Joseph E. Stiglitz's Blog

Trump is bullying Canada over ‘digital taxes’ and Canada caved | Joseph Stiglitz

The question now: will countries cave in to these threats or stick together and collect the billions they are rightly owed?

Donald Trump’s announcement calling off trade talks with Canada over its digital tax – and that he would impose retaliatory tariffs – demonstrates, once again, not only the president’s ignorance of economics and willful disregard of international norms and the rule of law, but also his willingness to use brute power to get whatever he and the oligarchs who support him want.

He was wrong in labeling the tax as outrageous and “a direct and blatant attack on our country”. It is actually an efficient tax, well designed to ensure that the technology companies – the profits of which benefit the tech oligarchs who have come to dominate US policy – pay their fair share of taxes.

Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, university professor at Columbia University and chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute

Anya Schiffrin, senior lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and her student Philip L Crane contributed to this piece

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The G7 has once again put multinationals’ profits over the interests of people

Acceding to US demands to exempt its companies from an agreed global tax deal is morally and financially indefensible

The US Treasury just made a deal with the other G7 countries that global minimum taxes that were already agreed upon will not apply to American companies. The G7 governments caved under intense pressure from President Donald Trump and lobbying from multinationals in Washington, London, Brussels, and beyond – just as India, and now, sadly, Canada have caved on digital taxation.

Years ago, the international community recognised that too many global companies were not paying their fair share of taxes, and some weren’t paying taxes to the country where the economic activity actually occurs. The complex agreement that emerged in 2021 at the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting comprised two pillars; only Pillar Two, a global minimum corporate tax, has been adopted. (The other pillar allocated taxation rights among countries and spurred opposition from developing countries and the US.)

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Allowing foreign firms to sue governments for lost profits is legal terrorism – it must end | Joseph Stiglitz

Investor–state dispute settlements don’t just mean growing debt burdens for countries: they are also a barrier to action on the climate crisis

Donald Trump has thrown a hand grenade into the global economic architecture, destroying some things that are working well. But amid the devastation, some things seem to be surviving that really should be taken down. Among the most notable of these is an arcane set of international agreements by which private investors can sue governments, known as ISDS: investor-state dispute settlement. These disputes are litigated not in public courts with impartial judges but in private arbitration – behind closed doors, and rife with conflicts of interest.

Early on, when they were snuck into many trade agreements, no one paid much attention. For instance, these provisions in Nafta, the so-called free trade agreement between the US, Mexico, and Canada, never got a discussion within the cabinet while I served in the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton when Nafta got adopted.

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Europe’s powerful tool against Russia? Seizing its frozen assets | Joseph Stiglitz

If European leaders want to truly support Ukraine they must seize the moment by seizing $220bn in assets

It is now clear that Donald Trump’s administration will betray Ukraine in its fight to resist Russian aggression. Trump himself is either a victim of disinformation or he is a willing participant in an effort to deceive Americans about the causes and consequences of the war.

Trump’s lies include claiming that Ukraine is equally to blame for the war; that Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn’t “have the cards” to end the conflict on favourable terms; and that Ukraine could not have defended itself without US help. Yet the whole world knows that Russia launched an unprovoked invasion, and we all remember the initial weeks, when Ukrainians valiantly defended an 1,800-mile frontline against a supposedly superior army, long before deliveries of western artillery, armoured vehicles and air defence systems arrived.

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Europe’s powerful tool against Russia? Seizing its frozen assets

If European leaders want to truly support Ukraine they must seize the moment by seizing $220bn in assets

It is now clear that Donald Trump’s administration will betray Ukraine in its fight to resist Russian aggression. Trump himself is either a victim of disinformation or he is a willing participant in an effort to deceive Americans about the causes and consequences of the war.

Trump’s lies include claiming that Ukraine is equally to blame for the war; that Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn’t “have the cards” to end the conflict on favourable terms; and that Ukraine could not have defended itself without US help. Yet the whole world knows that Russia launched an unprovoked invasion, and we all remember the initial weeks, when Ukrainians valiantly defended an 1,800-mile frontline against a supposedly superior army, long before deliveries of western artillery, armoured vehicles and air defence systems arrived.

