Economists' Fears of a 2020 Recession Surge

Trump brags about the state of the US economy but economists increasingly fear his economic policies are about to drive the economy into the ditch.  The main cause of concern?  Trump's insane tariff and trade policies that are already slamming many manufacturers and farmers and, if continued will also begin to hit consumers with steeply higher prices.  If these fears prove correct, I hope they hit early enough in 2020 so as to help purge Trump from the White House and lead to the defeat of numerous Republicans.  CNN looks at the economic forecast:

America's business leaders are growing more worried that the United States will enter a recession by the end of 2020. Their primary fear: protectionist trade policy.

That is the topline finding of a report released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics. The survey, based on responses by 53 economists, is a leading barometer of where the US business community thinks the economy is headed.

"Increased trade protectionism is considered the primary downwide risk to growth by a majority of the respondents," Gregory Daco, chief US economist for Oxford Economics, said in a statement. The report found what it called a "surge" in recession fears among the economists.

The report comes as the United States ratchets up its trade war with China and has gone after other major trading partners, including Mexico and India. The risk of recession happening soon remains low but will "rise rapidly" next year. The survey's respondents said the risk of recession starting in 2019 is only 15% but 60% by the end of 2020. About a third of respondents forecast a recession will begin halfway through next year.

The United States is probably somewhere in the last stages of an epic run of economic growth that began in 2009. Dramatic and coordinated responses by the Federal Reserve, Congress and the Obama administration helped pull the country up from the Great Recession.

Donald Trump, who took the reins of the US economy from Barack Obama in 2017, has aggressively tried to reorder the US position on global trade. He has picked prominent fights with China and Europe and has threatened tariffs on Mexico over illegal immigration and India over access to its markets.

Other notable findings from the National Association for Business Economics: 

-- 56% of respondents cited increasingly protectionist trade policy as the greatest risk to the US economy in 2019. Separately, 88% pointed to US trade policy, and retaliation by other nations, for why they lowered their GDP growth forecasts.

-- 14% believe a "substantial" decline in the stock market, and 10% feel a slowdown in global growth, are the biggest risks to the US economy.

-- Business spending will moderate this year and next after growing a strong 6.9% in 2018.

Trump: Give Me a Wall or I’ll Engineer a Recession

Malignant narcissism is defined as asyndrome characterized by a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), antisocial features, paranoid traits, and egosyntonic aggression, with symptoms including an absence of conscience, a psychological need for power, and a sense of importance (grandiosity).  While Donald Trump has not been diagnosed by a physician, the traits and symptoms of malignant narcissism are constantly on display for anyone taking even a small amount of time to pay attention and inventory his behavior (both before and after the 2016 presidential election).  Consider Trump's threat that he will engineer a recession if he doesn't get his "Wall"  - which utterly ignores the many years required for condemnation lawsuits that would be needed to acquire land for the wall.  New York Magazine looks at this sick threat which ignores the harm a recession would mean for many Americans and underscores that for Trump, it's all about him and his ego.  Here are article excerpts:

Trump declared himself qualified for the world’s highest office in 2016, on the grounds that his exceptional deal-making acumen and economic expertise more than compensated for his lack of conventional credentials.

On Friday morning, [Trump] the president tweeted that if Democrats refuse to fund his wall, he will engineer a massive recession (that would all-but ensure Democratic victory in 2020) – because he is under the impression that the United States would “profit” by closing its southern border to all commerce, since the U.S. runs trade deficit with Mexico: We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall . . . .

This is not the first time Trump has threatened to “close the border” if Congress defies his will. But until now, what the president meant by that phrase has been ambiguous. His latest tweets confirm that he has, in fact, been threatening to end (virtually) all commerce between the U.S. and Mexico, our nation’s third-largest trading partner. Upward of $30 billion worth of goods are shipped across the U.S. southern border on a monthly basis; interrupting that flow of goods for any significant period of time would paralyze major corporate supply chains, drive countless small businesses into insolvency, and terrorize global markets with the specter of American autarky.

Such a scheme would be so economically devastating — and politically suicidal — it is safe to assume that Trump’s threat is entirely empty. Or, at least, that is what investors appear to believe; hours after the president’s tweetstorm, the Dow and S&P 500 were both up in early trading.

And yet, “Trump would never do X because that would be stupid and politically counterproductive” isn’t the world’s most reliable heuristic. After all, the current (partial) government shutdown is itself the product of the president deciding that he could secure leverage over congressional Democrats by doing something stupid and politically counterproductive.

[Trump] sabotaged the basic functioning of his own administration to draw attention to the fact that the Democratic Party does not support an extremely unpopular immigration policy, out of the ostensible belief that doing this would force Chuck Schumer to do his bidding immediately (instead of, say, waiting for Nancy Pelosi to collect the Speaker’s gavel next week).

This plan proved to be less than airtight. Recent polling shows that a large plurality of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown, and oppose his border wall. Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating in Morning Consult’s polling just dipped below 40 percent for the first time since he defended the “very fine” neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017.

Trump’s threat to “close the border” appears to be a desperate attempt to secure some kind of leverage over negotiating partners who show no signs of caving.

[Trump] is the kind of demented nihilist who threatens to use his national security powers to inflict suffering on the American people, for the sake of narrow legislative gains — not the kind who would actually do so! Or, probably not, anyway!

And that is apparently enough to persuade congressional Republicans that they have no responsibility to remove a demented nihilist from the Oval Office.

