Tag: China
Four more years is four too many
It’s a sad day for America. Not only has Donald Trump re-entered the White House. His wealthy buddies are no longer hiding their allegiances. Elon Musk is not only supporting Alternative für Deutschland. He is copying a salute most Germans still remember with shame.
Off to the expected scams
Trump’s first moves are against immigrants and in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Ignoring the 14th amendment, he is trying to deprive people born in the US of citizenship it provides. He has also blocked asylum seekers. Raids that will round up legal as well as illegal immigrants are imminent. Trump wants to get rid of Biden’s efforts to slow global warming and accelerate oil, gas, and coal production. He is withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, which allows Washington to define its own measures to prevent climate change. He has also ordered withdrawal from the World Health Organization.
Trump is also promising Tik Tok relief from a law that provides for no possibility of relief from the president. He is pardoning 1500 criminals, most of whom attacked the Capitol violently on January 6, 2021. The Trump family has launched a crypto “memecoin” that has already put billions in his pockets. It will implode, like other such frauds, plundering late-comer investors. Trump’s threatened 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico February 1 will cause a major trade war. That will jack up inflation and impoverish many people in the Western Hemisphere.
Don’t lose sight of the baseline
Biden is leaving office with an extraordinary record of achievement. Federal and state prosecutors, including in deep red states, have found no reason to prosecute any Biden Administration political appointees. None have resigned in scandal. Biden pardoned his family not because they had done something wrong but because he rightfully feared Trumped-up charges against them. Trump’s nominee for FBI Director has promised such revenge. Note he did not pardon himself.
The economic stats at the end of 2024 are these:
- Unemployment 4.1% (12/24)
- GDP growth 3.0% (IV 24)
- Inflation 2.9% (2024)
- Budget deficit $2T (2024)
- Stock market (DJ) 43k, more or less
What are the odds that Trump will beat all these benchmarks? Close to zero. Three of them? Not much higher. We’ll have to wait and see.
Here are just a few other Biden claims:
—Strongest economy in the world —Nearly 16 million new jobs, a record —Wages up —Inflation coming down —Racial wealth gap lowest in 20 years —Historic infrastructure investments —Lower prescription drug costs —Record health insurance coverage —Most significant climate law ever —First major gun safety law in 30 years —First Black woman on Supreme Court —Help for 1 million veterans exposed to toxins —Violent crime rate at 50-year low —Border crossings lower than when Trump left office
Foreign policy
I fault Biden for his sloppy handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and his failure to rein in Israel in Gaza. That undermined his claim that America stands up for democracy. He responded reasonably well and quickly to the fall of Assad in Syria. With Iran, Biden failed to revive the nuclear agreement. That has left a big challenge for Trump. But if Biden had succeeded, Trump would have withdrawn again.
Biden was great reunifying and rallying NATO to support for Ukraine. Fearful of provoking war between the US and Russia, however, Biden was too hesitant in providing long-range weapons. I hope Trump will give Kyiv all it needs to win. In the Balkans, Biden’s knowledgeable minions were miserably unsuccessful.
Biden was good on China, Taiwan, India, and Asia in general. But he couldn’t refocus more attention there due to events in the Middle East. We’ll have to see if Trump does better.
Next four years
Half the country did not think this was enough. They disliked Kamala Harris, an articulate, experienced, competent, Black and Indian woman. She had been a successful prosecutor and a senator. They thought they would do better with a convicted felon, womanizer, racist, and flim-flam man. I’ll be interested to hear what they have to say after four more years of his bombast.
PS: Let me be clear: four more yours is four too many. But the last thing I would want is to see the Vice President in the Oval Office. He is arguably worse.
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A stronger American still fumbles
President Biden made a farewell appearance at the State Department yesterday. As a former Foreign Service officer, I’m of course delighted that he did this. It is especially important and timely because the Department now faces Donald Trump’s threat of loyalty tests and mass firings.
