Are Tariffs Good For America?

President Donald Trump has received favorable press coverage for his meeting last week with union and corporate leaders to promote keeping jobs in the U.S.

In isolation, who can oppose holding on to, and expanding, work for fellow Americans?

But, in the real world, few policies are without a downside.

The new president highlights his strong opposition - and threatens import taxes (“tariffs”) - to companies like Ford contemplating building factories in Mexico.

What’s left out in Trump’s pronouncements is an acknowledgment of the motivation of a business in considering moving south of the border.  I suggest it’s more than the attraction of a warmer climate.

A company in a capitalist system strives to make a profit.  Simply put, that means it must be able to sell its products at a price greater than their costs to produce.  Failing to do so long term will cause that company to go out of business and its employees to lose their jobs.  In the market place, of course, the company must be aware of its competition.  If costs require a sales price that is too high, customers won’t purchase its products and failure looms.

Lower labor costs are the allure of Mexico.  That means, all other things being equal, vehicles made there will cost less to purchase than those made in Michigan.  Saving money is good for American car buyers, isn’t it?  They’ll have more money to purchase other goods or services they want or need, which in turn is good for those businesses providing those goods and services. 

But President Trump, focusing only on the loss of particular manufacturing jobs, doesn’t want “things being equal”.  His threat of import duties has the purpose of protecting (protectionism) American industries from foreign competition.  The loser is the American consumer.

Free trade – no barriers to competition – has the opposite effect.

 

Yet, it is undeniable that an auto worker losing his job to a Ford employee in Tijuana is a concrete negative.  The fact that an American car buyer is a winner is less obvious.

Thus, while the president’s pronouncements on protecting American jobs sound appealing, that does not mean they constitute sound policy.  Actually, economic studies are unequivocal.  For a country’s long-term economic prosperity, free trade [forgive me] trump’s protectionism.

In a very real sense, which is rarely expressed, tariffs are a form of welfare payments paid by the broad public to those protected.

A Conservative Evaluation of the New President’s Inaugural Address

Of course President Trump did not sound like Ronald Reagan thirty-five years ago.  There were no calls for limited government, lower taxes and a resurgence of moral values.  Our new president is no conservative. 

He did, however, stress his devotion to America:

“At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will discover our loyalty to each other.”

The President pledged that his first commitment is to America’s national interests. 

“We will seek friendship and good will with the nations of the world but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.”

In this respect, conservatives concur.  If implemented, this approach will be a very welcome change from both the idealistic Middle East adventures of George W. Bush and the general abandonment of America’s national interests by Barack Obama.

On the other hand, Trump appears oblivious to the dangers posed by the country’s burgeoning national debt exceeding twenty trillion dollars since he called for “new roads and highways and bridges, and airports and tunnels and railways.”

There was no mention of the need to address the expanding entitlement payments which are the major expenditures in the federal budget.

The economic protectionism he proposes is contrary to the principles of free trade.  Such a policy, imposing tariffs on goods produced outside the United States, can protect American jobs in the short run but will directly increase the cost of living for all Americans.

However, one shouldn’t question his sincerity when he said:  “I will fight for you with every breath of my body, and I will never let you down.”

Putting hyperbole aside (which is admittedly difficult to do with Donald Trump), the newly-minted chief executive has proven to be a determined individual who aims to achieve objectives set forth:  “We will face challenges, we will face hardships, but we will get the job done.”

Or, as Trump has expressed repeatedly in less formal terms, he’s all about winning – always.

Thus, on the day after his inauguration, he was incensed about reports that he didn’t “win” the inaugural headcount comparison with Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration crowd.

On one level, it seems petty and silly.  Who cares?  Well, obviously President Trump does.  He doesn’t want to lose at anything – ever.  Thus, his focus on whether he “really” lost November’s popular vote and his chortling over his TV audience rating for The Apprentice being greater than for his successor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Yet, petty as he is, there is ample reason to believe that his commitment to winning will extend to meaningful objectives as well.  So what he promised in his inaugural speech must be taken seriously.