Anti-Gay Republicans Threaten to Kill Trump's New NAFTA Deal Over LGBT Protections

I still get ask at times by former Republican colleagues when I am going to return to the GOP.  A case in point was earlier in the year at a friend's funeral when I encountered another former City Committee member who was always gracious to me.  I politely said "no time soon" given the GOP's never ending homophobia and efforts to limit or take away my rights.  In addition to supporting discredited "conversion therapy," Virginia Republicans killing every gay friendly bill in the last session of the General Assembly, 40 anti- gay Republican members of Congress are now threatening to vote against Trump's new NAFTA trade agreement if LGBT non-discrimination provisions are not removed.   A copy of their letter to Trump is set out at the end of this post.  Politico looks at the efforts of these bigots to in effect give Christofascists special rights to discriminate against others.  Here are article highlights:

Protections in the new North American trade pact for LGBTQ people are roiling conservative lawmakers in the House, who are urging President Donald Trump to rescind them.

They are displeased that the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement contains requirements that workers be protected from discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity.

“A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy,” reads the letter, which carries the names of 40 lawmakers and was sent Friday. “It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept.”

It’s one more landmine in the path of Trump’s biggest trade achievement. Already, labor groups have expressed some concern that mechanisms to enforce new worker protections aren’t sufficiently strong and hinted that the incoming Democratic House might seek changes.

Now the conservatives, including House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), are hoping to revise the deal before it gets signed. 

"This is language that is going to cause a lot of people to reconsider their support of the trade agreement, and to the point that it may endanger the passage of the trade agreement unless something is done," [GOP] Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told POLITICO in an interview.

Adjusting the deal is a tall order.

The countries are expected to sign the agreement on Nov. 30 at a G-20 summit in Argentina, the day before the current Mexican administration leaves office. The easiest way for the administration to address the conservatives’ concerns is to persuade Canada and Mexico to change the language before the agreement is signed. If those countries balk and the administration is concerned about having enough Republican votes to win approval, it could attempt to negate the language through the implementing bill. But that would be highly unusual and give many Democrats another reason to vote against the legislation.

Tweaks can be made through so-called side letters. But this particular demand is certain to leave Canada especially cold.

The LGBT provisions were a Canadian priority — part of the so-called progressive trade agenda championed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and described as a “big win” by his government. And the Trudeau government already is less than enthusiastic about entering the agreement while steel tariffs remain in place.

But it’s unprecedented language in a U.S. trade agreement. . . . The conservatives say this would undo other administration policies.

The letter argues that USMCA contradicts other administration work on sexual orientation and gender identity, and would also make it impossible to end a pair of executive actions from the Obama administration forbidding workplace discrimination.

It accuses the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative of working against administration policies.

In reality, the federal government is somewhat divided about whether employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is illegal under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a question that turns on how judges interpret the word “sex” (one of the law’s protected classes, along with race, religion, and national origin).

[T]he Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which continues to retain a Democratic majority, still adheres to the Obama policy that the Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Federal appeals courts are split on the question, and the Supreme Court has never taken up the matter.

General Motors: Trump Tariffs Could Lead to GM Downsizing in USA

More Trump supporters may be losing their jobs or facing vastly higher auto prices if the narcissistic cretin-in-chief in the White House proceeds with his ill-conceived tariffs.  Instead of increasing American jobs, the tariffs seem headed toward forcing U.S. manufacturers to move operations out of the USA as Harley-Davidson has announced it is doing.  Now, General Motors is warning that it will take a similar path if Der Trumpenführer continues his push for tariffs.  The good news, of course, is that the job losses will be concentrated in states that went for Trump.  If this happens, karma will certainly bite those who allowed racism and bigotry to dupe them into voting against their own economic best interests (as you can tell, I have a very hard time feeling even a shred of sympathy for these people).  Bloomberg looks at what Trump voters may have rain down on them if GM proceeds with moving operations out of the USA.  Here are highlights:

General Motors Co. issued a stern warning to the Trump administration that it could shrink U.S. operations and cut jobs if tariffs are broadly applied to imported vehicles and auto parts. “Increased import tariffs could lead to a smaller GM, a reduced presence at home and risk less -- not more -- U.S. jobs,” the nation’s largest automaker said in comments submitted Friday to the Commerce Department.

That such a blunt statement came from GM -- a company run by a CEO, Mary Barra, whose normal tack is to avoid the political fray and let trade groups address the president’s policies -- was surprising to industry observers. And it underscored how high she, and many industrial leaders, believe the stakes are as [Trump] the president sinks the U.S. into tit-for-tat trade squabbles across the globe. GM’s public pronouncement follows similar moves by Harley-Davidson Inc., Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler AG.

The “comment suggests how severe the impact would be to GM, its employees and consumers," said Michelle Krebs, analyst with AutoTrader.com. "There is a lot at stake for GM, the auto industry and the overall economy."

The probe has raised alarm among manufacturers, parts suppliers and auto retailers because all major carmakers -- including GM and Ford Motor Co. -- import a substantial share of the vehicles they sell in the U.S. from other countries. Levies on parts also would have major implications for top models like the Ford F-150 pickup and Toyota Camry sedan by boosting prices by thousands of dollars.

Barra had earlier tried to stay on good terms with Trump. She continued to serve on his Strategic and Policy Forum even after many other CEOs, such as Walt Disney’s Bob Iger and Tesla’s Elon Musk, quit to protest Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement last year. The forum was disbanded in August following Trump’s tepid response to attacks by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Now, the Detroit-based maker of Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC vehicles is warning that additional tariffs -- on top of those recently slapped on steel, aluminum and Chinese products -- could hurt GM and ultimately its customers. Higher prices would crimp sales, particularly to less-affluent consumers, and reduce the number of factory workers needed, it said.

