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.

December 5, 2018--Homebody

Have you noticed that Trump seems to be cutting back on his overseas travel? Way back?

Last month, he skipped three annual summits in Asia--the first time since 2013 that an American president has been absent. He sent Mike Pence in his place and left him on his own to tussle with China's president, Xi Jinping.

And he canceled scheduled visits to Ireland on the way home from the recent G-20 meeting which was held in Argentina.

White House aides said the president was too busy to stop in Bogota, a visit intended as a make up after Trump canceled a trip to Peru and Colombia in the spring. The Ireland stop, which was supposed to be tacked onto a recent trip to Paris, reportedly was to include a check-in at the Trump International Golf Links at Doonbeg. Not even a round of golf on one of his course could lure him.

What's up?

First, he likes to sleep in his own bed. During the 2016 presidential campaign after rallies he almost always flew home to New York City, to Trump Tower, no matter the distance, so he could curl up with his "blanky."

Then, he doesn't do group very well. At the G-20, for example, he had to share some of the spotlight with the other 19 leaders who attended. Considering his ego--always wanting to have the focus on himself--the thought of sharing the stage with his peers likely made his skin curl.

At the G-20, as the time drew near when he could make it back to the security of his bunk in Air Force One, he was caught on a hot mic, barking at one of his aides, "Get me out of here."

Or how fun is it to travel if all the other world leaders dislike him so much (I'm being kind putting it that way)? While away he therefore has no one to schmooze with. 

When in Buenos Aires, how he must have envied seeing Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's murderous dictator MBS (Mohammed bin Salman) high-fiving and having the time of their lives joshing about how they handle dissidents and annoying journalists. One could see the sulking Trump eyeing them enviously.  

For various reasons it would not have been politically wise for there to be an equivalent video of Trump yucking it up with these erstwhile pals.

Also, Trump is scaling back on his overseas travel for fear that one time when he is on another continent there will be a coup back home and he will find himself thrown out of office and Trump Tower converted to public housing.

This is a common concern of dictators where this sort of thing actually happens. For example to Cambodia's Pol Pot and Uganda's Idi Amin.

So look for Pence and Mike Pompeo to be on the road and racking up those frequent flyer miles.

March 28, 2018--North Korea Again

Considering the remarkable, just completed meeting in Beijing between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un, here is something I posted on March 9th--

Finally, maybe, perhaps, could it be at last that there is some good news from Korea?

Change often comes about in unexpected ways.

South Korean leaders worked hard to convince North Korea to join an all-Korean contingent of athletes at the recent Olympics. 

Even maxim-leader Kim Jong-un's sister attended, sitting in the VIP box fewer than 10 feet from Vice President Pence, who did not even have the manners to smile in her direction. (His wife travels with him wherever he goes to keep him from paying attention to beautiful young women.)

Things felt so frosty that it seemed as if Trump couldn't wait for Pence to leave so he could get on with the business of nuking Pyongyang.

For the new president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, having North Koreans participating in figure skating and ice hockey was less about sports or medal counts than high-stakes geopolitical politics.   

Moon ran for office as a new-style leader who would not wake up every morning with his marching orders delivered to him by our ambassador (assuming we ever again have one) but as one who would find his own way on the Korean peninsular, especially testing to see if there is any chance to make a deal for some sort of rapprochement before we, "fire and fury," incinerate both Koreas.

That opportunity may be coming into focus. Earlier this week high-level South Koreans travelled north where they had substantive discussions with their North Korean counterparts, including in the North Korean delegation, Kim's sister--the "Korean Ivanka." 

After the two days of meetings Kim announced that he would order the suspension of missile and nuclear testing during any talks Moon might be able to broker between the North and the United States. Further, Kim hinted, he is willing to discuss the denuclearization of North Korea, America's and the world's ultimate objective.

Trump's response? Moderate. Reasonable. Rational. No tweets about "Little Rocket Man" and "whack job." Just indications of appropriately skeptical openness to Kim's initiative.

Could this be, might this be, perhaps this represents . . .

I am reluctant to compete these sentences and jinx the situation.

But here's the framework for a deal. Admittedly, a stretch--

We agree to discussions (remember during the campaign how Trump said he would be willing to meet with Kim, that to do so would be "his honor"). South Korea, China and even Russia eagerly await the results and, back-channel, encourage Kim to be negotiable. 

After a couple of months, there is the outline of the deal--

In exchange for ratcheting-back their nuclear program, on route to reducing it, the North agrees not to develop nuclear weapons that are small and dependable enough to be delivered by their ICBM missiles that already have the capacity to reach the United States.

In return, we agree to draw down our military presence in South Korea, withdrawing the bulk of our current contingent of 23,500 troops. The UN agrees to deploy inspectors on both sides of the border to guarantee that North Korea and the U.S. fulfill their commitments.