Thus, to be sure, conservatives should be cautious in appraising the prospects for the Trump Administration.  The President has assembled a mostly sterling and conservative supporting cast (the Cabinet) which might be expected to provide experience, expertise and stability.   But what happens when their advice conflicts with the President’s stated objectives?  Does a shift in policy comport with President Trump’s conception of victory?

Lasting Peace Between Israel and Palestine – Feasible Prospect or Foolish Quest?

Secretary of State John Kerry drew big headlines recently when he blasted the Israeli government’s announcement that it was authorizing the construction of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Kerry framed the action as undercutting efforts to bring lasting peace between Israel and her antagonists.

          “We cannot, in good conscience, do nothing and say nothing when we see the hope of peace slipping away,” Kerry said.

There is an assumption in that attitude shared by many Americans, both inside and outside government, that peace in that part of the world is achievable if the parties would only try harder.

We Americans tend to believe that objectives can be reached and success attained as long as we persist in our efforts.  If thwarted, that merely means that we need to try harder.  That, after all, is one of our most powerful national characteristics and is why we lead the world in so many ways.  We don’t give up. 

But the Middle East is not populated by Americans, and its peoples do not share our attitudes.  Hatreds span thousands of years, not mere hundreds, and the passage of time does little to dim vile memories (remember Osama Bin Laden’s reference to 11^th - 13^th century Christian crusades?).

Does that mean that it’s terribly naïve of us to think that the absence of permanent peace between the Palestinians and Israel is due to a deficiency of effort?  Perhaps peace is unattainable because neither side wants it.

Some Palestinian leaders have given lip-service to a renunciation of pledges to destroy Israel (although Hamas leaders in Gaza persist in their commitment).  Yet Palestinian schools on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip continue to educate their youth that the existence of Israel is an abomination and that its Jewish occupants are despicable creatures. 

So it’s fair to say that the Palestinians’ true quest remains the same:  peace after the demise of Israel.

From an Israeli perspective, considering the Palestinian hostility, the prospect of lasting peace is an illusion.  The vulnerable size of the country (30 miles wide at its narrowest point) and isolation in a veritable sea of Arabs means that the prospect of national extinction is a constant concern.  The anxiety is heightened by awareness of past failures of accommodations to bring a long-term relaxation of tensions (for instance, “land for peace” and removal of Jewish settlements from Gaza in 2005).  Even if Palestinians were to experience a wide-spread epiphany and accept Israel’s national presence, the latter’s citizens would have good cause, given recent history, to be suspicious.

Recognizing what is achievable – and what is not – is a sign of personal and national maturity.

If peace in the Middle East is not attainable in the foreseeable future, the consequences and guide for American policy are straightforward.  Stand by Israel (but make clear that the stance does not connote hostility to Palestinians as such - only their refusal to accept Israel as a neighbor, as Egypt and Jordan have already done).

For Israel to survive, can it do other than maintain its guard into the indefinite future and hope that eventually Palestinian hostility will evaporate?  Of course, the former can be accomplished with Israeli commitment and, unavoidably it seems, American support. 

Maybe there is no realistic alternative to the maintenance of a state of constant readiness, but can the Israeli determination to persevere survive without the hope for a miraculous peace?  Well, it’s the Holy Land, after all. 

IS PARTISANSHIP TRUMPING PRINCIPLE FOR SOME CONSERVATIVES?

The pun is intentional.  For reasons that seem very simple, Donald Trump has been reluctant to acknowledge that Russia was instrumental in cyber hack attacks that uncovered emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  The President-elect has been highly skeptical—even dismissive—of the intelligence agencies’ view that the Kremlin was involved.  He undoubtedly considers that conclusion as diminishing the legitimacy of his election.

But why are certain Conservatives (Sean Hannity & Tucker Carlson in particular) so eager to voice support for Trump’s position?

