Cromwell

Today the trade war with the Chinese began in earnest.  Whether it is just a futile gesture and a nuisance or something far worse than that depends on the Chinese response.  Some measure of retaliation is inevitable, but if it remains within bounds, it might not be a big deal.  If it causes Trump to make matters worse, things could spiral out of hand in a hurry.

As appalling as the trade war and the corresponding market reaction is, that isn’t the worst news of the day.  That would be John Bolton getting the NSC job.

Bolton is a warmonger, plain and simple.  His appointment means the war with Iran is even more certain, and it may well not be limited to an exercise in cutting the grass for the Israelis.  Bolton wants regime change in Iran.  Cutting the grass isn’t going to cut it; a full scale conflict will be necessary, possibly involving the use of nuclear weapons.

He also supports a preemptive war with North Korea.  Whichever comes first, it will be a disaster for the world, and the domestic political consequences will make the fallout from the Iraq War look like a picnic.

 

The addition of “Xi Jinping thought” to the Chinese Communist Party’s constitution was viewed as a great boost to the potential President for Life, and correctly so.  However, “Xi Jinping thought” will also operate as a restraint on Xi; he can only claim a mandate to rule as long as he behaves in a manner consistent with his own published thought.

By way of contrast, there is no “Vladimir Putin thought,” so he can do what he damn well pleases.  It’s all about the man himself in Russia, and if he wants to change course on a dime, he can do it.

A note to my readers:  I will be on vacation until April 3.  Don’t expect any new posts until then.

While large and persistent trade deficits are not, by themselves, evidence of flaws in the international trading system, the Chinese approach to trade does present problems which require an appropriate response.  I have indicated in a previous post that our choices come down to two:  beat ’em or join ’em.  What would that mean in practice?

Any analysis of this situation has to begin with an understanding of the fundamental differences between the American and Chinese political and economic systems.  The “Chinese dream” is about the wealth and power of China, not its individual citizens; the Chinese culture emphasizes the collective over the individual; and the Chinese Communist Party asserts the right, and often uses it, to intervene in every aspect of society.  Mercantilism is a logical outgrowth of that approach.  Chinese businesses are correctly viewed as agents of the state, because that, in fact, is what they are, and the Chinese government has every right and reason to pick winners and distribute assets as it sees fit.

The American system, on the other hand, is built around limited government, individual freedom, the rule of law, and a level playing field.  American businesses are emphatically not agents of the state, and any attempt to pick winners would be met with outrage.

With this in mind, Trump may think that he’s emulating the Chinese by imposing tariffs, but is he, really?  If you genuinely wanted to fight fire with fire, you would have to force Chinese companies to turn over their technology to specified American companies in order to gain access to our market.  You would have to identify and subsidize national champions.  You would impose lots of regulations on Chinese companies and force them to take on American partners.  Trump isn’t proposing any of that, because it would be unthinkable under our system.  His failure to do so means that his approach cannot work.

The alternative is to work closely with our friends throughout the world to create and strengthen rules-based institutions (e.g., the TPP) that effectively prohibit obnoxious mercantilist practices.  As big as the Chinese economy is, if China were confronted with a united world demanding change, it would come. Unfortunately, Trump rejects multilateral action on trade, and appears to believe that our European and Asian allies are just as bad as the Chinese, which simply isn’t true.  As a result of this fundamental blunder, the world may well support the Chinese in the trade war to come, and it will fail.

As I’ve noted previously, tariffs split the GOP; PBPs and CLs hate them, while Reactionaries (free-trading farmers excepted) strongly support them.  The split closely resembles the division over immigration; both sides are very passionate on the subject.

The Democrats have their own division.  The Sanders wing of the party echoed Trump’s position on protectionism during the 2016 campaign, although Sanders illogically also supported high levels of immigration, and the voters appeared to support Trump’s more consistent position over his.  Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton, who was assumed by all parties to be a free trader, felt compelled to water those views down in response to Sanders’ appeal to white working men.  It made her look weak and hypocritical, and it did her no good in November.

