Americans Last

I suppose tomorrow I need to destroy m unexpired D size Duracell batteries manufactured in the USA.

There is a split in MAGA land, one aside from disagreement over Israel, the high cost of living, and release of the Epstein files. Though less visible and contentious, it goes to the heart of what Donald Trump is.:

Incredible exchange on H1B visas.

Laura Ingraham: “We have plenty of talented people here.”

Trump: “No you don’t.”

Sometimes I love Trump. He’s in many ways so much better than the movement of resentful losers that he leads. pic.twitter.com/K4hveTDoY9

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 12, 2025

That segment from Laura Ingraham's interview of President Donald Trump on Fox News on November 12, 2025 illustrates a difference in attitude toward the American people.

DT: No, you don't have- you don't have certain talents and people have to learn. You can't take people off an unemployment line and say "I'm going to put you into a factory where we're going to make missiles or I'm going to put you into-

LI: Why did we ever do it before- when you and I were growing up?

DT: Well, I'll give you an example. In Georgia, they made it because they wanted illegal immigrants, uh. They had people from South Korea. They made batteries all their life. You know, making batteries is a very complicated- it's not an easy thing to- it's very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like five or six hundred people, early stages to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country- you don't need that here, Laura. 

I know you and I disagree on this. You can't just say a country's coming in, they're going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and you know, take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years and they're going to start making their missiles. It doesn't work that way.

Bless her heart. Laura Ingraham apparently was under the misapprehension that Trump's trade policy, characterized by off-and-on, bobbing and weaving tariffs has had something to do with expanding the USA's manufacturing basis.

It never was. The "what's in it for me" President may have varied motives for the games he has played with trade, including blackmailing or rewarding some businesses. Less than a month into the tariffs, Pro Publica reported 

.... the White House released a list of more than a thousand products that would be exempted.

One item that made the list is polyethylene terephthalate, more commonly known as PET resin, the thermoplastic used to make plastic bottles.

Why it was spared is unclear, and even people in the industry are confused about the reason for the reprieve.

But its inclusion is a win for Reyes Holdings, a Coca-Cola bottler that ranks among the largest privately held companies in the U.S. and is owned by a pair of brothers who have donated millions of dollars to Republican causes. Records show the company recently hired a lobbying firm with close ties to the Trump White House to make its case on tariffs.

Whether the company’s lobbying played any role in the exemption is unclear. Reyes Holdings and its lobbyists did not respond to questions from ProPublica. The White House also did not comment, but some industry advocates say the administration has rebuffed requests for exemptions.

Perhaps Trump has been eager to impose a high tariff against a nation and then after negotiations, lower them, proving again that he's the awesome dealmaker he always claims to be. The President does see the world as a zero-sum game, in which everything begets a winner and a loser. If a leader elsewhere is hurt or harmed, Donald believes, he is helped by the same degree.

But it has nothing to do with a country Donald clearly doesn't like. Whether he's calling the USA "evil," its people generally "fat, bloated, and disgusting," or dishonoring deceased or active members of the Armed Services, he has made contempt for Americans clear. 

And now, while millions of Americans- with Trump's help- are losing access to food they can afford:

Just a little confused. Why would you take an 'America First' Oval Office and redecorate it in a very obvious European style? It's 18th-century French Rococo, a style born in Paris during the reign of Louis XV (1715–1774). Nothing American about this at all. This is for a king. pic.twitter.com/3ueFuD2RmZ

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) November 11, 2025

Maybe the key is in "nothing American about this at all."  Donald makes policy based on what helps him and his family., with extra points if it hurts others. Tariffs never had anything to do with rebuilding the country's manufacturing base because Donald Trump has about as much regard for American workers as, well, nations of the Middle East have for Palestinians.

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Don't Hold Your Breath

Free money! You can't beat that.

That will fix inflation, great plan. Very strong plan. pic.twitter.com/6vra7Uzc6U

— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) November 9, 2025

Not so fast:

Bessent: “The $2,000 dividend (that Trump just promised Americans) could come in lots of forms. It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing.”pic.twitter.com/DBbYIjg9K6

&m

As the discussion on ABC's This Week turned to tariffs, Bessent stated

And then, finally, in terms of the general tariffs, we are doing these trial deals that would not be possible. We were at a tipping point in terms of the economy, in terms of our trade balance, and we are re-balancing successfully.

When Stephanopoulos responded "Do you have a proposal, a formal proposal, to give a $2,000 dividend to every American?", the Treasury secretary replied 

I haven't spoken to the president about this yet, but, you know, it could -- the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms, in lots of ways, George. You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president's agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. Deductibility of auto loans. So, you know, those are substantial deductions that, you know, are being financed in the tax bill.

Investopedia describes "dividends" as "a percentage of a company's earnings paid to its shareholders as their share of the profits. Dividends are generally paid quarterly, with the amount decided by the board of directors based on the company's most recent earnings."

A tax decrease, a tax credit, or a tax deduction is not a "dividend." However, the media is less likely to question a "dividend" than "free money" because "dividend" sounds, well, so Republican. It also bears a resemblance to the $2,000 which President Trump recommended, and Congress approved, as COVID relief funding during Mr. Trump's lame duck period.

So Bessent is lying. Trump is, also, but in a major upset, not about everything. Tariffs revenue is approximately $350 billion, not "trillions of dollars," at an annualized pace. However, Trump's estimation of a national debt of $37 trillion is reasonably accurate. Credit where credit is due.

Consequently, on November 9, 2025, President Trump made one honest statement.  It was truly a wondrous day even though, as we learned again, the Treasury secretary is a pile of green slime.

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Just Another Day of Deception

Scott Bessent has an unusual definition of "eaten."

