Category Archives: foreign policy

Demanding Instant Results

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The Trump administration has threatened tariffs, raised and lowered them (though rarely as much as they were raised), and concluded on-again, off-again tariff agreements with the People’s Republic of China. The bulk of these moves have come within the opening months of Trump II, even though some moves were made during Trump I.

The good editors at The Wall Street Journal are taking a dim view of this. The opening of their lede:

President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping struck their third trade truce in a year on Thursday, and the best we can say is that the deal averted more economic damage.

Later in the piece, they offered this…truism:

One lesson here is that trade wars aren’t easy to win, especially against a peer competitor.

To which I say, “Patience, Grasshoppers.”

Wars—and the PRC has been fighting this economic war with us for lots of years, even if we’ve been slow to recognize that—are rarely over in a day. WWI was fought over four years, and WWII took eight years out of our globe’s weal and life. Looking farther back was the 30 Years War and the 100 Years War. The barbarian’s 3-day invasion of Ukraine now is approaching its 4th year. Over in what is now the PRC, the period of the Warring States lasted 250 years, and the century of humiliation that the PRC still remembers (the opium wars were in the beginning of that period) lasted…100 years and a bit more.

The men and women of the PRC government take a long view of things, even a generational view. It would be good were the changing men and women of our government to take a similarly long view. The WSJ editorial board could contribute by doing the same.

Trump’s moves may, indeed, end up with no material net effect, or they may end in national disaster, or they may end in a renewed and refreshed century of Pax Americana. It’s years too early to tell.

Idiotic

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President Donald Trump (R) made the rounds in Asia, working foreign policy goals with a measure of success that was greater than the shortfalls. Meanwhile, Progressive-Democrats kept the US government closed over their Never Trump, No Way snit centered on their demand to permanently extend Obamacare subsidies that they’d planned for expiry when they passed their own spending bill during the Biden reign, a discussion that would occur apace once the government is reopened.

During Trump’s trip took him out of the country while the Progressive-Democrats held the government closed, and because of that, Progressive-Democrats led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) bellyached loudly that Trump had left town during the shutdown. How dare he?

What’s being missed in the Progressive-Democrats’ plaints and what’s being actively ignored by the press is ex-President Jimmy Carter’s actions during the Iran hostage crisis. Carter promised to remain voluntarily imprisoned in the White House until those hostages were freed. He kept that promise for 444 days, with the hostages being released only the day before Ronald Reagan’s (R) inauguration, with Reagan having promised sterner responses to Iran’s hostage-taking.

Presidents holing up at home in response to every problem—serious or otherwise—that comes up only stupidly limits the President’s options and capabilities for dealing with other problems—serious or otherwise—that also crop up, even in today’s more modern communications environment.

It seems, though, that the Progressive-Democrats have chosen to ignore that lesson. They seem to have chosen, instead, to be upset that they can’t control a sitting President of the other party.

Doubting NATO’s Utility

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Trump I questioned the utility of NATO and wondered aloud whether the US should continue supporting it/staying a member. In immediate response, some (not enough) European member nations started honoring their promises of some years prior to contribute more to NATO—all of 2% of national GDP at the time. Over the ensuing years, most (though still only 2/3) of the member nations increased their contributions to very nearly meet (a large bump by these) or to meet or exceed those 2%. Trump’s overt disdain and blunt threats resulted in a material strengthening of the alliance.

Recently, the member nations met and agreed to push that contribution commitment to 5% of national GDP, and some nations are meeting that commitment (notably, the eastern and far northern European nations fronting on Russia). Also notably, though, Canada and western European members continue to freeload, and in order to get the agreement at all, the alliance was required to give Spain explicit permission to continue to freeload, despite its strongly growing economy.

Unfortunately, now the alliance is facing this. The headline and subheadline is the short and bitter of it:

NATO Member’s Top Court Considers Whether Saying Men And Women Are Different Is A War Crime
Finland’s Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday about whether quoting the Bible is illegal “hate speech” under its war crimes laws.

