Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, whose success in getting away with obvious corruption by politicizing law offers a disturbing preview of how Trump may become the authoritarian ruler he clearly wants to be. Not surprisingly, Trump, who basically seems to like dictators in general, has expressed admiration for Erdogan and his regime.
.. Both also have contempt for expertise... Erdogan has presided over an actual economic boom. Investors and markets don’t seem to mind the craziness at the top... The fact that economic policymakers have no idea what they’re talking about doesn’t seem to make any difference... run-of-the-mill policies like changes in tax law, even if they’re pretty big and clearly irresponsible, rarely have dramatic effects.
.. aside from fueling an unprecedented wave of stock buybacks, the tax cut is having little discernible effect, good or bad. There’s no sign of the investment boom advocates promised, but there’s also no sign that investors are losing faith in U.S. solvency.
.. Someone looking at U.S. growth in G.D.P. or employment over the past few years who didn’t know we’d had an election in 2016 would have no reason to suspect that anything important had changed.
.. Even if the quality of economic leadership matters a lot only during crises, you might expect markets to think ahead and incorporate the risk of badly handled future crises into stock and bond prices. Somehow, though, that almost never happens.
.. What we get instead are long stretches of complacency followed by sudden panic.
.. Rudiger Dornbusch): “Crises take longer to arrive than you can possibly imagine, but when they do come, they happen faster than you can possibly imagine.”
.. Although America borrows a lot abroad, it borrows in its own currency, which means that it isn’t vulnerable to a classic emerging-markets crisis.
Trump’s Reckoning Arrives
The president’s unpredictability once worked to his advantage—but now, it is producing a mounting list of foreign-policy failures.
.. Trump’s election jolted almost every government into a frantic effort to understand what to expect. Other countries’ uncertainty enhanced Trump’s relative power—and so, perversely, did Trump’s policy ignorance and obnoxious behavior.
.. presidents are surrounded by elaborate staff systems to help them—and oblige them—to think through their words and actions.
If we impose tariffs on Chinese products, how might they retaliate? What’s our next move after that?
If we want to pressure Iran more tightly than our predecessors, what buy-in will we need from other countries? What will they want in return?
What do we want from North Korea that we can realistically get?
Team Trump does not engage in exercises like this.
.. Team Trump does not do it because the president does not do it. His idea of foreign policy is to bark orders like an emperor, without thinking very hard about how to enforce compliance or what to do if compliance is not forthcoming.
The administration canceled the Iran deal without first gaining European, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian cooperation for new sanctions. Trump started a trade war with China without any plan for response to the inevitable Chinese counter-moves.
.. The U.S. has abjured its right to inspect Iranian nuclear facilities without any workable plan to impose global sanctions instead. India and China each trade more with Iran than with the entirety of the European Union—and neither is very vulnerable to U.S. pressure... First, because he talked so much and tweeted so much, he revealed much more of himself much earlier than other presidents. His ego, his neediness, his impulsiveness, and the strange irregular cycles of his working day—those were all noted and analyzed before any formal action of his presidency... for example, Australia, his offensive words had limited the ability of Australia’s democratically accountable leaders to cooperate with him... Second, foreign leaders have concluded that the shortest path to Trump’s heart runs through his wallet. Oil states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have rushed to be helpful to the business interests of Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, seeking an advantage over regional rivals like Qatar. Authoritarian leaders who could hamper Trump-licensed businesses—like Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines—have exploited their perceived leverage, acting with apparent impunity... Third, Trump’s highly suspicious dealings with Russia before the election potentially put him at the mercy of countries in a position to embarrass him... Only 17 percent of South Koreans trust Trump to do the right thing.. At a time of relatively low military casualties and strong job growth, the president’s popularity at home roughly matches that of George W. Bush’s during the worst months of the Iraq war, 2005–2006, and Barack Obama’sduring the most disappointing months of the weak recovery from the recession of 2009.
Kushners Near Deal With Qatar-Linked Company for Troubled Tower
The company controlled by the family of the White House adviser Jared Kushner is close to receiving a bailout of its financially troubled flagship building by a company with ties to the government of Qatar, according to executives briefed on the deal.
.. Mr. Kushner and his son Jared, President Trump’s son-in-law and one of his key advisers, bought the office tower, which is between 52nd and 53rd Streets, 11 years ago for a record-setting $1.8 billion. But the building today only generates about half its annual mortgage payment, and 30 percent of the 41-story tower is vacant.
In late 2016, Mr. Kushner and his son were close to a much different kind of deal with Anbang, a giant Chinese insurance company with ties to the country’s ruling elite, and with a billionaire from Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani. That plan involved demolishing the existing building at 666 Fifth and erecting a $7.5 billion luxury super tower.
.. Although he resigned as chief executive of the company when he joined the White House in January 2017, Mr. Kushner retained most of his stake in the firm. He shed some of the assets — including his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue — by selling them to a trust controlled by his mother.
Conservatism in Brazil
As socialism has risen over the past 15 years, Brazilian conservatives have grumbled about high taxes and corruption scandals in two successive leftist presidencies. Now, in a country where “conservative” had been a dirty word since the end of military rule in 1985, conservatism is making a comeback across politics, religion and the arts. The shift is driven by two major phenomena—the rise of evangelical Christianity and growing exasperation with lawlessness—and accelerates a continental trend that has had countries edging away from socialism since the end of the China-led commodities boom. The jailing of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist icon convicted last year of corruption, marked a new low for Latin American socialism. It effectively removed him from October’s presidential election, and raised the prospects of army captain-turned-congressman Jair Messias Bolsonaro, running on a pro-gun, antiabortion and anti-gay-rights platform.