🚨 Just WOW. Look at how smug Margaret Brennan's face looks when she think she "gotcha'd" Scott Bessent... NOPE.

BRENNAN: "You KNOW what Walmart's saying, BestBuy, Target, of what's coming."

BESSENT: "Margaret, I also know what Home Depot and Amazon are saying. I know what the… pic.twitter.com/yHlYRCpgxV

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 1, 2025

I don't know if the South China Morning Post can be trusted. However, I do know that Scott Bessent trusts it, or at least appears to, or pretends that he does. And on May 30, 2025 it reported

American retail giants are now demanding that their Chinese suppliers shoulder half to 66 per cent of the cost of US import duties, as the ongoing US-China trade war ramps up pressure on businesses’ bottom lines, industry sources told the Post.

US retailers have been locked in talks with Chinese producers for weeks over how to handle the additional costs caused by the trade war, with the firms facing intense political pressure at home to “eat the tariffs” and keep prices stable.

Walmart and other major US retail groups previously agreed to bear the full cost of the tariffs when they asked their Chinese suppliers to resume shipments in late April, industry sources told the Post at the time.

But global brands including several US retail giants are now pushing suppliers in both China and parts of Southeast Asia to absorb a large chunk of the cost of the levies, according to sources from suppliers serving companies including Walmart, Target, Nike, Puma and Adidas.

“Most of our customers, the garment vendors exporting to major retailers and brands, are being asked to cover 50 to 66 per cent of the current tariffs,” said an executive at a fashion supplier, which produces and sources from China and Southeast Asia and then sells across the United States and Europe.

The negotiations remain fluid and the details of how the tariff costs will be divided have not yet been finalised, the sources stressed, as both sides remain in constant contact as they try to navigate a “tough time” for the industry.

They're being asked to do so and negotiations "remain fluid." The news outlet did not suggest that 65 percent "will likely be eaten by the Chinese producer" (relevant portion of the Face the Nation transcript, below).

In the world of Trump-Vance-Leavitt lying, this is small potatoes, not an extravagant falsehood. However, it's significant because it's not Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Karoline "let me sport a cross so I appear honest" Leavitt, who would be a nobody  were it not Trump being in the White House.

this is a gay man (irrelevant) whom, following his confirmation,  PBS described as "a past supporter of Democrats who once worked for George Soros" who believes "that the Federal Reserve should remain independent from the president's influence." He is a "normie," or at least someone whom the mainstream media, centrist and liberal, would consider "normal." Even then, though, PBS recognized him as becoming "an enthusiastic supporter of Trump." 

And now Bessent has become a lying, enthusiastic supporter of Trump or in other words, a member of the Administration.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. But you listen to earnings calls just like we do. You know what Walmart's saying, what Best Buy's saying and what Target are saying of what's coming.

 SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: But, Margaret, I also know what Home Depot and Amazon are saying. I know what the "South China Morning Post" wrote within the past 24 hours, that 65 percent, 65 percent – the – of the tariffs will likely be eaten by the Chinese producers.

 MARGARET BRENNAN: So, are there five or eight areas that you have identified, as you said back in March, where American consumers will be able to have lower prices, or should be warned of higher prices?

 SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, a lot of it's already working its way through the system. So we've seen a substantial decrease in gasoline and energy prices. So that's down 20 percent year over year.

 We've seen the food prices go down, these notorious egg prices. Through the good work of President Trump and Secretary Rollins, egg prices have collapsed. So we're seeing more and more. And what we want to do, the – is even that out across the – all sections of the economy.

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The Truth Closing In

Things are going great in the USA as by early afternoon the day after Easter

US stocks and the dollar tumbled Monday as investors assessed continued tariff uncertainty and the implications of President Donald Trump’s ongoing mission to try and oust Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

The Dow fell more than 1,190 points, or 3%. The broader S&P 500 fell 3.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 3.46%. Stock futures had slumped in premarket trading after the three major indexes closed last week in the red.

The US dollar index, which measures the dollar’s strength against six foreign currencies, slumped 1% to its lowest level in more than three years.

Sarcasm? No. Things are going great for one individual (aside from Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping): Here is the Lovable Liar on Friday stating

And the egg prices are down eight-seven percent. But nobody talks about that. You can have all the eggs you want. We have too many eggs. In fact, if anything, the prices are getting too low. So I just wanted you to know....

Trump: The egg prices are down 87%. We have too many eggs. The prices are getting low.

March report shows egg prices are up more than $6 a dozen. pic.twitter.com/R2Yw7v2pcy

— Ron Smith (@Ronxyz00) April 18, 2025

Egg prices are not going down and if they were, it wouldn't be by as much as 87% but if you're going to lie, why not go for the Big Lie? 

That Donald Trump lies is not big news, no more than it's big news that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Actually, a lie is even less so because the sun does that only once a day and when Trump intentionally utters only one falsehood in a day, it's an extraordinary display of veracity.

But there is the matter of too many eggs and the prices getting too low. During the campaign, Donald Trump pledged "When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one."  In the month between election and inauguration, he backtracked with "it's hard to bring things down once they're up.  You know, it's very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down."

It's hard to bring things down once they're up. No, it's easier to bring things down when they're up than to bring them down when they're already down. That's especially true because when prices are up, they often are high for artificial or fleeting reasons, such as a decision by OPEC+ to cut production temporarily.

None of that explains why President Donald Trump would want egg prices to be high. However, perhaps this Truth Social post of his from 10/20/22 gives a clue:

The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil — We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!

If "evil" from thirty months ago doesn't suggest anything, perhaps his perspective at a Cabinet meeting on February 26 as

“This country has gotten bloated, fat, disgusting,” the 78-year-old McDonald’s lover said, before blaming many of America’s problems on former President Joe Biden.

