September 16, 2019--Trump's Four-Step Program
Take the tariffs as an example of a political strategy Trump employs with great aplomb and consequence.
During the 2016 campaign he stressed two things more than anything else--the Wall, how he would build it and Mexico would pay for it--and trade with China--how they were taking advantage of American naiveté and as a result surpassing us in economic growth. They were stealing our intellectual property and the Chinese government was unfairly subsidizing the cost of the expansion of their manufacturing sector. We, on the other hand, were experiencing a chronically stalled economy and ballooning trade deficits.
He said that unlike his predecessors he would confront the Chinese directly and fight back by using every trick and tool at his disposal. Among them, first and foremost, tariffs.
As the initial step he talked tough, boasting how he would take on the Chinese and force them to amend their ways or face crippling tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of manufactured goods and agricultural products.
The Chinese did not knuckle under. Instead, they announced retaliatory tariffs of their own. In response Trump, as the next step, ramped up the rhetoric, including personal attacks on Xi Jinping, China's president for life.
Still the Chinese did not back down. As a consequence the American stock market plunged, attracting Trump's attention. He had represented the previously soaring market as evidence that his economic policies were working. If the market tanked, not far behind would be Trump's reelection chances.
As a result, as the third step, he began to soften his position. To back off. He ratcheted back his criticism of Xi and began to hint that he would hold off on imposing tariffs until the end of the holiday shopping season. And just last week he announced that perhaps tariffs aren't necessary after all since both the Chinese and he are interested in making a deal. Not so between the lines was the implication that that deal might not require tariffs.
In this final move of the Trumpian four-step, he will soon take credit for getting the Chinese to retreat in the face of a crisis that he himself created and from which he, not they, is doing the backing down.
The Chinese government's recent announcement that they will resume importing soybeans will be cited as evidence by Trump that they are capitulating, while in truth he is.
So, he begins by initiating a crisis which, when it starts to spin out of control, he "solves" by abandoning his own positions while at the same time taking credit for doing so as if that was the plan all along.
If I have this right, those who want to depose Trump need to understand how this strategy works and figure out how best in real time to counter it. It's his most powerful tool and we have to expose and resist it, jiu jitsu-style, by turning his own strength against him.
During the 2016 campaign he stressed two things more than anything else--the Wall, how he would build it and Mexico would pay for it--and trade with China--how they were taking advantage of American naiveté and as a result surpassing us in economic growth. They were stealing our intellectual property and the Chinese government was unfairly subsidizing the cost of the expansion of their manufacturing sector. We, on the other hand, were experiencing a chronically stalled economy and ballooning trade deficits.
He said that unlike his predecessors he would confront the Chinese directly and fight back by using every trick and tool at his disposal. Among them, first and foremost, tariffs.
As the initial step he talked tough, boasting how he would take on the Chinese and force them to amend their ways or face crippling tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of manufactured goods and agricultural products.
The Chinese did not knuckle under. Instead, they announced retaliatory tariffs of their own. In response Trump, as the next step, ramped up the rhetoric, including personal attacks on Xi Jinping, China's president for life.
Still the Chinese did not back down. As a consequence the American stock market plunged, attracting Trump's attention. He had represented the previously soaring market as evidence that his economic policies were working. If the market tanked, not far behind would be Trump's reelection chances.
As a result, as the third step, he began to soften his position. To back off. He ratcheted back his criticism of Xi and began to hint that he would hold off on imposing tariffs until the end of the holiday shopping season. And just last week he announced that perhaps tariffs aren't necessary after all since both the Chinese and he are interested in making a deal. Not so between the lines was the implication that that deal might not require tariffs.
In this final move of the Trumpian four-step, he will soon take credit for getting the Chinese to retreat in the face of a crisis that he himself created and from which he, not they, is doing the backing down.
The Chinese government's recent announcement that they will resume importing soybeans will be cited as evidence by Trump that they are capitulating, while in truth he is.
So, he begins by initiating a crisis which, when it starts to spin out of control, he "solves" by abandoning his own positions while at the same time taking credit for doing so as if that was the plan all along.
If I have this right, those who want to depose Trump need to understand how this strategy works and figure out how best in real time to counter it. It's his most powerful tool and we have to expose and resist it, jiu jitsu-style, by turning his own strength against him.
Labels: Border Wall, Global Economy, Stock Market, Tariffs, Trade Deficit, Xi Jinping
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:19 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home