America scapegoating us for its problems | Editorial

By Kieron Murdoch | Opinion Contributor

The United States of America is a highly developed mixed economy and the world’s largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP). The US remains the world’s foremost economic and political power in international affairs. Over the last 70+ years, the US has had more influence over world financial and trade policies than any other country has. And yet, for the past few weeks, the world has been fed a steady diet of drivel asserting that the rest of the world is taking advantage of the US and handicapping its growth and development through unfair practices.

In 2024, the United States, with a population of 340 million, had the largest economy in the world, with a GDP of just under 29 trillion U.S. dollars, while China, with 1.4 billion people, had the second-largest economy, at around 18.5 trillion U.S. dollars. And yet, for the last few weeks, the world has been fed a steady diet of drivel asserting that the rest of the world is taking advantage of the US and handicapping its growth and development through unfair practices.

The U.S. has the world’s deepest financial markets, making it easier for startups to raise equity and attract investment, further boosting the attractiveness of the market. The U.S. dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency facilitates global commerce and makes it easier for American businesses to operate internationally. And yet, for the past few weeks, the world has been fed a steady diet of drivel asserting that the rest of the world is taking advantage of the US and handicapping its growth and development through unfair practices.

US corporations have spent the last 70+ years enjoying unparalleled global access and influence in the developing world to form partnerships, exploit resources, establish manufacturing, open franchises, market goods, escape taxes in their own country, and profit from globalisation, sometimes at the expense of competitors who are nowhere near ready to challenge them. And yet, for the past few weeks, the world has been fed a steady diet of drivel asserting that the rest of the world is taking advantage of the US and handicapping its growth and development through unfair practices.

The present US leadership is scapegoating. A scapegoat is someone or something that is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency. This is what is unfolding before us when the current US administration speaks as though the primary agent restraining greater prosperity among certain segments of the US population is the rest of the world, as opposed to America’s inability to address inequality at home.

The narrative from the Trump White House is that everything other than the issue of chronic inequality is responsible for the pressure on the American middle class, and generally higher cost of the American dream, especially for working people. Diversity policies are to blame. Migration to the US is to blame. US spending on foreign aid is to blame. The size of the US federal workforce is to blame. Waste and fraud (real or imagined) are to blame. Nowhere is there any space for an honest discussion about the chronic issues that increase inequality domestically. No, the fault lies with the rest of the world, which is ironically always trying to catch up to the US and its unparalleled wealth and opportunity.

The truth is that without the right guardrails, wealth and capital tend to allow those who have it to accumulate more of it to the exclusion of everyone else. A gap tends to grow between those who have and those who do not. This is not a new phenomenon, and various countries, big and small, wealthy and poor, take measures, some similar and some different, to try and adjust for this reality so that opportunities are not lost to those who have less, and so that everyone has a fair and reasonable chance of success.Such policies often attempt to guarantee a basic standard of education, health and social security, so that no one is handicapped by lack of literacy, skill or knowledge; or lack of capacity to look after their health, or the inability to retire when that age arrives. The more tricky ones often have to do with how one ensures that everyone has access to things like affordable housing, credit on reasonable terms, jobs that pay fair and good wages, and the ability to move around for opportunity. The issue of fair and equitable taxation is also paramount as well.

In 2020, the Pew Research Centre published an article on trends in economic inequality in the US in which it stated: “The wealth divide among upper-income families and middle- and lower-income families is sharp and rising” and that income inequality in the US had increased “uninterrupted since 1980” and is “greater than in peer countries.” It found that “the rise in economic inequality in the U.S. is tied to several factors [including] technological change, globalisation, the decline of unions and the eroding value of the minimum wage.”

It is an interesting read that you can see here. If you are interested, also watch this more recent short interview on the issue of opportunity and mobility in the US.

The US continues to enjoy growth rather than stagnation and investment rather than decline, and enjoys these to degrees which most other nations envy. So the trouble is not productivity, innovation or growth. The trouble is how it impacts people differently. The conversation that the Trump White House seems to want to have surrounds the negative outcomes that have been for American towns, cities, and communities where previously, manufacturing industries provided good work and decent opportunities for many people. Often, these people did not fall into the college-educated bracket. Even with a degree, the rat race to gain a decent position that can support a family, a mortgage, health insurance, etc, is increasingly stiff.

But what the current US President is doing is scapegoating the rest of the world, as well as scapegoating a laundry list of other domestic actors and issues for the complex issue of inequality faced at the state, city, town and community level across the US. 

In all seriousness, if the orange man wanted to change it, his administration would be focused on addressing inequality, lowering the cost of housing, providing better access to affordable healthcare, making medicine more affordable, growing the pool of well paying jobs that don’t require a college degree, increasing wages, and making higher education more affordable for those who want it. He would also need to proffer solutions to the rising cost of property in many US cities and towns that price people out of the ability to rent, to buy a home, or to even move to a location where there is more economic activity. 

The current US administration’s signature economic policy seems to be to increase tariffs. They have ignored the advice of anyone and everyone who has said that this will have adverse impacts and would need to be done in a more targeted and less clumsy, and chaotic way if it were to be effective in the cases of specific industries and trade with specific countries. It is unlikely that it will have the results the administration is promising, and it has only added uncertainty, financial loss and frustration to markets and businesses around the world.

Inequality is a challenge every country may face, and different countries have had varying degrees of success addressing it. It would be nice, however, if the US would address the issue and the complexities of it, rather than lashing out at the rest of the world as if somehow it is we who have been one-upping them all these years and not the other way around.

About the writer: 

Kieron Murdoch is an opinion contributor at antigua.news. He worked as a journalist and later as a radio presenter in Antigua and Barbuda for eight years, covering politics and governance especially. If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this editorial and you would like to submit a response by email to be considered for publication, please email [email protected].