Trump, whose slogan is the Ronald Reagan inspired “Make America Great Again,” attributed his presidential woes to the poor health of Americans—accusing Biden as the country’s enabler.

No one could lack in self-awareness as Donald Trump would be if he actually thinks that a fat 78-year-old being President of the USA is an advertisement against being fat. And no one is, because he's aware that, if anything, he is a poster boy for being fat- and arguably for being bloated and disgusting.

It wasn't bad enough- or good enough, to President Trump- that his on-again, off-again, on-again tariff statements and acts  predictably convulsed the stock market. If the nation is evil and disgusting, more would be needed. Nor, for that matter, is visibly driving a wedge between the USA and our European allies, giving hope and bargaining leverage to dictators in Moscow and Beijing sufficient to achieve the President's goal.

It's an "evil" and "disgusting" country according to a man who threatens to fire the chairperson of the Federal Reserve, sending the stock market even further down, as no doubt expected by the Wharton School graduate. President Trump could fire Jerome Powell, which would be controversial and possibly illegal. Yet, when has either controversial or possibly illegal- even almost certainly illegal- ever stopped President Trump, as a public official or private citizen?

It wasn't bad enough- or good enough, to President Trump- that his on-again, off-again, on-again tariff statements and acts that predictably convulsed the stock market.

If the President did fire (or attempt to fire, whatever), there would be a downturn in the market. However, the matter eventually would be resolved, bringing a measure of stability less likely if the controversy dragged on, which gives Trump more flexibility.

It's becoming increasingly plausible that such flexibility will be wielded not only in a manner harmful to the country, but that this is part of the plan. It's something that, for their own reason(s), neither Republicans, Democrats, nor the media will dare suggest. Reality, however, has the nagging habit of refusing to be wished away.

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For Sale

Tariffs can be an effective instrument (warning: cliche ahead) in a foreign policy toolbox. In September of 2024, CNN reported

The Biden administration said Friday that it has finalized tariff hikes on certain Chinese-made products that the president first announced in May.

The tariff rate will go up to 100% on electric vehicles, to 50% on solar cells and to 25% on electrical vehicle batteries, critical minerals, steel, aluminum, face masks and ship-to-shore cranes beginning September 27, according to the US Trade Representative’s Office.

Tariff hikes on other products, including semiconductor chips, are set to take effect over the next two years.

The administration’s increases – which impact a relatively small amount of US imports – come as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have clashed over tariffs on the campaign trail. Trump is calling for sweeping new duties on all imports, while Harris has said that his proposal would raise prices on American households.

The increases affected "a relatively small amount of US imports" but

Trump implemented sweeping tariffs on about $300 billion of Chinese-made products when he was in office. President Joe Biden has kept those tariffs in place and, after the USTR finished a multiyear review earlier this year, decided to increase some of the rates on about $15 billion of Chinese imports.

The products that will now face increases are in line with Biden’s other economic policies aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing in industries including clean energy and semiconductor chips.

That's how this should be done, and would be if we did not have a fake tough guy in the White House.  But President Trump went overboard on the tariffs he imposed, after which, unfortunately, mainland China retaliated effectively. Xi Jinping met visiting Spanish Prime Minister Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday and told him 

that his country and the European Union should "jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices" of the Trump administration.

Sanchez, in turn, said that China's trade tensions with the US should not impede its cooperation with Europe.

Their meeting took place in the Chinese capital in the hours before Beijing again increased its tariffs on goods from the US - though it has said it will not respond to further US tariff increases.

Next week Xi will visit Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. These are all countries which have been hit hard by Trump's tariffs.

His ministers have been meeting counterparts from South Africa, Saudi Arabia and India, talking up greater trade co-operation.

In addition, China and the EU are reportedly in talks about potentially removing European tariffs on Chinese cars, to be replaced by a minimum price instead, to rein in a new round of dumping.

So the "whiny, little bitch," as the old Bill Maher previously had characterized our President, backed off as 

US President Donald Trump's administration has exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from "reciprocal" tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports.

US Customs and Border Patrol published a notice late on Friday explaining the goods would be excluded from Trump's 10% global tariff on most countries and the much larger Chinese import tax.

The move comes after concerns from US tech companies that the price of gadgets could skyrocket, as many of them are made in China.

This is the first significant reprieve of any kind in Trump's tariffs on China, with one trade analyst describing it as a "game-changer scenario".

The exemptions - backdated to 5 April - also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards.

"This is the dream scenario for tech investors," Dan Ives, who is the global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, posted on X. "Smartphones, chips being excluded is a game-changer scenario when it comes to China tariffs."

Big tech firms such as Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft and the broader tech industry can breathe a huge sigh of relief this weekend, he added.

Even when Trump knows to pivot, it won't be to serve the public:

No exemptions though for the things poor people buy: inexpensive shoes, clothes, bedding, tableware.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 12, 2025

Some believe that the President was spooked by the completely unexpected drop in the bond market occasioned by announcement of the massive tariffs. But things have a way of turning out very personally for Donald Trump. And thee on again, somewhat off again process can work out very well for the First Gentleman. Fareed Zakaria explains

A detailed academic study of the tariffs in Trump’s first term found that “companies that made substantial investments in political connections to Republicans prior to and during the beginning of the Trump administration were more likely to secure exemptions for products otherwise subject to tariffs. Conversely, companies that made contributions to Democratic politicians had decreased odds of tariff exemption approval.” That study looked at more than 7,000 applications for exemptions from tariffs on China in the first term and found that just a $4,000 donation to Democratic candidates reduced the companies’ chances of being granted an exemption to less than 1 in 10. As Timothy Carney from the conservative think tank AEI notes, “Trump’s first election created a trade lobbying boom” — from 921 lobbying clients with lobbyists working on trade to an apex of 1,419 by 2019.