“The threat of steep tariffs on vehicle and auto component imports risks undermining GM’s competitiveness against foreign auto producers by erecting broad brush trade barriers that increase our global costs, remove a key means of competing with manufacturers in lower-wage countries, and promote a trade environment in which we could be retaliated against in other markets,” the company said.

GM’s Chevrolet Silverado pickup was the top-selling model imported from Mexico last year, while the Chevrolet Equinox crossover was the leading vehicle sourced from Canada, according to LMC Automotive.

“GM imports a lot of pickup trucks from Mexico, so it’s a huge issue,” Alan Baum, an auto analyst in West Bloomfield, Michigan, said. “And for parts, it’s not just GM. Everyone imports a lot of electronics from Asia. Those are are high-value parts.”

Hate and bigotry often carry a high economic price - look no further than economically depressed Southwest Virginia for a case in point. 

Job Losses from Trump's Trade War Likely Just Beginning

Much like Mussolini (for whom things did not end well), Donald Trump likes to strut around and act the tough guy. Part of this tough guy/bully routine is Trump's self-created trade war which is already beginning to kill American jobs.  But worse days are likely to come for both American workers more of whom will lose jobs and American consumers who will find themselves paying higher prices for numerous goods.  All so a foul narcissist can feed his insatiable ego and play to the knuckle dragging base of the Republican Party. A column by a former U.S. Trade Representative looks at America's increasingly alienated allies working to form new trading alliances that exclude America.  Here are highlights:

Diversification is the polite way of saying that America’s friends and allies believe we have become an unreliable partner, and they are now looking elsewhere. From Ottawa to Brussels to Seoul, our trading partners are fed up with the Trump administration’s tariffs, and they have given up on trying to charm President Trump or persuade him that free trade is good. To reduce their economic dependence on the United States and their exposure to a potential global trade war, they are forging trade deals that leave us out of the picture altogether. On June 14, Canada’s government asked Parliament to ratify a new version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the United States backed out of last year. On June 18, the European Union trade commissioner visited Australia and three days later, New Zealand to begin negotiations for free-trade agreements; and on June 22, South Korea announced plans to pursue negotiations for its first free-trade agreement with Russia.

These moves are a direct response to the Trump administration’s unreliability and unpredictability, and they are a clear sign that the administration’s trade policy priorities — renegotiating deals and punishing violations — are not working out as expected.

[Trump] The president may want better deals to replace the old, “terrible” deals he doesn’t like, but so far, the rest of the world has been reluctant to negotiate new agreements with the United States. The long and growing list of tariffs, particularly those based on dubious national security grounds, has weakened the administration’s ability to form coalitions with other countries to tackle legitimate concerns, especially China’s unfair trade practices.

Instead, our closest trading partners are scrambling to find new markets for exports subject to tariff increases by the United States, and to secure new suppliers for the American products that their own countries are planning to hit with retaliatory tariffs.

Japan is thus accelerating negotiations with other countries. Japan and the European Union plan to sign their free-trade agreement in July. Moreover, it was Japan who stepped up to fill the leadership void left by the American exit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Japanese Diet approved a bill to ratify the revised pact this month.

The tone and policies of the Trump administration have even managed to bring two longtime rivals, China and Mexico, closer together. The two countries once competed head-to-head as low-cost manufacturers, with the United States as the most important market. After Mr. Trump began beating the drum for tariffs and a possible withdrawal from Nafta, Mexico’s economy minister, Ildefonso Guajardo, called a visit last year to China “strategic leverage,” saying it “sends the signal that we have alternatives” to the United States.

Regrettably, this leaves the United States on the margins as the rest of the world builds a new trading structure without us. Our workers, farmers and companies will be locked out of important markets. We will lose our chance to help write the rules and set standards for trade in advanced technology, such as alternative-fuel vehicles, 3-D printing and artificial intelligence. Global and regional supply chains will increasingly bypass the United States. And years of efforts by the United States to curb China’s unfair trade practices will lose critical international support. To be sure, as the world’s largest economy, the United States will remain a major player in international commerce. . . . There is a danger, however, in overestimating our negotiating leverage. Trade patterns will shift as our partners look elsewhere. We have spent decades building trust with our allies. We are now squandering it.

Mexico Hits Back With $3 Billion in Tariffs

The foul occupant of the White House is quickly learning that his bullying on international markets will have a cost as Mexico hits backs with $3 billion in tariffs tailored to hit GOP controlled states the hardest.   As in everything else, Trump views everything as a zero sum game and, like a petulant child - or malignant   Mafia boss - insists on having his way and "winning."  With luck, these tariffs imposed by Mexico along with those imposed by Canada will cause significant economic pain in Trump supporting states where his toxic base will get to experience what "winning" feels like. Yes, I do wish these people ill.  They deserve to reap what they have sown.  Iowa in particular needs to suffer for having thrown away its progressive history and embracing racism and religious extremism as embodied by Trump and his policies. Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Mexico said it would impose import duties on $3 billion worth of U.S. products, including cheese, bourbon, pork and others, making good on its threats that it would retaliate for U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum.

With its presidential election 26 days away, Mexico’s government imposed a 20 percent tariff on U.S. pork, apples and potatoes and 20 to 25 percent tariffs on cheese and bourbon. Mexico tailored the list of retaliatory duties to hit states governed by senior Republicans, such as the bourbon produced in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

Trump is trying to use the threat of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, as well as other goods, to force numerous countries to agree to trade concessions. He’s in standoffs with Mexico, Canada, China, Japan and members of the European Union, the largest U.S. trading partner.

