Tag: Greenland
Havoc is no way to run a country
President Trump’s freeze on government grants and contracts is already wrecking havoc in my world. I’m not, even indirectly, the intended recipient of any frozen funds. But organizations I know and appreciate are laying off personnel, stiff suppliers, and disrupt their programs.
This is loony. If this lasts 90 days, it will create economic havoc and even cause serious health problems, since Medicaid is affected. Longer will generate recession. Trump inherited a thriving economy. He is now imploding it.
A Federal judge yesterday afternoon froze the freeze, but only temporarily. No doubt this lawless Administration will continue to not make good on many disbursements. Then it will wait for the courts to rule and appeal each decision that goes against Trump.
Why?
The Administration has several reasons for this churlish behavior. It say it wants expenditure aligned with Trump’s priorities. Things don’t work that way. Congress gets to appropriate funds. It is the President’s responsibility to execute what the Congress wants. Trump’s effort to freeze appropriated funds for Ukraine was the cause of his first impeachment. It’s not a lesson he wants to learn.
What are Trump’s priorities? Cutting expenditure is one of them. That will make room for extension of the tax cuts he got approved in a Republican Congress in 2017. They helped mainly the wealthy, including people like himself. But they did not deliver economic benefits.
The idea behind this debacle is not only to cut government expenditure. It’s to shift whatever remains. Trump has already spoken warmly about funding manned flight to Mars and a missile defense shield for the US. He wants to buy Greenland. His “drill baby drill” motto is aimed at providing energy to satisfy the voracious appetite of artificial intelligence software. Trump is a sucker for high-profile national prestige projects that will put money in his billionaire friends’ pockets. He figures they will also bring him attention and adulation.
Disaster awaits
Quite the contrary. Trump’s tax cuts and prestige projects are on the road to national ruin. Trump has no idea what the government does and how it enables the economy to grow. Trillion-dollar cuts, which is what he promised, are nowhere to be found without causing serious economic pain.
The prestige projects are not so hot either.
The Israeli missile defense he wants for the US has an effective range of less than 50 miles.
Denmark isn’t selling Greenland, though it is willing to talk about security as well as development of its resources.
Renewable sources of electricity are now competitive with fossil fuels.
It will be hard to find investors to expand drilling dramatically, especially as the US is already net energy independent. Courtesy of Joe Biden.
Manned flight to Mars is a boondoggle for Elon Musk. There is nothing that robots can’t do better than human beings on Mars. They also don’t get bored on a 9 month voyage (one way).
Kamala Harris had it right:
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The foreign policy smokescreen
As Donald Trump prepares to assume the presidency January 20, he is talking obvious nonsense about Canada, Greenland, and Panama. What is he up to?
The nonsense
The three propositions, as best I understand them, are these:
- Canada should become the 51st state;
- Denmark should sell Greenland to the United States;
- Panama should lower shipping fees through its canal or the US will take it back by military force.
None of this is happening. Nor is any of it desirable from America’s or even Trump’s own perspective.
Canadians pride themselves on their differences with the US. They include a national health system and wide social safety net. Absorbing its population of more than 40 million would tilt the American political scene definitively towards the Democrats. Nor would most US citizens want the francophone part of Canada. Absorbing even anglophone Canada would remove a buffer that shields the US from direct Arctic confrontation with China and Russia.
Denmark has already said it is not interested in selling Greenland, which has a population of only 57,000 or so. It has relatively large deposits of rare earth minerals. Those are available to the US with Greenland under Danish sovereignty. We only need pay the price. Owning Greenland would shift the burden of its defense to the US. It would also make the island a juicy target for America’s adversaries. We wouldn’t be able to limit its defense to the minimalist approach Denmark has taken.
The 1977 Panama Canal Treaty turned the Canal Zone over to Panama in 1979 and the Canal itself in 1999. A Panama-government-owned entity has run it well since. Trump has complained about high transit prices and claimed Chinese soldiers control the Canal. Prices are up due to water shortages that affect Canal operations. The claim about the Chinese is bogus, though there are Chinese companies running ports and building infrastructure in Panama.
The why
Why would a President-elect stake out objectives that are obviously not going to be reached? One reason is to gain leverage in upcoming negotiations. Trump is transactional. He figures weakening the Canadian government by pooh-poohing its prime minister will be to American advantage in coming trade negotiations. He’ll hope to get a deal for Greenland’s minerals that will exclude China. And he’ll try to get a discount for American shipping through the Panama Canal.