With the highest tariffs in the industrialized world, the American bazaar is now open. Countries and companies will descend on Washington to cut deals and gain carve-outs, exemptions and special terms. In the past few weeks, Vietnam has announced a flurry of measures designed to mollify the Trump administration and get a good trade deal. Among them: approval for Elon Musk’s Starlink to operate in the country and a plan to expedite a Trump Organization project. In fact, there are at least 19 Trump-branded real estate projects around the world that will be under development while he is president, and possibly many others in the works. Trump launched his own social media company and his own meme coin; other countries surely see this all as an invitation to invest — and to influence American foreign and economic policy.

Trump knows that whatever deals his Administration makes with individual countries, he and and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt can (and will) declare victory even if the resulting agreement leaves the USA worse off than before he announced his tariff policy. Whatever the outcome for our country, the other nation probably will be worse off than it was until recently, which the President will consider a win. 

Still, Trump is nothing if not self-serving. The American bazaar is now open! The old James Carville would have quipped "it's the payoff, stupid."  If there is an opportunity for corruption, Donald John Trump will recognize it, and will take it.

 

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Shaken

The President was playing his favorite song, the wildly overrated Macho Man when

President Trump told Americans Monday to be “Strong, Courageous, and Patient” with his sweeping tariff regime — as markets continued their freefall.

 “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!),” the president wrote on Truth Social half an hour before Wall Street opened for trading.

 “Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”

It took fewer than forty-eight hours for a near-reversal to occur, when as noted by Politico

After a week of market turmoil that spread from stocks to, crucially, government bonds, Trump finally flinched after days of insisting that there would be no delays and that the world should hunker down for a long, nasty global trade war.

“I know what the hell I’m doing,” Trump told a gathering of House Republicans Tuesday night, bragging that countries have been “kissing my ass” to try to make trade deals.

After the fact, Trump’s courtiers called it all part of a well-articulated plan. “This was his strategy all along,” as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it, citing outreach from some 75 countries begging Trump to negotiate for some sort of tariff reprieve.

Yet this is a case to take Trump both seriously and literally: By Trump’s own admission, he was spooked about the sharp selloff of Treasuries — admitting, as is well known but rarely acknowledged by him personally, that he very much cares about what other people think.

“The bond market is tricky,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy … jumping a little bit.”

This guy seems to agree:

It turns out that "people" always has meant "people I control"  As Ezra Klein put it last autumn, "one of Trump's verbal tics is to say 'Many people are saying.' But it's the opposite. He's saying what many people want somebody to be saying. He's saying what people are saying in private but often are not saying in public."  Trump reversed or sharply reduced most of his tariffs because he himself was getting a little queasy:

And, no, it wasn’t just other people who were queasy. A person I spoke to close to the White House confirmed: Internal worry about panic spreading to government bonds, usually a safe haven during economic volatility, are precisely what made Trump do a 180.

The President didn't rescind or cut the most important tariffs, those against mainland China, which exports far more goods to the USA than dies any other country. However, pulling back on the other tariffs must have been difficult to do for a zero-sum guy, who believes he is benefited only by imposing pain upon others. And we don't know what the 90-days of the pause will bring.

Yet, on one day, for whatever reason(s), President Trump did the right thing. And he became the nation's leading Panican.

 

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If Only This Were a Movie

"If." And if a cat were a dog, it could bark.

Geraldo Rivera: "The family did visit Japan... we did not see a single American car on the road in Tokyo — not a Caddy, not a Buick, not a Ford, not a Chevy... I have an innate sense that there's something unfair going on... if they are screwing us, we got to tax them." pic.twitter.com/awkaHEQaVS

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 3, 2025

The positive comes in the form of Rivera's qualification with "if."  He argues "if these numbers are correct, so if some fraction of them, you know, if the trend is, if there is not an essential lie being told here, and if we are getting screwed by these foreign producers, then.... "

What are the odds that a chart blessed by Donald Trump will have an underlying accuracy? Donald Trump? Really? As with most of the President's assertions, the dishonesty should be treated with something well beyond skepticism. Journalist and The Guardian financial editor Nils Pratley explains

....  analysts noted the simplistic- or plain perverse- formula behind the administration's tariff arithmetic. It seems to have taken a country's trade deficit in goods with US, divided it by its exports to the US and called the resulting number a trade barrier that deserves a "reciprocal" US tariff. The underlying logic, it would appear, is that every country should always have a perfect trade balance with the US- never mind the impossibility of achieving that outcome, and never mind that the tariffs don't affect trade in services.

Also, Geraldo Rivera: not an economist. "If they are screwing us, we got to tax them." However, tariffs are federal taxes,, set by Congress,  as aa "percentage of the price a buyer pays a foreign seller." They are "applied to  goods at the border" and are collected by customs and Border Protection agents at the 328 ports of entry across the USA. We are not taxing them; the US government is taxing domestic buyers, which are then inclined to pass most of the additional cost on to consumers.

"Screwing us?" Yes, someone is screwing us. But the screwing is being done by the guy who at a Cabinet meeting said the country is "bloated, fat, and disgusting" and is taking his revenge upon that country and the people, immigrants or otherwise, within it. The call is not coming from foreign countries. The call is coming from inside the house.

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No Bern To Feel

The venue for the Democratic presidential debate of March 15, 2020 was switched from Arizona to Washington, D.C. because of the Caronavirus epidemic/pandemic. The campaign of former senator and vice-president Joe Biden was notified and he appeared. Sadly, that of Senator Bernard Sanders never was notified and he was evidently stuck in Arizona

That is an exaggeration but only barely so.  In an apparently unrelated tweet

When #COVID19 began, I talked to a US mask manufacturer who had been warning for YEARS that offshoring mask-making was a mistake.