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The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics | Joseph Stiglitz

The party must return to its progressive roots. A new economy is needed with new rules and new roles

As the shock of Donald Trump’s victory sinks in, pundits and politicians are mulling what it means for the future of the US and global politics. Understanding why such a divisive, unqualified figure won again is crucial for the Democrats. Did they go too far left and lose the moderate Americans who make up a majority? Or did centrist neoliberalism – pursued by Democratic presidents since Bill Clinton – fail to deliver, thus creating a demand for change?

To me, the answer is clear: 40 years of neoliberalism have left the US with unprecedented inequality, stagnation in the middle of the income spectrum (and worse for those below), and declining average life expectancy (highlighted by mounting “deaths of despair”). The American Dream is being killed, and although President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris distanced themselves from neoliberalism with their embrace of industrial policies, as representatives of the mainstream establishment, they remained associated with its legacy.

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Trump would make the US economy weaker, less competitive and less equal | Joseph Stiglitz

Former president offers blank cheque to coal and oil, and cosies up to billionaires such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel

The US presidential election in November is critical for many reasons. At stake is not only the survival of American democracy, but also sound stewardship of the economy, with far-reaching implications for the rest of the world.

American voters face a choice not only between different policies, but between different policy objectives. While the vice-president, Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has yet to detail her economic agenda fully, she probably would preserve the central tenets of Joe Biden’s programme, which include strong policies to maintain competition, preserve the environment (including reducing greenhouse gas emissions), reduce the cost of living, maintain growth, enhance national economic sovereignty and resilience and mitigate inequality.

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Joe Biden has just dealt a big defeat to big tech | Joseph Stiglitz

US president’s new executive order is an important step towards protecting sensitive personal data

Last year, Joe Biden’s administration infuriated lobbyists representing big tech firms and others that profit from our personal data by denouncing a proposal that would have gutted domestic data privacy, online civil rights and liberties, and competition safeguards. Now, the US president’s new executive order on Americans’ data security reveals that the lobbyists had good reason to worry.

After decades of data brokers and tech platforms exploiting Americans’ personal data without any oversight or restrictions, the Biden administration has announced that it will ban the transfer of certain kinds of data to China and other countries of concern. It is a small, but important, step towards protecting Americans’ sensitive personal information, in addition to government-related data.

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Russia must be held accountable over Ukraine – we should seize its assets | Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Kosenko

After the EU and US failed to agree aid packages, we must send a clear message to regimes waging wars

As Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to wreak havoc regionally and globally, the Ukrainian people and their allies demonstrate remarkable determination and courage. But almost two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, it is increasingly clear that the international community can and must do much more to help.

While the G7 countries and other governments around the world have been extraordinarily generous in supporting the Ukrainian war effort, there are signs of growing fatigue in some circles – a development Russia appears to have anticipated. With the US and the EU failing to commit more than $100bn (£800m) in aid to Ukraine in December, the idea of seizing Russian assets frozen by western countries has re-emerged as a potential solution.

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Salvaging global democratic politics requires far-reaching economic reforms | Joseph Stiglitz

Resolving economic and political inequality is vital if we want people to reject authoritarianism

There has been much handwringing about the retreat of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism in recent years – and for good reason. From the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and the former US president Donald Trump, we have a growing list of authoritarians and would-be autocrats who channel a curious form of rightwing populism. Although they promise to protect ordinary citizens and preserve longstanding national values, they pursue policies that protect the powerful and trash longstanding norms – and leave the rest of us trying to explain their appeal.

While there are many explanations, one that stands out is the growth of inequality, a problem stemming from modern neoliberal capitalism, which can also be linked in many ways to the erosion of democracy. Economic inequality inevitably leads to political inequality, albeit to varying degrees across countries. In a country like the US, which has virtually no constraints on campaign contributions, “one person, one vote” has morphed into “one dollar, one vote”.

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