The Backlash Against Neoliberal Globalization from Above: Elite Origins of the Crisis of the New Constitutionalism

Abstract

This article recounts the backlash against the neoliberal constitutionalism that locked in free trade and capital rights through the multilateral treaty organizations of the 1990s. It argues that we can find important forces in the disruption of the status quo among the elite losers of the 1990s settlement. Undercut by competition from China, the US steel industry, in particular, became a vocal opponent of unconditional free trade and a red thread linking all of Trump’s primary advisers on matters of trade. Steel lobbyists themselves helped frame a critique of actually existing neoliberal globalism, which Trump both adopted and acted on as part of his trade war. By searching for the contemporary attack on neoliberal constitutionalism among the disgruntled corporate elite, we find that our current crisis must be framed as a backlash from above as well as one from below.