Colleague @parismartineau revisits him today. He’s ramped up production 400% and turns away orders for millions daily.

Great story, terrible times. https://t.co/po3GJjqCnY

— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) March 16, 2020

Appearances are deceiving.  Before knocking (mainland) China, the NAFTA, and the TPP, the website feelthebern.org notes

Bernie Sanders believes that the top priority of any trade deal should be to help American workers. Unfortunately, as Bernie has warned year after year, American trade policy over the last 30 years has done just the opposite.  Multinational corporations – who have helped to write most of these trade deals – have benefited greatly while millions of American jobs have been shipped overseas.

Keeping Jobs in the U.S.: American trade policy should place the needs of American workers and small businesses first.

Nonetheless, in the midst of a crisis made worse because most face masks, ventilators, and other medical equipment (and prescription drugs) are made abroad, Senator Sanders - among all major current and future candidates most critical of free trade-  failed to mention the word "manufacturing" (or "manufacturers") even once. He did tell his opponent

I voted against the war in Iraq, which was also a tough vote. You voted for. I voted against disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA and PNT all with China, which costs this country over four million good paying jobs. You voted for it.

However, he instantly went to the Hyde Amendment.  Later, Sanders argued

But the issue is not just the war in Iraq. That was a long time ago. The issue is the trade agreement. What is it so easy for me to lead the effort against disastrous trade agreements?

Nonetheless, he immediately pivoted away, mentioning the bankruptcy bill, the Hyde Amendment, and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Sanders is right about Iraq and the bankruptcy bill Biden championed (and which Professor Elizabeth Warren unsuccessfully fought).  Further, he's right about reproductive freedom.

But the one candidate, Elizabeth Warren, who fully understands business law has dropped out- and evidently is attempting to convince Biden that he was wrong about the issue. Neither is Sanders the best vehicle to push abortion rights, nor was any candidate likely to peel away female voters from Biden in a campaign in which the name "Anita Hill" was never uttered.

The current uber-crisis reveals the folly of a trade policy which has driven manufacturers out of business or out of the country. This is understood by Sanders, a fair trade champion (video below from late November, 2016) in a party in which most politicians- including Joe Biden- have preached the glories of "fair trade" and globalism.  Yet on Monday, the Vermonter- who had been on message throughout the campaign- employed a scattershot approach, refusing to emphasize the issues he had focused on throughout.

For one of the few times this year or last, Bernie Sanders did not play to his strength. It did not go well.

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Battle Won; War Lost

A "data journalist" at The Economist and the founder of Vox have the same ominous thought:

This is not far off from the median scenario in simulations I’ve been running with our YouGov polling (caveats aplenty, of course). https://t.co/STjeWGRRI6

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) December 11, 2019

Maybe yes, maybe no, but Donald Trump got significantly closer this week to re-election- and it has nothing (directly) to do with impeachment. David Dayen, now writing for The American Prospect, explains that House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi got AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka to sign off on the U.S.–Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), handing Trump a political victory on one of his signature issues. Predictably, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham immediately gushed, calling USMCA “the biggest and best trade agreement in the history of the world.”

It’s, um, not that. Economically, USMCA is a nothingburger; even the most rose-colored analysis with doubtful assumptions built in shows GDP growth of only 0.06 percent per year. There’s one good provision: the elimination of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision that allowed corporations to sue governments in secret tribunals over trade violations. There’s one bad provision: the extension of legal immunity for tech platforms over user-generated content, put into a trade deal for the first time. This will make the immunity shield, codified in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, much harder to alter in the future. Pelosi has called this deal a “template” for future agreements, though trade reformers have called it a bare minimum floor.

Pelosi tried to remove the immunity shield, but abandoned the request. She did succeed in removing a provision for Big Pharma that extended exclusivity periods for biologics. The Sierra Club has termed the deal an “environmental failure” that will not have binding standards on clean air and water or climate goals. But the threshold question on the USMCA was always going to be labor enforcement: would the labor laws imposed on Mexico hold, improving their lot while giving U.S. manufacturing workers a chance to compete? There was also the open question of why the U.S. would reward Mexico with a trade deal update when trade unionists in the country continue to be kidnapped and killed.

In his statement, Trumka lauds the labor enforcement, noting provisions that make it easier to prove violations (including violence against workers), rules of evidence for disputes, and inspections of Mexican facilities, a key win. But I’ve been told that the AFL-CIO did not see the details of the text before signing off, which is unforgivable, especially on trade where details matter. There was no vote by union leaders, just a briefing from the AFL-CIO.

At least one union, the Machinists, remains opposed, and others were noncommittal until they see text. The Economic Policy Institute, which is strongly tied to labor, called the agreement “weak tea at best,” a tiny advance on the status quo that will not reverse decades of outsourcing of U.S. jobs.

So why did Trumka, who Pelosi gave the ability to approve or reject the USMCA, decide to support it? Labor has felt self-imposed pressure to say yes to a trade deal, to counter the Chamber of Commerce’s claims that they’re purely contrarian. Trumka may have seen this as minimally harmful and a good way to rebut the charge. Plus, the significant minority of labor’s rank and file’s supports Trump, another cross-pressure that may have been a factor.

Labor is not the only actor with self-imposed pressure to say "yes" to some sort of trade deal.  Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill had stated "the speaker has been working diligently with his (Trump's) trade representative to advance Democrats further down a path to yes on the USMCA."

Evidently Speaker Pelosi already had decided to approve a new trade deal whatever its composition. "To advance Democrats further down a path to yes" was a signal to the Administration that the Speaker previously had decided to goad her caucus into supporting a deal, any deal.  We wanted to be "on the path to 'yes,'" Pelosi stated, because details were less important that getting something passed and being given credit for bipartisanship. That surely will be seized by Donald Trump, abetted by a media eager to assure Americans that comity is possible under current leadership.