 Since when has Russia been given the benefit of doubt by those on the Right?

Yet, both Fox News broadcasters gave a platform to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who strongly denied—without significant challenge—that Russian operatives were behind the email revelations.

Carlson even declared that he had no reason to doubt Assange’s credibility on the subject…

This is same Julian Assange who has spent the past several years in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex offense charges and/or to the U.S. pertaining to his role in the disclosure of American military secrets by Pvt. Bradley Manning.

Previously, for these reasons, Assange was held in low regard across the political spectrum, especially among Conservatives.   So the WikiLeaks founder is now redeemed because what he claims is true is supportive of Trump’s position?

This is the trap that causes so many partisans to be viewed with suspicion by the general public.  Can you imagine Fox’s Hannity singing the praises of Assange if Hillary Clinton had won and Russia was accused of contributing to her victory?

Hypocrisy is the enemy of integrity.  Taking offense only when one’s ox is gored is not the path to national respect.

Was Obama’s a Failed Presidency?

The answer is not as obvious, coming from The Sensible Conservative, as one might think.

Failure is not to be confused with unpopularity.  During most of his presidency, Barack Obama’s approval rating has been below fifty percent.

 

Doing the right thing, being effective, being successful do not automatically translate into popularity.

 

A stark, unsettling example:  Abraham Lincoln, prior to the capture of Atlanta in 1864, was considered a certainty to lose re-election.  According to historians, even the president agreed.

President Obama took office in January 2009 on a tide of (forgive me) “hope and change”.  Retrospective cynicism might dismiss the campaign slogan as a fraud.  But that would ignore the first black president’s popular promises to promote a post-racial society and to end President Bush’s deeply unpopular Iraq war.  He failed on the first but succeeded on the second. 

It’s hard to dispute that race relations have deteriorated since President Obama took office.  The President’s tendency to take sides in confrontations between white police officers and blacks didn’t help.  (The episode involving the Cambridge cop and the Harvard professor was an early episode.)  Barack Obama’s comments reinforced views held within African American communities that they remained a target of wide-spread discrimination.  And certainly some whites believed that they were being singled out for criticism by a black president because of their race.  Maybe projections of a post-racial society that did not come to pass with the ascendency of the Obama presidency generated a pessimism across the “racial divide” that exacerbated tensions.

In any event, so much for the hope that energized the Obama Administration eight years ago.  It was soon dashed. 

  

As for change, it certainly came.  Iraq was abandoned.  ISIS came into being and Syria exploded.

On the domestic front, the Democrats controlled Congress for the first two years of the new administration and approved the so-called Affordable Care Act.

In 2011 and forward, with Congress no longer hospitable to Obama’s leftist change agenda, the President focused on legislation by fiat (“executive orders”) affecting immigration and environmental policies, in particular. 

Change, however, to be of long term significance, must last.  Obamacare, approved without any GOP support, appears on life support because of its strictly partisan birth.  No Republican has an interest in its survival.  Presidential attempts to make or modify law by the stroke of a pen can just as easily be crossed out.

In retrospect, the hope for an uplifting president was either a naïve wish or a cynical promise depending on who expressed the sentiment.  But Barack Obama did bring about change.  So, in that respect, his Administration succeeded.  The unpopular wars in the Middle East no longer have major U.S. involvement and America’s health care system has been substantially revamped.

 

The Administration’s military activism – the lack thereof – was popular; Obama’s executive orders were not.  Interestingly enough, it can be argued that the Administration’s public standing, while bolstered by its “no more wars” policy, was crippled by the deceitful promotion of the Health Care Act.  That caused Democrats to lose control of the House of Representatives and insured that changes imposed by the executive alone risked being ephemeral. 

              

As for hope, it was an unrealized dream.  But, in the sense of bringing change, Obama was successful in serving his objectives.  Whether these changes were in America’s best interests is a different question.  And, of course, to the extent that they were not, Barack Obama failed as president in the only sense that really matters.