The dynamics of the issue will be different in 2020.  While some prominent Democrats have actively supported Trump’s tariffs, polls showed that the blue base supported free trade even before Trump made protectionism toxic, so I can’t imagine that the party will nominate someone who is determined to out-Trump the man on golf cart. On the other hand, there obviously is an argument that support for protection could help swing the Rust Belt voters who won the 2016 election for Trump back to the Democrats.  In light of that, what will the party do?

Fortunately, there is a logical middle ground:  to identify Chinese mercantilism as the real issue, and to propose solutions to it that don’t involve imposing tariffs.  I will discuss that in a post tomorrow.

Hey, I bet Cyrus the Great had lots of really hot mistresses, too!  It just proved he was a winner!

I don’t pretend to know what Mueller is thinking and what he has.  However, it certainly appears from the widening of the scope of the investigation that the complete exoneration to which Trump thinks he is entitled is an unlikely outcome.  At best, Mueller may find that there is plenty of smoke, but not enough proof of a fire; at worst, he may determine that Trump committed an indictable offense.

In my view, it is more likely than not that Trump will take the necessary steps to fire him in the fairly near future.  Sure, there will be an uproar, and comparisons to the Saturday Night Massacre.  That said, he knows that the base supports him and considers the investigation a witch hunt, and that the GOP Congress is far too afraid of the base to impeach him.  Furthermore, the public can easily be distracted by North Korea, or Iran, or the latest outrage in the culture wars.   From his perspective, therefore, the benefits of putting an end to the investigation probably outweigh the risks.

I opposed the Iraq War from the beginning on pragmatic grounds.  It was my opinion that any attempt to impose democratic values on Iraq was bound to be a bloody failure, and that the ultimate beneficiary of the war would be Iran, which would no longer be checked by Saddam.  I was right on both counts.

Today, a few people view the war as a noble experiment executed poorly, while some call it a crime.  My questions for today are:

1.  Is Iraq better off as a result of the war?
2.  Is the US better off as a result of the war?
3.  Is the whole world better off as a result of the war?

My responses are as follows:

1.  If you’re an Iraqi, it depends on who you are.  If you’re a Shiite, and you didn’t lose any friends or family members, you are probably better off today than you were under Saddam.  Otherwise, you aren’t.  How this adds up numerically, I have no idea.
2.  The US is unquestionably worse off as a result of the war.  We lost thousands of troops, a huge sum of money, and a lot of credibility making the world a better place for Iran.
3.  The Middle East is more unstable as a result of the war.  IS would not have come into being without the war.  Democratic values were discredited.  The world is worse off as a result.

In short, the war was a dreadful blunder, and we will be living with its consequences for decades to come.

#16 seeds have a chance in the US, but not in Russia.  Oh, well;  the voters may be poor, but they can eat Ukraine.

The relationship between Trump and Fox News appears to be getting stronger with each passing day.  Trump has just hired a Fox talking head with a history of making extraordinary poor predictioons to be his leading economic voice.  John Bolton may follow as the head of the NSC if his mustache doesn’t get in the way. Independent commentators have found a direct correlation between the matters discussed on “Fox and Friends” and Trump’s tweets. “Executive time” appears to be increasing.  And so on.

Such a close relationship between a TV network and a president is unprecedented, to my knowledge.  What does it mean for the country?

Nothing good.  People who appear frequently on TV are usually experts on TV–nothing more.  They are typically put on the air because they attract ratings, not because they have any great expertise in anything.  For Fox News, the more the commentators trigger liberals, the more they please the base, and the better ratings the network gets. For Trump, that may be emotionally satisfying, but it is not a governing philosophy, and it certainly doesn’t do anything to bring the country together.

Imagine that you are Donald Trump.  You are desperate for something you can arguably call a “win” with North Korea.  However, it has become completely clear that nothing short of an all-out war will stop the North Korean nuclear program, and you have decided that the costs and risks of such a war outweigh the benefits.  What do you do?