In talks in Beijing over the weekend, China offered to buy close to $70 billion in U.S. agriculture, energy and manufacturing products over a year as part of a package meant to ward off U.S. tariffs, according to a senior administration official who was briefed on the talks. . . . even that amount “would not address the underlying, long-run concerns the United States has with China.”

Those include China’s assistance to state-owned enterprises, investment restrictions on foreign firms, forced technology transfer, industrial policy and the protection of intellectual property.

Even with the weekend’s developments, all the trade talks appear to be moving slowly or stalling, leading to angst on Capitol Hill and among business leaders.

Trump and Kudlow are traveling to Quebec this week for a meeting of leaders from seven of the world’s leading economies, and several of those officials have expressed frustration at Trump for his protectionist approach to trade.

A Canadian government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic relations, said there have long been one-on-one talks as part of the NAFTA negotiations but noted that the trade pact is a three-country agreement and that any resolution would require all three countries to sign on together.

Of course, it will not be just Trump supporting states that suffer.  All of us can expect higher consumer prices, especially for cars and trucks. 

How Trump's Tariffs Will Harm Americans

America's largest trade deficit issues lie with China, yet Der Trumpenführer, like a peevish playground bully who only feels good when threatening or harming others, has lashed out at America's closest allies and is imposing tariffs that will result in retaliatory tariffs in return that will have a net negative impact on Americans - also the insane malignancy in the White House can feel like he's "winning" even as almost all of the rest of us suffer economic harm.  This on top of the Trump/GOP tac law which is going to harm many small businesses this year (the husband and I will see our taxes go up even as billionaires receive hundreds of thousands in tax cuts).  A piece in Politico looks at how Americans will be harmed by Trump's petulance.  One can only hope that Trump's Mid-West base is harmed the most since they are the ones how put this misogynist in office.  Here are article excepts:

Donald Trump has said that trade wars are easy to win. . . . The flip side of the trade war is the squeeze that America’s strongest allies will impose.

In the meantime, there are also many industries that will suffer collateral damage of higher tariffs that they may absorb by cutting jobs, pinching wages or taking other cost-cutting moves.

Here’s a look at how the new trade war could play out:

ConsumersConsumers could soon be paying higher prices for cars and trucks, electronics, homes and staple goods like canned foods and canned beer. Aluminum has been a lightweight substitute for heavy steel components in manufacturing, and Canada provides 40 percent of the U.S. imports of the metal.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers warned Thursday of a direct correlation between Trump's tariffs and the sticker prices of cars at dealerships.  . . . these tariffs will result in an increase in the price of domestically produced steel — threatening the industry’s global competitiveness and raising vehicle costs for our customers," the trade group said in a statement.

Some may say that the counter-tariffs that U.S. trading partners are imposing won’t be felt by Americans. But the tariffs that Canada is imposing on goods like cheese — and Mexico is imposing on products like pork bellies — could result in a glut in the United States if consumers abroad don’t want to pay more for U.S. imports.

Manufacturers and exporters
[M]anufacturers like Boeing will have to pay more for raw materials than rivals like Canada’s Bombardier or Europe’s Airbus will. In addition, Canada and the European Union are already working on bringing down tariffs with each other on all sorts of other goods.

Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Florida orange juice, Virginia ham and Washington state apples are all expected to be hit by retaliatory tariffs by the European Union, Mexico and Canada. Those producers could, in turn, make adjustments to lower their expenses, leading to other economic harm here.

Farmers and agricultural products
America's farmers and ranchers, a crucial part of Trump's political base, often find themselves on the front lines of trade disputes, but stand to gain little from the benefits of the steel and aluminum penalties. One of the U.S. heartland's biggest cash crops — corn — is on the EU's retaliation list. Wisconsin produces about half of the U.S. cranberry crop — another product on the EU’s list.

Bourbon whiskey (which Congress has deemed to be a "distinctive product of the United States") is also on Europe’s target list. And citrus farmers in Florida and California are in no position to absorb trade hits, having seen their crops destroyed by blight and Hurricane Irma.

U.S. Grains Council President and CEO Tom Sleight said that exporters are worried that years of hard-won gains could be lost. "We have spent years building markets in these countries based on a mutual belief that increasing trade benefits all parties," he said.Global suppliers

Parts and supplies crisscross the globe, especially in automotive manufacturing, but also in hundreds of other industries. If a company has a choice of putting a plant in Detroit, where it may have to pay the tariffs, or over the border in Windsor, Ontario, where it doesn‘t, it may choose the latter.

The Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users is concerned that overseas customers will flee to other sources. "Our members are also reporting concerns over their own exports as their overseas customers shift to non-U.S. suppliers who do not face government restrictions on steel and aluminum," said Paul Nathanson, a spokesman for the group. "And when a customer removes you from their supply chain, especially for smaller, family-owned businesses, it is tough to bring that work back to the U.S."

All of this is lost on the cretin at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  It is only about him and boosting his ego as a "tough guy." To Hell with the rest of us. As the harm begins to take hold, Democrats need to hang it around Trump and the GOP's necks. Oh, mone more fun fact via the Washington Post:

. . . exports actually account for a greater proportion of economy in counties that voted for Trump than in counties that voted for Clinton. That means Trump voters would likely end up feeling the heaviest effects from changes to trade . . . 

