Keywords
or Terms: US Congress; President Barack Obama; Tea Party; Progressive
Republicans; ‘President Donald Trump’; ‘President Hillary Clinton’; NAFTA, TPP;
US, Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore,
Canada, Mexico, and Brunei Darussalam
The Republican Party has been
going through transformation and change prior to the entry of Donald Trump into
the 2016 White House race. During the 2012 campaign for the White House oval
office, Donald Trump led a revolt of the birthers movement within the party,
with tacit approval of establishment Republican Party. During the early years
of President Obama’s Second term, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and some
far-right Republicans, were all in the same boat, coho-bating to undermine the
legitimacy of Obama’s presidency, using unsavory language and lying about his
religion, patriotism and the veracity of his first term accomplishments; challenging
and chastising President Obama for not being a natural born citizen or a team
player with US Congress; assertions contrary to well known facts and realm of
reality. A number of progressive Republicans discountenanced these rabble-risers
and hateful movement; and, imagined the group would go away with time.
Unfortunately, the Tea Party group did not go away, they multiplied in number;
and fast forward to 2016 race for the White House oval office, they
metamorphosed into what is now probably a national movement, desiring a
complete change in the structure and foundation of the Republican Party; and,
working relentlessly to see that their candidate of choice, Donald Trump,
become the next President of the United States.
Karma has a way of catching up
with the unsuspecting and untethering; it is an accelerant of change to the
unknown, unperceived, unsuspected and unexpected. Politics of hate involves
three important adjectives: coltishness, ignorance and misinformation. But
there are silos in the Republican party that perpetuate a belief that the
average White Anglo-Saxon is disadvantaged by the growing demography of
minorities in the American population; and unless, something is done to the
issue of immigration, albeit the war on Mexican-Americans from the doyen of the
Tea Party group in the race for 2016 White House, at least from Republicans,
the loss of employment, loss of most favorable status in negotiated international
trade, loss in grounds of war against terrorists and terrorism; loss of edge in
international influence, once unperceived of active pro-interventionist foreign
policy; and, the perceived declining middle income lifestyle or status of
majority Americans, will continue to be a reality of America's democracy and probably an unending dilemma for Americans. While it might be un-comforting to the once privileged losing grounds on luxuries and largess of the purported American dream, the redemption of having a candidate that appears to speak for
many male Anglo-Saxons, who believe they are being disenfranchised from trade
deals like the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement (TPP), may not be out of place.
Thus, the need to bring along or support a candidate that will claim the long
standing old glory, is all the more welcoming in the race for the White House in 2016.
No more of the feverish
categorization of Donald Trump as amoral, braggadocios, arrogant buffoon from
Ted Cruz, his arch rival for nomination. The reality of the Hoosier State primary
results show that Mr. Trump actually has a path to the Republican party
nomination, as he acquires fifty-seven delegates from today’s contest, leaving him
with less than 200 delegates to clinch the Republican golden prize. The larger
historical tragedy of time, is the unsubstantiated claim that Rafael Cruz, the
father of Ted Cruz, appeared in a 1963 photograph with President J.F. Kennedy’s
assassin. The un-bashful, sometimes distasteful nationalist, with a say whatever
you please campaign strategy, is winning big in many states, day in day out,
even with all the back room dealing and cohering of his rivals, to deny him the
nomination. Now, Donald Trump has won six States in a row; he has won
comfortably in the North-East, dominated in Mid Atlantic, South Atlantic, East
South Central and Mountain States and probably, as the contest moves West and
Mid-West, California, Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, North and South Dakota and
or New Jersey, he will remain triumphant.
Why is the doyen of the Tea Party
and probably, all rank and file of Republicans, whooping his rivals all around
the nation with some convenience of I told you so? As reported by Associated
Press, here is what a Bloomington software engineer said of Donald Trump while
casting his vote near an Indiana University prescient this morning: “He’s the
only candidate who is really going to change the system. Everyone else is in
bed with the Republican leadership,” Forget the diatribe of raining insults on
fellow Americans, degrading the female specie and undermining minority groups,
all these are inconsequential and probably worthy of the expected results of
voting the New York businessman into the White House. Thus, as GOP remaining
candidates round up their campaign in the Hoosier State and move their trucks to the next battle ground state, with an uncharacteristic deflation that their campaign messages have gone largely ignored in the State of Indiana, it may be time
for the Republican establishment to realize that, the genie has been let out of
the bottle; and no one can stop the front-runner of their party, among the remaining contestants. Donald Trump
is the eventual nominee of the Republican Party; and, there is unlikely going
to be a negotiated conference. So what is plan B?