Biden’s understandably directed his remarks at justifying what his Administration has done on foreign policy. So how did he really do?
The bar was low
Certainly Biden can justifiably claim to have strengthened America’s alliances. The bar was low. Both in Europe and Asia the first Trump Administration had raised doubts. Allies could not depend on Washington’s commitment to fulfill its mutual defense obligations. Biden’s claim that compared to four years ago America is stronger because of renewed and expanded alliances is true. He is also correct in claiming he has not gone to war to make it happen.
The extraordinary strength of the American economy is an important dimension of this strength. Voters decided the election in part on the issue of inflation. But the Fed has largely tamed that and growth has been strong throughout. Manufacturing is booming, including vital semi-conductor production. Investment in non-carbon energy sources has soared. The defense industrial based is expanding.
Biden is also correct in asserting that America’s antagonists are worse off. Russia has failed to take Ukraine because of the US effort to gather support for Kyiv. Iran and its allies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria are weaker. Only the Houthis in Yemen are arguably stronger than four years ago.
China is facing serious domestic economic and demographic challenges. But I don’t know why Biden claims it will never surpass the US. On a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, it already has, though obviously per capita GDP in China remains much lower.
Some claims gloss over big problems
Biden is rightly proud that there is no longer war in Afghanistan, but he glosses over the chaotic withdrawal. He also doesn’t mention the failure of the Taliban to keep its commitments.
He vaunts progress on climate change, but without acknowledging that the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees centigrade will not be met.
Biden talks about infrastructure in Africa. But not about its turn away from democracy, civil wars in Sudan and Ethiopia, and the unresolved conflict in Libya.
He urges that Iran never be allowed to “fire” a nuclear weapon. That is a significant retreat from the position that Iran should never be allowed to have one.
Biden mentions the impending Hamas/Israel ceasefire. But he says nothing about Israel’s criminal conduct of the war in Gaza. Nor does he blame Israel’s right-wing government for the long delay in reaching a deal.
Biden’s legacy
At the end, Biden seeks to bequeath three priorities to Trump: artificial intelligence, climate change, and democracy. He no doubt knows that Trump isn’t going to take the advice on climate or democracy. He might on artificial intelligence, as his Silicon Valley tycoons will want him to.
Sad to say, Biden’s legacy will lie in other areas. Fearful of nuclear conflict with Russia, he failed to give Ukraine all the support it needs to defeat Russia. He was reluctant to rein in Israel for more than a year of the Gaza war. He failed to stop or reverse the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. America is stronger than it was four years ago, but it has not always used that strength to good advantage.
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Make Kosovo and Bosnia Greater!
Biden Administration policy in the Balkans has been a failure. Kosovo and Serbia have continued their dialogue but with only minor results. The political normalization the US and EU aimed for is further off than in 2020. Bosnia’s constitutional arrangement is inconsistent with the European Union membership the country nominally seeks. The Serb and Croat nationalists who have vetoes over its politics prefer a state well-fed with EU funds but unable to enforce the rule of law.
Appeasement hasn’t worked
Mistaken policy is the root of these failures. Biden’s State Department chose to appease Belgrade, the biggest country in the Western Balkans by both population and area. Officials who like to repeat those factoids hoped Serbia would choose alignment with the West. They thought that would pull Bosnia in the right direction.
Appeasement hasn’t worked. Belgrade instead has pocketed Biden’s support and aligned Serbia with Russia and China. While selling ammunition to Ukraine and buying French warplanes, Belgrade has been re-arming mainly with Chinese and Russian equipment and supplying Russia with electronic components. Serbia, which has an official policy of military neutrality, has refused to align with EU sanctions on Russia.
Belgrade has also adopted irredentist goals. It seeks to establish a “Serbian world,” analogous to Moscow’s “Russian world.” That would unify the Serb populations of neighboring countries in a single de facto if not de jure political space. Montenegro has already joined up, the result of elections in which Belgrade and Moscow weighed in heavily. Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, its Serb-dominated 49%, is dependent on Russia and increasingly part of the Serbian world. Belgrade aims to incorporate the Serbs of northern Kosovo as well.
