CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Thank God for Global Capitalism

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Oil prices are gyrating and global markets are panicking as the two-week war with Iran goes badly. According to Bloomberg and the Financial Times, Donald Trump is already having second thoughts about the conflict. That development invites an unusual reaction. Thank God for global capitalism.

If the American political system cannot restrain Trump, apparently oil traders and bond markets can. Global capitalism is once again doing what the Republican Congress, American public opinion, and the U.S. electoral system have so far failed to do. It is disciplining Donald Trump. Markets are succeeding where democratic institutions have not.

We have seen this movie before. Last year Trump announced sweeping tariffs and declared what amounted to a new economic nationalism. Markets responded exactly as markets do when profits appear threatened. Stocks dropped sharply, investors fled, and within days the administration quietly rolled back much of the policy.

Capitalism spoke and Trump listened. Commentators jokingly called it “TACO Don.” Trump Always Chickens Out. But the nickname slightly misreads the story. Trump does not suddenly discover humility or prudence. He backs down because markets force him.

Now the same drama is unfolding with Iran. Trump appeared to believe the war would be easy. A few days of bombing, the regime decapitated, and grateful Iranians rushing into the streets thanking the United States for liberating them from the Ayatollah. It is the same fantasy that surrounded the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when Americans were told that Iraqis would greet U.S. troops with........

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