Am I the only one who thinks Trump’s New York Times interview probably ends his competitiveness in most of the Rust Belt? Just wonderin’.
CLEVELAND — Donald J. Trump, on the eve of accepting the Republican nomination for president, explicitly raised new questions on Wednesday about his commitment to automatically defending NATO allies if they are attacked, saying he would first look at their contributions to the alliance.
Asked about Russia’s threatening activities, which have unnerved the small Baltic States that are among the more recent entrants into NATO, Mr. Trump said that if Russia attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing if those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.”
“If they fulfill their obligations to us,” he added, “the answer is yes.”
Mr. Trump’s statement appeared to be the first time that a major candidate for president had suggested conditioning the United States’ defense of its major allies. It was consistent, however, with his previous threat to withdraw American forces from Europe and Asia if those allies fail to pay more for American protection.
— Donald Trump Sets Conditions for Defending NATO Allies Against Attack, David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman, New York Times, today
Ooookay. For all you folks who have never lived in the Rust Belt: Very large percentages of the populations in much of it are of Eastern European descent.* Now, Illinois and Indiana aren’t in play this election, so it doesn’t matter that a substantial portion of the population of northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana are of Eastern European descent.*
On the other hand, Michigan, Trump thinks, is in play. (I don’t, but we’ll go with his belief for the moment.) And southeastern Michigan has, yes, a lot of people of eastern European ancestry. And some of them are blue collar. Ditto for the western third of Pennsylvania. And the heavy manufacturing areas of northern, central and eastern Ohio.
Now sure, Mr. Trump, many of those voters have supported you. But that was before there was much made in the media of the fact that you had earlier made clear that as Putin’s tanks are marching toward, say, Warsaw (that’s in Poland) you will be awaiting word from NATO’s debt collection agency on whether or not Poland had finally agreed on a payment plan, before deciding whether to order the U.S. military to halt the march of Russia’s army. But now that you are officially the Republican presidential nominee, this sort of thing is likely to get some fair amount of media play. Possibly even on Fox News.
Look, I hesitate to be the one to break this to you, Mr. Trump. After all, I’m not using a pseudonym here (joking; this is a pseudonym) and there does seem to be a reason for your assurance to Turkish duly-elected strongman Precep Erdogan (and the rest of the world) that you have no plans to try to dissuade him from imprisoning the entire two-thirds of the Turkish population that has criticized him at some point—another promise you reiterated in the Times interview. And maybe your idea of national strength, now that you’re making it so very clear at such a critical time in the campaign, really is not what most Rust Belters normally think of as the diametric opposite of national strength: If that’s what Putin wants, we shouldn’t stop him, because Poland hasn’t paid us up and anyway Putin has said some very nice things about you.
But as a native of the Rust Belt, I think the better bet is that you just lost any chance you had to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. And as a Democrat, I think that’s pretty cool.
*Typo correction: Oh, brother. “Descent”. Not ‘dissent”. I’m tempted to say ‘Pun intended.” But, no, it was just a dumb mental slip. Thanks, Lindsay Berge, for pointing it out in the Comments thread–and humorously suggesting it was a Freudian slip. 7/22 at 9:09 a.m.
Well, the good news is that, based on the three main financial commitments of NATO members as of January 2016 (pay your direct expense share based on GNP, military budget >= 2% GNP, 20% of military budget for equipment expenditures), we only have to defend Poland and Great Britain under Trump, so Putin will have a free shot at Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and almost all of rest of the former Soviet Bloc, and I’m sure that will keep him happy for an entire month.
Wait. What about Spain, Italy, France and Germany? Putin can take them too, if he wants?
No wonder NATO allies are screaming about what is wrong with the USA?
a better question might be are you the only one who thinks descendants of ethnic eastern europeans living in the rust belt read the new york times…
besides, for those who still have ties to the old country, that melania trump is Slovenian is probably a bigger consdieration than the candidate’s position on NATO
Ooooo, no, this time is different, rjs. It’s truly broken through and is a very big story all over–which means it is likely to be passed around on Facebook among family members. And in some cases that may include some Eastern European relatives who DO follow the news.
