Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

Trump is placing far-right ideology above common sense. One can only wonder why. Trump has always appeared to be a pragmatist despite the bluster. Today, he is taking a hammer to world order and stability.

Bretton Woods and, before that Lend-Lease – the equipping of US Allies in WW2 through US bounty and industry- enabled the USA design a world that placed the US Dollar at the center of international finance.

US industry and finance stabilized the world Post-WW2– 1945-1970- US post-war trade surpluses allowed for the establishment of a sustainable and well-managed global debt economy.

US economic power allowed countries to exist within boundaries set by the Dollar. The US trade surplus offered a war-blighted world a pathway to social and economic recovery.

Twenty years after WW2, that surplus turned to deficit as the world came to depend on US deficits and markets. The USA, from the mid-1970s, became a market for the world’s goods and services. Imbalance with imports into the USA
from the rest of the world, far surpassing US exports, did not appear to affect the USA in a negative manner.

Paradoxically, as that deficit and trade imbalance grew, the US became even wealthier. The world ran on debt owned by mainly American investors and taxpayers. The Dollar was the currency of choice as the USA emerged from war the supreme power of the world. In essence, the Dollar was a vast credit facility offered to the world and guaranteed by the US taxpayer and American investor.

The US was key beneficiary of this post-war order. It wrote the rules the world had to follow, creating institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and United Nations.

Peace on earth was always a fairy tale. World Wars 1 and 2, the Cold War, Islamic terror, and the emergence of a world ruled by super-wealthy dictators and strongmen have ended the idea of a world ruled by law and international consensus.

The idea of Francis Fukuyama, that humanity has arrived at the end of history: a peaceful planet ruled by liberal economics, is the very opposite today. The world today appears to be plunging into turmoil.

Fukuyama must be an optimist. History reveals man has always been warlike. There has not been a time the beast called man has not spilled the blood of neighbor and foe, over wealth and power.