Let’s begin with the issue of
illegal immigration and trade agreements or pacts? The focus here on the first
issue is the number of undocumented immigrants that Mr. Trump has vowed to
depot and the huge wall, he is promising to build in the Southern border with
Mexico. The unfulfilled promise of NAFTA and or TPP, is a disaffection that is
driving the hate from the male white Anglo-Saxons who are voting for Trump in
droves and who believe the system needs a shake-up from the bottom up, and the
only one who can accomplish this is an outsider to the system. Could the
deportation of the twelve million undocumented immigrants change the landscape
of the nation and bring back jobs to those who are aggrieved by the current
status quo? Because internationally negotiated agreements cannot easily be
renegotiated without consequential repercussions, Republicans may want to look
at the direction of their probable next leader, and see how best to work with
him without throwing the baby away with the bathtub. How about realigning the
focus of negotiated trade policies, including TPP, NAFTA and any with China,
that have been criticized for disadvantaging America and putting the nation in
the arms way of huge trade deficits and lopsided foreign reserve? How about
revisiting allegation that China and some other trade partners are meddling
with the valuation of their currency to put the nation at a trade disadvantage?
Renegotiation of trade pacts with
foreign nations, Europe and Far East Asia, is fraught with problems. What any
international economist will tell you is this: there are parameters for
negotiation of international trade and pacts or agreements, and some of these
parameters are not just conjured or mandated under political whimsical
anticipation or preferences. “President Donald Trump’s” rectification campaign
can only go so far, before foreign economies or nations begin to retaliate. The
perceived economic decline in some sectors of American economy, appearing to
have impacting American jobs and employment, are attributed to other
international pricing and marketing variables that hardly yield to political
machination or inferno as contemplated by the Republican front runner. Contrary
to Donald Trump’s and his proponents’ conventional wisdom, there is hardly much
evidence that NAFTA, TPP and some other negotiated trade agreements with Far
East Asia and European countries, have adversely disadvantaged America’s
Economy to an extent that unless a renegotiated agreement or, a junking of
existing agreement is followed, America’s Economy is doomed or in complete
jeopardy. The contention of some of us, who sees the glass as half full rather
than half empty, is that trade agreements as NAFTA, TPP and others, build
better business communities across the globe and prevent factors that may deny
the entry of America’s products into new world’s markets. It is our fervent
conviction that America’s Economy, despite its few shortcomings, is still the
anchor on which the world’s economy hitches or stands.
The other bemoaning explanations
for slow growth in some areas of America’s Economy and probable declining
employment opportunities for American nationals, which have been lodged against
provisions of trade pacts as NAFTA and TPP, including the ever so talked about,
excessive number of undocumented immigrants among us, as construed to deserve
urgent radical and immediate actions by Mr. Trump’s campaign, because of their consequential
impact on trade deficits, unemployment rate and possibly, a growing number of
cross-border crimes, have now degenerated to xenophobic behavior, riotous dispensations
at Republican party front-runner’s campaign venues, with elements of distasteful
utterances bordering on, pseudo nationalistic and segregationist fervor;
behaviors and choices that should be called out as, essentially wrongheaded.
However, if this is the choice of the new Republican Party, one may now call on
the retooling of existing economic policies to ensure they work, the way they
were intended, when US Congress passed them, if Mr. Trump ends up being the 45th
President of the United States.
Unemployment rate across the
globe has been declining since the last World’s recession, and if you survey
global unemployment statistics, it appears America is doing far much better than
the whole of Europe and many parts of the world. March, 2016 figures show a
4.9% US unemployment rate as against 8.8% in the European Union. The campaign
comments from Donald Trump to an interview on “Fox and Friends” this morning that,
“[his supporters] are smart people, and they haven’t been taken care of
properly by the government,” is close to political pandering, an apoplectic grandstanding, if not misrepresentation of the purpose of governance or what a
responsible government is expected to do. Governments are not strictly designed
to take care of people; the notion that government is about taking care of
people appears to be the reason for our ballooned national deficits: the
growing number of government benefit or welfare programs! Saying that in a
contested campaign environment in the Hoosier state may seem wise for an
aspirant seeking votes from constituents in a heated campaign environment;
however, in a general election, that statement to ‘Fox and Friends’, is coming
back to hunt and hurt candidate Donald Trump.