Dayen continues

While the economics are negligible (and potentially harmful on tech policy), on the politics activists are losing their mind at the prospect of a Trump signing ceremony, with labor by his side, on a deal that he will construe as keeping promises to Midwest voters. “Any corporate Democrat who pushed to get this agreement passed that thinks Donald Trump is going to share the credit for those improvements is dangerously gullible,” said Yvette Simpson, CEO of Democracy for America, in a statement. Only a small handful of Democratic centrists were pushing for a USMCA vote, based mostly on the idea that they had to “do something” to show that they could get things done in Congress. Now they’ve got it, and they’ll have to live with the consequences.

This urgency is self-imposed. Democrats are not responsible to get things done in Congress, which includes both the Democratic-dominated House and the thoroughly Republican-controlled Senate. Democrats are largely responsible for the House, and they've been busy and productive throughout this term.   Even with passage of the USMCA deal- maybe even especially with passage of the USMCA- congressional Democrats will be blamed by Trump and other Republicans for allegedly obsessing with impeachment and ignoring "the American people."

Freshman Democrats elected in districts won by Donald Trump are edgy and insecure about impeachment and the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, tasked with reinforcing that majority, had lobbied Pelosi in favor of the agreement. Nancy Pelosi is not running for President, nor is she particularly attached to any Democratic contender for that office. She is Speaker of the House and her primary objective is to ensure her party maintain control of the chamber, preferably with an expanded majority.

The DCCC chairwoman, Representative Cheri Bustos of Colorado, has promoted a policy which the Speaker happily accepted. However, it is transparently reactive and defensive, which will give aid and comfort to the President as he campaigns for re-election. On Tuesday morning, Pelosi told her caucus "we stayed on this, and we ate their lunch.”  Were she accurate and forthcoming, she would have added "and President Trump will eat us for dessert."

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Stay Out Of That Car

As the US Senate debated restricting the right of President Trump to impose tariffs on the basis of "national security," one of the Democratic Party's best senators, running for re-election in a major steel-producing state, argued "Why would any colleagues vote to let China off the hook?"

If only China were the sole target of the President's actions, the President's trade policies might be beneficial. But as David Frum tweeted prior to the Trump-Kim summit, "even if he's offering to take you to church, you don't get in a car with a drunken driver."

While conceding "of course, it could all change quickly with a Trump tweet or remark," the Washington Post's Heather Long on May 31 noted

The president has threatened tariffs on an additional $50 billion in Chinese goods later this month, but he has often changed his mind, putting tariffs on hold or scaling them back before they go into effect. Right now, Canada and the E.U. are taking a bigger blow. (The E.U. and other allies would also bear the brunt of Trump's proposed tariffs on autos).

One suspects- as Trump himself would put it- "people are saying that the President is imposing tariffs specifically because it would harm other countries."  Everything to him is a zero-sum game; to the extent another nation is harmed, the USA will be helped. However, Paul Krugman explains

Trump’s tariffs are badly designed even from the point of view of someone who shares his crude mercantilist view of trade. In fact, the structure of his tariffs so far is designed to inflict maximum damage on the U.S. economy, for minimal gain. Foreign retaliation, by contrast, is far more sophisticated: unlike Trump, the Chinese and other targets of his trade wrath seem to have a clear idea of what they’re trying to accomplish.

The key point is that the Navarro/Trump view, aside from its fixation on trade balances, also seems to imagine that the world still looks the way it did in the 1960s, when trade was overwhelmingly in final goods like wheat and cars. In that world, putting a tariff on imported cars would cause consumers to switch to domestic cars, adding auto industry jobs, end of story (except for the foreign retaliation.)

Noting "almost none of the Trump tariffs are on intermediate goods," Krugman adds

In the modern world economy, however, a large part of trade is in intermediate goods – not cars but car parts. Put a tariff on car parts, and even the first-round effect on jobs is uncertain: maybe domestic parts producers will add workers, but you’ve raised costs and reduced competitiveness for downstream producers, who will shrink their operations.

So in today’s world, smart trade warriors – if such people exist – would focus their tariffs on final goods, so as to avoid raising costs for downstream producers of domestic goods.

"As a lifelong salesman, he (Trump) has a huckster's knack for selling a feeling," in this case the notion that America the Great is being taken advantage of.   Dean Baker suggests a more practical and pecuniary motive:

When countries impose tariffs or other import restrictions they usually allow for some exemptions in special cases. One of the reasons that economists generally are opposed to tariffs is that these exemptions create enormous opportunities for corruption.

Imagine that someone importing $50 million in steel faced a 25 percent tariff. She would save $12.5 million if she could get an exemption. Many business people would be happy to share a portion, perhaps a very substantial proportion, of this $12.5 million in savings with the politician(s) who made it possible. This could mean campaign contributions, sweetheart contracts with their businesses, or even outright cash payments.

It is very plausible that the Trump family and/or others in his administration, who have shown an open contempt for ethics norms, plan to profit personally from granting these tariff exemptions. It would have been worth mentioning this possibility in this piece.

Personal or family business is often at the bottom of Trump's decisions.  And so the tariffs are not being placed across-the-board on imports from mainland China. Excluded are toys and..... apparel, including Ivanka Trump's clothing line.

The nation's economy might have benefited had the USA collaborated with the European Union and Canada and thereby isolated the Chinese. However, that was unlikely as long as Trump was denouncing NATO and Canada in his quest to break up the trans-Atlantic alliance.  If you believe (as I do) that fair trade is a more worthy goal than fair trade, recall the second part of Frum's admonition,to exercise caution "when President Trump appears to act in ways you believe you approve."