Trump is Hoping His Base Is Too Stupid to Notice

Donald Trump is perhaps the biggest and most consistent liar to ever haunt the halls of the White House.  His entire career has been built on lies and skirting the law wherever possible with a large measure of bullying opponents and those to whom he owes money thrown in for good measure.  That his supporters ever believed a word that he said is, in my view, either an indictment of their intelligence or their willingness to vote for a man who called on them to give in to their racism and ugliest prejudices. Now, with the stock market tanking in large part due to his uncontrolled big mouth and petty grievances, the national debt ballooning, and demographic change continuing across America, Trump is once again trying to stoke the fires of racism and blaming everyone other than himself and failed Republican policies for the nation's circumstances.  Much like during the 2016 presidential election, Trump is hoping the members of his base are too stupid to realize that they are being conned yet again.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

You can tell what President Trump is afraid of by what he chooses to lie about. That means he must be petrified of losing support over his failure to build a single mile of the “big, beautiful” border wall he promised.

Trump is scared of a lot of things — special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, honest reporting by the news media, adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and, reportedly, sharks. But nothing seems to make him quake and tremble more than the fear that his core base will realize all his tough-guy huffing and puffing about Latino immigration was a bunch of hot air.

On Easter morning, . . . . . Trump was dishonestly tweeting in a frantic attempt to look strong and uncompromising. His first tweet ended with this bleat: “ ‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”

Trump was apparently referring to a Fox News story — I know, you’re shocked — about a “caravan” of 1,200 would-be immigrants who say they are coming north through Mexico to enter the United States; they were last seen traveling on foot 900 miles south of the border, meaning the “threat” is less than imminent. The reference to the nuclear option is yet another call for the Senate to eliminate its filibuster rule, . . . finally, Trump appeared to rule out any agreement on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — which he canceled — allowing undocumented immigrants brought here as children to stay.

First thing Monday morning, Trump was at it again. A 7:02 a.m. tweet blamed Mexico for allowing “these large ‘Caravans’ of people” to enter Mexico, which made no sense. A second attacked Congress and claimed that “our country is being stolen!” 

Why such a frenzy of untruth? Because Trump apparently sees anger building among his most fervent supporters over his utter failure to deliver on what they understood as his central campaign promise: to halt or reverse the flow of Latino immigration and the “browning” of America.

That’s what this is really about. On the emotional level, Trump appealed to white Anglo chauvinism. He skillfully stoked the anger and resentment of those who are annoyed when they phone the electric company to straighten out a bill and are told to press 1 for English, press 2 for Spanish. When he writes things like “our country is being stolen,” it’s crystal-clear who’s supposed to be stealing it.

What I didn’t realize during the campaign was that Trump’s base realized he could never fulfill his absurd pledge to deport all of the estimated 11 million people who are here without papers. But his supporters did expect him to do something to stem what they see as an invasion — something concrete and unambiguous. Like the promised wall.

But the . . . . man who fancies himself a master builder, has been unable to even begin construction of a new border wall. And some of the most vocal anti-immigration commentators — with influence among Trump’s base — have been getting restless.

I don’t know how to break this to you, folks, but Trump’s wall promise was no more serious than anything else that comes out of his mouth. His antipathy toward Latinos and non-whites is genuine, I trust, but his ability to follow through is pure counterfeit. With all of his heart, he hopes you’re too stupid to notice.

Trump May Crash the Farm Economy

If there is any silver lining - or perhaps, irony is the better description - to the Trump/Pence regime, it is watching those who voted against their own economic interest to embrace Trump's overt calls to racism see the consequences of their ugly motivations begin to rain down on them.  Rural America - along with the Christofascists - put Trump in the White House.  Now, his policies are poised to wreak huge economic damage on these very same rural areas.  One state likely to be hard hit is Iowa - a state with a history of being progressive that sadly seemingly embraced Trump's racism and bigotry.  A column in the New York Times by an Iowa news director looks at what Trump may well do to that state's economy and the majority of farm families who voted for him.  If there is a god, they deserve to suffer for their betrayal of decency.  Here are column highlights:

Donald Trump won over 60 percent of the 2016 vote in rural Iowa, where I live, and I haven’t heard much concern from Republicans over [Trump's] the president’s alleged infidelities with a porn actress, his ties to Russia or Jared Kushner’s real estate shenanigans.

Or, for that matter, much concern about the administration scandals about wife beaters, Saudi princes, Ben Carson’s table or Scott Pruitt’s soundproof room. Many people don’t even know these scandals exist — they generally don’t lead in Sean Hannity’s or Tucker Carlson’s world. . . . there is a little rumbling about the increased deficit, but not much.

But people here — Republicans and Democrats alike — are paying great attention to what President Trump is doing economically, especially since he started in on tariffs. We have a strong manufacturing base in our county; when tariffs on aluminum and steel were announced, local manufacturing leaders tried to be diplomatic, praising the Trump tax cuts but saying the steel and aluminum tariffs would hurt their businesses by driving costs up.

One smaller manufacturer — a Trump voter — told me that his costs to produce his product nearly doubled overnight, and that his business has already been hurt by the tariffs. Prices didn’t rise only after the tariffs were announced; they started rising when Mr. Trump floated the idea.

But it’s the farm economy that rural Iowans are paying particular attention to. When [Trump] the president first proposed a 20 percent import tax on Mexico to pay for his wall, Iowans objected: Mexico is our second-largest export partner after Canada.

Mr. Trump has waffled on the renewable fuel standard before — ethanol is big around here — and Iowa’s entire congressional delegation and the governor’s office pressured him to renew it. We know he will waffle again, and potentially end it.