I just added two links to my post–one of them an article on NBC’s website saying that this is being interpreted in Europe as an invitation to Putin to invade NATO countries if that’s what Putin wants.
Ultimately, I think this will matter in another, broader way, too: It makes it clear to people who hadn’t yet caught on that Trump views everything–literally everything–as a bizarrely tunnel-vision business proposition. He’s simply too dumb to understand even the economic consequences of potential Russian invasions, nuclear armaments by many more countries, and broad destabilization of currently secure national borders around the world because he wants to save some money in the budget.
This has real legs.
I agree with Rjs. There is not one voter in a thousand whose opinion of Trump would change from positive to negative due to this news – even if it gets widely repeated by mainstream outlets such as ABC, NBC, CNN etc. And even that one in a thousand will have completely forgotten this factoid by the time they vote.
Eastern European background people to one side, this may have the beneficial effect of persuading reluctant progressives that there actually is something serious about this election.
“There is not one voter in a thousand whose opinion of Trump would change from positive to negative due to this news –…”
You are breaking Bev’s heart. Hillary must be in real trouble if you think that the American public is going to balk at someone, anyone, saying we need to stop paying for the honor of being the world’s policeman.
We all know Hillary’s viewpoint on the matter: More and better wars!
i think you must run with a different bunch of ethnics than those i know in the Cleveland area or in my extened familty, Beverly…most i know are of the mindset such that politics is something one doesn’t bring up in polite company, be it old country politics or not…i think if anyone i knew felt strongly about it, i would have heard about it by now, since they know that’s on the fringe i myself occupy…i’d venture 9 out of 10, many college educatied, could not name both Ohio senators nor a single cabinet member…
Rjs comment rings true with me with the recent Russian immigrants that I know here. They will not vote in this election, and of those with an opinion, Putin saying Trump was a great leader is a positive for them. Not that it matters they won’t vote anyway.
I have to assume that those from the other parts of Eastern Europe might think differently, but you never know.
For what it’s worth, these same people deny up and down that Russia has any troops in Ukraine, they think the transfer of Crimea to Russia was 100% legal and followed a genuine election, and they say Russia of course has no interest in the Baltics or the Caucases. They don’t know why Russia is fighting in Syria, but they’re positive that they’re only bombing terrorists.
Actually, I had in mind not Russian immigrants or people of Russian descent, but only people with ancestral ties to the old Eastern bloc countries–the countries that were involuntarily part of the Soviet Union.
I do know that many Russian immigrants are all-in for Putin, as you note. But most of the Russian immigrants I’ve known were Jewish, and although I don’t don’ know any right now I’m betting that there’s a big dichotomy between Russian Jewish immigrants and non-Jewish Russian immigrants regarding Putin.
I’ve certainly known second- and third-generation Lithuanian-Americans, Czech-Americans, and Polish-Americans who virulently hated Russia and the Russian Soviet regime. They’re all gone now or fairly elderly, and I’m sure that millennials don’t have the strong feelings about this that some of their parents and grandparents had or have.
But anti-Russian feelings do, I’m guessing, still run strong among working-class middle-aged and elderly non-Russian Eastern European ethnics in the Rust Belt.
Paul Krugman has a terrific column today titled “Donald Trump, the Siberian Candidate,” but really it suggests that Trump is the Manchurian candidate. Krugman suggests that Trump is actually fronting for Putin on the world stage. I think he’s right.
The single difference between the Manchurian candidate in the movie and Donald Trump is that Trump, unlike the movie character, would be doing what he would be doing completely consciously and wittingly.
This is stunningly serious stuff.
hmmm…in answer to your headline question, are you the only one, it appears not, Beverly…
Marc A. Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute makes exactly the same point that you do it his post Why Trump’s NATO comments will hurt his chances in November this afternoon.
you were first, though..
What commitment ot Latvia?
The US just joined the Balts to NATO so the neocons can make excuse to go to war with Russia?
If the neocon Clinton wants to defend the Balts, just tell us and the Russians, US will do it on the cheap and tell Putin you will be nuked east of Talinn.
