In America, Trump's election demonstrated this reality: he removed the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with the P5+1 and Iran (JCPOA); the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC); the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration; the Global Compact on Refugees; the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA); the Paris Agreement; the World Health Organization (WHO); the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; the Treaty on Open Skies; the Optional Protocol of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations; the Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights with Iran; and New START. Additionally, Trump threatened to withdraw from the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), the Arms Trade Treaty, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).2 Trump built his case, as did others across the world with their populations, around an argument that American citizens were suffering–economically and politically–by financing global institutions and partnerships who in the end turned their backs on America and her ideals.
The reality was far from the case. Increased globalism and globalization–brought about through a recognition of shared Liberal values and of increasingly open international markets –had, for more than half a century, produced a more stable and more peaceful world even with traditional adversaries like Communist Russia and China. Yet, the more secure and peaceful world did not necessarily translate into all parties benefitting in terms of financial success and political enfranchisement. There had been, across time, an ever-growing disparity of wealth, most notably codified through the rise of the “one-percent, which translated into an unequal position of power which further secured their financial standing and status.”3
A research paper of Oxfam International published in 2015, entitled “Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More,” provided the background:
The richest 1 percent have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44 percent in 2009 to 48 percent in 2014 and at this rate will be more than 50 percent in 2016. Members of this global elite had an average wealth of $2.7 million per adult in 2014. Of the remaining 52 percent of global wealth, almost all (46 percent) is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world’s population. The other 80 percent share just 5.5 percent and had an average wealth of $3,851 per adult–that’s 1/700th of the average wealth of the 1 percent.4
This came at a time, as Oxfam International noted, “when 1 in 9 people [did] not have enough to eat and more than a billion people still live on less than $1.25-a-day.”5 And this came on top of their finding the previous year that “the 85 richest people on the planet [had] the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent (3.5 billion people). The figure is now 80–a dramatic fall from 388 people in 2010. The wealth of the richest 80 doubled in cash terms between 2009-14.”6
How did/does this class accumulate and in turn spend its money? More than a third of the 1645 billionaires listed by Forbes inherited some or all of their riches. Twenty percent of billionaires have interests in the financial and insurance sectors, a group which saw their cash wealth increase by 11 percent in the 12 months prior to March 2014. These sectors spent $550 million lobbying policy makers in Washington and Brussels during 2013. During the 2012 US election cycle alone, the financial sector provided $571 million in contributions.7 Oxfam International was concerned at the time the lobbying power of these sectors was a major barrier to reforming the global tax system.
The Anger was Understandable
America was not exceptional in this regard.; and a great many Americans suffered as a result. Consider the following statistics, which revealed the situation in which America found herself in 2016 just prior to Trump’s election:
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