1005 Alcyon Dr Bellmawr NJ 08031
+1 484-446-2566
support@bmcpros.com
President Trump is playing chicken with the U.S. economy, risking our prosperity and forcing other countries to obey his protectionists. This makes him rightly the center of world concern.
But his vendetta against trade shocked American consumers, businesses and investors and raised public suspicion that he knew what he was doing.
Most Americans don’t see the meaning of fighting a friendly trading partner like Canada. Private sector leaders are increasingly threatening to impose “reciprocity” duties on all imported goods.
While suspending these tariffs to prevent the U.S. bond market from melting, Trump imposed an equally arbitrary 10% tariff on most of our trading partners. He also has been in China’s nuclear power, raising tariffs to a ridiculous 245% and dabbled in Beijing’s massive retaliatory tariffs on exports to the United States.
They took Trump’s family and families seriously already worked for fools when they promised to focus on reducing the cost of everyday goods. Tariffs are raising prices and could cause recession.
They also make it more expensive for American companies to make things that require parts and materials from abroad – everything from clothing and jewelry to spacecraft. The size of U.S. exporters, including American farmers, lost sales again as foreign markets reacted to Trump’s tariffs.
The stock market downturn has consumed trillions of dollars in wealth and is devoured by retirement savings from older people. Disintegrating international confidence in the stability of the U.S. economy will make it more difficult for our Treasury bonds to swell and maintain the status of the U.S. dollar.
Even his closest adviser doesn’t seem to know what Trump hopes to achieve by limiting world trade. Should we negotiate a fairer trade deal or bring back manufacturing jobs? If the trade is so bad, why would he exempt smartphones, computers and other popular imported products?
In normal times, legislators in presidential parties will demand a voice in trade and economic policies, after all, it is their job. But today’s Republican-controlled Congress is a regret of a group of political invertebrates who fear passing Trump, in order not to faithfully kick them to the roadside.
The president’s ever-changing justification for tariffs has brought bad memories of his unstable first term performance, especially his chaotic pandemic. His own pollster admits that this has led him to re-election in 2020.
With the powerful help of President Biden, he returned to the White House. Trump’s excellent political resilience, however, is attributed to his individual strength, not his popular enthusiasm for his particular council thoughts.
In the focus group commissioned by the Institute for Progressive Policy I organized, working-class voters told us that through Trumpian Bluster and the fog of chaos, they saw a strong figure fighting for them. When asked which car Trump and Kamala Harris reminded them of a man in Nevada, Trump compared it to “a dump truck, powerful, big, fierce.” Midwest women compared Harris to “a small car, Kia, a little weak.”
Trump’s role as a dump truck is a shocking metaphor that captures his unrighteous will. But this also emphasizes his potential for destruction. Trump looks like an out-of-control dump truck in trying to deceive his views on the world’s exploitation of trade.
It’s not just his regressive protectionism. Trump’s first isolationist embrace of America is equally wrong, recklessly, against our aid to troubled Great Britain at the beginning of World War II.
Similarly, Trump hopes Ukraine admits failure, surrenders territory to Russia, and Grant Washington’s key minerals. This led to a breakdown with our European allies who knew that rewarding Vladimir Putin’s aggression would only feed his interest in expansion and democratic subversion.
Here, the problem is again that Trump cannot conceive of the U.S. relationship with other countries in zero-sum terms. In his less human mind, just as the trade agreement allows other countries to steal our work, the security alliance allows so-called friends to choose our pockets.
Trump hopes to succumb to all the emotions about the United States Humboldt to fight for freedom, democracy and self-determination and to wield our weight as belligerently as other dictators.
He was a NATO ally bullying Denmark, sent Greenland to the United States, mocked the Canadian leader for annexation, threatened to seize control of the Panama Canal, and proposed to turn the Gaza Strip into a club Med-Style-style resort.
It’s tempting to think of all this as a performative magazine. But Trump does mean it and will continue to be planned and gas until someone stops him. Fortunately, he seems to be losing the battle of public opinion.
According to the Pew Research Center, Americans oppose the U.S. takeover of Greenland and Gaza more than 2-1. They were also skeptical of his attitude towards Ukraine. 43% say Trump is too fond of Russia, while 31% think he is reaching the right balance.
Nor do they share Trump’s view that solving common problems with humanity, together with other countries, weakens our sovereignty. Opposition is not just support his decision to kill most of the U.S. foreign aid programs and withdraw from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement.
Americans seem to be retreating from Trump’s arrogance. His manic attempt to reorganize global trade alone, undermine collective security and undermine checks for domestic presidential power.
This is encouraging, but it may take an economic crisis or the next election to stop Trump II from losing control of his dump truck.
Will Marshall is the president and founder of the Institute for Progressive Policy.