Putin is defending Russians in Ukraine from CIA fed fascists in Kyiv. US is defending NY bombing anywhere up to 8000 miles away it pleases. Okay the US is the shining drone striker on the hill. No US war since 1945 has met Just War doctrine. Going on over the Balts don’t either.
“Asked about Russia’s threatening activities, which have unnerved the small Baltic States that are among the more recent entrants into NATO”
US warmongering over the Balts is unnerving the Germans who only pay 1% of GDP so they know Trump won’t risk nuclear war over them.
Worse US neocons and the bloody press seem to think Russia is ripe for regime change since: Putin is a bad guy, Putin takes care of Russians, and they need a red balloon to make NATO a military union over Europe.
Russia is not Iran, Iraq or Libya!
I had lunch today with two friends, we are Vietnam era vets (not in service together) who later worked together.
The issue of US adventures (my put they had other words for the aggression) came up and how soon US would need a draft to cover the neocon agenda.
So, all the Nuland Kagan agenda signers put your kids up.
This time no exemptions for connection!
At the debates someone should ask about conscription to cover the war mongering that scares the Germans.
For what it is worth, I do not think Trumps abandonment of NATO does much to move the needle in any direction. I do think his love affair with Putin should cause concern among some of his lukewarm GOP supporters but at the end of the day they care less about the Constitition than they do about their bottom line. As for the rest I get that you hate Hillary–she is not lovable– but if that means helping a racist xenophobic narcissist I am sorry but I simply can not accept your viewpoint. We can all critize each other and debate economic theory, but the idea that some people are “subgroups” because of their skin color, or religion or economic status or sexual orientation or whatever remains a disqualifier from debate for me. Rethinking alliances not so much
Ilsm, MAD and the end of public nuclear testing by the major powers have effectively rendered nuclear weapons ineffective as a deterrent to conventional warfare. An increasingly few people alive have any personal memory of what they can do, and a lot of the capabilities of what the ones we have now are is secret and based on computer simulations, which is not an effective deterrent.
My suspicion at this point is that it probably takes someone using a nuke in anger to make the world remember what they are capable of and start to respect them again.
I’m not arguing for that, but we’ve spent the last 70 years with almost everyone capable of doing it doing everything except using them, even the crazy ones. Nuclear arsenals are expensive white elephants as far as the big 5 are concerned.
“Very large percentages of the populations in much of it are of Eastern European dissent.”
Freudian slip?
Lindsay:
Welcome to Angry Bear. First comments always go through moderation to prevent spam.
Just corrected it and noted the correction, with a thank you, at the end of the post.
Aaaargh.
BeverlyMann,
The “fault” in your piece is revealed in the title: “Am I the only one who thinks…” You think, therefore you’re not one of them.
Truly, Trump’s cohorts don’t think. Reason is actively rejected for the irrational, the emotional, the fanatical. They prefer voodoo over science, opinion over fact, conspiracy over evidence — a thoroughly corrupted certainty that everyone else is corrupt.
No truer words were spoken by him than “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters. It’s like incredible.” Yup. When he says “I am your voice” you quickly come to see the true menace he represents.
Imagine the howling outrage if the Prime Minister of Poland said, “If the US was under attack, the first thing I would do is check the books.”
From the “60 Minutes” interview:
Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but you’ve used that vote of Hillary [Clinton]’s that was the same as Gov. Pence as the example of her bad judgment.
Donald Trump: Many people have, and frankly, I’m one of the few that was right on Iraq.
Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but what about he—
Donald Trump: He’s entitled to make a mistake every once in a while.
Lesley Stahl: But she’s not? Okay, come on—
Donald Trump: But she’s not—
Lesley Stahl: She’s not?
Donald Trump: No. She’s not.
Lesley Stahl: Got it.
“Why Trump Is Winning Over Ohio’s Blue-Collar Dems”
“Decades of frustration is venting itself against immigrants, and Hillary lacks answers.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/2016-ohio-trump-winning-working-class-dems-214064
(The elites sold out the working class a long time ago; the Republicans captured them on cultural issues.)
