Gas Lite, If You Dane to Go There

There are so many variables at work in mainstream Europe’s growing disdain for all things Trump. They are deeply disturbed by the events precipitated by Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the six-party nuclear containment accord over Iran), the fact that Trump only pulled away from a “cocked and loaded” (Trump’s own description) June 21^st out-and-out attack on Iranian military facilities ten minutes before launch (the beginning of a war?), and that he has and continues to escalate sanctions – even against European allies and companies that still honor that treaty – for anyone trading with Iran.

They find his climate change policies, particularly his encouragement to reestablish coal as a major power generating fuel, bizarre if not simply dangerous. His bully tactics, his blind support for Israel’s Netanyahu that seems to be further destabilizing the Middle East and his blatant support for local populists put him on the wrong side of history to most Western European nations. And his trade war with China has negative economic ripples even in Europe.

The most interesting changes in European politics place Germany as the new leader of the free world. Recent massive shifts in the left-of-center environmentalist Greens Party (which now seems to have the most voting constituents of any German party) have signaled that taking American considerations into mainstream EU policymaking is hardly determinative anymore. Europe, to put it mildly, is choosing to go it alone, no longer counting on America’s commitments to NATO and making economic policies in direct contravention to American wishes. Germany is at the forefront of opposing coal-fired and nuclear power plants, willing to accept a transitional reliance on natural gas as it ramps up its renewable energy infrastructure.

America wants to be that supplier of natural gas, if they cannot sell abundant American coal that no one seems to want. Germany would rather take that gas from America’s natural enemy, Russia, than play in Trump’s economic backyard. Germans seem to fear Americans’ using trade deals and sanctions against them – particularly in light of escalating U.S. sanctions against nations and companies doing business with Tehran – more than they fear the manipulative machinations of Putin’s Russia. The result: Russia’s near-completion of Gazprom’s $11 billion 735-mile undersea Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, under the Baltic, landing in northern Germany.

The fly in the ointment isn’t the United States and its requests, oddly enough. That issue has long-since been decided against U.S. interests. Instead, the rough spot comes from environmentally sensitive Denmark as the pipeline is scheduled to pass through their territorial waters around rocky Bornholm Island. Notwithstanding mounting pressure from the EU’s new leader, Germany, the Danes have so far refused to backdown and grant the necessary construction permits. “By doing so, Denmark has created another crack in the rift between those European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization members already divided by the pipeline’s association with Russia.

“The United States, which critics point out wants to sell energy to Western Europe itself, and many of its allies in Europe and NATO, including Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine, oppose the pipeline, saying the $11-billion project would increase Moscow’s ability to use gas supplies as a diplomatic weapon… Eastern European leaders in particular fear it will increase Moscow’s influence in the region.

“But Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, remains firm as Nord Stream 2’s strongest proponent, saying the pipeline will ensure the continent’s energy security… Project officials say more than two-thirds of the pipeline is already completed, with permission secured to construct through the maritime territories of Russia, Finland, Sweden and Germany. Only Denmark stands in its way…

“Gazprom has partnered with major European energy companies — including Germany’s Uniper and BASF’s Wintershall unit, Anglo-Dutch firm Shell, Austria’s OMV and France’s Engie — for 50% of the construction funding… Europeans, particularly Germany, worry about energy security. European gas production is set to fall by 50% over the next 20 years, even as European demand is forecast to continue at the current pace.

“The European Union already gets 50% of its gas supplies from Russia, some of it flowing through the nearly parallel Nord Stream pipeline, which was completed in 2012. Other gas comes via Soviet-era gas pipelines traveling across Ukraine… More than any other opponent of the pipeline, Ukraine fears it will be the biggest loser once Nord Stream 2 is completed.

“The proposed completion date coincides with a renewal date for Gazprom’s supply and transit deal with Ukraine. That has Ukrainians, who are at war with Russia-backed separatist militias in its eastern regions, worried.” LA Times, June 25^th. Indeed, sanction-happy Trump has even gone so far as to bully Germany and the EU: “The United States has placed sanctions on Moscow for its incursions into eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea and agrees that European reliance on Russian gas creates a risk… Trump has threatened sanctions on Western companies associated with the project.

“The U.S. has its own interest in overtaking Russia’s share of the European gas market via American sales of liquefied natural gas, or LNG. In recent years, America has become a global leader in LNG exports, with many of those shipments going to Europe.” LA Times.

