Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Wall Street Kingpin Lays a Grand Strategy Egg

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America First, China, climate change, ESG, fossil fuels, globalism, globalization, Immigration, industrial policy, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, productivity, supply chains, The Wall Street Journal, Ukraine War, Wall Street, woke capitalism

In several senses, it’s not entirely surprising that The Wall Street Journal recently allowed Jamie Dimon to share his thoughts on the domestic and especially global grand strategies the United States should pursue in the post-Ukraine War world.

After all, Dimon heads JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest and most important bank. As a result, he clearly needs to know a lot about the U.S. economy. And as Wall Street’s biggest poohbah, he surely must know a lot about the state of the world overall – in particular since he’s had extensive contacts with the heads of state, senior officials, and business leaders of many countries.

What is somewhat surprising, then, is how little of Dimon’s analysis and advice is new or even interesting, and how much of it could well put America ever further behind the eight-ball.

Dimon’s article wasn’t completely devoid of merit. Since he’s dabbled in some (symbolic) woke-ism himself, it was good to see him seemingly take a shot at what’s become mainstream liberal as well as radical lefty dogma by urging the education of “all Americans about the sacrifice of those who came before us for democracy at home and abroad.”

Given the strong support by the Biden administration and by some finance bigwigs for influential for encouraging and even requiring lenders to take climate change risks into account when extending credit, it was encouraging to read his pragmatic position that “Secure and reliable oil and gas production is compatible with reducing CO2 over the long run, and is far better than burning more coal.”

Dimon showed that, unlike many on Wall Street, he supports some forms of industrial policy to make sure that “we don’t rely on potential adversaries for critical goods and services.”

And he endorsed the larger point that the neoliberal globalization-based triumphalism that undergirded the policies of globalist pre-Trump Presidents needs to be buried for good:

“America and the West can no longer maintain a false sense of security based on the illusion that dictatorships and oppressive nations won’t use their economic and military powers to advance their aims—particularly against what they perceive as weak, incompetent and disorganized Western democracies. In a troubled world, we are reminded that national security is and always will be paramount, even if it seems to recede in tranquil times.”

But on most of the biggest issues and just about all specifics, Dimon either punted or retreated into the same globalist territory that proved as profitable for Big Finance as it was too often dangerously naive for the nation as a whole.

For example, he wants Washington to “fix the immigration policies that are tearing us apart, dramatically reducing illegal immigration and dramatically increasing legal immigration.” Completely ignored is the depressing impact the latter would have on wages that have already been falling recently in inflation-adjusted terms, and on desperately needed productivity growth – as a bigger supply of cheap labor is bound to kill many incentives for businesses to improve their efficiency by innovating technology-wise or devising better management approaches.

And on China, Dimon’s clearly determined to talk his company’s book, insisting that “We should acknowledge that we have common interests in combating nuclear proliferation, climate change and terrorism.” and blithely predicting that “Tough but thoughtful negotiations over strategic, military and economic concerns—including unfair competition—should yield a better situation for all.”

But most important, Dimon fully endorses the foundations of the very globalist strategy that for decades perversely ignored the distinctive and paramount advantages the United States brings to world affairs and has thereby created many of the dangers and vulnerabilities with which the nation has been struggling.

The way Dimon seems to see it, there’s no reason to pay any attention to the extraordinary degree of security the America enjoys merely by virtue of its geographic isolation and powerful military; or to its extraordinary degree of economic self-sufficiency thanks to its immense and diverse natural resource base, its technological prowess, and its dynamic free market-dominated economic system. And evidently, it’s just as pointless to concentrate foreign and economic policy on the nation’s equally formidable potential to build on these advantages.

Instead, like other globalists, Dimon flatly rejects the idea that “America can stand alone,” or should seek to maximize its ability to do so. Instead, it should keep defining nothing less than “global peace and order” as “a vital American interest” – the standard globalist recipe for yoking the country’s fate to an agenda of more open-ended military interventions, more hastily approved and usually wasteful foreign aid, and more nation-building in areas lacking any ingredients of nation-hood.

Asa result, it would anchor America’s safety and prosperity on efforts to shape foreign conditions (over which is has relatively little control), rather than on efforts to shape domestic conditions (over which is has much more control). (For a much fuller description of this America First strategy and its differences with globalism, see this 2018 article.) 

In fact, and revealingly, Dimon’s piece was titled “The West Needs America’s Leadership.” If only he and other globalists would start thinking seriously about what America really needs. 

(Full disclosure:  I own several JPMorgan bond and preferred stock issues.)    

 

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(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Now Biden’s Gone America First on the World Trade Organization

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America First, Biden administration, GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, globalism, international law, national security, sovereignty, Trade, Trump administration, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

If someone told you that the U.S. government has outsourced to an international organization the legal authority to decide when American national security is endangered – and inevitably how it can respond – you’d probably think they were pretty out there, or shamelessly lying.

Except that’s exactly what happened in 1947, when globalist U.S. leaders agreed to the body of rules aimed at governing international trade in the post-World War II world, and what remained the case for decades afterward. And although last week, the Biden administration moved decisively to restore sanity to U.S. trade policy in this respect, it didn’t make the complete policy about face that’s still needed.

Since protecting a country’s security is by far the Number One responsibility of any national government, such governments need to be the supreme deciders of how to carry out this mission on an ongoing basis. Further, the legitimacy of this authority logically goes double when democratic national governments like the United States’ are concerned. Why should any other power or organization hold any ability to veto or even influence choices made by the American people’s duly elected representatives to ensure their system’s safety, much less survival? Indeed, on what valid basis could such an ability actually exist? The kindness of strangers? Their superior wisdom?

These maxims are so self-evident (as America’s Declaration of Independence might put it), that even the main body of international law (a system not known for its pragmatism) recognizes them as fundamental attributes of a country’s sovereignty – its bedrock right to take whatever steps it considers needed to keep itself in existence. And how can this security be maintained if its leaders lack the unfettered ability to figure out when threats are present and what they consist of, and if they constantly need to be worrying about is whether the policies they choose pass international muster or not?