I don’t know how many remember this story – I will never forget it – but there is a direct line between it and Trump’s ignorant, asinine, dangerous comments that before he would come to the aid of an ally under attack, he would first have to check the books.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/10/04/122193/county-firefighters-subscription/
As opposed to Trump, there is FDR’s famous homily when he announced Lend-Lease that it was like lending a neighbor a garden hose to put out a fire. After the fire was out, the neighbor would simply return the hose. Realistically nonsensical – how do you return a borrowed tank that was destroyed? – but a powerful statement of commitment to one’s allies.
Bev – How many gagillions does the US spend on NATO?
How much does our commitment to Korea cost us every year?
And how stupid is that we still have troops in Japan?
Trump is not going to win. But he is right about these legacy costs. These wars are over for 70 years now, and we are still paying for them. It makes no sense at all.
Bkrasting,
Yes, “these wars are over for 70 years now, and we are still paying for them.” But because we are paying for them – sharing the costs – there have been no wars for 70 years. And if you think a war in Asia between major powers is a matter to be lightly dismissed, or that the costs of peace exceed the costs of war, you haven’t been reading your history.
The US share of the NATO budget is 305m EUR for 2016. 22% of the 1,386m EUR civil and military budgets.
The US spent 649,000 million USD on defense spending in 2015. That is about 3.7% of the GNP, which is 1.7% of GNP higher than what NATO obligates us to spend (2% of GNP), and more than 2% higher than the “rest of NATO” average. So at the outside, you could say that NATO compels us to spend 350,000 million on defense, and we chose to spend another 300,000 million on top of that for no particular reason (defense industry welfare , USFK, Japan occupation, German occupation, etc).
I wasn’t able to determine easily how much was spent recently on USFK, but it is almost 30k military service members, out of 1.4 million, so you could divide and come to a rough estimate (2% of the total, assuming uniform spending per person (probably well overstated given that we have active warzone operations, but that almost certainly overstated figure would be 12,980m USD, versus South Korean military spending of 31,484m USD in 2012)).
We spend too much on the military, but NATO isn’t making us do it, and the vast majority of the money also isn’t going to our Korea deployment.
JGoodwin,
(An insignificant correction to your very sound post — it was $649 billion, not million.”)
Cheers…
(from Andy Borowitz)
Headline:
Trump Succeeds in Delivering Speech No One Will Want to Plagiarize
According to his staff, Trump and his speechwriters had been working overtime during the week to create a tirade that was sufficiently bloated, unhinged, and terrifying to discourage potential plagiarists from reusing excerpts in the future.
I counted in millions, that’s why it is 649,000 million, not 649 billion. I wanted to make the magnitude clear relative to the NATO budget funding, even though one is in EUR and one USD.
Ah, yes. Sorry about that, J Goodwin. The perils of reading too quickly…
Thanks for taking the time to look all that up.
Is Clinton’s bent toward regime change in Russia motivated to woo voters inside 8 Mile Detroit or Toledo?
Deeper, does US CIA involvement in bloody coups reassure voters inside 8 mile?
Moving to open thread!
J Goodwin,
Just a nit!
Defense spending is measured in many ways. You can follow Anne and I at economistsview when we talk the subject.
You seem to be using obligation authority to come up with the 3.7% of GDP.
Actual GDP accounting for Mar 16 half year was 4.1% “military consumption” for US.
Clinton’s “bent towards regime change in Russia” has no basis in fact. It is conspiratorial, it is imaginative, it is a claim without evidence.
On the other hand, Putin’s undeniable and self-evident accomplishments — done deeds — at regime change in Crimea and Ukraine, not to mention the perception of the Baltic states that they are next, have wooed Trump.
Congratulations to all those who now have aligned themselves with the Putins and Trumps of the world!
As Gary Kasparov tweeted last night during The Donald’s “I alone can fix it” acceptance speech — a diktat, a warning, a preening, ignorant boast totally unique in all the historical annals of American major party presidential politics:
“I’ve heard this sort of speech a lot in the last 15 years and trust me, it doesn’t sound any better in Russian.”
Hi Ilsm,
I eyeballed the 3.7% from Graph 5 in Nato’s publication on Defense spending here: http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_01/20160129_160128-pr-2016-11-eng.pdf
Per their file it is 2015 estimate, but I’m not sure what calendar that aligns with.