Bottom line: if it has to, Germany will simply support a rerouting of the pipeline to avoid Danish waters. That Trump is screaming and threatening has not moved Germany one whit. An increasingly globally isolated United States has less and less influence with every passing day. Trump and his base do not seem to care. Trump’s rich corporate cronies, while not yet breaking ranks, are beginning to be concerned. Trump’s efforts are slamming them in the wallet, even as he slams the rest of the world in the environment.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and America’s escalating political and economic isolation from the rest of the world most definitely does not serve the American people’s best interests.

China’s Not Our Friend, But…

We urge the United States to cancel immediately sanctions on Chinese companies including Huawei to push for the healthy and stable development in Sino-U.S. ties. 

 China’s Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng Gao

The collateral damage is spreading…The impact of any further deterioration of the relationship will not be limited to these two major powers. 

 Australia’s PM, Scott Morrison

The hottest country in the world right now is the United States and everybody wants a part of it…  We have a lot of time…There’s no rush, they can take their time. There is absolutely no time pressure. Hopefully in the end it’s going to work out. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, you’ll be hearing about it.  

Donald Trump

China is just one failing effort. Donald Trump is playing a hand that gets weaker by the day. As the world looks on in horror, Trump baits and prods Iran’s leaders, threatens them with obliteration and amps up sanctions for Iranian leaders (who truly do not care, have no bank accounts and do not travel) as well as nations and companies that continue to do business with Tehran. But it was Donald Trump who abrogated the American commitment to the six-party Iran nuclear containment accord, a flawed treaty that at least halted Iran’s nuclear program as verified by an extensive U.N. inspection. 

The remaining treaty nations are struggling with how to keep that accord intact, while Trump does everything he can to undermine its effectiveness. His use of American domination of the global financial market has caused European allies, who resent his bullying economic tactics against them for doing what the treaty was intended to do, has forced his allies into using alternative financial structures to circumvent Trump. 

His pledge to secure a better treaty from Iran remains, as expected, another dismal foreign policy failure. Paralleling his “peace plan” for Palestine, that was laughed into meaninglessness at the recent Bahrain conference (boycotted by the Palestinian contingent). His “nothing in it for the United States” unilateral concessions in Israel – moving our embassy to a hotly contested Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights – have further isolated the United States from most of the rest of the world. 

Or that his efforts to close our border to asylum-seeking refugees, in contravention of global law, have resulted in both an increase of Central Americans at our gates and a litany of events of mistreatment of detainees, especially of children already separated from their parents (the “zero tolerance” effect). Death and pain at the border provide unending photographic evidence to the rest of the world of Trump-America’s newfound proclivity towards raw cruelty. Failure. Just like his promise of an elusive denuclearization accord with North Korea as Kim Jong Un cozies up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Just like Trump’s tariff and trade war with Beijing. 

Ah, China… We don’t even have a military advantage anymore. While our massive military might, far greater than that of the Peoples’ Republic, is spread thin all over the world, China has focused on regional power. Korea, the Philippines and Japan have taken notice and are moving accordingly. Most of Asia is under their growing influence, underlined by their Belt and Road Initiative. We don’t matter much anymore.

Fact: while China is definitely open to a balanced negotiated trade agreement with the United States – our economic bullets are truly hurting both them… and us – if Xi Jinping were truly to accept most of the concessions demanded by Trump, his political life would be over. Since China is not a democracy, rather a centrally-directed state, President Xi is using that power to defy American demands – other than normal trade concessions – even if his people and his economy suffer. He will not self-destruct to placate Donald Trump and his out-of-touch base.

One of Donald Trump greatest philosophical weaknesses, a dramatic tragic flaw in international relations, is his application of generic business practices – The Art of the Deal – to foreign policy. In a world where multiparty trade agreements are the rule – companies today are multinational, manufacturing often aggregates components made in many different countries – Donald Trump only understands one-on-one negotiations. 

Trump’s dramatic ignorance of economics (he did not do well in those college courses), ignoring the history of failure when relying on tariffs, is truly horrifying. Strategically, he believes that America’s bargaining power should not be diluted in a multiparty negotiation with many nations. A bully needs to be able to focus bullying-power on a lone negotiating “opponent” on the other side of the table. And guess how those “opponents” (vs “trading partners”) respond to such tactics? It’s just not how the world works in a modern era. 

