This is Richard Wolff responding to aremarkable development in the American economic system. President Trump has attacked the Huawei Corporation, he has attacked foreign owned corporations in general, he has used national security to justify preferring American owned companies to foreign, and to attacking the business relationships between China’s Huawei Corporation, a leading telecommunications company and the American companies particularly those that provide Huawei with components and inputs.
Why am I concerned about this? Well, it seems to me an escalation(逐步扩大;增加) of an extreme form of economic nationalism(经济民族主义) that is the road down which Mr. Trump and his regime(政权体制) are traveling whether they understand it or intended or not. It is also extremely self-destructive(自我毁灭),it was impossible in years gone by for strong, extreme economic nationalists to survive.
Germany under Hitler couldn’t do it and they were very strong and the internationalization of the economy was not as far along as it has come since. To try to do that again in these days with globalization behind us for 25 years is foolhardy(有勇无谋的;莽撞的), let me explain briefly how the Huawei attack by Trump illustrates(诠释) this point, by interfering in a peacetime world in the private profitable interactions between Huawei and major and smaller American companies.
Mr. Trump is posturing(摆姿态、故弄玄虚) for his political base(政治基点、政治主张), looking like thetough guy who's making America number one, but here's what his actions will now produce: every executive leading every major company in the world outside the United States now Associates a new risk with doing business with American companies, the risk is that some president, Mr. Trump or anyone who follows along his lines will for their own political advantage interfere and jeopardize that company. Huawei is damaged and hurt that's the whole point of Mr. Trump’s activity.
By being cut off from American suppliers,you know what Huawei is going to do? they've already begun, they're going to find other suppliers, non-American companies that they can turn to or they'll develop the component parts themselves, if that were all that happened, the damage would be contained(抑制、遏制), but it hasn't been. Every other company in the world realizes at any point Mr. Trump might single out(从...单独拎出、特别挑选出) their country or their company or both, and throw them into jeopardy, hurting their profits, hurting their business,perhaps even threatening their survival.
So what those companies are going to do now, and next month, and next year is reduce their interactions with American companies, don't rely on America to be the place where you sell. The Chinese are learning that, don't rely on American companies for what you need to buy, because Mr. Trump with his attack on Huawei shows you the dangers there.
Every American company is going to be hurt by this kind of foreign change in attitude, from America being the place other countries felt the safest to do business, it has become one of the more dangerous places and the long-term consequences of that amount to(计算到...头上) Mr. Trump on behalf of American capitalism, shooting it and himself and the system right in the foot, damaged to our economic future for the short-term political gain of an extreme nationalism and a politician bumping down that road(一路颠簸下行) with disasters to come after him.
This is Richard wolf responding to an urgent and basic change in America's relationship with the rest of the world, going it alone in a globalized world is a very bad economic strategy.