Most recently, when Mr. Trump imposed $60 billion in tariffs and sanctions against China, the Iowa Soybean Association said his action “poses an immediate and grave threat to their industry and Iowa agriculture.”

China has already responded with its own tariff on pork, which will have a dire impact on Iowa. Iowa is the nation’s largest pork producer, producing three times as much pork as the next-highest state.

A couple of banker friends who work with farmers every day told me last week that with commodity prices down and the tariffs imposed, approximately 10 percent of our farmers probably won’t make it this year, and 10 percent more will likely fail next year.

Even Representative Steve King, the avid Trump supporter and Iowan every liberal loves to hate, is worried about a new farm crisis.

Dairy farmers are particularly hard hit, suffering through four years of declining prices. It’s gotten so bad, dairy farming organizations are giving out suicide hotline numbers, as farmers are committing suicide in the hope that their insurance will save the family farm.

I’m focusing on the area I know, rural Iowa, but if [Trump] the president stays on course with the tariffs, the impacts will hit many rural areas all over America, what I call Trumplandia.

“It gives Democrats a generational opportunity to do the political work with farmers they haven’t done since the 1980s farm crisis,” said Matt Russell, a rural sociologist and farmer in Iowa. “Democrats do farm policy really well but are terrible at farm politics. Republicans do farm politics really well but have a history of doing terrible farm policy.”

Harvest will be coming in when members of Congress, in recess, return to Iowa to campaign. They will be getting earfuls from rural constituents about the economic impacts of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

The president’s position is actually quite precarious. He’s already at a historic low approval rating. With the multiple scandals, rampant corruption and the Mueller investigation, the only thing keeping him near 40 percent approval — and most important, approval among most Republicans — is a strong economy. That, and Fox cheerleading. But if he tanks the rural economy, he and his legacy are in deep trouble.

Furthermore, if the rural economy turns sour, much of rural America will abandon Mr. Trump, and Fox may have no choice but to follow. . . . . They’ll believe that they have no choice, and it will be swift and ruthless.

Again, I hope these folks reap what they sowed and that they turn on Trump like a pack of wild dogs. 

Will Trump Drive Mexico into China's Waiting Arms?

While Donald Trump, a/k/a Der  Trumpenführer certainly deserved the title "liar-in-chief" for the reasons set out in a prior post, he also deserves the title "idiot-in-chief" since he knows so little about so many things and continually engages in knee jerk reactions based on his own prejudices o what he believes will play best with his white trash/white supremacist/evangelical Christian base. True facts and considered consequences bear little relation to Trump's blow hard, ignorance embracing persona.  One prime example is Trump's mindless blathering about ending NFTA with apparently no thought to the fact that ending the NAFTA treaty would bring higher cost to American consumers or, worse drive Mexico into the waiting arms of China.  Anyone sentient (which excludes Trump) would realize that spurring ties between Mexico and China is anything but in America's beat interests.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at Trump's Brutus and ignorance-filled anti-Mexico machismo and  its likely unintended consequences.  Here are excerpts:

This week, while his country is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was in China to pursue his country’s Plan B. Rumblings of a free-trade deal between the two nations have grown since President Trump took office this year, but they’ve mostly been seen as political posturing. But with Trump threatening regularly to dump the deal—even taking time last Sunday, during Hurricane Harvey, to say he “may have to terminate” NAFTA—the possibility of Mexico opening up to China seems ever more real.

NAFTA’s collapse would likely put the U.S. and Mexico on unstable ground, but economists say they doubt it would devastate either country in the short term. Without NAFTA, trade between Mexico and the U.S. would fall back on World Trade Organization(WTO) tariff standards. Signatories to the pact have agreed to “bound rates” for tariffs, which establish a ceiling. These rates differ by industry, but items like agricultural products can have high limits. NAFTA changed the way the U.S. eats, and without NAFTA, consumers stand to lose their perennially fresh and cheap vegetables. But the sector that stand to lose the most is auto manufacturing, because U.S. companies have invested heavily on being able to send car parts to Mexico, assemble them there, then bring them to the U.S. to be sold. The WTO tariffs for the auto sector are much higher than for most other industries, so not only would consumers have to pay more for cars, but it would likely disrupt the current chain of manufacturing.

Trump has threatened to raise tariffs to 35 percent in order to push companies to build products in the U.S., but this is unlikely because it could spark a trade war. So if NAFTA did end, it’s trade would likely continue at WTO tariff rates, making many products from Mexico more expensive, but leaving intact the flow of trade.

That’s not to say Mexico isn’t concerned about losing NAFTA, or that it isn’t looking for more trading partners. Mexico sends about 75 percent of its exports to the U.S., which comes to about $290 billion. By way of comparison, Canada is its second-largest export market at $23 billion, and China its third at $7 billion.

“It is a very fashionable discussion in Mexico that we should diversify trade since we are having problems with the United States, or more specifically with Trump,” Enrique Dussel Peters, an economics professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told me. “And China has become the most fashionable to talk about.”

China and Mexico increased trade from $4.9 billion in 2015 to $5.4 billion in 2016. The Chinese market is opening up to products like tequila, beer, plantains, and avocados. But, Dussel points out, Mexico has been trying to redirect trade with Chin for years, but has not enjoyed the kind of success it has had with the U.S. through NAFTA.

Just as Trump uses Twitter to skewer policy and people he disagrees with, Peña Nieto, by courting China during the NAFTA renegotiations, is telling Trump he has his own recourse, the “China card.” This would have been considered too drastic in the past, but as Franklin Foer wrote in this magazine in May, “Unfortunately, Trump has elevated machismo to foreign-policy doctrine … .”