Creeping authoritarianism is the result
To compensate for its lean toward Serbia, the State Department also chose to mollify Albania, the second largest country in the Western Balkans. State Department officials hoped that would pull Kosovo in a more malleable direction.
Albania is a NATO member and has remained loyal to the Alliance. But its Prime Minister is a political rival of Kosovo’s Prime Minister. Their political competition has prevented any positive impact of Washington’s coddling of the former and antagonism toward the latter. But American favor towards Albania’s Prime Minister has enabled him to establish a de facto monopoly on power. He has fragmented and disempowered the opposition. Corruption is rampant.
Something similar has also occurred in Serbia, whose President has obliterated the opposition. The US and EU rarely speak out against corruption or abuse of power in Serbia. The security forces regularly beat and brutalize protesters. Brussels and Washington nevertheless consistently advocate for Belgrade’s priorities. They have bent over backwards to support lithium mining in Serbia that the Serbian environmental movement opposes. This despite the existence of bigger lithium deposits in both North and South America.
The right policy direction
The approach of the first Trump Administration to the Balkans favored partition of Kosovo, which would have also resulted in partition of Bosnia. That would have rewarded Serbia and Russia. The effort failed. The new American administration should not repeat that mistake.
It should also recognize the failures of the Biden Administration. That should not be hard. They are glaring: too much support for Belgrade and Tirana, too little attention to corruption and rule of law. And too little support for the sovereignty of Bosnia and Kosovo.
A realistic assessment of geopolitics in the Balkans should guide a change in policy. Serbia and Montenegro have aligned with Russia. They willingly help Moscow destabilize the rest of the Balkans. Serbia and Montenegro are also major recipients of Chinese financing. Kosovo and Albania remain pro-American and prepared to resist both Russian and Chinese malfeasance.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is split. The Dayton peace treaty gave it a constitution that enables Republika Srpska and its Croat nationalist leadership to align with Russia while the Bosniak and its relatively weak non-nationalist Croat leadership remains staunchly anti-Russian.
The right policy direction for the Trump Administration is towards helping America’s friends and undermining its adversaries.
Pristina and Sarajevo are frontline states in the geopolitical rivalry with Russia and China. But Kosovo and Bosnia are both still weak states. They need to consolidate their state sovereignty. Washington and Brussels should help with that. They merit military, intelligence, financial, and political support.
The Americans and Europeans should tone down support for Belgrade and Tirana. They should no longer ignore corruption in Albania and Serbia. Brussels and Washington should publicly criticize infringement on human rights and democratic norms. They should cut back financing.
This won’t be easy
It sounds easy enough, but there is a complication. During the past four years, Belgrade has assiduously courted former President Trump, his family, and his supporters. Jared Kushner is investing Saudi money in Serbian real estate development. If personal connections prevail, there is little hope for a good change of US policy in the Balkans.
But both Secretary of State-designate Rubio and National Security Advisor-designate Kellogg are not part of this real estate cabal, so far as I know. They should be amenable to the argument that America should be good to its friends. Rubio has supported Kosovo in the past. Kellogg won’t want instability in the Balkans while the US tries to settle the Ukraine war. Partition of Bosnia or Kosovo would reward Russian aggression.
Trump himself might like the notion of shoring up sovereignty of America’s friends in the Balkans. Neither Bosnia nor Kosovo has ever been “great.” But making them greater is still a worthy cause.
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Thanksgiving anxieties are justified
Today is the autumn pause the United States calls Thanksgiving. It is pretty much the most popular holiday across the entire population, marked by people of all religions and ethnicities. Unlike so many other American holidays, it is mainly noncommercial. We gather with family and friends for a giant afternoon meal to say thanks for whatever blessings have graced us.