But the crucial importance of national sovereignty wasn’t so self-evident to American leaders in World War II’s aftermath. For in the bylaws of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – the global trade regime that was turned into the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the beginning of 1995 – they agreed to an article that safeguarded a member state’s right to take “any action [to restrict trade] which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests.” Crucially, however, this same Article XXI then proceeded to set out three criteria that such actions needed to meet in order to pass the legality test – including the specification that trade restrictions take place “in time of war or other emergency in international relations.”

These U.S. leaders might have had some decent excuses. First, this was an age when the United States bestrode the world like a titan. How could it be plausibly threatened by mere words on paper? Further, countries outside the Communist camp (none inside signed onto the new trade pact until the mid-1960s) were hardly likely to want to tie America’s military hands since most relied so heavily on U.S. protection.

Second, the GATT lacked effective procedures for enforcing its rules. And third, Washington has always assumed that the Article XXI’s reference to actions that members “consider necessary” means that the entire measure (including the insistence that trade restrictions are legal only in certain types of international conditions) is “self-judging” – i.e., that members’ have the final say over whether it can both define its security interests and the situations in which they can be invoked to override the GATT/WTO’s ban on trade curbs.

But however understandable the U.S. position might have been in 1947, dramatic changes in national and global circumstances over decades should have alerted Washington long ago that Article XXI was bound to cause trouble. Chiefly, America’s predominant global military and economic role inevitably eroded. Many of its allies became formidable economic competitors. The line between military goods and civilian goods – never completely clear – became thoroughly blurred as products incorporating “dual use” technologies proliferated. And the birth of the WTO gave the world trade system a much more effective enforcement system.

Here it’s important to be really specific. It’s not that the WTO can muster a police force, march into the District of Columbia, and compel U.S. officials to follow its dictates. The effectiveness of this dispute resolution system is based on its authority to permit countries claiming to be harmed by U.S. (or any members’) trade practices to respond with retaliatory tariffs – which can be strategically targeted on the kinds of domestic industries powerful enough to launch lobbying campaigns able to force their governments into compliance.

So it’s easy to see why many WTO members – most of which rely heavily on net exporting to the U.S. market to achieve satisfactory levels of growth and employment) would want to use Article XXI to undercut American sovereignty in order to gain advantages for their own industries – including allies who had learned that the United States would continue protecting them and tolerating their defense free-riding even after serious provocations.

Earlier this month, this gambit paid off in spades, as the WTO declared illegal the U.S. tariffs avowedly imposed on steel and aluminum imports for national security reasons by former President Trump in spring, 2018.

Fortunately, in reality, none of the plaintiff countries can legally counter-tariff these U.S. curbs – because that same former President Trump effectively neutered the WTO dispute-resolution system by leaving seats on its appeals panels empty and preventing that body from convening to handle any next legal steps. And to his credit, President Biden has declined to appoint replacements as well.

Also to its credit, though, his administration “strongly rejected” these WTO rulings, and declared that “The United States has held the clear and unequivocal position, for over 70 years, that issues of national security cannot be reviewed in WTO dispute settlement and the WTO has no authority to second-guess the ability of a WTO Member to respond to a wide-range of threats to its security….The United States will not cede decision-making over its essential security to WTO panels.”

Unfortunately, the Biden administration didn’t take this position when it should have – once these foreign suits were filed to begin with. In fact, the administration not only (weirdly) agreed that the WTO does have jurisdiction when national security concerns come into play, but only in the sense that it was required to approve of members’ freedom to invoke these considerations to justify trade barriers. It also went to ridiculous lengths to defend the U.S. position as if WTO members were not able to self-judge their national security claims – to the point of trying to show grammatically that the plaintiffs were misreading Article XXI grammatically.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s how the one of the WTO reports presenting the anti-U.S. ruling described the U.S. effort, including direct quotes from the American brief:

“A premise of the United States’ characterization of Article XXI (b) as ‘self-judging’ is that, based on ‘the text and grammatical structure’ of the provision, ‘the phrase ‘which it considers’ qualifies all of the terms in the single relative clause that follows the word ‘action’. According to the United States, this ‘single relative clause’ in Article XXI(b) ‘begins with ‘which it considers necessary’ and ends at the end of each subparagraph’ and ‘describes the situation which the Member ‘considers’ to be present when it takes such ‘action’. The United States argues from this premise that, ‘[b]ecause the relative clause describing the action begins with ‘which it considers’, the other elements of this clause are committed to the judgment of the Member taking the action.’ The United States thus posits an ‘overall grammatical structure’ of Article XXI(b) according to which a panel may not ‘determine, for itself, whether a security interest is ‘essential’ to the Member in question, or whether the circumstances described in one of the subparagraphs exists'”.

For their part, the plaintiff countries, along with the WTO tribunals, dredged up copies of The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, and Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style, among other such sources, to undercut such claims.

But even though the plaintiffs’ complaints are stuck in international legal limbo, the U.S. decision to legitimize and play this game has resulted in an international organization still proclaiming, without challenge, its absolute right to tell American leaders when they are or are not in a war (dictionary definitions are used as the ultimate standard), and even when they or any part of their national economy do and do not face an “international emergency” (a decision the panel specifically arrogates to WTO judges).

Dispositive substantive arguments can be raised against all the WTO tribunals’ conclusions. For example, as stated above, ensuring a nation’s security adequately is a challenge that doesn’t only arise during especially fraught times in international politics. It typically requires steps taken during more tranquil periods to ensure that military capabilities are adequate the moment trouble starts. WTO rules that prevent these measures from being taken until crises break out could simply ensure that they’re not in effect in time for the United States to prevail.

Yet making these points amounts to falling into the same trap into which the Biden administration’s trade litigators ensnared themselves and the country. Instead, Washington should both make emphatically clear that once U.S. authorities justify a trade-restricting measure, the WTO is irrelevant (as the Biden administration eventually declared) and then boycott whatever proceedings are convened.

Plaintiff countries would still be free to try to address these problems either through standard bilateral diplomacy, or counter-measures of their own, or some combination of the two, and let the party with the most leverage come out on top. Trade purists dismiss these practices as descending into a dangerous economic “law of the jungle,” but the United States and the European Union resorted to just this approach to resolve a long dispute about aircraft production subsidies outside WTO auspices. And freed of the cumbersome and inflexible adversarial framework imposed by the trade body’s legalistic procedures, they reached an agreement that satisfied all major stakeholders – including U.S. unions.

