Considering that Trump said that the only constraint on his foreign policies was his own conscience, which he seems to conflate with International Law, we will better understand his response to the SCOTUS decision that invalidated many of his tariffs.
Among other things, Trump called the decision made by the liberal justices from the Supreme Court unpatriotic. With the other pejorative labels that Trump called those justices Trump was displaying his normal tantrum behavior at criticisms. He was also putting his authoritarian credentials on public display which he did not do by merely disagreeing with their ruling, but by how he expressed his disagreement. Trump was displaying his authoritarianism because his verbal abuse of the justices who voted against his use of tariffs was designed to get the American people to automatically reject what the justices said. Such a move is part and parcel to how authoritarian leader relates to their people.
We can come to two conclusions about Trump from his reaction. First, that he equates Americanism with himself. And second, the basis on which he judges a decision, whether it be his or that of others, is determined by using an immediate ends justifies the means ethic.
Regarding the first conclusion, when a leader identifies himself with his nation, the people, movement, or ideology, he is joining list of authoritarian leaders from history who have done the same thing. Such an identification causes the leader to portray criticisms of himself or herself with opposition to what or whom they identified themselves with. And so when the Russian Tsars so identified themselves with the Russian people, they counted criticisms of themselves with attacks on the Russian people. In a similar way, Lenin considered even fellow socialists who criticized him and his Bolshevik party as opponents to the Revolution.
And so while the 6 justices who ruled against Trump did so because of their reading of the federal law in question and The Constitution, Trump wants us to view their ruling as being against America. That is because he wants all Americans to consider himself to be the sole standard of what it is an American. And again, he wants us to automatically dismiss the ruling of the SCOTUS.
Similarly, when Trump continued to publicly berate those justices with pejorative labels and name calling, he is using another tactic to accomplish the same authoritarian goal. Trump, in talking about the majority and minority opinions, never dealt with the specific logic of the different opinions.
Instead, by touting claims he made about the results of his tariffs, he was showing that it was the immediate ends of his tariffs that should have determined the SCOTUS decision, not the specific law involved nor The Constitution. The immediate ends was that Trump could impose his will on trading partners or, in the case of India and Pakistan, on 2 nations in order to stop a war. Though stopping a war should be seen as a significant accomplishment, using tariffs as leverage to force all, including allies, what Trump considered to be favorable trade agreements to the U.S. is bullying. It is one thing to use leverage to keep another party from exploiting oneself, but he did that to friends, allies. And he used an apparent lack of understanding of the significance of a trade deficit. And so Trump used tariffs to subordinate all trading partners to accept as many of his demands that he could get.
Here we should note what the German Chancelor Mertz said in Davos. He said that democracies do not have subordinates. And yet, Trump used tariffs to subordinate even our allies into acquiescing to enough of his demands. His tariffs worked to get the immediate ends that he desired. And since he associates the acquisition of those ends with making America more prosperous and strong, Trump saw those tariffs as being pro-American and opposition to those tariffs as being anti-American regardless of what federal law and The Constitution say.
But we should also note that Trump is looking at the immediate ends without considering the possibility some longterm tradeoffs to his approach. That being coerced into concessions causes friends to distrust the one who is coercing The one who is forcing concessions is looked on as a bully. Those who were friends will then find other trading partners with which to do business. And so the bully will eventually find him or herself with few if any friends. And in the world of today's commerce, that spells an eventual decline in prosperity.
Currently, many, possibly former, friends of the U.S. are actively seeking new trading partners with new trading relationships to replace their trading partnership with the U.S. That could leave the U.S. in a situation where it is on the outside looking in on mutually enriching trading relationships.
Something else should be said. Trump's vision for America is for America to become not just completely self-sufficient in all of its needs, but to also be the desired trading partner of most of the world. That is the goal of his approach on tariffs and efforts to acquire new territories. In that way, the U.S. could have a trade surplus with each nation it trades with. In other words, Trump is saying to the countries of the world that they need us but we don't need them--which is something he said about Canada. He wants a surplus because he considers a trade deficit to be theft. And yet, he doesn't mind if other nations have trade deficits with us. All of that demonstrates that he does not understand what a trade deficit means.
A trade deficit means that the people and businesses of one nation purchase more goods and/or services from other nations than what they sell to those nations. And considering that the U.S. is one of the most populated nations in the world and has the strongest economy, in part, demonstrated by collective wealth of its businesses, it is logical that the U.S. would have a trade deficit with most nations in the world.
Can there be unjust tariffs that contribute to a trade deficit? Yes. But those tariffs are found by examining the details rather than merely looking at a given deficit. And here we must distinguish the tariffs from other nations from those that are truly unfair to us from those that are used to protect essential industries of a trading partner.
Back to Trump's immediate ends justifies the means ethic, his shortsightedness, his misunderstanding of trade and tariffs, and the authoritarian mentality that he is pushing on America confirm the ethic described here. And unless Congress will standup and act as an equal branch of government to the Executive Branch, Trump's use of the immediate ends justifies the means will become even more prevalent than what we have seen so far.
Please note that this ends justifies the means ethic is agreeable to Trump's conscience. And if that is true in terms of trade, where else can it be true? One thing is for sure, the ends justifies the means is not well supported by International Law, a law that a stresses the equality of each nation.
