The Master of the Universe 1-20-17
LAST WINTER here in Northern Virginia, a snowfall deep enough to hem me and my wife in with more white stuff than I could safely shovel, left us with only two options: Someone could help us if they acted beyond their own snow-clearing interests, or no one would help us and we’d have to wait for the snow to melt, an older couple huddled inside with limited firewood and even more limited food.
Let’s call this the Trump-First/Schrödinger's Cat Conundrum in which either something good would happen only for someone else, or something good would happen for someone else and then something good would happen for us.
How would this option work? Well, let’s hear it from the President himself in his inauguration speech:
“From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it's going to be America First.”
And in one of the most diplomatically-schizophrenic statements of the day, the president seemingly gave a green light to Moscow, Pyongyang, and Beijing to do as they pleased without the United States standing up for democracy and the rule of law:
“We will seek friendship and goodwill 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.”
America First was an isolationist slogan crafted at Yale in 1940 in a fuzzy-headed attempt to appease Adolph Hitler who was, by then, forcing his will on the European continent and wreaking havoc on England. These America-Firsters reckoned if America could convince Hitler we would remain silent and neutral as he carried out his dirty work, i.e., killing our friends and gobbling up territory across the ocean, we might somehow avoid colliding with his insane dream of a global Third Reich.
Sounds ridiculously dangerous and probably suicidal today, yes? But, the America-Firsters, in 1940, like Trump in 2017, believed “…it is the right of all nations to put their interests first,” outcomes be damned.
Mr. Trump’s untutored reasoning in adding America First language to his remarks begs the question of what he has in mind when it comes to dealing with Xi Jinping’s aggressive activities in the South China Sea, or Kim Jong-un’s unwavering plans to establish North Korea as a nuclear power—with missiles capable of reaching the United States—or with Vladimir Putin’s ceaseless craving to destabilize Europe and reestablish the Soviet bloc of aggression and fear?
Now that he has the authority to push back against these three scoundrels on the world’s playground, will he exercise that power, or will he shrug and turn aside, like the America-Firsters of 1940, and let these three nations have their way?
What’s the President’s strategy? Send Xi, Kim, and Putin a selfie of himself carrying a big stick captioned with a “sad” emoji? I don’t think so.
Even Donald Trump doesn’t think so! And yet…he says, “…it is the right of all nations to put their interests first.” Such bipolar conflicts in policy remind me of Dr. Doolittle’s pushmi-pullyu two-headed gazelle-unicorn beast.
And when it comes to trade, let’s be real for a moment. There is no way the United States can go it alone in global commerce. Not by shuttering international operations and making vague promises of renewed production back on U.S. soil. And not by imposing Draconian duties on incoming products to the ultimate pain to American’s pocketbooks. And there would be pain, bigly, Mr. Trump.
Bullying American companies to restrict their operations to U.S. soil or pay through the nose for their failure to put America First is no way to encourage real growth and opportunities for multinational companies engaged in the global marketplace.
An America-First economic policy is short-sighted and ignores the long-term domestic benefits of developing stronger ties with trading partners and consumers around the world.
I’m all for encouraging American industry—businesses large and small—to make world-class products, competitively priced for the world markets, right here at home.
Should we do all we can to keep Americans employed in jobs in their hometowns, including retraining and help with such mundane issues as childcare and parental leave? Yep.
Do we have the right to protect our products from being ripped off or devalued by foreign currency manipulations? Of course.
Do we have the obligation to assure the safety of our trade secrets from prying foreign electrons? Sure.
Should we seek export-import parity wherever possible on goods and services we ship around the world? Absolutely.
But these aren’t short-term protectionist measures covered by an America-First slogan; they are strategies for long-term market success at home and abroad.
We simply cannot go it alone. And, honestly Mr. Trump, a little study will show you that when we’ve tried, we’ve slipped behind the power curve of history.
Back to that snowfall and our being trapped inside our house. What to do? We were subject to the Trump-First/Schrödinger's Cat Conundrum; Maybe left alone, or maybe rescued?
Our neighbor across the street had a massive snow blower, capable of clearing runways at Dulles International; our neighbor catty-corner to us had a snow blower suited to clearing driveways and sidewalks; and our immediate neighbor had a compact electric snow shovel just perfect for clearing front walks and porches.
Acting according to Trump’s America-First philosophy, each neighbor would be perfectly right in clearing just their own properties’ sidewalks and driveways. Of what business, of what interest, would it be for them to think outside their own borders?
Without being asked, the three families turned their attention, tools, and energies to our problem and within an hour or so, we, and other, equally-trapped neighbors, were released from our snowy prisons. Yes, our friends took care of themselves first, but not because it was their right. They did it because it was the right way to care for the rest of us who sometimes need help from unselfish hands.