U.S. presidential election will not change the global landscape

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While the game pieces and players have changed, the rules are still the same for this year’s American presidential election.

Following a lacklustre debate performance and COVID-19 diagnosis that renewed old questions of his mental and physical health, U.S. President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy. He is the first incumbent president since 1968 to drop out of a presidential race. 

Vice-President Kamala Harris received his endorsement and has been certified as the Democratic presidential nominee, along with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Polling shows Harris is leading former president Donald Trump and his vice-presidential pick, J.D. Vance, although election day is still far out.

Domestic affairs are the principal focus for voters in the global hegemon. Even the top two foreign policy concerns — preventing terrorist attacks in the U.S. and reducing the flow of illegal drugs in the country — are inwardly centred. So where does that leave the rest of the Earth? Frankly, it does not look good.

For Canada, the matter is clear cut — Harris is likely to be business as usual in maintaining cordial trade and diplomatic relations, albeit skewing south of the 49th parallel north. 

Trump, whose influence on the Canadian right wing cannot be denied, is likely to re-ignite his “America First” brand of politics. Although Conservative Party and Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre is expected to command a parliamentary majority in our own federal election projections thus far, rhetorical relations will probably be softer than with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The rest of the world wishes it has it this easy.

For Israel, which has been credibly accused of committing genocide in Gaza, American support is unavoidable. Trump has unequivocally done so, Biden has a long-documented pro-Israel history and actively does nothing to stop Israeli war crimes, and Harris has signalled no course diversions. 

It does not matter which party rules — the U.S. is undeniably complicit in officially tallying over 40,000 dead as well as the estimated 186,000 or more deaths in Gaza to maintain a neo-colonial supremacy in the Middle East.

For the rest of the world, it fares no better. The U.S. is guilty of an insane amount of sovereignty violations — internal meddling, overthrows, disinformation, wars and invasions, violations of human rights — the list goes on longer than can be documented here. 

At the time of publication, Venezuela is back in the hot seat because of how Washington, D.C.’s preferred candidate failed to win the presidency. Corporations steal trillions worth of material wealth from the global south for consumption in the global north, which is what necessitates all of those flagrant abuses of other nations. 

The imperial core needs raw materials to sustain its high gross domestic products, so it loots the periphery, traps it in debt, and then sells them the finished products at inflated prices because value has now been added, either by the core itself or in the semi-periphery if the labour is cheap enough. 

The Atlantic triangular trade never disappeared — it went global and replaced slavery with starvation wages, and the U.S. is the “Don” of this racket. Refuse to play by the rules, sanctions will be imposed, squeezing your economy to make it scream in submission, or get sanctioned because you play the game parallel to the U.S. and threaten its decades of unquestioned dominance.

Now, you may be wondering if it matters whether a Democrat or Republican wins the election this November. If the arc of history is anything to go by, the answer is no. Outside the specific context of the U.S., nothing will fundamentally change for the rest of the world. Preserving the empire is a bipartisan policy and has been for over two centuries.

Nineteenth century Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz once lamented, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” A modern revision of this quote should read “Poor Earth” for the exact same sentiment.