Category Archives: foreign policy

Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy

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Last Thursday, Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden laid out his foreign policy paradigm.  The gist of his policy is this:

[The] overarching purpose of our foreign policy, I believe, must be to defend and advance our security, prosperity, and democratic values that the United States stands for.

And

I would remind the world that we are the United States of America and we do not coddle dictators. The United States of America gives hate no safe harbor.

And he’ll

make it my mission to restore American leadership….

In fine, Biden’s foreign policy is to Make America Great Again.

A Thought on Tariffs

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The tariffs as used by President Donald Trump are viewed by many as having no impact on our overall trade deficit, and much is made of Trump’s disdain for trade deficits.

Thirty months into the Trump Presidency, the US economy continues to import more than it exports. This isn’t a problem, since the trade deficit is of no great consequence as an economic measure.  But in President Trump’s telling this is a clear and present danger….

Suppose something else, though.

Mr Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, and he’s threatened a duty on another $300 billion. This has narrowed the US-China bilateral goods trade gap in recent months, but the total US trade deficit reached a record high in 2018. … Producers are leaving China, but not for America.
While Chinese goods exports to the US fell 12.3% year-over-year from January through May, Vietnam saw a 36.4% increase, according to US Census data. Taiwan had a nearly 22.5% year-over-year increase in the same five months, more than triple the increase from 2017-18. South Korean exports to the US increased 12.4% over the period.

Recall one of Trump’s other reasons for disdaining the trade deficit: the People’s Republic of China declines to play by international trade rules, and it steals or extorts other nations’ (ours in particular as one of the, if not the, leader in) technology and intellectual property, along with merely proprietary materials.

If the PRC doesn’t want to play by the same rules as the rest of us, it doesn’t need to trade with the rest of us.

Thus: if the tariffs aren’t realizing their first secondary purpose, moving production back to the US, they are gaining their primary purpose: moving production, and associated export, out of the PRC.

That’s not all bad.

Hypocrisy of the British Left

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Yes, ex-Prime Minister John Major claims himself a Conservative, but he’s acting more and more Left.  Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister wannabe and front-runner to replace the resigned Theresa May, has said that if needs be, he’ll prorogue Parliament to block an anti-no-deal Brexit vote, if a no-deal departure is necessary.

Prorogue: a temporary suspension of Parliament following petition of the Queen by her first minister—the Prime Minister—for permission to suspend Parliament and her granting that permission.  This use is unusual; prorogation is normally used for normal terminations of Parliamentary sessions; the term also describes the interval between that termination and the normal opening of the next session.

The former British Prime Minister John Major on Wednesday warned he would personally take legal action to stop any leader using a suspension of parliament to deliver a “no-deal” Brexit.

And yet, he threatens:

In order to close down parliament the prime minister would have to go to her Majesty the Queen and ask for her permission to prorogue. If her first minister asks for that permission, it is almost inconceivable that the queen will do anything other than grant it.
She is then in the midst of a constitutional controversy that no serious politician should put the queen in the middle of[.]

Thus, the hypocrisy: Major says he personally will precipitate that constitutional crisis with his own lawsuit to stop the process.

I for one would be prepared to go and seek judicial review.

Never mind that his case can only lose: as part of the Queen’s (any British monarch’s) Royal Prerogative, the power and the authority to prorogue belongs only to the monarch.  No British court can overrule her.

Hmm….

The Cost of a Celebration

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President Donald Trump held America’s Independence Day celebration with a Salute to America, centered at the Lincoln Memorial.

Together, we are part of one of the greatest stories ever told—the story of America.  Today, just as it did 243 years ago, the future of American Freedom rests on the shoulders of men and women willing to defend it.

Just to pick out a couple of things: The Wall Street Journal cited “Democrats” complaining about

the use of military hardware for a traditionally nonpartisan celebration.

Because defending our nation’s existence and celebrating those who do that defense isn’t nonpartisan.  Sure.

And this one:

The Pentagon has said it wouldn’t have cost estimates until next week at the earliest.

I have some estimates now—not on the costs of the military units’ performances, but on those costs unique to their participation in the Salute to America celebration.

The aircraft—and their pilots—used consisted of

B-2 stealth bomber
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
F-22 Raptor
F/A-18 Hornet
Air Force One
Marine One

Their cost that’s unique to the celebration is a good approximation of zero.  Those sorties flown—every single one of them—count as nav currency sorties and formation-keeping currency sorties, and they are a direct substitute for sorties that otherwise would have to be flown as part of any pilot’s currency training.  Furthermore, the fuel and maintenance resulting from the sorties also are already accounted for in those required currency sorties.

M1 Abrams tanks
M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles

Here, the costs will be somewhat incremental, but some—the transport part—will count for existing currency requirements, similarly to the aircraft costs.

The incremental costs just aren’t that great.

A Whole Year

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That’s how close Iran is to getting a nuclear weapon.  The Wall Street Journal‘s subheadline tells the tale.

Tehran exceeded a key limit in the 2015 deal but experts say that it is only a small step and that it would take Tehran at least a year to make a weapon

That’s how far away from nuclear armament Iran would have been under the JCPOA on that deal’s expiration.  After all,

The 2015 deal was structured to make sure that Iran would take a year to amass enough material for a weapon if it chose to break the accord.

A whole year.