Trump is an idiot and the irony is that those who voted for him are the ones most likely to suffer from the coats that hie bigotry based policies will bring about.  Meanwhile, he is driving Mexico into the waiting arms of China which would love nothing better that to become the premier trade partner to China, America's growing economic rival. higher 

Will Trump's Wall Lunacy At Last Cause Republicans to Hit Back?

Among Der Trumpenführer's racist, ignorance embracing base, building a physical wall along the U.S.- Mexico border is of top importance for several reasons, not the least of which is that such a wall would be a tangible monument to their hatred of brown skinned people. To reverse Robin Hood Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who prize tax breaks to the wealthy above all else, Trump's demand for a anti-Mexico means little or nothing other than to the extent they like to throw some occasional bones to the most lunatic elements of the party base.   The question of the hour after Trump's unhinged rant in Phoenix is whether or not Trump is truly willing to force a government shit down over his demands for an anti-Mexico wall. If a government shutdown occurs that can be clearly blamed on Trump and/or Republicans and it will be tantamount to handing every statewide office in Virginia to the Democrats.  Between all of the federal workers in Northern Virginia and the military personnel in Hampton Roads who would find themselves with no income, the vengeance that would fall on the GOP would be enormous,.  A piece in Slate looks at whether Congressional Republicans are on the verge of drop kicking Trump.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump, having secured no “wall money” in the last Congressional funding fight in April, vowed to try again before federal appropriations expire at the end of September. At his Phoenix rally on Tuesday night, the president promised the crowd that, even “if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.” As if a lapse in appropriations automatically converts into wall funding, as opposed to a tedious federal standoff that damages the unified governing party.

The reaction on the Hill to Trump’s threat has been a chorus of bless his heart. [For non-Southerner's, "bless his heart" is a kin to saying he can go f*ck himself or he's totally crazy] Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, recognizing that the wall is not a priority outside of Trump’s base, are comfortable with their leverage. “If the President pursues this path, against the wishes of both Republicans and Democrats, as well as the majority of the American people,” Schumer said in a terse statement, “he will be heading towards a government shutdown which nobody will like and which won’t accomplish anything.”

Senate and House Republicans claim that they’re trying to help Trump get his wall money, but they’re hesitant to commit to how far they’re willing to go.

When asked for his response Wednesday to Trump’s threat, our techno-pumping, wall-loving, bad-ass House speaker said that “I don't think a government shutdown is necessary and I don't think most people want to see a government shutdown, ourselves included.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said Wednesday that he viewed Trump’s threat as him “laying down the tough line,” i.e. a negotiation tactic. “Obviously, we need to get the border secured, and we’ve come up with a plan to do that. And we need to pass that legislation, I think, and then we can go back and appropriate the money to complete the bill on the incremental basis.” Translation: There is not much appetite within the Senate Republican caucus for shutting down the government over the wall.

[B]oth Hill Democrats and Hill Republicans seem to think that a government shutdown over the wall would fare poorly for Hill Republicans. Worsening Republicans’ conundrum, the shutdown will be extra bad when Trump tells his base to blame the mess on the GOP Congress . It’s almost like Republican lawmakers just can’t win with this guy in office.

The real discussions between Democrats and Republicans, once Congress returns after Labor Day, will be about finding some compromise that allows Trump to save face and Democrats to declare victory. That could mean funding certain Democratic policy priorities, like the Affordable Care Act’s cost-sharing reduction payments, while giving the president additional funds for replacement fencing or other border security technology. If Trump demands a concrete wall, it is hard to see Democrats agreeing to it or Republicans going to bat for it.

If Trump’s ultimatum is that it’s either a wall or shutdown, we could see the standoff end with the first major legislative break—i.e., not just the occasional Twitter bickering—between congressional Republicans and the president. Given the president’s tendency to hold a grudge, such a break could set the tone for the rest of his term.

House and Senate Republican leaders, recognizing that a shutdown could be punishing for their majorities, might decide to send Trump a bipartisan bill to the president’s desk that dodges hot-button issues altogether. That would put ownership of a prolonged shutdown squarely on the president’s shoulders if he chose to veto it.

Mexico’s Revenge on Trump - and His Supporters

While Donald Trump's attacks on Hispanics and non-whites in general has played well with the most most ignorant - evangelical Christians are the least educated of any religious group in America - and racist/xenophobic elements of his base, the economic results could prove catastrophic if Mexico decides to exact revenge against Trump's America.  Already, talk of Mexico shifting its agricultural purchases to Argentina and Brazil has Mid-West farmers sweating bullets at the prospect of severe economic and financial damage.  Indeed, the repeal of NAFTA, one of Trump's favorite whipping boys, does not play well in these farming states. But Mexico's revenge could prove even more damaging.  In addition to Mexican intelligence services ending their cooperation with their American counterparts - something that could increase illegal immigration into America - Mexico could tilt toward China as its new found favorite trading partner.  Needless to say, the ignorant, loud mouthed, bullying, narcissist in the White House has never thought of these types of  consequences.  A long piece in The Atlantic looks at the Mexican revenge Trump may be setting into motion. Here are highlights:

When donald trump first made sport of thumping Mexico—when he accused America’s neighbor of exporting rapists and “bad hombres,” when he deemed the country such a threat that it should be contained by a wall and so clueless that it could be suckered into paying for its own encasement—its president responded with strange equilibrium. 