But there is more to this flood of bad propositions. Trump is trying to hide what is going on within his own electoral coalition. Its MAGA loyalists are in a verbal fracas with his new-found tech friends, including Elon Musk. The techies want H1B visas so they can import overseas technical talent they claim is not available in the US. Trump wants them too, as he uses them to import cheap labor for his hotels and golf clubs. But his MAGAtes see them as one more hole in the proverbial fence at the border.
There’s more. Trump is trying to distract from his blatantly unqualified presidential nominees. The worst of these, Matt Gaetz, for Attorney General, is gone. He fell victim to his own abuse of young girls. But the equally abusive and alcohol abusing Pete Hegseth is still up for Secretary of Defense. And Kash Patel, sworn to avenge what he alleges is Trump’s mistreatment, is hoping to sneak by as FBI Director. Not to mention the blatantly unqualified RFK Jr as Health and Human Services Secretary. And the Moscow-compromised Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
He’s succeeding
The presidential nominees and the Republican split on immigration policy are both more real than Trump’s dumb imperialist proposals. Canada is doing to remain independent, Denmark will keep Greenland, and Panama will keep the Canal. But once again he has us talking about things that don’t matter instead of the things that do. Trump isn’t really a master communicator in the sense of Ronald Reagan. But he is a master at setting the daily agenda, not only to attract but also to distract. His foreign policy smokescreen is succeeding.
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Stevenson’s army, April 8
– FP says Philippines now willing to accept US troops.
– NYT says ISIS is linking to African militants.
– Israel may have attacked Iranian ship.
– NYT reports US divisions over Taiwan policy.
– Opponents of rare earths mine win in Greenland.
– FT has leaked audio of pressure on Jordan’s former Crown Prince
– Democratic majority in House down to 2. Death or even absence because of illness in Senate or House could thwart legislative plans.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Trump’s folly
It’s not a good week for the buffoon-in-chief. His proposal to buy Greenland ran into a Danish prime minister who said no. The budget deficit is soaring. The economy is weakening. Beijing is not yielding in his easy-to-win tariff war, but Trump is softening his stance by postponing some promised tariffs. He has retreated from requiring universal background checks for gun purchasers, routed by a phone call from the National Rifle Association. American Jews he has accused of disloyalty to Israel by voting for Democrats are up in arms. Half a dozen potential Democratic candidates are out-polling him.
Trump’s reaction? He is doubling down on satisfying his anti-immigrant, Christian evangelical, racist base. You don’t want to separate migrant children from their parents? He proposes locking up both parents and children indefinitely. He declares himself the “chosen one” with a glance at the heavens. He retweets white supremacist, anti-Jewish trash talkers who claim Jewish Israelis, who don’t believe in the first coming of the Messiah, regard him as the second coming.
In any place but the White House, such jabber would be regarded as symptomatic. The mental illness is however not only his. This folly is still getting more than 40% approval. Americans have lost touch with reality.
This is not a conservative administration. It is a radical one sending the country to ruin. The deficit alone should be enough to make real Republicans doubt Trump’s wisdom. The trade war and slowing economy are putting the long expansion begun under President Obama at serious risk. Trump’s petulant cancellation of a trip to Denmark is making all America’s allies blanch. America’s adversaries are delighted: the West and its democratic ideals could be collapsing.
What can be done? Very little. Until Republicans tire of Trump and decide he will lead them to defeat in 2020, the Democrats are stuck: the House they control can indict but not convict or remove from office. Proceeding with impeachment before the election is a risky move. Their best bet is to investigate as thoroughly as possible and hope what they find will dent Trump’s support and encourage their own voters to turn out.
The Democrats’ best hope in 2020 is the economy: if recession hits by next summer, Trump is toast. There are a lot more voters interested in their jobs than in how many “conservative” pro-business, pro-gun, anti-immigrant judges he has managed to appoint and get confirmed. Wishing recession however is political self-immolation. So is internecine bloodletting through the primary season. All the Democratic candidates would do well to keep their focus on the miserable performance of the Trump Administration rather than on each others’ shortcomings.
Making Trump’s folly apparent should be easy. Hammer away at the weakening economy, the disrepute America has fallen into abroad, the silliness of a president who spends his days watching Fox News, and his failure to deliver on infrastructure, tax cuts for working people, and health care. Trump has made himself an easy target. Keep firing at it.
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