For weeks, Trump has been touting his “special relationship” with China’s Xi, suggesting that the two men can just sit down and finalize a bilateral trade agreement. That sit-down was basically going to take place at the G-20 meeting, now rolling along in Osaka, Japan. Don’t hold your breath. An isolated and internationally disliked Donald Trump is not bringing home the bacon.

As world leaders gather, “expectations for significant progress are remarkably low, even within the [Trump] administration. During a White House briefing for reporters, a senior administration official, speaking anonymously under the briefing ground rules, noted that Trump’s planned meeting with Putin is ‘not a formal summit’ and that, while the conversation will probably focus on regional security matters, there is no official agenda.

“The lowered prospects reflect how much less of a role multilateral institutions and meetings have in the Trump era. They also highlight the administration’s lack of clearly articulated foreign policy goals. Trump has repeatedly suggested that improved U.S. ties with Moscow would be a good thing, for example, but has never made clear what he hopes to gain.

“The personality-driven nature of Trump’s diplomacy is familiar by now. He relishes the global spotlight, toggling between tough talk and effusive praise for other leaders, and often expresses confidence that the most intractable geopolitical problems can be resolved by building strong personal relationships… But well into the third year of his norm-shattering presidency, there is scant proof that works…

“Rather than trying to build a consensus among multiple heads of state, Trump tends to view these group meetings mostly as an opportunity to hold a series of one-on-one discussions. This time, he plans to hold bilateral meetings with at least eight leaders.

“In addition to his expected meeting with Putin on Friday [6/28], the most attention probably will be on his expected sit-down Saturday with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a time when the trade war between the two countries appears to be at an impasse.” Los Angeles Times, June 27^th. 

Trump is telling increasingly skeptical Americans that the additional renewed pressure of blacklisting Chinese companies and limiting how U.S. companies can deal with them will force China to do what he promised they would do. He is telling hapless farmers in mid-America, slammed with both massive flooding (ah, but Mr. Trump cares not to try and address the cause – man-induced climate change) and sales losses from the effective closure of the Chinese market due to Trump’s trade war – that this tact is sure to work. It won’t.

The quotes above, dealing with the U.S. trade war with China, tell you just how far Trump’s reality veers from reality. There are no winners, and the longer this impasse continues, the list of losers grows. When a trade agreement is ultimately consummated, sooner or later, it will reflect a negotiated trade balance. Trump will undoubtedly ignore his being forced to compromise and brag about the “best trade agreement with China ever negotiated.” Right. China is a small and weak country that must do as Donald Trump wishes. And I am the Easter Bunny. 

              I’m Peter Dekom, and reality seems to be particularly unpopular with the Trump administration.

Radical Populist Right vs the Emerging Progressive Left

It is so strange watching Germany rise to become the most powerful global voice on earth for progressive and responsible democracy. The very nation that allowed the post-WWI financial disaster to catapult Adolph Hitler and Nazi populist nationalism to power, that exterminated Jewish scapegoats by the millions and redefined “Germany first” as true patriotism, is now the leading liberal humanistic country in the world. The dark voices of neo-Nazi patriotism are still there (the Alternative for Germany Party) but now drowned out in a rising tide of self-preservation through social responsibility. Germany’s climate-change-driven Greens Party.

In reconfigured post-WWII Germany, a multiparty state, two political parties – the more conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the left-of-center Social Democratic Party (SDP) – have been easily and consistently the only dominant political parties. The other, smaller parties (including the Greens) have had marginal influence as minority members of governing coalitions in the Bundestag (parliament) and state legislatures. Until recently, the Greens rose to represent a mere 10% of the vote. But that was then, and today the Greens vie for equal and perhaps greater representation:

“With support for the two major political parties that dominated postwar Germany melting away, the Greens party has emerged as the country’s most popular party, according to three major polls published in the last two weeks.

“Its astonishing rise to the top in Europe’s largest economy is causing political tremors in Germany and throughout the European Union, indirectly leading to the resignation this month of the leader of the Social Democrats — the minority partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government — and raising the possibility that the coalition government will collapse long before the next scheduled elections in 2021.