I’m fine
We are in Savannah this year with two sons, two granddaughters, and two grandsons. We’ll go soon to a cousins’ beautiful house on the marshes outside of town for the traditional family feast. We’ll eat and drink as much as we all like. The generations will meet, the youngest for the first time, or refamiliarize themselves. We are, so far as I know, a prosperous and happy family. The family quarrels that plague some Thanksgiving dinners will be, thankfully, absent.
That said, I can’t help but note that I will not be content. The election result is a good part of the reason. While my personal welfare is not at stake, I fear for my country and its less fortunate citizens and non-citizens.
The economic risks
It is hard not to notice that the risks ahead are great. The current economic recovery began in 2009 under President Obama. President Trump’s botched reaction to the COVID-19 epidemic interrupted it, but it got back on track with President Biden. The growth trajectory has passed its 15th year. We are overdue for a recession, even disregarding the announced policy choices of the new Administration.
President Trump’s re-election makes one all but certain. His insistence on raising tariffs and expelling immigrants will re-ignite inflation. The Fed will have to slow or even reverse the decline it has begun in interest rates. Trump’s announced effort to shrink the Federal government will fail to reach its goal of cutting $2 trillion. But whatever layoffs the new Administration achieves will contribute to unemployment. The budget cuts will also slow the economy.
The social risks
While the economy slows, the new Administration will be cutting holes in the social safety net. Abolishing the Obamacare subsidies for health insurance isn’t going to happen. But the Republican Congress will seek to reduce them. It will also try to limit access to Medicaid, which provides health services to the poor. Trump won’t cut Social Security benefits, but he will try to raise the age of eligibility. Trump will aim to extend the tax cuts he introduced in 2017, which favor upper incomes. That will also be fine with me, but it still isn’t right.
He will also further limit abortion and LGBTQ rights and make education more Christian, less liberal, and less public. These are the essential demands of his evangelical base.
The political risks
Trump wants to prosecute his detractors. His two nominees for Attorney General are people who would gladly do that. Even unfounded investigations will cost Democrats and journalists both time and money. Such investigations will help him keep political opposition from growing. The Supreme Court’s decision to give official presidential acts with immunity will help to unshackle his worst impulses. With the two Houses of Congress under Republican control, he has little to fear from that corner.
Trump will want to appoint more Supreme Court justices, to guarantee continuation of the Republican majority. Justices Alito and Thomas can be expected to retire so that he can name younger clones. Press speculation suggests Trump wants a new FBI director. This despite the fact that the one he appointed in 2017 would normally serve ten years.
Trump’s re-election will embolden his base. It will continue to gerrymander House districts, limit voting rights, and destroy diversity programs. The goal will be to make those who hold power in America as white and male as possible. That is already clear in the Cabinet he has been naming.
Foreign policy
Trump’s future course in foreign affairs is more difficult to predict. The President has a great deal of latitude in foreign policy. Trump’s appointments so far are a mixed bag. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Michael Waltz as National Security Adviser are well within the normal political spectrum. So too is Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg. He is an advocate of giving Ukraine what it needs to reach a satisfactory negotiated settlement with Russia.
None of those are friends of Russian President Putin. But Tulsi Gabbard is. If confirmed, she will be Director of National Intelligence. Teamed with a very partisan John Ratcliffe at CIA, Trump can be assured of no resistance from the intel community.
Trump’s choice of Mike Huckabee, an evangelical stalwart, as ambassador to Israel guarantees a pro-Netanyahu policy. On Palestinian issues, including Gaza and the West Bank, we should expect Trump to be even more pro-Israel than Biden.
On lots of other foreign policy issues, there are few indications. Waltz is a China hawk but it is not clear what that will mean for the American commitment to Taiwan. In the past, Trump has been a “maximum pressure” guy on Iran. But what that might mean now that Iran is a nuclear threshold state isn’t clear.