Longer term, the country is unified, following the examples of Vietnam where there is now one Vietnam, and Germany where there is now one Germany. To help in the process, the economic behemoth, South Korea, devotes trillions to the modernization of North Korea, which in turn over time also becomes an economic powerhouse.

Trump one way or the other is forced to give up carrying out any tail-wag-the-dog actions in a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the now rapidly encroaching Mueller investigation. He has to settle for stumbling into helping to promote world peace.

Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump share the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump finally, with this at least, reaches parity with his predecessor. 

OK, too much, scratch that. But they are widely adulated. Enough so that Trump decides not to run for reelection, reminding us endlessly how he fulfilled all his promises. How the mission has been accomplished.

In fact, if anything like this plays out, unlikely partners as Kim and Trump are, they would deserve a lot of credit.

April 19, 2017--Crazy-Fat-Kid

That's how John McCain last week referred to Kim Jong-un, president of North Korea.

It's understandable that Senator McCain would be feeling frustrated. Most American are. Kim may be crazy or crazy like a fox, but it is indisputable that he is a very dangerous threat to peace in the region. And then some.

Even the Chinese finally seem to be taking the situation seriously. Until now they have been his principal "ally," largely responsible for propping up the collapsed economy of North Korea through their involvement in multiple trade deals that are of sustaining benefit to the North Korean leadership class.

Perhaps because of coming to some sort of agreement to work together during Chinese president Xi Jinping's visit with Donald Trump two weeks ago in Palm Beach, or because the Chinese are concerned that Trump is a crazy-fat-president and might, if provoked, decide to bomb North Korea's nuclear facilities and missile delivery systems. This would mean all-out, possible nuclear war on the Korean peninsular, resulting in millions of refugees crossing the Yalu River to seek sanctuary in China.

The Chinese crave stability and predictability and Trump represents neither and so they may be taking the lead to see if there is a way forward, out of this unfolding doomsday scenario.

I do not think of Kim as leading a suicide cult. War would likely mean we would go after him and his elite followers--the one's who get fancy uniforms, electricity, cars, and food to eat. They and he like living and have many of the good things life offers. And they are not ideological. Fanatical, yes, but in a materialistic way that suggests they might be more interested in living and enhancing their national stature than going down in martyrs' flames. We saw that with the Japanese during World War II, but Korea is no Japan.

If Kim and his followers desire recognition perhaps we should move carefully to begin to provide that as part of a deal that would have them, under Chinese monitoring, begin to phase out their nuclear program. Muammar al-Gaddafi did this is Libya, surprising many who thought he would never agree to such a thing. He saw the writing on the wall and din't want to be obliterated. Of course he eventually was, but that's another story.

During the campaign Trump said he would be willing to meet with Kim Jong-un to see if a deal is possible. Kim might jump at this chance. It would have to be after a number of other conditions were agreed to to test Kim's seriousness. The process would not begin with a Kim-Trump summit but would be a reward when the two parties were, say, halfway to an agreement.

When Barack Obama said during the 2008 campaign that in pursuit of peace he would be willing to meet face-to-face with Iranian leaders, Hillary Clinton's mocked him, claiming he was naive and suggested this demonstrated that he was unsuited to serve as commander in chief. But then, during his first term, Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, worked hard behind the scenes to bring this about. A year or two later, with John Kerry having replaced her, the U.S. and Iran made a deal and as of today much of Iran's nuclear weapons program has been shut down. It is not perfect (as Trump took relish in pointing out almost daily during the campaign) but so far we are not at war with the Iranians. And, as a demonstration that Trump may not always act impulsively, he has not (yet) abrogated the treaty.

My scenario may be a stretch, but most analysts who attempt to understand what is going on in North Korea and what Kim is thnking are feeling pessimistic. The New York Times has concluded that we are moving to a confrontation similar to the one the world faced during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But this time with a potentially unstable leader on one side.

It is generally agreed that it will be two to three years before the North Koreans develop the missiles and miniaturized atomic warheads to reach South Korea, Japan, and the west coast of the U.S. But as they are moving inexorably and rapidly in this direction, we need to figure out how to make a deal well before then that provides at least some enhanced sense of security.

Otherwise . . .

April 7, 2017--Trump at War

A few quick observations--

The missile strike that President Trump ordered last night had at least four purposes:

(1) To punish the Assad regime for its poison gas attack on Syrian civilians. This happened on the 100th anniversary of the beginning of  our involvement in World War I where chemical weapons were for the first time widely used.

(2) To try to get the Russian Connection monkey off Trump's back. He bombed Russia's only real ally in the region in part to demonstrate he was not Putin's puppet.

