Sanction Trump not Bourbon
This post “America’s allies should respond to steel tariffs with targeted sanctions on the Trump Organization” by Matthew Yglesias is brilliant (even though he is mainly agreeing with the prior brilliant article by Scott Gilmore “Trade sanctions against America won’t work. Sanctioning Trump himself might.”
The proposal is so brilliant and the case for it so clear, that, I think, each title is enough to convey the idea.
Yglesias elaborates while quoting another Canadian
In light of the unusual combination of geopolitical absurdity and delicacy that the situation poses, at a press conference last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reached into the bag of rhetorical clichés we normally see American officials deploy against authoritarian regimes abroad:
I want to be clear on one point: Americans remain our partners, our allies, and our friends. The American people [are] not the target of today’s announcement. [skip]
While it’s a good speech, the reality is that Trudeau’s policy countermeasures are aimed at the American people, [skip]
A better path would be to take Trudeau’s analysis seriously — America’s allies should come together and retaliate against Trump rather than retaliating against the American people.
So why are they missing trump and hitting Harley’s and Bourbon ?
The argument of Gilmore and Yglesias is obviously correct. Not only would sanctions directed at Trump be effective, they would also be fair. Bourbon distillers and motorcycle workers bear no guilt, so it is unfair to punish them (also standard practice in trade wars but still unfair).
I’m afraid that what this really shows is that in the struggles among the powerful, the little people are pawns. Sanctions on Trump personally would cause pain to fewer people (I think a (modest) majority of US citizens woud actually be pleased). They would be vastly more effective, because Trump is totally egocentric. But they would be, and are perceived to be, a dangerous escalation.
Directing the punishment at innocent peons is a way of showing it is nothing personal (while saying it is personal). Just a normal policy debate.
Sanctions on Trump personally would be less extreme in that they would directly hurt fewer people, but they would be perceived as very extreme, because the person hurt is present at the G-7 meeting.
Sanctions on individuals are not part of normal trade conficts. There are sanctioned individuals, but they are not members of the club (many are Iranian some are Russian).
after the jump, I move on to a 2 tweet long philosophical digression (which focuses on what I imagine to be the topic of Yglesias’s senior thesis).
@robertwaldmann
55m55 minutes ago
Robert Waldmann Retweeted Matthew Yglesias
1/2 This is brilliant. Undergraduate Matt might have moved on to philosophical digressions. 1) it is fair to punish Trump not innocent guys who work in a bourbon distillery.2) it is effective to punish Trump who is in charge and selfish 3) generally equity and efficiency align.
2/2 This is, in fact, the usual case. Generally consequentialist and deontoligical reasoning lead to the same conclusion. The reason may be that our moral prinicples are historically contingent and have evolved to be those that were later found to serve.
Those guys working in the bourbon distillery are not so innocent; they are probably Trump voters. Not sure about the Harley workers but Wisconsin certainly deserves a spanking.
The US has established precedent for this by targeting individual members of the Russian establishment.
Trump voters are not innocent. They knew what he was, and somehow assumed that the people he would hurt would be the same people they wanted to hurt. If it turns out that they hurt themselves in the process, that is more fair than not.
“I’m afraid that what this really shows is that in the struggles among the powerful, the little people are pawns.”
Yeah, I kind of figured that out from all the wedding parties, hospitals and innocent civilians Bush & Obama bomber\d and droned during their wretched presidencies, and from the half million Iraaqi children Clinted starved to death during the 90s–yet no one has ever sanctioned them, let alone put them on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Trump behavior at Canadian G7 meeting was boorish, but it is logical and is consistent which his previous stance on globalization: he rejects neoliberal globalization.
Sasha Breger Bush proposed the term “national neoliberalism” to depict the transition from “classic neoliberalism” which has been started with the election of Trump.
I think the term really catches the essence of the election of Trump. and should probably be adopted as a succinct description of Trump economic policy.
=== quote ===
The nationalism, xenophobia, isolationism, and paranoia of Donald Trump are about to replace the significantly more cosmopolitan outlook of his post-WWII predecessors. While Trump is decidedly pro-business and pro-market, he most certainly does not see himself as a global citizen.
Nor does he intend to maintain the United States’ extensive global footprint or its relatively open trading network. In other words, while neoliberalism is not dead, it is being transformed into a geographically more fragmented and localized system (this is not only about the US election, but also about rising levels of global protectionism and Brexit, among other anti-globalization trends around the world).
I expect that the geographic extent of the US economy in the coming years will coincide with the new landscape of U.S. allies and enemies, as defined by Donald Trump and his administration.
==end of -quote===
See
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/12/24/trump-and-national-neoliberalism
He elaborated on this in his more recent article
=== quote ===
But if we take seriously the idea that Trump is a consequence of the disintegration of American democracy rather than the cause of it, this “blame game” becomes especially problematic.
Partisan bickering, with one party constantly pointing to the other as responsible for the country’s ills, covers up the fact that Democrats and Republicans alike have presided over the consolidation of corporate power in the United States.
