Trump has been playing right into China’s hands

U.S. steel jobs have been mostly lost due to technological change (i.e., robots, not China). U.S. aluminum jobs have been mostly lost to places with cheaper electricity (i.e., Iceland, which is coincidentally also not China).

.. Right now China isn’t even among the top 10 producers of U.S. steel imports. The top country we import from is Canada ..

.. If hurting Canada is Trump’s best strategy for intimidating China, our next step should be maple-syrup taxes.

.. Every time, he has played right into Chinese hands.

Take, for instance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This 12-country pact deliberately excluded China; it was to make sure the United States rather than China got to “write the rules of the road for trade in the 21st century,” as then-President Barack Obama put it.

.. Their version stripped out some of the conditions won by U.S. negotiators, such as increased intellectual property protections for pharmaceuticals.

.. After it became clear the Chinese constitution would change to allow President Xi Jinping to hold power indefinitely, Trump didn’t criticize the authoritarian move. Instead, in comments secretly recorded at a fundraiser last weekend, he expressed admiration for Xi as “a great gentleman” who “treated us tremendously well when I went over there.” Xi, Trump cheered, had just made himself “president for life. . . . I think it’s great.”

.. Trump jokingly added that “maybe we will give that a shot someday,” the line that got the most attention. But the comments letting Xi off the hook, in fact praising Xi for consolidating power, were far more consequential. They signal to China that not only do we not care about the country’s increasing authoritarianism; we encourage it.

.. Xi has charmed the pants off Trump, who appears envious of the Chinese government’s military paradespress controlsdisregard for human rights and other totalitarian perks.

China’s most dangerous possible export to the United States isn’t a metal. Increasingly, it’s a style of political leadership.

 

If Trump Rips Up Nafta, Canada May Shrug, Not Shudder

“We will not be pushed into accepting any old deal, and no deal might very well be better for Canada than a bad deal,” Mr. Trudeau said in Chicago

.. Trump’s threats to tear up the trade agreement, and his administration’s aggressive use of trade laws, may actually help prod export-dependent industries in Canada to finally look beyond the United States market to do business.

.. in the worst-case scenarios, Canadian companies would be facing duties of about 5 percent on shipments to American customers, and closer to 3 percent on many auto parts.

.. the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement ..  could significantly expand business opportunities for Canadian companies across oceans.

.. some major Canadian industries have weaned themselves off a near-total reliance on Nafta markets for their exports.

.. British Columbia once sent nearly all of its softwood lumber exports to the United States

.. pork and poultry producer

.. Parts like pig’s feet, which have a relatively small market in North America, can fetch premium prices in Asia.

 

Trump Likes Controversy, Conflict Less So

The distinction is important, and it is woven through Trump’s operating style during his first year in office

 He likes controversy, but he isn’t all that fond of conflict.
.. He relishes stirring up controversy, and, in fact, believes stirring the pot advances his reputation as an outside agitator and improves his position by keeping adversaries off balance. But he usually keeps controversy at arm’s length, using his Twitter feed or offhand comments to attack and posture.

By contrast, when he finally comes face-to-face with both friends and foes, his actual positions are often less contentious and rigid than his public posturing suggests. His Twitter bark is worse than his personal bite.

.. He ordered the U.S. out of the Paris accord on climate change, but told British interviewer Piers Morgan over the weekend that, thanks in part to the personal intervention of French President Emmanuel Macron, who, “as you know, I like,” he might rejoin the accord.
.. When he is standing apart from negotiations over a new immigration system, he denigrates his Democratic counterparts, saying they have no interest in securing the border and are “only interested” in obstruction. But in a room with congressional leaders he sounded ready to do a deal with them, and even provide political cover for those who agreed
.. He also complains openly about other aides, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the White House chief of staff, John Kelly. But he then promptly backs away and praises them, as if he had never whacked the hornet’s nest in the first place. When he wants someone to leave, he is more likely to drop hints he wants them to depart on their own, or have someone else send them overboard, than to fire them himself.

.. “Donald Trump enjoys controversy and to a degree thrives on it,” says Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media and a presidential friend. “Controversy helps ratings, taking a page from his very successful showbiz career.”

But, he adds: “He often stakes out very extreme positions. He does this partly for rhetorical effort or to stake out a negotiating position. It’s worked for him in business so he’s applying it to politics.”

.. The problem is that the president’s allies and enemies alike, at home and abroad, have a hard time figuring out where bluster ends and reality begins.

.. Jason Miller, who was communications director for the Trump presidential campaign and remains in touch with the White House, suggests viewing the president’s approach as a “one-two negotiating tactic…Tweets are a one-way written message delivery vehicle to lay down markers, while in-person meetings are an opportunity to show progress and cooperation that get us one step closer to the desired outcome.”

Mr. Miller advises members of Congress that “the president is only going to bring up issues he genuinely wants to find consensus on…There’s always room for compromise after policy markers are laid out.”

 

 

 

Donald Trump Racks Up Few Wins So Far

.. Other presidents have seen approval ratings significantly worse, but they have all come at later points in their presidencies, Gallup found.

President Bill Clinton hit a low in his first summer in office of 37%, but it marked a bottoming out from which he climbed back to win re-election.

Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush each reached the 20s in the latter years in their first, and only, terms of office, and didn’t recover.

  1.  .. The selection of Judge Gorsuch, who now serves on the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, is a rare case in which the president has managed to clearly fulfill a campaign pledge,
  2. as was his promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and
  3. expedite approval of long-stalled pipeline projects.

.. His description of the revised ban as a “watered-down version of the first one” already has complicated the government’s arguments in support of it.

.. Mr. Trump lashed out at lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus who withheld support for the White House-backed health-care bill after deeming it insufficiently conservative. He said he would “fight them” in the 2018 elections, if he had to. The rift, some conservatives have said, is mutual.

.. Ms. Walsh, in charge of assigning West Wing office space, gave Mr. Dearborn an office he found inferior to the space allotted to his assistant. Mr. Dearborn and the assistant switched offices, which angered Ms. Walsh. Aides loyal to Mr. Dearborn cheered Ms. Walsh’s White House departure, while other insiders—including top Trump adviser Steve Bannon—heaped praise on her.