“NATO is as Bad as NAFTA”

The costs to American taxpayers of the Donald Trump presidency will, if we are lucky, linger for mere decades. If, however, the long-term impact of Trump policies, economically and politically both here and globally, are not reversible – if the underlying populism prevents a very necessary and profound readjustment to stability – the American democratic experiment will just unravel. With so many guns in our nations, perhaps violently. We’ve been there before.

The economy looks great now, even though most of the seeds for our prosperity were planted during the recovery period following the 2007 great recession. Trump’s new policies will only begin to show their impact as time passes; there is always a time lag.

As social programs – including access to affordable but full healthcare – are eviscerated to pay for the massive GOP corporate tax cuts (Trump is proposing another round of tax cuts, by the way), as the full negative impact of our growing trade war with the world slowly permeates our economy, the United States could experience another deep recession, a job and value hit that could be staggering. Such an economic catastrophe, which may take a while to percolate, just might be the trigger event for the “great unraveling,” a process that will be ugly but just may take time to bring to full-on fruition.  Polarization’s ultimate consequence.

Donald Trump’s efforts at isolating and realigning the United States in its global relationships might be particularly difficult to reverse. There are so many examples, from rejecting the Paris climate accord, pulling out of the Iran nuclear accord and threatening allies who don’t go along with our new trade sanctions, imposing tariffs on allies and frenemies alike or withdrawing from multi-party trade agreements to simply insulting leaders of our allied countries openly, repeatedly and very publicly… treating truly horrific dictators (like North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un) better than our purported friends. Nothing brings that home like Trump’s attempt to show balance in Russian-American relations (sanctions vs. a bromance with Vladimir Putin), when in fact he has been Russia’s greatest American champion since WWII.

Strangely, in an open interview in mid-June, even when pressed by reporters, Trump laid no blame for Russia’s annexation of Crimea or its efforts to take over eastern Ukraine on Vladimir Putin – the Russian leader’s two military moves that have been at the core of NATO-countries’ economic sanctions against Russia. Trump’s rationale was both that “everybody speaks Russian” (guess we should move on Canada, huh?) and that then-President Barak Obama was the real culprit. “President Obama lost Crimea because President Putin didn't respect President Obama, didn't respect our country and didn't respect Ukraine.” Obama bad, Putin good?

Trump made these rather incendiary remarks – at least to our allies – without remotely discussing his deeply contradictory position with those purported allies first. He unilaterally pulled the rug out from under the rather firmly-established NATO position on Russia completely on his own. All this occurring rather blatantly before both a July 11^th Brussels NATO meeting and his scheduled Helsinki summit with Putin on July 16^th. But wait, it gets so much worse.

While Trump indicated that he would discuss “Russian interference” with U.S. elections at that summit, he also indicated that he has not changed his acceptance at face value of Putin’s statements that Russia did not meddle in the 2016 race and will not meddle in future elections either. All this despite hard evidence and uniform belief in all of our intelligence agencies that Russian election interference in the United States (and elsewhere in the West) was and is pervasive. This seriously undercuts the prioritization of necessary countermeasures against this Russian intrusion.

Meanwhile, as Trump seems to want to assess his tariffs against friend and foe alike, Canada (which actually has a trade imbalance with us!) – like most countries saddled with Trump’s tariffs – is just the latest country to retaliate: “Canada struck back at the Trump administration over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs on Friday [6/29], vowing to impose punitive measures on C$16.6 billion ($12.63 billion) worth of American goods until Washington relents.

“The announcement by Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland marks a new low in ties between the neighbors and trading partners which have become increasingly strained since U.S. President Donald Trump took power in January 2017… The Canadian tariffs will … target U.S. steel and aluminum products, but also foodstuffs such as coffee, ketchup and whiskies, according to a list by the Department of Finance.” Thompson Reuters, June 30^th.

Mexico’s leftist populist President-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, pledged to his nation that he will push back hard against Trump. European leaders, probably more willing to negotiate than most, are also fighting back with their own tariffs. And China, which is willing to accommodate reasonable requests, is quite able to resist U.S. tariffs, regardless of the costs, because it is a centrally-directed authoritarian government that does not have to bow down to local economically displaced constituents.

Which brings me to NATO and the upcoming in meeting Brussels. Trump is already signaling a possible downgrade in America’s participation in that organization. He stated: "It will be an interesting summit. NATO is as bad as NAFTA. It's much too costly for the U.S." He’s already suggested that he would like to bring down U.S. troop levels in Germany, and that country’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has already admonished her European allies that they should no longer count on America’s military commitments. Putin must be downright giddy!

Last March, when the Swedish Prime Minister told Trump that Sweden was not a NATO nation but often joined with NATO on specific matters, Trump suggested that this ad hoc approach to NATO policies might be a viable alternative for America to consider. Really? Putin would be so far beyond merely giddy! We should be containing Russia, not pandering to its malevolent leader!

“NATO member states are worried about Russian aggression and they want an unambiguous sign that America has their back. By linking NATO to NAFTA — a trade deal that Trump considers an unmitigated disaster for America — Trump reinforced some of the Europeans' worst fears that he'll take a purely transactional approach to next month's summit… Senior officials from four NATO member nations told [reporter Jonathan Swan] their worst fear is that Trump clashes with America's allies at the NATO summit in Brussels on July 11-12 and then shortly afterwards lavishes praise on Putin.” Axios.com, June 27^th/28^th.

Simply put: to most of our traditional allies, the United States has become at best an unreliable rogue state “ally”… and at worst, it just might be a new frenemy that needs to be treated with harsh skepticism from a clear distance. Wagons are circling against the United States everywhere, and those nations inside our own circled wagons are few, countries like Hungary and Israel… and not too many more. Exactly how do you think the United States, particularly its political and economic future, actually benefits from this accelerating move to isolate the U.S. under a misdirected “America First” vector? Can Donald actually bully the rest of the world and get his way? Really? The whole world?

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is indeed unfortunate that Donald Trump self-admittedly does not like to read, because if he were even slightly acquainted with the lessons of history, there is no way he would be repeating some of history’s greatest mistakes.