Handling these disputes bilaterally will strongly tend to produce lasting results and work in the U.S.’ favor because (a) agreements will reflect real world power balances – not the rulings of a system whose only raison d’etre is to define power out of existence in favor of an abstract equitism that’s completely divorced from global circumstances on the ground – and (b) because the United States enjoys an abundance of such power.

That the globalist Biden administration is acting as willing as the America First-y Trump administration to recognize that, at least when it comes to national security, tinternational trade law is “an idiot” (to quote Dickens) signals an encouragingly fundamental turn in America’s approach to the global economy. Even better would be for the President to make the break as clean and unmistakable as possible.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Is Biden Learning the Limits of Multilateralism?

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Afghanistan, alliances, allies, America First, ASML, Biden, Biden administration, Blob, China, Chips Act, Europe, export controls, Japan, multilateralism, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, oil, oil price, OPEC, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Saudi Arabia, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine War

Remember the buzz worldwide and among the bipartisan globalist U.S. foreign policy Blob that Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election heralded the start of a new golden age of America’s relations with its longstanding security allies?

Remember how President Biden himself pushed this line with his claim that “America is back” and that Washington would end the supposed Trump practice of denigrating and even rupturing these relationships, and resume its post-World War II strategy of capitalizing on these countries’ strengths and fundamental agreement with vital American interests to advance mutually beneficial goals?

Fast forward to the present, and it’s stunning how thoroughly these American globalist hopes – and the assumptions behind them – have been dashed.

The latest example has been Saudi Arabia’s rejection of Mr. Biden’s request to delay an increase in oil prices announced by Riyadh and other members of the OPEC-Plus petroleum producers cartel. It’s true that few Americans currently view the Saudis as ideal allies. Continuing human rights abuses and especially evidence that its leaders ordered the assassination of a dissident Saudi-American journalist – and coming on top of revelations of Saudi support for the September 11 terrorists and Islamic extremism more broadly – will do that. Indeed, candidate Biden had even promised to make Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.”

But follow-through? Forget it – largely for fear of antagonizing the Saudis precisely because of their huge oil production and reserves, and because the President evidently still viewed them as a key to countering Iran’s hegemonic ambitions in the energy-rich region.

As for Saudi Arabia, it and much closer allies (including in Europe) were far from enthralled with how Mr. Biden pulled U.S. forces out of Afghanistan – which they charge took them by surprise and seemed pretty America First-y.

Under President Biden, the United States appears to have performed better in mustering allied support for helping Ukraine beat back Russia’s invasion. But look beneath the surface, and the European contribution has been unimpressive at best, especially considering that Ukraine is located much closer to the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) than is the United States.

In particular, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which has been tracking these developments since the war began, to date,

 “The U.S. is now committing nearly twice as much as all EU countries and institutions combined. This is a meagre showing for the bigger European countries, especially since many of their pledges are arriving in Ukraine with long delays. The low volume of new commitments in the summer now appears to be continuing systematically.”

In fact, European foot-dragging has reached the point at which even Mr. Biden’s Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, has just told them (in diplospeak of course) to get on the stick.

Apparently, America’s allies in Asia as well as Europe have hesitated to get behind another key initiative as well: Slowing China’s growing technological progress in order to limit its potential militar power.

In a September 16 speech, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan confirmed that the United States had officially doubled down on this objective:

“On export controls, we have to revisit the longstanding premise of maintaining “relative” advantages over competitors in certain key technologies.  We previously maintained a “sliding scale” approach that said we need to stay only a couple of generations ahead. 

“That is not the strategic environment we are in today. 

“Given the foundational nature of certain technologies, such as advanced logic and memory chips, we must maintain as large of a lead as possible.”

And on October 7, the United States followed up by announcing the stiffest controls to date on doing business with Chinese tech entities – controls that will apply not only to U.S.-owned companies, but to other countries’ companies that use U.S.-owned firms technology in high tech products they sell and high tech services they provide to China.

Including these foreign-owned businesses in the U.S. sanctions regime – as well as in parallel efforts to rebuild American domestic capacity and marginalize China’s role in these sectors – is unavoidable for the time being, since the domestic economy long ago lost its monopoly and in some cases even its presence in the numerous products vital to semiconductor manufacturing in particular.

But as the Financial Times reported last month, a year after Washington drew up plans to create a “Chip 4” initiative to work with Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea to achieve these goals, “the four countries have yet to finalise plans even for a preliminary meeting.”

The prime foot-dragger has been South Korea, which fears Chinese retaliation that could jeopardize its massive and lucrative trade with the People’s Republic. But the same article makes clear that Japan harbors similar concerns.

Also unenthusiastic about the U.S. campaign is the Dutch manufacturer of semiconductor production equipment ASM Lithography (ASML). ASML’s cooperation is crucial to America’s anti-China ambitions because it’s the sole global supplier of machines essential for making the world’s most advanced microchips.

So far it’s been playing along. But similar complants about possibly losing business opportunities in China – which may account for nearly half of the world’s output of electronics products along with much of its production of less advanced semiconductors – have already persuaded the Biden administration to give some South Korean and Taiwanese microchip manufacturers a one-year exemption from the new export curbs. Could ASML try to win similar leniency?

In fairness, the Biden administration hasn’t wound up placing all its foreign policy bets on alliances and securing multilateral cooperation. Indeed, its new National Security Strategy re-states the importance of rebuilding American economic strength as a foundation of foreign policy success; the legislation it successfully sponsored to bolster the United States’ semiconductor and other high tech capabilities put considerable money behind that approach; and to its credit, it announced the new China tech curbs even after it couldn’t initially secure adequate allied cooperation – assuming, correctly, that an act of U.S. leadership could bring start bringing them in line.

Hopefully, a combination of these rifts with allies and its recognition of the importance of maintaining and augmenting national power mean that President Biden at least is learning a crucial lesson: that supporting multilateralism and alliances can’t be ends of a sensible U.S. foreign policy in and of themselves. They can only be means to ends. And although they can obviously be valuable in many instances, the best ultimate guarantor of the nation’s security, independence, and prosperity are its own devices.       

Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of My Latest National Radio Appearance Warning of a Ukraine-Induced “Lehman Moment,” & the Video of My Talk on the Economic Competition America Really Needs

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America First, antitrust, competition, Following Up, Lehman moment, Market Wrap with Moe Ansari, monopoly, National Conservatism Conference, oligopoly, tariffs, Trade, Ukraine

Sorry for the loooong headline here, but it’s a daily double today.

First, I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my interview Wednesday night on the nationally syndicated “Market Wrap with Moe Ansari.” Click here, scroll down a bit to the link featuring my name, and then click on the little “POD” symbol. My segment starts at about the 22-minute mark, and what you’ll get is an unusually spirited debate on why the U.S.’ strong support of Ukraine might trigger exactly the kinds of calamities it seeks to prevent (see here for background), and why America’s torrid inflation isn’t likely to peak anytime soon.

Second, a video is now available of my presentation to last month’s important conference on the future of conservatism. Here’s the link to the talk. It made the case for U.S. national economic strategy emphasizes promoting more competition among America-based companies over the current approach – which bizarrely appears to value competition from abroad much more highly. (This recent post contains a lightly edited text of these remarks.)

And keep on checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: A New, Promising but Still Flawed Form of Conservatism

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abortion, America First, China, Christianity, conservatism, crime, culture wars, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, education, family policy, foreign policy, identity politics, Im-Politic, Immigration, industrial policy, inflation, national conservatism, politics, religion, Roe vs. Wade, sovereignty, Supreme Court, Trade, wokeness

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m not grateful to have been invited to last week’s third National Conservatism Conference. The interest displayed by this crowd in economic policy ideas that depart dramatically from the right-of-center’s longstanding free market dogmatism was especially gratifying, and there was no shortage of thought-provoking and compelling speakers.

It’s just that my four days at the session left me unconvinced that National Conservatism as it presently seems to be constituted can create or contribute to a winning American political coalition. The main problem: Most of those spearheading the drive to establish National Conservatism as a major national force haven’t recognized which culture wars they should be fighting, and which they shouldn’t — and how this failure to discriminate is endangering other objectives that the movement (and others) rightly deem crucial.  In fact, unhappiness expressed to me by more than a few conference attendees with the stances on social and cultural issues taken by those putative leaders make me skeptical that it’s a movement yet to begin with – or can be if their vision prevails.

The economic dimension of national conservatism, at least judging by the presentations and hallway conversations, is not only politically astute; it’s substantively sound. All the speakers who addressed these issues – including such nationally prominent figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and the state’s Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott (the event was held in Miami) supported smarter, more restrictive trade and other economic policies (especially toward China), reduced immigration inflows and genuine border security, and federal policies to promote strategically important industries and to ease economic pressures on the middle and working classes.

The same goes for National Conservatism’s critique of the overly, and often recklessly, adventurist foreign policies pursued by the mainstreams of both major political parties for decades.

But the conference organizers and another set of speakers seem wed to other goals and measures that are already backfiring among the American electorate and that, intriguingly, clash with other elements of their agenda. The most important by far were near-total opposition to abortion and a determination to tout the United States as a “Christian nation.”

The political folly of these priorities couldn’t be more obvious. As I’ve written, there’s long been a strong national consensus favoring the right to an abortion early-ish during a pregnancy and then favoring broad restrictions later on with significant exceptions (rape, incest, life of the mother, health of the mother). Indeed, that’s why comparable majorities have supported maintaining the abortion policy framework established by the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling – which was entirely consistent with that common sensical compromise. P.S. Contrary to the claims of the extreme pro-lifers on an off the Court, Roe gave states plenty of latitude to enact all manner of abortion curbs. (The other major misconception or falsehood surrounding Roe comes from the pro-choice movement: It never established an unfettered right to an abortion.)

If you’re skeptical, consider that the day that a draft of the Supreme Court’s eventual decision striking down Roe was leaked to the press (May 3), Republicans held a 4.1 percentage point lead in the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls gauging the public’s preference for control of Congress in November’s midterm elections. The latest figures show Democrats with a 1.1 percentage point lead in the so-called Generic Ballot.

It’s true that abortion isn’t the only reason, that the actual votes determining control of Congress aren’t cast nationally but state-by-state, and that Republicans hold enough built-in advantages in the Congressional map to keep their hopes of prevailing very much alive. But the polls also show that the Court’s Dobbs decision, the enactment of and efforts to enact near-abortion bans in Republican-run states that the ruling has permitted, and GOP talk of more such moves (including on the national level) is increasing Democrats’ interest in voting and boosting the party’s prospects. (See, e.g., here.) And not so coincidentally, Republican candidates and leaders all over the country are backing away from hard-line anti-abortion positions.

Adamant opposition to abortion in practically all circumstances also seems to clash violently with other stated National Conservative positions. For example, many speakers at the conference emphasized their support for individual liberty. But what about the right of women uninterested in becoming mothers to lead the lives they wish? Even if the unborn must indeed be deemed human life very early in pregnancies, should the wishes of those women count for absolutely nothing the minute they conceive – and simply because they failed to take adequate precautions, or because precautions taken failed? According to many, and possibly most, at the conference, the answer is “Yes.”

The repeated references to America as a Christian nation are just as problematic. For reasons like those suggested above, if that’s a rationale for insisting that U.S. policies conform with scriptural teachings (and Section 4 of this “Statement of Principles” by the movement’s leading lights certainly suggests this “Where a Christian majority exists” – i.e. in most of the country), that simply won’t wash with big majorities of voters. But the historical arguments advanced for this view don’t impress, either.

Sure, the Founding Fathers were Christians, and for the most part, observant Christians at that. But so what? The England they came from was overwhelmingly Christian. What else realistically could they be? For similar reasons, the Founders were ovewhelmingly white, too. Does that mean that America should be seen as a Caucasian nation?