Yes, this is one of those far northern members, recently acceded to the alliance. Even so, this is a case of censorship by the nation’s chief prosecutor, unrestrained by either Finland’s President or Prime Minister, despite lower courts having repeatedly cleared the alleged miscreants of any wrong doing.

[Member of Parliament Paivi] Rasanen was first investigated for tweeting a Bible verse in 2019 to criticize Finland’s state church sponsoring a queer sex parade. Three criminal charges against her arose from the investigation, which also resulted in one criminal charge against [Lutheran Bishop Juhana] Pohjola for publishing a booklet Rasanen wrote about the Bible’s teaching on the sexes.

And

Two lower courts cleared Rasanen and Pohjola of all charges, but the prosecutor kept appealing, now to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization member’s highest court.

 

This is government censorship, government sexist bigotry, and government demand for political correctness all rolled into one.

If this case results in any form of conviction, then given the spread of censorship and sexist bigotry into the rest of NATO members—most notably, Germany, Netherlands, and UK—then it will be time to consider anew our withdrawal from an alliance too enamored of its political shower appearance to be able to resist the barbarian farther east.

It will be time to stand up a different, more serious mutual defense arrangement involving the Three Seas Initiative nations and the US.

Monetary Misconception

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Judy Shelton, a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, has this one. She wants the Federal government to issue a gold-backed bond would strike a blow for sound money.

Mr Trump has criticized currency manipulation in global trade relations. Challenging other nations to emulate the US [gold-backed bond] by guaranteeing some portion of their sovereign debt in gold would demonstrate America’s vision for stable money as the proper foundation for fair trade.

This is naïve. “Other countries” will continue to manipulate their currencies, just as they do now; this move only would add a new tool for manipulation—varying the value of the metal backing their own debt instrument(s).

Governments have been debasing their metal backed currencies ever since money was invented, doing so by shaving coins minted in the metal; by replacing some of the money-backing metal with other, cheaper metals; outright announcing a differing, lower values for a unit of the metal.

The most infamous recent example of the latter was during our own Great Depression when then-President Franklin Roosevelt (D) seized all privately held gold and then promptly devalued the gold in US dollar terms.

All currency is fiat currency, whether it’s minted in the metal or it’s printed on paper formally backed by the metal (at a rate the issuing government has announced for the time being), or it’s printed on paper and allowed to float in the markets for goods and services—and currencies. That currency has the value, in legal terms, that government says it has from time to time.

Backing a bond with a precious metal has no material meaning. What makes a money sound is the stability of the issuing government; the economy it oversees with a light hand; and that government’s ability to protect its people from invasion, whether physical, economic, or political. Nothing else does.

Negotiating with Canadian Politicians

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford ran an ad pushing back on President Donald Trump’s (R) Canadian tariffs that deliberately, cynically, and dishonestly took sentences out of a Ronald Reagan speech and remixed them, shorn of their original context, into Doug Ford screed against Trump and those tariffs. This is the same Ontario Premier who earlier in the year, when trade negotiations with Canada were just getting underway, threatened to terminate the province’s energy shipments to the US.

In response to the Ford ad, Trump, last Thursday, called a halt to negotiations with Canada over trade. The Wall Street Journal‘s news writer mischaracterized the situation:

Trump threw the economic relationship with Canada into a tailspin late Thursday….

The news writer is no better than the Canadian provincial premier. Ford had thrown the economic relationship into a tailspin with his dishonestly distortionate ad; Trump was merely responding to the smear. Through his spokesperson, Kush Desai, Trump said,

Further talks are a futile effort if Canada can’t be serious.

After that, Ford said he’d “pause” his ad campaign effective today (Monday). He first ran his ad misquoting Reagan ‘way back on 16 October, fully a week before Trump acted. Now he’s magnanimously agreeing to “pause” his ad campaign after it’s run an additional four days. There’s no reason Ford couldn’t pull his distorting campaign last Thursday, whether “pausing” it or terminating it.

Trump is being uncharacteristically polite. Further talks with Canada are futile if Canadian senior politicians are going to lie about the situation.