President
Obama blasted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's worldview in an
essay published Thursday in The Economist.
Without
mentioning Trump by name, Obama rejected a "crude populism" while
defending his vision of an American economy that embraces trade and
technological innovation.
Obama wrote
that many world leaders are wondering how a country like the U.S., which has
benefitted from trade, immigration and technology, "suddenly developed a
strain of anti-immigrant, anti-innovation protectionism."
The president
tied the current nationalist fervor, espoused by Trump, to the "nativist
lurches" of the past, including discrimination against Asian workers in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
"Americans
were told they could restore past glory if they just got some group or idea
that was threatening America under control," Obama said. "We overcame
those fears and we will again."
Obama warned
that world leaders can't afford to write off "discontent" at home and
abroad that is "rooted in legitimate concerns about long-term economic
forces" including income inequality and job displacement.
But the
president rejected populist notions that America should pull back from the
world by cutting off trade and increasing tariffs or "breaking up all the
biggest banks" - an idea backed by liberals such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.)
"The
economy is not an abstraction," Obama wrote. "It cannot simply be
redesigned wholesale and put back together again without real consequences for
real people."
Instead, he
argued for domestic policies including higher taxes on the wealthy, expanded
unionization and better job-training programs that narrow income gaps and help
workers find better-paying jobs in a modern economy.
Obama also
pushed Congress to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which is
opposed by Trump and Hillary Clinton, arguing it "will level the playing
field for workers and businesses alike."
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