To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the U.S. corporate state is a two-headed beast. Sure, President Trump and the Republican Party are currently handing over public lands to oil and gas companies, eliminating net neutrality, introducing pro-corporate tax legislation, kowtowing to the military industrial complex, defunding the welfare state, and attempting to privatize education and deregulate finance.
But let’s not forget our recent Democratic presidents, for example, who are also guilty of empowering and enriching big business and disempowering and impoverishing ordinary Americans.
== end of quote==
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2018/0118breger-bush.html
@Likbez: “Sure, President Trump, etc” is your important sentence. It is the immediate need. First things, first.
In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to one, said Bonaparte.
The neoliberal world order according the Bretton Woods and Washington cannot raise and apply enough material [bombings, drones, aircraft carrier intimidation THAAD in Korea are the ante] without destroying itself and in its throes the world.
Trump is not tearing apart NATO anyone not earning money is a PNAC think tanks knows NATO has become an aggression against Russia with smilar intent as Hitler.
Grabbing Sevastopol and aiding Russians in territory occupied by Kyiv are [bold] defensive moves.
The threat of Chinese islands in the South China Sea is the US Navy super carriers intimidations has no career raiding Hainan.
I was curious if Yglesias is a Canadian since his editorial sided with the G7 leaders stance against Trump’s fair-trade often labelled as ‘protectionism’ of USA industries. He’s a New Yorker as I pondered what’s his stake in this political tirade against Trump’s pro-America versus anti-globalist policies?
It appears that the media has glided over the fact Trump had suggested to the other G7 leaders that all trade barriers, including tariffs and subsidies, be eliminated, “”You go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy free.” Protectionist Canadian PM Trudeau howled at a press conference after Trump had left on his way to Singapore. Why? Is it because Trudeau is committed to the welfare of Canadians and their industries? How dare the president of the USA- in turn, advocate for citizenry and country as does his G7 counterparts for their countries.
The U.S. trade deficit in goods, without services, was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods. It imported $2.361 trillion. The USA imports more than they export to: China, Japan, Canada, Germany and Mexico. USA top 5 Trade deficits: China $375 billion, Mexico $71, Japan $69, Germany $65, and Canada 18 billion.
More fun & facts:
https://www.thebalance.com/trade-deficit-by-county-3306264
US citizens and their jobs were swindled with cheaper foreign goods flooding American businesses and stores as good manufacturing jobs headed overseas. Jobs that created the middle class and all their earned benefits and standard of living decreased/disappeared quickly with NAFTA and the WTO.
Concisely, trade deficits destroyed the middle class, the working class, blue collar, and in turn, increased poverty and homelessness. Destroyed small town anywhere in the USA with manufacturing and jobs fleeing overseas in search of cheap labor. Go travel across the USA and see the boarded up towns, walk the streets of Flint Michigan, Detroit, Martinsville Virginia, Gary Indiana, Freeport Il, etc. Throw a dart at a USA map and you’ll hit a town devastated by ‘free’ to lose your job trade. In 2014, 2.3 million job losses due to trade with China. Job losses in the millions have been slowly replaced with ‘service’ jobs and/or $8.00 an hour part-time no benefits workers as the new norm.
Remember when Walmart’s original slogan was “Buy American”? Sam Walton before he died, was big on “Buy American,” and it appeared in signs in the stores and on TV ads. His heirs quickly changed it to “Buy Chinese” destroying the american dream and small town USA.
Yet Yglesias’ preference is all for the unbalanced trade with our G7 frenemies and punishing a president who chooses fair trade practices to ensure US jobs for American citizens. Makes me wonder who or what Yglesias truly advocates for, the NWO or the country of origin on his passport?
“What we must do is this: revise our tariff on the basis of a reciprocal exchange of goods, allowing other Nations to buy and to pay for our goods by sending us such of their goods as will not seriously throw any of our industries out of balance…Such objectives as these three, restoring farmers’ buying power, relief to the small banks and home-owners and a reconstructed tariff policy, are only a part of ten or a dozen vital factors. But they seem to be beyond the concern of a national administration which can think in terms only of the top of the social and economic structure. It has sought temporary relief from the top down rather than permanent relief from the bottom up. It has totally failed to plan ahead in a comprehensive way. It has waited until something has cracked and then at the last moment has sought to prevent total collapse.
It is high time to get back to fundamentals. It is high time to admit with courage that we are in the midst of an emergency at least equal to that of war. Let us mobilize to meet it.” “The Forgotten Man” speech, 1937. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Since Clinton signed NAFTA in 1994 and the WTO, American jobs and industry left our shores seeking the lowest common denominator- cheap slave labor. To paraphrase FDR into the late 20th and early 21st century, “Clinton and his successors concern of their national administrations thought in terms only of the top of the social and economic structure. It has sought temporary relief from the top down rather than permanent relief from the bottom up.It has totally failed to plan ahead in a comprehensive way.”
Cheap Overhead Costs