And does Christian dogma really deserve much credit for the ideals that make up the American creed of freedom of expression and conscience and other major liberties for the individual; representative, accountable government; equal justice under the law; and the like? Clearly, in most of Christendom at the time (e.g., Russia, Spain, Germany) these notions were unknown or actively rejected. Instead, the great American experiment in self-government is rooted in specifically English thought and practice. And ironically, the major contribution made by Christianity that hasn’t been present outside Europe has been the faith’s willingness to leave big swathes of human life to secular institutions and authorities (as in Jesus’ admonition to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”)

Even worse, precisely because they’re so unpopular as well as intellectually feeble, National Conservatism’s focus on these particular culture wars is weakening the ability of the entire conservative movement (except the libertarians) to fight effectively the culture wars that must be fought – specifically, over woke school public curricula; the metastasis of left-wing authoritarianism in so many major, powerful American institutions; and the related spread of divisive identity politics.

I have nothing but respect for those National Conservatives I met – and other Americans – to declare that they’re less concerned with winning politically than with remaining true to their consciences. But their version of the perfect is shaping up as a powerful enemy of the good and formula for defeat – especially if they wish to contend, as they clearly do, in an arena that rightly values the art of the possible.

That’s why I was so encouraged to find out that many of those I met at the National Conservatism Conference agreed that hard-line anti-abortion stances and pro-Christian nation preaching need to be dropped if any of National Conservatism’s other worthy causes are to be advanced.

For me, nothing could be clearer than the following as a recipe for political victory and national well-being: focusing tightly in an America First-type way on  confining U.S. foreign policy to advancing and protecting U.S. sovereignty and core security (especially against foes like China), on taming inflation and building sustainable prosperity; on securing the border; on fighting crime; on removing propaganda from public schools; on preserving a strong voice for parents in their children’s education; and on resisting the intolerant woke and rigid identity politics ideologies being pushed by our most powerful institutions.

National Conservatism as it exists now is close to being on board. If it can go the extra mile, show better judgment politically, and accept a more inclusive, more historically accurate view of “Americanism,” I’ll be happy to join its ranks.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Toward Avoiding New Afghanistans

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, America First, Antony J. Blinken, Barack Obama, Biden, China, credibility, globalism, Jack Keane, jihadism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Taliban, terrorism, Washington Post

The humanitarian calamity seemingly sure to erupt in Afghanistan now that the Taliban have taken over means that this is no time for I-told-you-so-type gloating – even by long-time critics of U.S. military involvement and nation-building since these jihadist extremists were driven from power in late 2001.

So as one of those long-time critics, I offer the following two observations simply as an attempt to help avoid repeats of this disaster going forward. And interestingly, they’re both inspired by a single Washington Post article.

The first concerns a statement from early this month by a spokesman for the Chinese defense ministry. According to one Colonel Wu Qian, Washington “bears an unavoidable responsibility for the current situation in Afghanistan. It cannot leave and shed the burden on regional countries.”

There’s no doubt that the U.S. military withdrawal could have been handled much better – especially for the local U.S. allies who will be left to the mercy of violent, reactionary, misogynistic Islamists. In particular, as retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane asked on Friday, why did President Biden decide to complete the pullout in the middle of Afghanistan’s fighting season – when the weather is warm enough to permit aggressive, large-scale Taliban military campaigns? Why didn’t he wait till the winter – when, as has consistently been the case, the cold has prevented such operations?

But this notion that America “cannot leave and shed the burden on regional countries”? What on earth is Colonel Wu talking about? Not only can the United States do exactly that. It should have done exactly that long years ago, once the main mission was accomplished of ousting the Taliban regime that permitted Al Qaeda to turn the country into a base for launching terrorist strikes like the September 11 attacks.

And the reason is pretty simple: As I recently posted, Afghanistan is in China’s neighborhood. Not to mention Russia’s and Iran’s. And it’s as far away as it can be from America’s neighborhood. As a result, it’s always been the case that once the United States left, it would have been the regional countries’ burden, and therefore, these countries (which aren’t exactly weak mini-states) would have had no choice but to figure out how to deal with a Sunni Muslim jihadist-led country capable of causing big problems for all of them.

How could this be done? Frankly, that’s not America’s problem. Because the only valid reason Americans ever had to have any significant self interest in who runs Afghanistan had to do with its terrorist base potential. And once the Taliban was gone, along with the unique threat it posed of giving sovereign-state shelter to a terrorist organization, that challenge has always best been handled with a genuine America First strategy: genuinely securing the U.S. border (something Washington can reasonably hope to control) rather than (1) chasing jihadists around a Middle East so dysfunctional that it’s bound to keep breeding new extremist groups faster than existing groups can be neutralized by the American military; much less (2) trying to build nations where none have existed before.

At the same time, more than cynicism and opportunism may be responsible for that Chinese statement. For it comes against the backdrop of decades of Washington acting like Afghanistan’s political makeup and regional behavior indeed mattered more to the United States than it mattered to Afghanistan’s neighbors.

Just as important, the statement also comes against the backdrop of decades of pre-Trump, globalist U.S. politicians, like Mr. Biden, prattling on about how America is and must be the world’s leader and “indispensable nation.” It seems perfectly reasonable, therefore, to suppose that even countries like China, which clearly has some global leadership ambitions of its own, have taken the idea seriously, at least on some subliminal level. That is, the indispensable stuff looks like it’s backfired big-time in the case of Afghanistan. So maybe Washington, and especially the globalists, could bring such bloviation, and the cluelessness and hubris behind it, to an end?  

The second statement that I hope can guide wiser post-Afghanistan U.S. foreign policy decisions (sort of) came today none other than Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. According to the Washington Post‘s account:

“…Blinken rejected criticisms that the withdrawal damages U.S. credibility. He said staying mired in a conflict that is not in the ‘national interest’ would do far more damage.

“‘Most of our strategic competitors around the world would like nothing better than for us to remain in Afghanistan for another year, five years, 10 years, and have those resources dedicated to being in the midst of a civil war,’ Blinken told CNN. ‘It’s simply not in our interest.'”

I said “sort of” because if you look at the transcript of the interview from which this statement came, Blinken didn’t make the global credibility connection explicit. But since Mainstream Media news organizations like the Washington Post play such a big role in creating dominant narratives on issues like this, he might as well have.

