there is a generous social welfare system in place. Bernie Sanders is right in his approach to confronting globalism, but dishonest in not promoting the necessary tax increases to pay for his free post-secondary education and “Medicare for all” proposals.
“America first” sentiments undoubtedly were reborn with the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 and the resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have gone on for years and claimed thousands of lives.
Nations like Canada need to be sympathetic to what is happening in the US. Trump’s “Make America Great” slogan represents an isolationist agenda with deep roots in middle America.
I recently stopped off overnight from a trip to Boston in the town of Auburn, New York. The bartender at our hotel said he was a Trump supporter. Why? Because Auburn had lost 3000 jobs to Mexico because of NAFTA.
The fact that these jobs would eventually have gone to China or have been replaced by automation was too complex for his politic mindset.
More politics. Trump promoted a southern border wall which would supposedly be paid for by Mexico who would pay a new special 20% import tax. Talk about “bullshit baffles brains”.
To do that, Trump would have to get rid of the North American Free Trade Agreement and withdraw from the World Trade Organization. There are rules about this kind of thing. And to further complicate things, he would have to get his Republican colleagues to screw all the major corporations that fund their election campaigns.
This is the way I see things. It makes sense that the US should become more strategic in its international alliances. “America Strategic”, not “America First”. As a nation, it has to reduce its current spending levels so it can refocus resources on new threats.
And these threats are China and Climate Change. Threats that cannot be faced alone. If “America First” means “America Alone”, the rest of the world faces a dangerous challenge.