New rise in movement against
Reagan's war policy
"No NATO! Yes bases out!" Shouting these slogans, more than a million people came onto the streets of the main cities in the Spanish state on the weekend of May 4-5 during Reagan's visit.
Jean-Louis MICHEL
Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia,
In
Bilbao, Santander, Oviedo, Saragossa, and
Seville in particular, huge marches formed, showing that the turnaround of the ruling Social Democratic party - the PSOE — toward support for NATO has in no way diminished the capacity for mobilization of the peace movement.
So, some weeks after the success of the march on the US base at Torrejon
tional solidarity with the national and social liberation struggles from Nicaragua to Kanaky, including Africa and the Middle East, provide the framework for new and decisive antiwar May 4 confirm these tendencies but the Western bloc. Christian PICQUET
The specific interests of the various national ruling classes clashed so gravely that no accord, not even a formal one, was reached on the main points under discussion.
The reason for this is that the economic upturn that began in 1983 and 1984 is showing the first signs of running out of steam. In the United States, which had been the locomotive of the expansion, a growth rate of 1.3% for the first quarter of this year points to a 3% annual decline by comparison with 1984. This is the logical result of the mechanisms that produced the expansion of the last two years, because it was stimulated essentially by a pyramiding of the budget deficit in the imperialist citadel 200 billion dollars a year for the last four years).
To prevent this deficit from leading to runaway inflation, Reagan has sought to attract a mass of foreign capital looking for juicy speculative operations. In order to achieve this, the US administration has had to keep interest rates high, bringing on an up-valuation of the dollar detrimental to the economic equilibria of the other imperialist powers.
While in the beginning this policy made possible a revival of production in some sectors, it also inflicted disastrous results on the overall economic life of the other Western countries.
The rise of the dollar in fact made US industrial goods less competititive by comparison with those of other Western countries. In 1984, US imports nearly equalled the Gross Domestic Market Product of France (341 billion dollars).
In trade with Japan, the US has a deficit of 37 billion dollars. And exports of industrial manufactures from Third World countries to the US in fact exceed American exports of such goods to the Third World.
This development is generating a chain-reaction effect on American industry. Firms such as Caterpillar, Ford, Du Pont, and Good Year are closing some of their factories in order to redeploy within the US.
Such is the context that explains the main proposals Ronald Reagan made mobilizations against the militarization and austerity programs of the European capitalist governments that are grouped in NATO under the leadership of the dominant imperialism. it marked a new stage in the crisis of in Bonn - the opening of multilateral trade negotiations with the aim of eliminating subsidies and regulations that protect the markets of the competing imperialist centers.
The first question mark in this respect is the West European agricultural policy, which depends to a large extent on export aid to cover the difference between the European and world-market prices. This system is obviously unfavorable to US agricultural interests, who in the first half of this year have lost twelve contracts for the sale of wheat representing a value of 255 million dollars.
Reagan's proposals in this area ran into conflict mainly with French agri-food companies who hold first place on the European market for agricultural products and second place on the world market. If the US president's proposals were implemented they would lead to the loss of 40 billion francs [more than 10 billion dollars] for France, that is, the equivalent of twice the country's 1984 trade deficit.
On this question, therefore, Francois Mitterrand was obliged to take his distance from his European partners and break with the tradition of submission to Reagan's diktats followed up to now by French governments. Mitterrand's determination was all the greater because the ruling team in Washington could not offer him any quid pro quo in terms of lowering the interst rate.
This year, the US budget gap will be still larger than the one in 1984, and will combine with a larger trade deficit. So, for the White-House, the only way out remains a dear money policy, despite the threat it poses for the international upturn.
While the Western leaders could not reach an agreement on medium-term policies, they nonetheless could note the convergence of their present economic strategies. The final statement of the Bonn Summit noting the "specific priorities" of every country points up clearly that the Seven are united on the essential things - austerity for the workers, pursuing industrial restructuring, reducing social spending, and financial aid for the owners of the means of production.
In summing up the results of the May
6 meeting, the Paris business daily les Echos wrote: "In almost every case, the aim is to contain inflation, control public spending, promote unemployment, develop technology, and create conditions favorable to private enterprise."
For the Third World, a large part of which is now facing conditions of virtual economic collapse (i.e., the subSahara countries, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, etc.), the leaders of world imperialism offered only a few lines in their conclusions: "The flow of resources, including public aid for development, should be maintained, and lI possible, increased for me poores. if possible, increased for the poorest countries."
The lack of content in the statement of the Seven in this respect is in no way accidental. The vagueness was designed to conceal the increased pillage the underdeveloped countries are suffering.
A recent report of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel has just highlighted the cynicism of the big international financial groups. It notes, for example: "In 1984, through the international banking sector, there was a major transfer of resources from countries outside the zone to the rest of the world."
Thus, it could hardly be clearer, that underdeveloped countries are partially financing the crisis whose source is the core of the imperialist centers. The dominated countries find themselves forced to take bitter medicine by the IMF (largely controlled by the US), but they are getting nothing in return, not even in terms of bank loans.
Mitterrand will no doubt try to make the maximum political capital from his clash with the White House chief, building up his Gaullist image and trying to refurbish his reputation a bit with the "people of the left."
An attentive study of the impasse in Bonn shows, however, that Mitterand's policy continues to be dictated by a determination to serve the interests of the French bourgeoisie in the best way possible. Ronald Reagan (DR)
International Viewpoint 20 May 1985