And this connection matters, because it essentially echoes my main point from yesterday’s post: America’s global credibility depends most not on trying to stamp out every foreign challenge that arises, and even less on sticking with obviously lost causes. In fact, pretensions of omnipotence that are just as obviously groundless, and an unwillingness to cut losses, are likeliest to be seen, and have been seen, as signs of lousy judgment.

The real source of U.S. global credibility is demonstrating the wisdom to avoid plunging into conflicts or problems in low priority areas in the first place, and correcting such mistaken moves ASAP.

Former President Barack Obama put it cogently: “Don’t do stupid sh– (stuff).” It seems like a low bar for American foreign policy to meet. But especially as long as the country is led by globalists – like Mr. Biden – who for decades characteristically have viewed security and prosperity as internationally seamless wholes that will unravel disastrously if a single thread becomes loose, any sign that his administration may be learning the Obama lesson is unmistakably encouraging.

Im-Politic: Biden’s Latest Americans Last Immigration Policy

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America First, Biden, Border Crisis, border security, Central America, Chobani, cities, corruption, crime, El Salvador, foreign aid, gang violence, governance, Guatemala, Honduras, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, inequality, Kamala Harris, Mastercard, Microsoft, migrants, Northern Triangle, racial economic justice, urban poverty

As known by RealityChek regulars, I’m deeply skeptical that the Biden administration can bring migrant flows from Central America (or similar regions) under control by adequately improving the miserable local conditions that (understandably) drive so much flight northward to begin with. But the first detailed description of this policy that I’ve seen not only ignores all of the intertwined institutional, governance, and cultural obstacles to turning regions like Central America’s Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) into even approximations of success stories. It also casts real doubt on the seriousness of the vaunted domestic social justice and inequality commitments made both by President Biden and by at least some of the U.S. corporate sector.

As argued by a White House Fact Sheet released yesterday, support for economic development in these long-impoverished, abusively ruled countries will “require more than just the resources of the U.S. government.” Also essential “to support inclusive economic growth in the Northern Triangle” will be the “unique resources and expertise” of the private sector.”

It’s true that only three completely private, profit-seeking American companies have responded so far to the “Call to Action” for business involvement issued by Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s the administration’s designated czarina for dealing immigration-wise with the Northern Triangle. But let’s say lots more get involved.

Why would anyone capable of adult thinking believe that their efforts will succeed? After all, the administration acknowledges that economic success in the region depends on overcoming its “long-standing impediments to investment-led growth.” And it specifies that these obstacles include governments that simultaneously either can’t or won’t carry out their duties in corruption-free ways, and are unable to provide minimal levels of security for their populations against criminal gangs.

Meaning that private businesses will be keen even on setting up the kinds of training and business incubator and internet connectivity programs that predominate in their Northern Triangle plans while threats of violence and extortion remain omnipresent? Maybe they’re planning to cope by hiring massive  private security forces – but such precautions were never mentioned in the Call to Action announcement.

Just as important, here’s another major head-scratcher, especially given the flood of promises over the last year or so from U.S. business circles about promoting racial economic and financial equality. If companies are willing to wade into dangerous environments to educate populations, build or strengthen the infrastructure needed for significant economic progress, and foster new businesses in Central America, why aren’t they focusing their efforts on America’s own inner cities, or at least focusing more tightly on these efforts first? It’s not like their needs aren’t pressing. And although the Northern Triangle countries have actually made some noteworthy progress in fighting violent crime lately, they’re still much more dangerous places than even most of America’s homicide capitals.

Consequently, for companies concerned overall with actual results, it would make far more sense to take an America First approach. Not that Microsoft, Chobani, and Mastercard have ignored their disadvantaged compatriots in practice. But even as their U.S. efforts remain pretty modest (Microsoft, e.g., to date has only launched its digital skills and access improvement program in Atlanta and Texas, and Chobani’s incubator program still seems pretty small scale), they’ve decided to head south of the border(s).

Incidentally, the entire Biden Central America and overall immigration policies are vulnerable to a similar criticism. Since however difficult it’s going to be to spur racial and other economic and social progress at home, the challenge will be far more difficult in foreign countries, a President truly committed both to these vital domestic goals and to staunching migrant flows would focus focus his economic development programs on his own country, and deal with the migrants as an immigration issue – by securing the border. Unfortunately for Americans, Joe Biden has been anything but that President.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Whose Trade Representative?

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America First, Biden, Donald Trump, Katherine Tai, middle class, positive sumn, supply chainsi, tariffs, Trade, trade talks, U.S. Trade rep, USTR, zero sum, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Since her appointment as President Biden’s U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Katherine Tai has become known as a master of the “noncommittal interview style,” steadfastly remaining in the realm of lofty generalities “but never getting pinned down on specifics.” I’d add that this description has characterized her other public statements, too.

Last week, though, appearing on Marketplace radio, Tai appeared to let her guard slip – and in ways indicated that even moderate American liberals like her have turned as thoroughly, and in my view, worrisomely, ambivalent about the main purposes of U.S. trade policy as their more progressive counterparts.

As I’ve written, by the late-1990s, this ambivalence has long been a major obstacle to turning U.S. trade policy from an exercise in offshoring that had been devastating the productive heart of the American economy and its workforce into a drive to boost domestic employment and production. For although progressives agreed that trade policies were harming American workers, they also tended to claim that it had been harming their third world counterparts, too – which was critically important given the tight focus of pre-Trump U.S. Presidents and their allies in Congress on expanding trade with very low income countries.

As a result, their critiques of trade policy were continually debunked by convincing evidence that the era of rapid globalization had actually been a major boon to much of the “global south.” (See, e.g., here.) And they continually refused to acknowledge that, at least for some undefinable period of time, changing trade flows to channel more of the benefits to Americans would entail hard choices that came at the expense of developing countries. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t until a full-throated champion of America First-oriented trade policies emerged as a major force in American politics that public pressure finally brought the offshoring-focus of trade diplomacy to a resounding halt.

To their credit, early on in the last presidential campaign, candidate Joe Biden and his key aides recognized the importance of prioritizing of domestic interests – including worker interests – and their endorsement of Trump-ian economic nationalism has been most recently expressed in the President’s promise that “In everything we do, we will aim to make life better, safer, and easier for working families in America.”