Since then, the Mexican political elite has begun to ponder retaliatory measures that would reassert the country’s dignity, and perhaps even cause the Trump administration to reverse its hostile course. With a presidential election in just over a year—and Peña Nieto prevented by term limits from running again—vehement responses to Trump are considered an electoral necessity. Memos outlining policies that could wound the United States have begun flying around Mexico City. These show that Trump has committed the bully’s error of underestimating the target of his gibes. As it turns out, Mexico could hurt the United States very badly.

The Mexico–U.S. border is long, but the history of close cooperation across it is short. As recently as the 1980s, the countries barely contained their feelings of mutual contempt. Mexico didn’t care for the United States’ anticommunist policy in Central America, especially its support of Nicaraguan rebels. In 1983, President Miguel de la Madrid obliquely warned the Reagan administration against “shows of force which threaten to touch off a conflagration.” 

The grandiose promise of trade is that it binds countries together, breeding peace and cooperation. This is a risible overstatement when applied generally to the world. But in the case of the countries separated by the Rio Grande, it has proved wondrously true. A generation after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States and Mexico couldn’t be more interdependent. Anti-Americanism, once a staple of Mexican politics, has largely faded. The flow of migrants from Mexico to the U.S. has, more or less, abated. Economic ties have fostered greater intimacy between intelligence services and security agencies, which are today deeply enmeshed in each other’s business. 

But the Trump administration has come dangerously close to trashing the relationship—and, in the process, unleashing a terrifying new reality.

The Chinese invested heavily in places like Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela, discreetly flexing soft power as they funded new roads, refineries, and railways. From 2000 to 2013, China’s bilateral trade with Latin America increased by 2,300 percent, according to one calculation. A raft of recently inked deals forms the architecture for China to double its annual trade with the region, to $500 billion, by the middle of the next decade. Mexico, however, has remained a grand exception to this grand strategy. 

Mexico also happens to be the one spot in Latin America where the United States would respond with alarm to a heavy Chinese presence.

That sort of alarm is just the thing some Mexicans would now like to provoke. What Mexican analysts have called the “China card”—a threat to align with America’s greatest competitor—is an extreme retaliatory option. Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda told me he considers it an implausible expression of “machismo.” Unfortunately, Trump has elevated machismo to foreign-policy doctrine . . . And while a tighter Chinese–Mexican relationship would fly in the face of recent economic history, Trump may have already set it in motion.

The painful early days of the Trump administration have reminded Mexico of a core economic weakness: The country depends far too heavily on the American market. “Mexico is realizing that it has been overexposed to the U.S., and it’s now trying to hedge its bets,” says Kevin Gallagher, an economist at Boston University who specializes in Latin America. “Any country where 80 percent of exports go to the U.S., it’s a danger.” . . . . The presence of Trump, with his brusque talk of tariffs and promises of economic nationalism, makes that an urgent task.

Until recently, a Mexican–Chinese rapprochement would have been unthinkable. . . . . But China has played the long game, and its patience has proved farsighted. The reason so many Chinese are ascending to the middle class is that wages have tripled over the past decade. The average hourly wage in Chinese manufacturing is now $3.60. Over that same period of time, hourly manufacturing wages in Mexico have fallen to $2.10. Even taking into account the extraordinary productivity of Chinese factories—not to mention the expense that comes with Mexico’s far greater fidelity to the rules of international trade—Mexico increasingly looks like a sensible place for Chinese firms to set up shop, particularly given its proximity to China’s biggest export market.

Let’s pause to consider the illogic. Trump says that China is a grave threat, both militarily and economically. He has accused China of “rap[ing] our country.” That’s not the way most analysts would put it, but a fairly broad bipartisan consensus holds that China’s expansionism should be contained and its mercantilism checked. Barack Obama’s vaunted “pivot” to Asia tried to keep China’s neighbors from succumbing to its gravitational pull. Thanks to Donald Trump, China is now better positioned to execute the most difficult maneuver in its own, North American pivot—pushing the U.S. and Mexico further apart.

What seems more likely is that relations between the security agencies will slowly decay, as trust between the two countries evaporates and warm feelings give way to tensions.

Trump’s rush toward hard-line immigration policies could yield a grim bonanza of other unintended consequences. Mass deportations of Mexicans could uproot hundreds of thousands and deposit them on the other side of the border, forcing their reintegration into lives they left, many of them long ago. Perhaps the Mexican economy, the 15th-largest in the world, has the capacity to absorb these refugees from Trump’s America. But it’s equally easy to imagine a scenario in which they inundate the labor market. And even that possibility doesn’t begin to capture the likely economic costs of deportation. The Mexican economy would be deprived of the remittances that immigrants send back to their relatives. It’s hard to speak hyperbolically about the importance of these transfers—in 2016, Mexican Americans sent $27 billion back to their Mexican families, more than the value of the crude petroleum Mexico exports annually. 

[W]ith Trump’s angry talk and the Mexican resentment it stirs, the best hope for the persistence of this improved relationship is inertia—the interlocking supply chain that crosses the border and won’t easily pull apart, the agricultural exports that flow in both directions, all the bureaucratic cooperation. Unwinding this relationship would be ugly and painful, a strategic blunder of the highest order, a gift to America’s enemies, a gaping vulnerability for the homeland that Donald Trump professes to protect, a very messy divorce.

The perverse part of me would love to see Mexico shift its agricultural product purchases from Mid-West sources.  The cretins in these states who put Trump in office deserve to suffer greatly.  As for the rise of China-Mexico relations, if it happens, it will be the fault of Der Trumpenführer.