Seriously, Mr President?

North of The Border

There is a war going on out there. To be sure, bombs or bullets are yet to be dropped or fired. But, although the nature of the arms deployed so far do not result in personal bodily injury, there is still serious fallout. In the war that is currently being waged, the aggressor erases the distinction between friend and foe. It is not clear what the objective of the war is, but it seems to be based on the principle that attacking friends will teach the enemy a lesson. Think "Justin Trudeau" and "Kim Jung Un". Together. You know how that one is shaping up.

         The science of economics, if such shady business can be called a science at all, is bleak enough without amateurs like myself sounding off about it. Nevertheless, it seems to me that a powerful nation like the United States, with annual GDP at around 20 trillion dollars, should have confidence enough in itself not to feel threatened by small economies such as those of Canada’s and Mexico’s. Given such imbalance in economic power (and military power, too) one must conclude that there are reasons other than dollar-value that motivate the American president, who is the chief aggressor, to work himself up to a pitch at which he fulminates about his country being “taken advantage of” by its neighbours. Really, Donald?

         In happier times, before the current regime took hold of American way of doing business, the three neighbours cooperated so closely that they were dubbed “The Three Amigos”. To say that that display of brotherly love was a passionate one is probably an exaggeration. But one of its practical outcomes was that the three countries went on to create NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Area, which integrated their economies into one friendly basket, with benefits for all, while the two northernmost partners celebrated the sharing of the “world’s longest undefended border”. That now seems like eons ago.

         Then, along comes Trump and, for some unfathomable reason, he has taken it into his head that NAFTA should be re-negotiated because, he says, the pact puts America at a disadvantage. What nonsense. But let us process the charge to see if it has any merit: America is the biggest kid on the block. Its economy is ten times the size of Canada’s, and twenty times that of Mexico’s, and eight times that of both these countries combined. Even though the per capita GDP shows less striking US superiority, it is still the case that US citizens enjoy a far higher average income than the other two countries, certainly in the case of Mexico. So, there is absolutely no sense in the president’s assertion that his country is being taken advantage of. What would constitute a fair playing field? One in which America’s economy is thirty, forty, fifty times the size of its partners? Or does all this blather have something to do with the man’s character? In explanation, might I venture into another field, one about which I know nothing also? The field of analysis: I believe that Trump’s behaviour is an example of the schoolyard bully, trumping up a pretext for the bullying he intends to do himself, by claiming that the weaker kids are the ones provoking him into bullying. “The devil makes me do it”, in other words.

         Trump’s rants, in both the real-time and Twitter versions are now legend. To be sure, ranting offers relief; and doing it via Twitter short-circuits the pathway to the hearts and minds of his base. But whether this base like what he says, he ought to, as president, be under the obligation to stick to reality. True, Mr Trump may not have the erudition of a Barak Obama, but what he lacks in erudition he makes up for in blather. Unfortunately, we must take him seriously because if we don’t, our countries are likely to suffer. America suffers too. But they have made their bed and must lie in it. The rest of the world is innocent of this misapplication of the democratic process with the caveat however, that not all is without blame. But Russia’s complicity in the fiasco is a subject for another day.

         Anyway, Canada’s feisty Minister of International Affairs has laid down her gauntlet in the polite but forceful manner that only Canadians can contrive.  Mexico, likewise, is not going to roll over and die. Neither is China, nor the European Union. Nobody is. The result is stalemate in world trade.

         Then what, Mr Trump?

 

Tell Fren Tru