The Biden administration’s record to date has been more mixed than its words – e.g., retaining every single dollar of Donald Trump’s China tariffs so far, but defining secure supply chains as including production nodes that are not only overseas, but locaed in many countries that haven’t remotely earned the designation of “trusted suppliers.” But it’s nonetheless revealing that even this position has some prominent globalization cheerleaders accusing the new President of neanderthal protectionism.

That’s why it was so surprising to see this exchange in Tai’s Marketplace interview:

[INTERVIEWER] “…l want to go back to that speech from a week or so ago that you gave about trade policy and environmental policy. And one of the things you aid was: ‘My job is to push for trade reforms that translate into meaningful change in the lives of farmers, ranchers, factory workers, parents and children, not just in the United States, but around the world.’ And I wonder whether you thought twice before you wrote that and you said that because to some in this country, that’s going to clang a little bit.

“Tai: Really, why is that?

[INTERVIEWER]: “Well, I think at this moment where we are a deeply polarized society, the idea that the United States trade representative would be worrying about workers, farmers, children and students in countries other than the United States might be problematic for some.

“Tai:  We don’t exist in a vacuum. And, you know, all you need to do is take a look at a map. We are all inextricably linked to each other and we are sharing this planet as a home in terms of climate and COVID-19. These are collective challenges, and we only get through them if we can get through it collectively.”

As I wrote previously, the point to keep in mind is not that global win-win solutions to trade problems are impossible to conceive, or should be ruled out of hand. The point to keep in mind is that someone who starts out in a negotiation over trade (which will be a big part of Tai’s job) or anything else assuming the best of all possible worlds doesn’t seem likely to recognize when the inevitable real world complications start intruding.

This kumbaya attitude shapes up as a tactical disaster for another reason, too: Tai can be sure that any international interlocutors will be focused like the proverbial laser beam on maximizing their own countries, not on achieving some hypothetical positive sum result. If that’s her starting point, it’s all too easy to imagine that she’d accept a final outcome much closer to other countries’ preferences than to America’s.

To be clear, I’m not troubled by Tai’s remark because I think she’ll be making any of the big calls on U.S. trade policy.  USTRs rarely do, and she simply doesn’t have the stature or the personal connection with the President.  I’m troubled by her remark because Tai’s many years as a Congressional staffer have surely taught her never to say anything that clashes with her boss’s official line. If as careful a bureaucratic operator as the new USTR doesn’t seem to understand that she’s the Trade Representative of the United States, not the world at large, maybe Mr. Biden needs to be reminded of his real job definition, too?

Following Up: A Lippmann Gap Still Could be a Big Threat to Biden’s Foreign Policy

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allies, America First, Biden, China, defense budget, Donald Trump, Following Up, Lippmann Gap, Russia, Theodore Roosevelt

Late last month, I worried here that President Biden could open up a dangerous “Lippmann Gap” in U.S. foreign and national security policy by proposing a defense budget incapable of supporting his expansive ambitions. Yesterday, the administration came out with its first official budget request, and although it lacks the detail to justify firm conclusions, I’m still worried.

The nub of the problem is this: The President has repeatedly announced his intention to reverse course from his predecessor’s America First strategy and return U.S. foreign policy to its decades-long pre-Trump sweeping global activism and engagement. And since Mr. Biden’s “America is back” declarations clearly entail at the least a determination to fill an allegedly vital gap left by Donald Trump, and probably to pursue an even more expansive agenda, logic and common sense alone dictate that he request much more defense spending than at present.

It’s true that Pentagon budget and the military forces it supports are by no means the only tools available to the nation to carry out its international aims. It’s also true that defense spending can be made more effective without boosting overall spending levels by spending existing funds more efficiently and wisely. The latter’s potential won’t start to be revealed until the more detailed budget request is made later this year.

But for now, what is known is that Mr. Biden will ask for some 1.6 percent more for the Defense Department proper for the coming budget year (fiscal 2022) than the resources allotted to the Pentagon during the Trump administration’s final year (fiscal 2021). When adding in national security funds not provided to the Department itself (mainly for maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile – which is handled by the Energy Department), the Biden increase is also about two percent over the funding appropriated during the final Trump year.  (This figure is calculated from here and here.)

Knowledgeable observers of defense spending may note that these Biden fiscal 2022 requests are considerably bigger than the Trump fiscal 2021 requests. These sought just 0.1 percent more for the Pentagon itself than was spent in 2020, and 0.34 percent more for that larger national security budget including the non-Pentagon money. (These figures are found here and calculated from here and here.) 

But Mr. Biden charged that the Trump national security agenda was sorely inadequate. So it’s natural that he’d want more military spending than his predecessor. What’s noteworthy, however, is that the Biden request isn’t that much more. In fact, if inflation takes its expected course this year, this latest military spending proposal will leave the Defense Department and the other agencies responsible for national security with less money when adjusting for rising prices than they spent last year.

Moreover, even in terms of “top-line” spending figures, this Biden request is hardly the last word. The Democratic Congress is practically certain to make further cuts.

Again, wiser spending could fill some of this gap. But what the Biden administration has said about its priorities isn’t all that encouraging, either. Just one example (but a big one): The administration stated yesterday that its military spending request “prioritizes the need to counter the threat from China as the [Defense] Department’s top challenge. The Department would also seek to deter destabilizing behavior by Russia.”

It’s still possible, as suggested above, that moving funds into U.S. China- and Russia-related accounts from lower priority accounts could accomplish these aims even though overall outlays decline in real terms. But in the very next sentence, we learn that the administration isn’t confident that these moves would be the answer (assuming they’re even being contemplated). For it claims that

“Leveraging the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and working together with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, DOD [the Defense Department] would ensure that the United States builds the concepts, capabilities, and posture necessary to meet these challenges.”

That is, help from allied countries supposedly will be crucial to countering the Chinese and Russian threats. But not only have these countries skimped on their own defense for decades. For the time being, the President has decided not to press them overly hard to share more of the defense burden (as documented in my original “Lippmann Gap” post).