The State Department will no doubt suffer a serious purge as well as a massive voluntary exodus of talent. But will that liberate Trump to do as he pleases? Or will it limit capabilities and lead to focus on future issues? Hard to tell.
Bottom line
Trump menaces many of the values I am grateful for. Thanksgiving anxieties are justified.
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Trump likes incompetence and chaos
Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, the projected Secretary of State and National Security Advisor respectively, are fig leaves. Trump proposed them first to hide the ugly reality that followed.
Lowering the bar
His aim is to name people who will make him seem normal. This is difficult. He is a rapist and convicted felon who improperly stored classified material and imperiled US security. As President, Trump cozied up to Putin and incited a riot against the 2020 election result. He ran his businesses in ways that infringed on legal requirements and drove them into bankruptcy.
In this context, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Matt Gaetz fit well.
Gabbard, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence, is also a Putin sycophant and flak for Syrian President Assad.
Hegseth, the Fox News nominee for Defense Secretary, is a Christian nationalist and womanizer. He has no visible qualifications for the job except service in the Army as a major. The US Army has more than 16,000 of those.
Kennedy, nominated to lead Health and Human Services, is a flake. His “Make America Healthy Again” website doesn’t bother with discussion of the issues he is interested in. It goes straight to selling swag. In his bio, it highlights his environmental activism, entirely out of tune with Trump. But he is an anti-vaccine activist as well, claiming that all he wants is good scientific data. But he ignores the excellent scientific data already available on vaccines.
Matt Gaetz has sex with underage women, some of whom he pays for the privilege. His nomination for Attorney General was worthy of Trump. Sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein claimed Trump made a sport of sleeping with his friends’ wives. Gaetz has now withdrawn his name. Maybe Trump will give him a position that doesn’t need confirmation.
Normally when a nomination doesn’t succeed a president will pick someone less prone to controversy. I suppose the choice of Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, might be seen that way. But she is ethically challenged and may not stand up well under intense scrutiny.
Exaggerating what he can do
While lowering the bar for personnel, Trump is also boasting about the incredible things he will achieve. He aims to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. His billionaire friends will cut trillions in government expenditure. He will end the Ukraine war in 24 hours.
Much of this is not going to happen. Here too Trump is setting a bar. While on personnel he sets it low, on policy he sets it high. The moves he favors on immigrants and government expenditure will generate thousands of lawsuits. The stimulus to the legal profession will be unprecedented.
The result will be chaos, something Trump enjoys. He will use it to claim extraordinary powers for the presidency. He disdains democracy and seeks unfettered power. The current Supreme Court majority, which has already given him immunity from prosecution for official acts, will back him wholeheartedly.
Encouraging international chaos
On the foreign policy front, it is harder to predict the outcome. But let’s try.
If Trump ends military aid, Kyiv will have to negotiate an unsatisfactory outcome with Moscow. The result will be partition. Russia will keep most of the territory it occupies now. The Europeans will have to patrol a demilitarized zone. And rump Ukraine will face a prolonged period of instability as the Russians wage hybrid warfare against Kyiv.
Irredentist ambitions will explode worldwide. Serbia will aim to gain territory in the Balkans. China will continue its expansion in the East and South China Seas, and set its sights on Taiwan. Russia will try for Moldova and Georgia. India and Pakistan may go at it over Kashmir. Israel will annex whatever it wants of the West Bank and Gaza.
There are about 150 outstanding border disputes worldwide. Even if only a handful get worse, the international community will have a hard time managing them.
The President can impose tariffs without Congressional approval. They will re-ignite inflation in the US and have a devastating effect on the US and world economies. That will cause the Fed to slow the decline of interest rates, or maybe raise them again. Other countries will retaliate against US goods, slowing the US economy further. Even without the tariffs, the US expansion that started with Obama
A difficult four years
Trump will relish this chaos as well. But it is not good for the United States, which can barely manage one serious crisis at a time.