“The Greens had already shocked the nation on May 26 when they became the second-largest party in Germany in the European Union parliamentary elections, with 20.5% of the vote, behind Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats but well ahead of the center-left Social Democrats. Green parties now have 70 seats in the 705-seat European Parliament, up from 51.

“Green parties did unexpectedly well in other European countries as well, including Finland, France, Ireland and Luxembourg, because of spreading concerns about the climate crisis and strong resistance to anti-European Union populist movements.

“Since then, support for the Greens in Germany has risen to 27%, compared with 24% for Merkel’s party, according to a Forsa Institute poll released Saturday. Two similar leading polls in the last week also said the Greens have more support than Christian Democrats for the first time.

“In the wake of the Greens’ improbable rise to the top of the opinion polls, the party is now facing questions that its most ardent backers never dreamed of when the Greens were merely junior coalition partners with, at most, 10% of the vote: Could the Greens be the biggest party in the next German Parliament and claim the chancellor’s seat from Merkel? And which of the party’s two equal co-leaders — former novelist Robert Habeck or former trampoline competitor Annalena Baerbock — should run for high office in the next election? Both refuse to even contemplate that question now.” Los Angeles Times, June 16th.

Is this Germany’s long-simmering reaction to its own dark history? A product of one of the best educational systems in the world? Secondary education is based on either the college-prep path of Gymnasium or the highly skilled vocational path of Hauptschule, or combinations thereof, culminating in a comprehensive final exam. “Many of Germany's hundred or so institutions of higher learning charge little or no tuition by international comparison. Students usually must prove through examinations that they are qualified.

“In order to enter university, students are, as a rule, required to have passed the Abitur examination [the standard college entrance exam]; since 2009, however, those with a Meisterbrief (master craftsman's diploma) have also been able to apply. Those wishing to attend a ‘university of applied sciences’ must, as a rule, have Abitur, Fachhochschulreife [an applied science exam], or a Meisterbrief. 

If lacking those qualifications, pupils are eligible to enter a university or university of applied sciences if they can present additional proof that they will be able to keep up with their fellow students through a Begabtenprüfung or Hochbegabtenstudium (which is a test confirming excellence and above average intellectual ability).” Wikipedia.

Germany’s population, like most in the world, is rapidly skewing younger. Germany and the United States have similar college graduation rates, but the U.S. lacks the alternative top-tier vocational schools. And youth plus education seems to equal a move to progressive politics. “The Greens won one-third of the vote of those younger than 30 in the European elections in Germany, while the conservatives and Social Democrats together won less than a quarter of the vote, according to exit polls by ARD television.

“‘I think we’re seeing the end of the era for ‘big-tent parties’ in Germany,’ said Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at Cologne University, predicting that three or more parties will be jousting to rule future governments instead of only the two that long dominated. ‘The Greens are having such a moment right now because climate is their campaign cause and after a drought in Germany last summer and unusually hot weather, people are listening. But I’m not sure whether this one issue lifting the Greens will still be the most important topic months or years down the road.’” LA Times. But the rising tide of younger voters will only matter more.

What does mean for the United States, a nation that reverted to populist nationalism in the 2016 election? A nation where inflation-corrected college tuition has increased an average of fivefold since the 1970s, where average graduates of four-year colleges carry student debt of over $37 thousand and where the aggregate of all student loans in the U.S. being $1.53 trillion dollars (way above the aggregate of credit card and other consumer debt)? Populist nationalism in the United States definitely skews older. 

Unless there is an end to the U.S. political system, which is quite possible given the severity of our polarization, the country is witnessing the rise of younger voters. They did not live through the “communist scare” that dominated our global perspective from the end of WWII until around 1990. Many lived through the 2007-2010 Great Recession. Most live in very diversified urban areas. Climate change really scares them. Immigration and racial/gender/ethnic differences do not. And they are definitely going to hold older generations responsible for the damage that they have created with bad choices. They will remember!

The current configuration of the Republican Party – dramatically populist nationalism that favors property rights over human rights – is inching toward unelectability in national races. And as much as the GOP is deploying voter restrictions, gerrymandering, immigration limitations and judicial appointments to marginalize voters likely to skew Democrat, if they really want to stop that inevitable change, they should really focus on raising the voting age to 40.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and the tea leaves in expected near-term political preferences are not particularly difficult to read.