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America's Allies Redefined By One Man

In 2014 the National Post of Canada reported

Byron Greff never lived in his family’s newly-built home but his presence is everywhere.

There are countless photos; some show him proudly wearing his military uniform while other candid moments capture the zeal with which he lived, including his full range of goofy, comical faces.

He delighted in making people laugh. Greff might have agonized over memorizing his school work but he never forgot a joke. Even if it wasn’t funny, he would chuckle in its telling and then his family would laugh. Then Greff would howl at their laughter and they would laugh some more. It was contagious.

“He had a very big heart and was full of fun,” says his mother Candy. “Oh my goodness, we’d have sore sides from laughing.”

But there’s one photo missing, which the family dearly wishes could have been taken.

The family—parents Candy and Greg, siblings Chelsey and Dustin—planned to sit for a formal portrait when Byron returned from Afghanistan on leave at Christmas in 2011.

He didn’t make it home.

He didn't make it home because Master Cpl. Greff was killed when explosives blew up a NATO bus in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing seventeen people, including that one Canadian.

Greff was the last of 158 Canadian casualties fighting alongside Americans and other NATO allies in the war Washington launched inb A Taliban suicide bomber driving a car packed with 700 kilograms of explosives targeted the NATO bus and detonated the device in a fiery blast. Seventeen people were killed. Greff was the only Canadian casualty.

And now, this:

President Trump is imposing steep tariffs on steel and aluminum from three of America's biggest trading partners — Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

The trade penalties, 25% on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum, take effect at midnight, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters Thursday.

President Trump wants to impose tariffs on Canada despite- or perhaps because

Chapter 148 of Title 10, United States Code (U.S.C.), addresses policies and planning related to the “national technology and industrial base” (NTIB) which it defines as “persons and organizations that are engaged in research, development, production, integration, services, or information technology activities conducted within the United States and Canada.

Jonathan Chait explains that the President can do this because

A 1962 law gives the president authority to impose tariffs for national security reasons. In the middle of the 20th century, control of natural resources and certain kinds of manufacturing determined the outcome of wars. Japan and Nazi Germany selected areas of conquest in order to acquire oil and other resources needed to fuel their militaries; factories that built cars and appliances could be converted to making tanks and fighter planes. The law allowing the president to set tariffs for national security reasons set few limits on how this alleged need would be defined, but that didn’t matter, because presidents used it sparingly.

Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada was not persuaded, and responded

Our soldiers who had fought and died together on the beaches of World War II … and the mountains of Afghanistan, and have stood shoulder to shoulder in some of the most difficult places in the world, that are always there for each other, somehow — this is insulting to them...

Cynics such as Canadian-American David Frum will observe

The trouble is that the most effective way to engage this president - pay him or his relatives- is usually illegal under the laws of democratic allies like Canada, Germany, etc

However, that only removes a deterrent to imposition of a tariff. Canada has been recognized by American presidents as a trusted ally, as usually has been the European Union since it came into existence in 1993. Trudeau's remark, then, might suggest an actual incentive for the imposition of tariffs. Fiona Hill noted in February 2015

In short, Putin wants Europe to understand—as he stated in a 2014 speech to Russia’s ambassadors––that the U.S.-led “unipolar order” is over. The United States trumpeted its victory in the Cold War. Now it is the West’s turn to be humiliated. And Putin intends to have Russia draw up the new borders of a Europe “free, whole and at peace” that the United States, NATO and the EU defined after 1989.

Canada is not as critical to geopolitical alliances as is the European Union. For the former, it might be simply that Trump doesn't see any potential there to increase his family's wealth, or that Trudeau and Obama got along well, so he cannot.  

But two things are clear: President Trump has far more interest in forging alliances with Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Il-un than with leaders of democratic nations. And that what Charlie Pierce wrote of American war dead applies even to the likes of Byron Greff and the other NATO soldiers who died fighting alongside the USA: they deserve more than to have the the free world sullied by a "dangerous and ridiculous man" who has squandered the peace and profaned the sacrifice of so many.

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When Friends Are Enemies

"The World As It Is," a memoir by longtime Obama adviser Benjamin Rhodes, will be published next week by Random House. New York Times reporter Peter Baker writes

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama that she felt more obliged to run for another term because of Mr. Trump’s election to defend the liberal international order. When they parted for the final time, Ms. Merkel had a single tear in her eye. “She’s all alone,” Mr. Obama noted.

The good news is that Ms. Merkel, as much as anyone now the leader of the free world, is no longer all alone. The bad news is that hernation, as well as other allies of the USA, is being targeted by President Donald J. Trump.  The Hill reports

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that the U.S. would levy steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU, Canada and Mexico — a move that puts an end to the temporary exemptions the three trading allies received after Trump made the initial tariffs announcement in March.

Trump is using a U.S. law called Section 232 that allows tariffs to be imposed for national security purposes. Thursday's decision will lead to tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

“We look forward to continued negotiations with Canada and Mexico on one hand and with the European Commission on the other hand as there are other issues we need to get resolved,” Ross said Thursday.

Bloomberg termed it "a move immediately condemned by America’s closest allies," who are likely to retaliate, whether by imposing import duties upon goods from the USA or continuing to press a case at the World Trade Organization against against US import restrictions.

In The New York Times, we read

The Aluminum Association, which represents most of the aluminum producers in the United States, said on Thursday that it was “disappointed” by the announcement. Heidi Brock, the association’s president, said the move would do little to address the larger issue of overcapacity in China “while potentially alienating allies and disrupting supply chains that more than 97 percent of U.S. aluminum industry jobs rely upon."