Make a virtue out of necessity.  Meet with Kim, agree to a deal that accepts the North Korean nuclear program with only cosmetic concessions from Kim, and call it a “victory.”

The world will rejoice.  You may even win a Nobel Peace Prize.  A few disgruntled right-wingers will complain, but the rest of your followers will fall in line, as they always do.  Hey, it worked with Putin–why not with Kim?

In spite of Trump’s “fire and fury” rhetoric, don’t be shocked if this really happens, since he loves to be dramatic and unpredictable and doesn’t appear to have a strong emotional investment in the issue.  It would strengthen his hand domestically and clear the decks for the war he really wants:  the one with Iran.

It seems silly to say that Trump is remaking his cabinet in his own image; after all, he appointed the original one.  That said, it is obvious that he didn’t really expect to win the election, and had no plan for what would happen next, so his original cast of advisers to some extent reflected the recommendations of others. Now, after a year in office, he thinks he knows how to do the job, and he wants to get rid of his minders.

The new cast of characters will have the following characteristics:  good on TV; fun to be around; and completely loyal.  Intelligence and competence will be unnecessary; after all, we have his infinite wisdom to rely on.

The Senate obviously has a role to play in this.  Will GOP senators insist that Trump appoint qualified people?  Don’t bet on it.

After the Salisbury attack, Sanders expressed the administration’s support for the UK, but pointedly refused to name the Russians as the culprits even after Theresa May had done so in public.  What did that mean?

Sanders, like other members of the administration, has learned that Trump can change positions on a dime.  She also knows that Trump, for reasons best known to him, is always reluctant to blame the Russians for anything.  As a result, she didn’t want to embarrass herself by saying something completely obvious that Trump might contradict ten minutes later.  She left his options open.

That’s probably what we will see from this point forward.  No one is going to say anything unequivocal about anything, because they know if you wait long enough, Trump will change his mind.  And so, the rest of us will have to watch and wonder, which undoubtedly is just the way the man on golf cart wants it, because it makes him the center of attention.

The factions are deeply split on the individualism/communitarianism issue:

CLs:  There is no such thing as society.

PBPs:  I built this!

CDs:  Society is a pact of the dead, the living, and the unborn.

Reactionaries:  The whole point of government is to impose traditional values by force.

This generally results in the communitarians getting their way on social issues, and the CLs and PBPs on economic issues.  With the Democrats, it goes the other way.

Donald Trump claims to love working men, and a lot of them seem to love him back.  His swagger and his protectionism are big selling points with Reactionary white workers.  On the other hand, he and his party have done their best since time immemorial to dismantle unions, and union membership is a big part of the culture in parts of the Rust Belt that propelled him to the presidency.

Trump’s ostentatious embrace of plutocrats, and their union-busting agenda, is a big point of vulnerability in 2020.  It would be political malpractice not to take advantage of it.

Oh, and by the way, it shouldn’t have escaped your attention that the only national figure from whom Conor Lamb requested assistance was Joe Biden.

On the one hand, Gina Haspel is unquestionably tough, smart, and experienced. Her paper credentials to run the CIA are unassailable.  On the other hand, it is undisputed that she personally participated in egregious acts of torture during the Bush years.  That’s a big problem.

When she is asked about this during her confirmation hearings, how will she respond?  I don’t see any good answers:

1.  If she defends the program, she’s automatically disqualified;
2.  If she says she was following orders, why would we believe she wouldn’t do it again, since her boss openly supports torture?
3.  If she gives herself a pass by saying the times were exceptionally difficult, how do we know we won’t see more difficult times during her tenure as CIA head?
4.  If she says she, and the CIA, have learned from the experience and won’t do it again, why should we believe that, and how will Trump react?

Appointing a torturer sends exactly the wrong message to the rest of the world. There has to be someone equally qualified who doesn’t have that stain on his resume.

She should not be confirmed.