Quizzically, to specify that
Donald Trump has not been clearer about his foreign policy, as advanced by his
Republican nomination rivals, maybe an overstretch. The challenges presented by
his foreign policy speech isn’t the fact that statements made are not clear;
rather, that those advancements of his, have been lampooned by seasoned foreign
policy experts, as well as, at least two chambers of European Counties’ congresses
that are America’s allies. Foreign policies are not made in a vacuum. Between
the gun trotting foreign policy diplomacy of the last Republican Administration
and the tepid diplomatic hands-off, but deliberate and effective policy of
undermining and destroying America’s enemies, using our advancements in war
technologies and forming coalition of supporting nations to fight international
and foreign terrorists by the Obama’s Administration, the average American
voter has been given the opportunity to make a choice: decide to return to a
foreign policy riddled with mistakes as advanced by the Bush Administration in
Iraq and Afghanistan, or subscribe to an engagement and core strategic policies
that balance the interests of the nation, vis-à-vis, those of our allies,
friends and collaborators in international arena, to achieve the same purpose. It
is an opportunity to weigh a doctrine of might is right, isolation is effective
and engaging in endless war, including bearing excessive costs of wars in blood
and sweats are acceptable; as against, charting a new direction of active
engagement of friends and foes; and, weighing risks of foreign policy
alternatives that meet the needs of America’s core values.
At variance with well-thought out
conception of foreign and international relations, Donald Trump’s advanced
foreign policy falls into the negative arena of international trade policy,
with staunch denunciation or antagonism of the Trans Pacific Partnership
Agreement (TPP). His advancement has the likelihood of leading the nation to
broken alliances and disruptions of economic activities here and in partnering
nations, including very important aspects of supply chain activities, that
supports the free flow of goods and services across the globe and in some case,
particular trading zones where America’s interest is largely paramount. Trump’s
antagonism of trade pacts has the potential of escalating trade wars and
grievous retaliation from other nations which may have been in agreement on
some of the past negotiated pacts. His perception of TPP, isolation
doctrinaire, may alert prior inactive tariffs as an option for trading
partners. Intolerance of negotiated trades would lead to co-option by other competitive
economic market zones, principally, European and Far-East Asian markets. The
isolation or pseudo-isolation doctrinaire is likely to bring to power,
competitive conservative governments, who will seek to protect their national
interest at all cost, due to new developments from America under ‘President
Trump.’ Instead of expanding trade, Trump’s foreign trade policy is more likely
going to worsen America’s economic situation and threat of substantial increasing
unemployment rate. Some neo-nationalistic policymakers, subscribing to Trump’s
foreign policy proposal will find themselves grappling with massive changes to
bilateral relations that will arise from the isolation doctrinaire of the new ‘President
Trump’.
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| Photograph of ruined Church, France John McGill Collection Veterans History Project WWI AFC2001/001/84785. Source: Library of Congress Digital Collection . |
Finally, for Republicans who are
pro-trade, it may be wise to take Donald Trump to the wood shed and have very
serious discussions before the open convention and let him realize there is
much to talking trade and talking embargoes or reneging on contracts and
agreements with other nations. For now, the unique reprieve for Republicans,
who default on the side of their potential party’s flag bearer regarding the Trans-Pacific
Partnership Agreement (TPP) is the fact that his November rival has an equally
malleable and undefined stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
Isolation in foreign trade and
policies serve no one. The soloist doctrine worsens more than relations with
partners, it generates unnecessary consequential developments that have a way
of rippling and rocketing to other areas of foreign relations. Given the three
handicaps of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), restrictive
intellectual property rights, non-transparency, and absence of privacy and due
process, it still behooves signatories to such agreement, the US, Japan,
Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada,
Mexico, and Brunei Darussalam, to uphold their end of the bargain. The
substantial reduction in trade activities arising from trade isolation from reneging
on exiting contacts and agreements, tends to prevent diversification and
creative innovations. The efficacy of
the TPP under a ‘President Trump’ or ‘President Clinton’ may be at a clandestine
stage with possible disseverment of some of the contents of the agreement. One
can only speculate about what is likely to happen to the pact in the next White
House Administration, Republican or Democrat, given the new oppositions to some
of the tenets of the agreement. However, to seek to abrogate the whole pact,
immediately President Trump or Clinton comes to power, is likely going to have
a dastardly or ripple effect on the markets and trade negotiations with America
in the future. Mind you, no one is arguing that the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement (TPP) is a perfect agreement; however, a nation has the obligation to
live up to her words during the duration of an agreement or as the agreement
stands.
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