The current US expansion started during Obama’s presidency, in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Except for the COVID-19 recession Trump aggravated with an inept response to the epidemic, it has continued unabated since. Even without Trump’s chaos, the expansion would be unlikely to last much longer.
We are in for a difficult four years. Tighten you seat belt.
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Trump’s first foreign policy failure
I find it hard to cheer the widening of any war. But President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike deeper inside Russia is an exception. It has become necessary in response to Moscow’s persistence in pursuing its invasion despite colossal losses.
I am not really cheering the move. It’s more like recognizing its grim necessity.
The gains are small but the losses are big
The Russians have advanced, albeit marginally, over the past year, mainly in Donbas. The gains in 2024 amount to less than 1% of Ukraine’s territory. The advances since 2022 have cost around 700,000 Russians killed and wounded, according to the Ukrainians. Russian military casualties are now estimated at around 40,000 per month. That’s why President Putin doesn’t want to mobilize Russians again. They are souring on his war.
The losses on the Ukrainian side are no doubt large as well, though not the 700,000 or so Moscow claims. Russia is simply mirroring the number projected in the West for its own losses. But Ukraine before the war had a population of about 37 million. Russia’s was almost four times that number. In a war of attrition, Russia has more bodies to throw at Ukraine than Ukraine has to throw at Russia. And more elite political willingness to accept those losses. Putin doesn’t tolerate dissent.
Russia also continues to attack civilians and civilian infrastructure using drones and missiles. To judge by news reports, Ukraine’s attacks on civilians are minor by comparison.
Escalation but will it make a difference?
Biden’s decision apparently applies to MGM-40 Army Tactical Missile System (aka ATACMs) with a range of about 190 miles. It is reportedly limited for now to countering Russian advances in Kursk oblast, which the Ukrainians invaded in August. The decision responds to the deployment there of North Korean troops in support of the Russian army.
Moscow is portraying this deployment as adding fuel to the fire. That is a reasonable assessment, but the fire will not be in Ukraine. Most of the gigantic country remains beyond their range. The ATACMs can however reach a lot of military targets inside Russia. Whether that is a game changer, or they are too little too late, is unclear for now.
What is clear and what isn’t
The Ukrainians and Russians are racing for gains against the January 20 deadline in the US. Both expect President Trump, once inaugurated, to try to force a negotiated settlement to the war. Reports suggest he would require Ukraine to cede, at least temporarily, Russian occupied areas. It would also commit Kyiv to not joining NATO for decades.
That would be a one-sided settlement in favor of Moscow. And it would need the Europeans to deploy peacekeepers to guard a demilitarized zone between the two sides.
None of the parties will find the Trump idea attractive. Putin seems ready to reject it. He wants all of Ukraine permanently within the Russian sphere of influence and outside NATO. The Europeans, who have failed at peacekeeping between Israel and Lebanon, won’t want to do guard a demilitarized zone. Ukrainian President Zelensky doesn’t want to cede territory or be barred from NATO.
That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Trump will threaten to withhold aid to Ukraine. The Europeans won’t compensate Kyiv and will want to limit the Russian advance. Putin is facing increasing economic and popular pressure at home. Zelensky may get boxed in.
Partition has consequences
The consequences of decades-long partition will be tragic. The Russians will insist on Zelensky’s removal, or defenestrate him at the first opportunity. Western investment in Ukraine will dry up. Its economy will shrivel. People will emigrate. Moscow proxies will take over, as they have in Georgia and Chechnya. Putin will have won.
Partition of Ukraine will echo elsewhere. Serbia will see it as an opportunity to take northern Kosovo. Republika Srpska will try to secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Irredentist ambitions worldwide will flower. China will want to assert sovereignty over Taiwan. Israel will annex the West Bank and northern Gaza. Dozens of border disputes in other regions will exacerbate.
Trump’s partition of Ukraine will be his first but not his only foreign policy failure.
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