Trumpˋs Ends Justify The Means

 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.

With Members Like US, Who Needs Russia?

The article below was originally scheduled to be posted two weeks ago in response to the implementation of Trump's tariffs. Because the tariffs were put on pause, I wrote another article. This article has not been updated since the pause in the tariffs except to put in this preface.

 Trump seems to be publicly announcing his enemies list by his actions and words. From his responses to the horrific airline accident and some of his EOs, one such enemy is DEI. But we might want to add another one to that short list.

That next entry is indicated by Trump's plans. His unwarranted 25% tariff on Canada provides a hint regarding one of his enemies. His 10% tariff on the EU is rationalized without providing any context, and his plan to take Greenland from Denmark's control is another. After all what do Canada, Denmark, and most of the EU have in common? It's NATO. 

Here we need to go back to our government's belief that Russia was working to promote Trump's chances at being elected in the past 3 elections. We need to go back to Trump's publicly stated admiration for Vlad Putin and other dictators over the past several years. And we should note that Trump criticized Zelensky for fighting back against Russia's invasion.

Plus, Trump is telling NATO members how much of their own GDP they should contribute to defense and if they fail to meet that mark, he would not defend them against Russian attacks. Here we should note that while the treaty requiring NATO members to defend each other is a binding, how much of a given nation's GDP contributes to defense is not. And while he initially said that the minimum percentage of a member's GDP dedicate to defense should be 2%, he has upped that to 5%.

As for his tariffs, yes, Trump is imposing tariffs on Canada, EU nations, Mexico, and, reluctantly because of his warm feeling for its leader, China. But the proposed tariffs on our neighbors are 25% while the tariffs on the EU and China will be 10%. That means that China is being treated as an equal or better than our allies.

One of Trump's stated reasons for the tariffs on Canada has to do with the border and fentanyl trafficking. But, according to a CBC broadcast, only around 1% of the fentanyl trafficked into the US comes from Canada. The USCBP's own data supports that estimate. Similar comparative statistics show how illegal crossings from Canada are minuscule compared to those coming from Mexico. And yet, they both are receiving the same penalties in tariffs. 

Along with that are Trump's arrogant statements that Canada should become our 51st state. Such a prospect might horrify Texans if Texas was a province in Canada, it would be around the 2nd or 3rd smallest province. Trump's claim is that Canadians would have lower taxes. It is at this point that we see who one of Trump's gods is and why he doesn't understand people. Trump can be bought and so he believes everyone else can be too.

And then there are Trump's threats against the EU nations because of their restrictions on importing our food products. Here we should note that Trump's protests against the EU's restrictions on our food product are without context. Trump doesn't mention why the EU doesn't allow many US food products to be imported. Issues such as preserving small farms, keeping environmental regulations in the production of agricultural products, and additives that are in our foods are prohibited in European foods provide reasons why the EU doesn't import many, if not all, of our food exports. One could look at Trump's tariff threats here as his way to impose his views on environmentalism, climate change, and food safety on Europe. It isn't that the EU treats us badly; it is that the EU answers to a higher authority in terms of standards for both the environment and health in the production and consumption of food.

There is more than one motive behind Trump's tariffs. One of those motives is that they are used to reduce tax rates for Americans--especially the wealthier ones. Such is basically an attempt to get other nations to pay for the government services that Americans access. And reducing those tax rates is a campaign carrot Trump offers during elections.

Yes, we have large trade deficits. And, yes, Trump is right in pointing out the problems that nations like China and Mexico significantly contribute to. But neither Canada nor the EU nations significantly contribute to any problems. And yet Canada is singled out like Mexico and China are and the trade problems regarding food was pointed out without providing the context.

Certainly Canadians rightfully see Trump's tariffs as a threat to their sovereignty. Trump's tariffs on Canada is an economic blitzkrieg because of their immediacy amount. And so we see in Trump's EOs an attempted shifting of power in the Western Hemisphere. But perhaps what Trump aims for is larger than that. Perhaps, with his attacks on the EU, Perhaps Trump is aiming to create a geo-political shift of power where Trump is taking the US out of NATO and into an accord with Russia and China. Or perhaps Trump sees the US being able to stand by itself for as long as he is President because, in his mind, he is that great of a leader. In either case, we would be out of NATO.

And so when we put together the threats against the holdings of a NATO member along with economic threats against the economies of other NATO nations along with claims that he would not defend certain NATO nations from attack, all of that indicates that NATO, and Canada, might have to prepare for a future where the US is not just missing in action, it is an adversary.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 9, 2019

Jan 7

To Bradley Birzer and his article on Christian Humanism. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

It seems that many of us religiously conservative Christians are forever searching for religious justifications for controlling society. This search is made evident here in the following quote:

Fourth, Christians (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant)—in alliance with believing Jews and even virtuous pagans—must sanctify the world through the Grace of God. For men of good will to fight amongst themselves squanders precious time and resources, and it leaves the field to the Enemy.

We should remember that Western Civilization revolved around Caucasians. Thus any insistence on continuing the Western Civilization from the past in a multicultural and diverse world cannot escape racism. That doesn't mean that we can't maintain some parts of Western Civilization. It does mean that trying to continue the Western Civilization from the past either in its entirety or even most of it includes a call to promote racism.

We are not called to sanctify the world, we are called to preach the Gospel. We are also called to seek justice but unlike preaching the Gospel, our seeking for justice is most likely to be  done in partnership with unbelievers in society and that is where we need new Christian scholarship.
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Jan 8

To Patrick Oetting and his blogpost that praises the free market and condemns tariffs such as Trump’s tariffs. This appeared in the Acton blog.

The above uses Trump's tariffs to support its claims against tariffs. But there is a problem with that approach. The problem being  that tariffs can apply varying rates and thus making widespread conclusions based on one set of tariffs does not do the subject justice. In addition, the above evaluation of tariffs is based on immediate rather than long-range consequences. Thus a snapshot approach to examining tariffs is the approach used above to examine tariffs.

Finally, the claims made for free trade do not coincide with what we are seeing in today's world. Neoliberal capitalism has ushered in a stronger free trade than the previous form of capitalism. And yet, wealth disparity is growing within many nations so that even the IMF has listed detriments to neoliberalism. We might also note that the notion of comparative advantage can be used to keep a nation's economy in a global system.

Historically speaking, our nation employed tariffs from its beginning up to and through FDR's presidency. The long-term results of that use of tariffs was that America's industries were given ample opportunities to catch up and even surpass their global competitors.

Now the historical success of past approaches to tariffs implies neither that tariffs are always necessary nor that regardless of their rates, that tariffs always work. However, the historical success of past tariffs clearly shows that they can benefit the whole economy of a nation and thus articles that claim that tariffs always hurt the economy, like the above article, are easily proven to be wrong.