It's little surprise it doesn't address the problem of Chica, which has begun to pressure international airlines to identify Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau as part of mainland China rather than as the independent territories they are.  In the manner of the exquisitely sensitive Donald Trump, Beijing has warned foreign airlines to respect “territorial integrity and sovereignty, its laws and the feelings of the Chinese people."  Instead, while China is treated with kid gloves by the American president

The European Union and Canada have objected strongly to the use of the national security argument, citing their close alliance and defense agreements with the United States. On Wednesday, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister called the idea that metal imports from her country would threaten American national security “frankly absurd.”

Of course it is. But the Trump Administration, committed tosaving jobs in China, is less about national security than about punishing our allies. Trump can do it, so he'll do it.




"This is dumb," GOP senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska explains, "Europe, Canada, and Mexico are not China, and you don't treat allies the same way you treat opponents." First, however, someone has to convince the President that China is an opponent and Mexico, Canada, and the European Union are allies.

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The Butchers Of Beijing, Dear To Trump's Heart

Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer ZTE violated USA sanctions against Iran and North Korea and is suspected of enabling its phones to help Beijing spy on Americans. Consequently, Director of National Security Dan Coats recommended Americans refrain from using the phones and on May 2 the Pentagon, according to Vox, announced "it will ban the sale of ZTE and Huawei phones from military bases because it regards the products as insecure due to the companies’ relationship to the Chinese government."

The Commerce Department announced sanctions. However, when ZTE announced it would shut down its entire smartphone business, President Trump asserted that he was concerned about the loss of Chinese jobs and had ordered the Commerce Department to help ZTE "to get back into business, fast."

That same week "a state-owned Chinese business came through with hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, some of which will go to facilitate the construction of Trump-branded properties in Indonesia." So on Wednesday, former ethics chief Walter Shaub, who knows a not-coincidence when he sees one, asked what appeared to be a good question:

Donald Trump abruptly made a bizarre reversal of policy after China committed a half billion dollars to a project that will benefit him personally, and Raj Shah told reporters it’s a private business matter that the White House won’t discuss. How is this not the top news story?

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) May 16, 2018

It's an even better question now that on Sunday, Treasury Department secretary Steve Mnuchin stated that

the Trump administration will hold off from imposing tariffs on China as leaders from both nations try to hammer out agreements on trade.

The administration had earlier threatened $50 billion to $150 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods as a way to deter the theft of U.S. intellectual property and forced transfers of technology.

One year ago the Associated Press reported

Since last spring, Chinese authorities in the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang have ensnared tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Muslim Chinese — and even foreign citizens — in mass internment camps. This detention campaign has swept across Xinjiang, a territory half the area of India, leading to what a U.S. commission on China last month said is "the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today"....

The detention program is a hallmark of China's emboldened state security apparatus under the deeply nationalistic, hard-line rule of President Xi Jinping. It is partly rooted in the ancient Chinese belief in transformation through education — taken once before to terrifying extremes during the mass thought reform campaigns of Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader sometimes channeled by Xi.

A few months later, President Trump would recognize Xi's successful power grab and declare "he's now president for life. President for life. And he's great."

Gone, though, are the days when presidential candidate Donald J. Trump would charge China with "ripping us off, folks" and being involved in a "rape of (our) country." Additionally, it was "caught cheating in the Olympics. That's the Chinese M.O. - Lie, Cheat & Steal in all international dealings."





We are to believe that understanding of China is no longer operative. But Donald J.Trump, the expert in rape and cheating, is still here. And it's not too late (without tongue in cheek) to ask him: "are cheating and rape bad things- or good things?"

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Business Model

Someone is "standing up" to mainland China. It could be former New York State Attorney General and governor Eliot Spitzer or even neoconservative Max Boot as they spoke (beginning at 7:29 of video below) on Friday evening's overtime segment of Real Time:

Spitzer: Another one that's important- the tariffs. Democrats should stand u;p and say "you know what, it's time we stood up against China"-we should do it as a global coalition not as one-off deal. Somebody needs to stand up. China was gaming the system.

Boot: Wait a second. I don't think Democras ought to be supporting Trump trying to start a trade war with China. This is not going to work out well.

Spitzer: We need to stand up to China on trade.

Boot: Yea, but not this way.

Spitzer: Again, I said not this way but we need to stand up. It's time somebody said that.




But could it be President Trump, who himself announced tariffs against the mainland, who is standing up to" China?

It could be- but apparently is not, even though as Think Progress reports

The steel and aluminum industries in China will soon be slapped with tariffs up to $50 billion by President Donald Trump. On Thursday, after China announced their intentions to retaliate against the United States with $50 billion in tariffs of their own against U.S. goods, Trump warned that his administration would respond with another set of tariffs, this time targeting $100 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Exempt from the proposed tariffs against China, however, is the clothing manufacturing industry.

U.S. officials say they used an algorithm to determine which goods to exclude from new tariffs. According to the Washington Post, the list was drafted to achieve “the lowest consumer impact,” ensuring goods like clothing and toys were excluded so as not to raise the cost on domestic consumer goods.

When in doubt these days, always say "algorithm."  Most of us don't know what it is but it sounds very, very wise. Trump's move also was wise- given his priorities- because

Exempting clothing from the tariffs provides a big break to American clothing companies that hold trademarks in China. One of those clothing companies belongs to the First Daughter of the United States, Ivanka Trump.

A recent report by the Huffington Post found that the president’s daughter and closest adviser rakes in a total of $1.5 million a year from the Trump Organization while still working at the White House.

It may coincidental that clothing is excluded from the tariffs in the same manner that it is coincidental that "Ivanka dined with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Trump family’s resort in West Palm Beach on the same day China approved three new trademarks for Ivanka’s company."

Eliot Spitzer and Max Boot recognize that mainland China's free ride must come to an end. However, with Donald Trump as president, all policies emanating from the White House first will be vetted for their impact on the Trump family fortune.

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