To repeat: I’m not calling for more U.S. military spending. In fact, I’d like to see Pentagon budgets shrink. But this position reflects my judgment that the nation can be adequately safe and sound by doing less in the international sphere. As long as President Biden wants to do more – not only than me, but also than Donald Trump – the only responsible policy would be to boost military spending. Anything else amounts to inverting former President Theodore Roosevelt’s approach of speaking softly and carrying a big stick – which history teaches never, ever ends well.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Why Biden’s Trade Policies are Looking Trump-ier Than Ever

Tags

America First, arbitrage, Biden, China, economic nationalism, environmental standards, global minimum tax, globalism, globalization, infrastructure, Jake Sullivan, Janet Yellen, labor rights, race to the bottom, subsidies, tariffs, tax policy, taxes, Trade, trade Deals, trade wars, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As the author of a book titled The Race to the Bottom, you can imagine how excited I was to learn that the main rationale of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s new proposal for a global minimum tax on corporations is to prevent, or bring to an end, a…race to the bottom.

But this idea also raises a question with profound implications for U.S. trade and broader globalization policies: Why stop at tax policy? And it’s made all the more intriguing because (a) the Biden administration for which Yellen surprisingly seems aware that there’s no good reason to do so even though (b) the trade policy approach that could consequently emerge looks awfully Trump-y.

After all, the minimum tax idea reflects a determination to prevent companies from engaging in what’s known as arbitrage in this area. It’s like arbitrage in any situation – pitting providers and producers that boast little leverage into competition with one another to sell their goods and services at the lowest possible price, and usually triggering a series of ever more cut-rate offers.

These kinds of interactions differ from ordinary price competition because, as mentioned above, the buyer usually holds much more power than the seller. So the results are too often determined by considerations of raw power, not the kinds of overall value considerations that explain why market forces have been so successful throughout history.

When the arbitrage concerns policy, the results can be much more disturbing. It’s true that the ability of large corporations to seek the most favorable operating environments available can incentivize countries to substitute smart policies for dumb in fields such as regulation and of course taxation. But it’s also true, as my book and so many other studies have documented, that policy arbitrage can force countries to seek business with promises and proposals that can turn out to be harmful by any reasonable definition.

Some of the most obvious examples are regulations so meaningless that they permit inhumane working conditions to flourish and pollution to mount, and encourage tax rates to fall below levels needed to pay for public services responsibly. Not coincidentally, Yellen made clear that the latter is a major concern of hers. And the Biden administration says it will intensify enforcement of provisions in recent U.S. trade deals aimed at protecting workers and the environment – and make sure that any new agreements contain the same. I’ve been skeptical that many of these provisions can be enforced adequately (see, e.g., here), but that’s a separate issue. For now, the important point is that such arbitrage, and the lopsided trade flows and huge deficits they’ve generated, harm U.S.-based producers and their employees, too.

But as my book and many other studies have also documented, safety and environmental arbitrage aren’t the only instances of such corporate practices by a long shot. Businesses also hop around the world seeking currency arbitrage (in order to move jobs and production to countries that keep the value of their currencies artificially low, thereby giving goods and services turned out in these countries equally artificial, non-market-related advantages over the competition). Ditto for government subsidies – which also influence location decisions for reasons having nothing to do with free markets, let alone free trade. The victims of these versions of policy arbitrage, moreover, have been overwhelmingly American.

The Biden administration is unmistakably alert to currency and subsidy arbitrage. Indeed a major element of its infrastructure plan is providing massive support for the U.S. industry in general, and to specific sectors like semiconductors to lure jobs and production back home and keep it there. Revealingly, though, it’s decided for the time being to keep in place former President Trump’s steep, sweeping tariffs on China, and on steel and aluminum.

So it looks like the President has resolved to level these playing fields by cutting off corporate policy arbitrage opportunities of all types with a wide range of tools. And here’s where the outcome could start looking quintessentially Trump-y and America First-y. For it logically implies that the United States shouldn’t trade much – and even at all – with countries whose systems and policy priorities can’t promote results favorable to Americans.

Still skeptical? Mr. Biden and his leading advisers have also taken to talking about making sure that “Every action we take in our conduct abroad, we must take with American working families in mind.” More specifically, the President’s White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, wrote pointedly during the campaign that U.S. leaders

“must move beyond the received wisdom that every trade deal is a good trade deal and that more trade is always the answer. The details matter. Whatever one thinks of the TPP [the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal], the national security community backed it unquestioningly without probing its actual contents. U.S. trade policy has suffered too many mistakes over the years to accept pro-deal arguments at face value.”

He even went so far as to note that “the idea that trade will necessarily make both parties better off so long as any losers could in principle be compensated is coming under well-deserved pressure within the field of economics.”

But no one should be confident that economic nationalism will ultimately triumph in Biden administration counsels. There’s no doubt that the U.S. allies that the President constantly touts as the keys to American foreign policy success find these views to be complete anathema. And since Yellen will surely turn out to be Mr. Biden’s most influential economic adviser, it’s crucial to mention that her recent speech several times repeated all the standard tropes mouthed for decades by globalization cheerleaders about U.S. prosperity depending totally on prosperity everywhere else in the world.

Whether she’s right or wrong (here I presented many reasons for concluding the latter), that’s clearly a recipe for returning trade policy back to its pre-Trump days – including the long-time willingness of Washington to accept what it described as short-term sacrifices (which of course fell most heavily on the nation’s working class) in order to build and maintain prosperity abroad that would benefit Americans eventually, but never seemed to pan out domestically.

Nor is Yellen the only potential powerful opponent of less doctrinaire, more populist Biden trade policies. Never, ever forget that Wall Street and Silicon Valley were major contributors to the President’s campaign coffers. Two greater American enthusiasts for pre-Trump trade policies you couldn’t possibly find.

And yet, here we are, more than two months into the Biden presidency, and key pieces of a Trump-y trade policy both in word and deed keep appearing.  No one’s more surprised than I am (see, e.g., here).  But as so often observed, it took a lifelong anti-communist hardliner like former President Richard M. Nixon to engineer America’s diplomatic opening to Mao-ist China. And it took super hard-line Zionist Menachem Begin, Israel’s former Prime Minister, to sign a piece treaty with long-time enemy Egypt. So maybe it’s not so outlandish to suppose that a died-in-the-wool globalist like Joe Biden will be the President establishing America First and economic nationalism as the nation’s new normals in trade and globalization policy.