A LOOK AT TRUMP’S ‘CRISIS’ MANAGEMENT
By Alexandra D’Elia, @Alex_DElia11
Politics production assistantPresident Donald Trump uses many negotiating strategies. But some of them follow a similar pattern:
- creating leverage with a threat;
- using the threat to escalate tension or create a crisis;
- backing down from the threat; and then
- claiming victory when the crisis is averted.
Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico unless the country reached a deal with the U.S on immigration is just the latest example. Let’s take a look at some other instances.
Mexico tariff threat: Trump announced May 30 that he would impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican goods coming into the U.S., and increase the tariff percentage over the summer until the country took action to reduce the rise in migrants trying to enter the U.S. at the southern border. Economists, Democrats and some Republicans warned that the threats would cause economic harm to both nations. But Trump announced in a tweet Friday night that the U.S. reached a signed agreement with Mexico and the tariffs were “hereby indefinitely suspended.” The joint declaration says that Mexico agreed to deploy its National Guard to address the crisis, though officials say that agreement was already made in March.
U.S.-Mexico border shutdown: In another effort to curb illegal migration from Mexico, Trump announced on March 29 that he would shut down America’s southern border to Mexico the following week unless Mexican authorities took action. Trump then said in Florida that there was a “very good likelihood” that he would close the border, “and that is just fine with me.” Economists warnedthat a border shutdown would be economically crippling. Less than a week later, on April 4, the president said that he would give Mexico a “one-year warning” before closing the border. He then warned of imposing auto tariffs on Mexican goods instead, which he did two months later.
Negotiations with North Korea: Following North Korea’s weapons tests in 2017, Trump told the U.N. General Assembly the U.S. would have “no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” if the country attacked. He called Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man” and said that he was “on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” The rhetoric sparked fears of a possible armed conflict between the two countries. Kim responded that Trump would “pay dearly” for his threats. Trump and Kim met in Singapore in June of 2018, where Trump said he would halt “very provocative” U.S.-South Korea military exercises and touted his relationship with Kim. Trump claimed the summit as a major foreign policy victory. A year of verbal tiffs followed, along with a failed second summitin February in Hanoi, Vietnam. Trump said today that he had a very good relationship with North Korea, and pointed to a “very warm” letter he received yesterday from Kim.
Pulling out of NATO: The president said in July of 2018 at a NATO summit in Brussels that he would be “unhappy” if other countries did not “up their commitments” to the alliance, but that “everyone has agreed to”do so. Some foreign leaders disputed Trump’s claim. In January of this year, The New York Times reported that Trump suggested several times last year that the U.S. withdraw from the alliance, which America has been a member of for 70 years. Trump’s criticism of NATO as a candidate and president has worried allies who argue the U.S. should maintain its ties to NATO and other international alliances.
General Motors subsidies cut: In May of 2018, Trump threatened to cut all federal subsidies to General Motors after the organization announced that it would close its plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland. “Nothing being closed in Mexico & China. The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get!” Trump tweeted at the time. General Motors shares fell 3.5 percent. Trump never cut subsidies to the auto giant. Last month, Trump claimed victory when General Motors announced that it would sell its Lordstown, Ohio, plant to an electric truck manufacturer. Trump tweeted: “With all the car companies coming back, and much more, THE USA IS BOOMING!”
The Real Governments of Blue America
Officially, a big part of the federal government shut down late last month. In important ways, however, America’s government went AWOL almost two years earlier, when Donald Trump was inaugurated.
After all, politicians supposedly seek office in order to get stuff done — to tackle real problems and implement solutions. But neither Trump, who spends his energy inventing crises at the border, nor the Republicans who controlled Congress for two years have done any of that. Their only major legislative achievement was a tax cut that blew up the deficit without, as far as anyone can tell, doing anything to enhance the economy’s long-run growth prospects.
Meanwhile, there has been no hint of the infrastructure plan Trump promised to deliver. And after many years of denouncing Obamacare and promising to provide a far better replacement, Republicans turned out to have no idea how to do that, and in particular no plan to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.
Why can’t Republicans govern? It’s not just that their party is committed to an ideology that says that government is always the problem, never the solution. Beyond that, they have systematically deprived themselves of the ability to analyze policies and learn from evidence, because hard thinking might lead someone to question received doctrine.
And Republicans still control the Senate and the White House. So even when (if?) the shutdown ends, it will be at least two years before we have a government in Washington that’s actually capable of, or even interested in, governing.
Until recently Republicans had a virtual lock on state government. Almost half the population lived in states with Republican “trifectas,” that is, G.O.P. control of both houses plus the governorship. Democrats had comparable control in California, and pretty much nowhere else.
But elections since then have transformed the picture. New Jersey and Washington went full Democratic in 2017, and six more states, including Illinois and New York, flipped in November. At this point more than a third of Americans live under full Democratic control, not far short of the Republican total.
These newly empowered majorities are moving quickly to start governing again. And the experience of states that already had Democratic trifectas suggests that they may achieve a lot.
And health care isn’t the only front for new action. For example, Newsom is also proposing major new spending on education and housing affordability. The latter is very important: Soaring housing costs are the biggest flaw in California’s otherwise impressive success story.
Now, let’s be clear: Not all of the new Democratic policy proposals will actually be implemented, and not all of those that do go into effect will live up to expectations. There’s no such thing as perfection, in policy or in life, and leaders who never experience failures or setbacks aren’t taking enough risks.
The point, however, is that newly empowered state and local politicians do seem willing to take risks and try new things in an effort to make progress against the nation’s problems.
And that’s a very hopeful sign for America, because their example may prove contagious.
Justice Louis Brandeis famously described the states as the laboratories of democracy; right now they’re the places where we’re seeing what it looks like when elected officials try to do what they were elected to do, and actually govern. If we’re lucky, two years from now that attitude may re-establish itself in the nation’s capital.