(3) To demonstrate to the Chinese leadership that we are not to be messed with. Is it just a coincidence that Trump ordered the missile strike on the very day he was hosting the Chinese president? President Xi had a front row seat to observe an emboldened Trump in action. Trump was signaling that if you don't take the lead in containing North Korea, he will.

(4) Perhaps most important to Trump, this was to boost his approval ratings. They have been hovering in the mid 30s. Expect to see a 10 point jump by the weekend. Americans always rally around their president when he takes military action. But, as in the past, those numbers head quickly south after things calm down if nothing positive is happening. Just ask George H.W. Bush.

(5) And, of course by bombing Syria he distanced himself from President Obama who famously drew a red line in the sand but then backed away from enforcing it. He can now claim to be muy macho.

December 6, 2016--Madman Theory

One of the first things that Donald Trump has actually done is very disturbing--taking what he claims was a call of congratulations from Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan. He has welcomed many such calls, so why is this one disturbing?

Here's the problem--

Who's in charge of Taiwan has been hotly contested since shortly after the end of the Second World War. Formosa, as it was then called, was the island refuge in 1949 for Chiang Kai-shek after his Kuomintang forces were driven there from Mainland China at the end of the Chinese Civil War or Revolution--Mao Zedong gained control of what we used to call Red China and Chiang and his followers, with our direct assistance turned Taiwan into an island fortress, where Chiang nurtured fantasies, again indulged by us, of invading the mainland to retake and unite China.

That of course never happened though through the years there was a lot of saber rattling and occasional threats of a widespread war breaking out in the region. With us right in the middle of it. This became especially dangerous when Mainland China tested and then deployed nuclear weapons. Many of the aimed at Taiwan.

As part of our struggle with communism, with the Soviet Union and China, we steadfastly recognized Taiwan and its leadership as the sole representatives of all of China--it was referred to as the One China policy--and we through the decades refused to extend any form of recognition to Red China, even though the population there was about 1.0 billion while on Taiwan it was a relatively few million.

Then, with Jimmy Carter as president, after Nixon visited Red China in 1972, seven years later, in 1979, the American government recognized Mainland China and severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

China, then, had it's own version of One China during the Mao regime and subsequently. Though China didn't control Taiwan, they considered it, and continue to do so, as China. Just China.

And though we continue to sell at least $2.0 billion a year in weapons to the Taiwanese, we have otherwise kept them at a political distance.  That is, until last week when Trump spoke to Tsai Ing-wen and it, by so doing, hit the diplomatic fan.

On the Sunday talk shows, vice-president-elect Mike Pence tried to downplay the conversation but early Monday morning Trump made matters worse by tweeting--

Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn't tax them) or build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so.

A couple of things are possible--

In his narcissistic mode, Trump is loving the global attention being lavished upon him. Like an ingenue he is giddy about being courted by world leaders such as Vladimir Putin and China's president, Xi Jinping, among many others. And, so, when President Tai's call arrived he (1) didn't know who she was (2), said what the hell harm can it do to wallow in her congratulations, or (3) saw talking with her an opportunity to poke his finger in China's eye, declaring that when he becomes president in January, unlike his predecessors, he plans to be tough on China.

Well, if the answer is that he didn't know the implications of talking with President Tsai that's one sort of issue--his lack of knowledge about global affairs. And, I'm being kind. Then, if he knew the call was coming from Taiwan and had any sense of the history of China and Taiwan, he might have thought twice. Though thinking twice is something apparently rare for him.

Alternately, I wonder how Trump would feel after being sworn in if Xi Jinping called the governor of Texas and by so doing implied support for the idea of Texas succeeding from the Union.

Then, if Trump is swaggering, maybe there is some lesson from history about what he might be up to--historians call it the Madman Theory.

Get the Chinese thinking he is, well, mad, so they will treat him carefully and perhaps be more prone to make concessions than if he were fully rational and stable.

For antecedents we have to go back to the Richard Nixon presidency who maybe was actually unhinged or perhaps crazy like a fox.

His chief or staff, H.R. Haldeman, in his memoirs, wrote that Nixon had confided in him--

I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, "for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry--and he has his hand on the nuclear button" and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.

The only problem with this is that it didn't work then and it made the world a more dangerous place. The war went on and on and many more thousands were killed.

Let's hope Trump soon names someone other than Rudy to be Secretary of State. Someone who knows something about the world and isn't crazy.

April 25, 2016--Dateline: The Rest of the World

While waiting for election returns from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland, and Prince's autopsy findings, a new Cold War is breaking out. This time not only with Russia but also China. And, who knows, maybe with Saudi Arabia.

