I understand the logic of trying to scale up via bloc negotiation, but the issues I’m alluding to are problems for viability of the successof that approach, not just a moral position. I’m pointing out that it will likely produce something unstable that runs into the same crisis as we’ve arrived at with the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO, for largely the same reasons.

For one thing, the independence of the bloc is very questionable. Core members are still strategically dependent on the US security and financial system. So, it’s a group of junior partners who are trying to negotiate while still dependent on the senior partner and trying desperately to stay close with them.

That very much feeds into the legitimacy issue, which is why I raise the point about the history of these institutions and why we’ve arrived at a breakdown. The breakdown is a result of the institutions being set up with great privilege for the Global North when that was never going to be permanently sustainable. Now, the sustainability has run its course. The CPTPP-EU solves the problem of being too small economicallyto negotiate, but if 80% of the world looks at a bunch of US junior partners who have benefited from the massive privilege of their positions, and that still have dependence on the US that compromises their independence, and doesn’t see dramatic transformation of the system to make it more fair for everyone, it will just fail again for the same reasons as what led to the current breakdown.

So, not saying they shouldn’t do it. It makes sense as an immediate response, and could be built into something more. That said, if it’s going to avoid the legitimacy trap, it’s going to have to become a meaningfully wider coalition with more important economies beyond the current handful that aren’t US-dependent junior partners, and they need those economies (Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa or the AU, etc) to play a substantial part in the rule-making process to produce something that works for a much wider array of powers. As is, it looks to me like either a dead end or a path to another breakdown followed by the CPTPP-EU trying to be another rule-maker to weaker economies while being picked apart by the US via the dependencies that still exist. Gotta solve the legitimacy problem, or it’s just a bandaid.

Thanks for explaining. So, as I understand it, your points are that factors like population/economics shouldn’t matter when proposing ideas to improve global systems, that blocs built for specific purposes between groups of nations shouldn’t be relevant to sorting out these global systems, that the proposal from something like a CPTPP-EU group is just s proposal and so not coercive, and that 40 nations of the CPTPP-EU is actually pretty inclusive. Is that right?

If so, I think where we differ in our perceptions may be that I’m looking at this in the context of a history of conflict and dominance of European and then broadly Global North nations over the Global South, and that this is very important to present day work to achieve legitimacy for anything that will be inclusive. This history is, I think, very important.

For example, take the vote that passed in the UN general assembly this week that recognized the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and recognized a call for reparations. The votes in favor were basically all from the Global South. The votes against were the US, Israel, and Argentina. The rest of the Global North nearly all abstained. Recently, the African Union also declared 2026-2036 the Decade of Reparations. Also recently, Rubio gave a speech to European leaders at the Munich Security Conference where he talked about getting rid of shame and guilt for the colonial past and the need to put down anticolonial revolutions, and he received applause from European leaders for this.

That example is of Africa, but it’s not just representative of African issues. It just highlights the type of conflict between a profound sense of injustice and exploitation that much of the Global South feels towards the Global North, and a persistent and revitalized desire to act for dominance by the Global North.

You could also look at the split on Gaza and now on Iran. Much of Global South has called out what’s been happening in Gaza as genocide and colonialism. The Global North has largely enabled it or supported it. With the attack on Iran, much of the Global South has called it out as illegal war of aggression, Global North countries will not join them to condemn it.

So, the history of European & American imperial dominance matters. It’s very relevant to trust, to bloc formation and to legitimacy. And, coercion is deeply embedded into this history of dominance and exploitation.

Then, look at the CPTPP-EU composition. Is it inclusive? 40 nations, but only 6 are from the Global South. The large majority are either former colonial powers themselves or tightly allied with them or dependent on them. They’re the same nations that all just abstained on a vote condemning the transatlantic slave trade, that have stood by Israel’s activities in Gaza, and that refuse to condemn the war started against Iran and even continue to subtly support it. And, they only represent 12% of the world’s people.

There is very little basis for trust there.

Lastly, just on the topic of blocs and organizations like BRICS, NATO etc. They cannot be separated from this history either. They are intertwined with it. BRICS and the ADB are considered in many ways to be a response to the lack of representation in institutions like the WTO, IMF, World Bank for previously dominated and exploited countries that are now rising in economic importance, like China, India, Brazil.

All of this historical and current context matters a lot, and while an idea to improve the global system ideally should be able to stand on its own, legitimacy comes down to buy in and trust. The CPTPP-EU group is predominantly composed of countries that have been beneficiaries of the system of dominance, and they are seeking to save that system, so I am very skeptical about the capacity it has to establish legitimacy with a much wider world. Why should Global South countries trust this?