Vladimir Putin's Russia is beginning to sound and look like the old Soviet Union with economic dislocation fueling an aggressive foreign policy to both reannimate dreams of a restored Imperial Russia and as a chauvinistic distraction for the Russian people who will soon likely be needing to line up for hours to buy a loaf of bread or a liter of vodka. But while in line they will have their nationalistic dreams to sustain them.

Circuses but no bread.

Rather than acting like a European partner, which we saw signs of for a decade or so, Putin is leading Russia's military buildup and deploying forces on numerous fronts in an attempt to secure what it sees as its sphere of influence and to provide opportunities to flex military muscle in order to poke the US and Western Europeans in the eye, partly as a response to the economic sanctions we and our European allies have imposed on Russia in retaliation for its expansionist moves in Ukraine.

And, while they're at it, they've taken to buzzing U.S. warships in open waters

Under Putin's leadership they have of course reannexed Crimea, threatened various parties in the Balkans, and have become actively involved in Syria, deploying an entirely new mix of smart weapons whose existence has caught Western observes by surprise.

What happened to all those clunky Soviet tanks and misfiring missiles? Clearly once again avoiding CIA detection, right under the noses of our various surveillance agencies, the Russians seemingly overnight on the ground and in the skies in Syria are putting on display a whole range of new, sophisticated 21st century weapons systems.

So much for recent efforts under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to "reset" relations with Putin and Russia. He and Obama can't even talk to each other. Even Stalin and Roosevelt got along better!

Meanwhile, in Asia, also with thoughts about a restored Dynasty, President Xi Jinping of China, also in part to distract the Chinese people from a cooling economy and to deflect thoughts from rampant governmental and corporate corruption (which directly involves his own family), Xi has been investing heavily in modernizing and rapidly expanding China's military capacities and reach.

New fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and a modern submarine fleet are among recent acquisitions. In addition, as an extension of its imperial moves in the South China Sea, encroaching on what we impotently claim to be international waters, and pushing toward South Korean and Japanese waters, under Xi, China is creating a series of new islands which already include air strips and naval facilities. We talk and talk and threaten and threaten while China dredges and dredges and builds and builds.

Perhaps most ominous is Russia's and China's moves to modernize their nuclear weapons. Making warheads smaller and smaller so that they can be mounted on advanced intercontinental missiles with vastly increased capacities to avoid detection. In retaliation, the Obama administration, has quietly begun to do the same for our aging nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

Ironically, Barak Obama who came to office proclaiming that nuclear disarmament was his highest priority, and thus quickly received the Noble Peace Prize, is leaving office engaged in a restored full-tilt nuclear arms race with Russia and China.

And also while we have been obsessing about our presidential election and other entertainments, in response to the bold nuclear deal we struck with Iran, Saudi Arabia is talking quietly, in response to that, of developing its own nuclear weapons.

Sic transit . . .

November 18, 2014--Minding Our Business

Briefly--

Why is it that every president since at least Harry Truman, when abroad, feels the need to lecture other leaders about human rights?

Most recently Barack Obama in China where he chided his host, President Xi Jinping, about stifling political dissent in Hong Kong, then during a quick visit to Myanmar he gently prodded fellow Nobel Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi about her country's resistance to power sharing with the opposition, and then a day or two later at the G-20 summit in Australia where he again took Vladimir Putin to task for Russia's incursions in Ukraine.

Without doubt, China, Russia, Myanmar, and a host of other countries could do a lot better. A lot. But is it our place to criticize them about their human rights crimes and misdemeanors?

Back in the old Cold War days in response to our constant hammering on abuses in the repressive Soviet Union, though God knows there was much to point out, Soviet leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev were equally quick to retort that we were hypocritical, that we had human rights problems of our own, most notable that there was still government sanctioned and imposed segregation that kept Negroes "in their place" and Native Americans mainly confined to arid reservations.

And today, if they were inclined (and Putin certainly has been--severely criticizing us as the cause of most of the problems in today's Middle East) they could point out that after six years of the Obama presidency Guantanamo is still operating, U.S. citizens are routinely spied on by many government agencies, and poverty and inequality are worsening.

I know that one reason American leaders feel it necessary to criticize the records of others--even when being hosted by them--is to demonstrate to the rightwing back home that they are tough enough to stand up to our adversaries while trumpeting our alleged "exceptionalism."

My question to traveling presidents--In a dangerously fractured world, where we should be seeking to reduce tensions even with leaders we despise (Putin comes to mind), do we need another Cold War, do we want to chill further relations with our major trading partner and debt holder (China), do we want more Westerners to be beheaded in Iraq, do we want to find peaceful ways to keep Iran from getting The Bomb?

I am more and more attracted to Henry-Kissinger-style realpolitik--diplomacy based primarily on power and practical and material considerations rather than on ideological notions or ethical premises.

Just as we hate it when others point fingers at us, it's time for us get off our proverbial high horse.