Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Neglected Lesson of Afghanistan

Tags

Afghanistan, Biden, border security, China, Donald Trump, forever wars, globalism, Immigration, jihadism, Muslims, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, special forces, Tajikistan, Taliban, terrorism, Uighurs, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, women's rights, Xinjiang

Let’s get one matter straight right away: When it comes to the (always important) optics, and to humanitarian considerations, there is no good way for the United States to end its military involvement in Afghanistan that would meet any sensible or decent person’s definition of “good.”

Indeed, much of the news that’s come out of that war-torn country (and I use that term advisedly) is sickeningly reminiscent of the final U.S. pullout from Vietnam in April, 1975 – complete with the almost certain abandonment of many locals who had cast their lot with the Americans in various ways, and therefore face many forms of retaliation if the jihadist Taliban do indeed triumph.

Further, the U.S. departure could produce an Afghan aftermath far worse than that suffered in Vietnam, as the social and economic strides made by many Afghan women of all ages under the umbrella of the American presence seem to be doomed if the country is taken over by a movement wed to Islam’s most misogynistic version.

In fact, a couple of years ago, by which time the American mission’s failure looked inevitable, I came up with the idea of offering all Afghan females asylum in the United States – complete with transportation expenses. I never published it, but wouldn’t it have served the women-haters right to leave them as women-free as possible?

That chance looks to be gone – though I’m still hoping that somehow the interpreters and other U.S. employees can be saved. Otherwise, the best that Americans can hope for now is figuring out what went wrong and how to avoid such fiascoes going forward. There’s been no shortage of post-mortems, and especially encouraging has been the bipartisan globalist U.S. foreign policy establishment’s (belated) agreement that nation-building where no true nation exists is folly. (See, e.g., here.)

Another big lesson, however, remains largely unlearned – even by long-time opponents of the Afghan War like former President Trump: As I’ve written repeatedly, since the only self-interested (and therefore sensible) reason for direct American involvement in the first place was preventing the country’s re-emergence as an officially sponsored and protected base for September 11-like terrorism, Washington should have focused on seriously securing U.S. borders rather than on fighting the jihadis “over there.”

Trump tried in his own characteristically ragged way to beef up border protection, and achieved some impressive progress. But as made clear here, he never seemed to make the connection fully. And now President Biden appears determined to create the worst of all possible worlds from the U.S. standpoint – an Afghanistan policy unlikely to enable the Tailban’s containment through special forces guerilla-type operations until the U.S. border was strengthened adequately, and an immigration policy that actually opens the border still wider.

Meanwhile, a third big lesson hasn’t evidently even made it onto official or unofficial U.S. policy screens (including mine), but it was suggested in this Bloomberg news item on Monday: A Taliban-run Afghanistan could well have been kept off balance – and frustrated in its efforts undertake the major initiatives needed to foster September 11-scale terrorism – by the nearby countries its extremism would surely have alarmed and antagonized. And these regional concerns seem compelling enough to keep the lid on in Afghanistan by hook or by crook from this point on in the American military’s absence.

As the piece makes clear, in the near term, smallish Afghanistan neighbors like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are anxious to prevent chaos on their borders – including no doubt massive refugee flows. And both countries have long been cooperating with Washington for many years to bolster “overall regional security” – which won’t be helped by a jihadist regime in their midst. (See here and here.)

And don’t forget Russia – whose help those two central Asian countries are seeking. Its own disastrous 1979 invasion and decade-long occupation of much of the country was triggered largely by fears that the rise of Islamic extremism in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East would infect the Muslim populations of adjacent Soviet “republics” (like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). Moscow can’t be anxious to repeat that mistake, but the fear of jihadis persists, and like it or not, Russia’s deep reinvolvement in Afghanistan consequently seems inevitable – and bound to cause big problems for the Taliban.

China’s bound to be pulled in, too. All indications are that Beijing hopes to keep post-U.S.-withdrawal Afghanistan stable in a softer way – with big economic development projects that ironically look a lot like nation-building (though apparently lacking its political dimension). More power to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping if he succeeds. But mainly because it’s had its own huge problems (many surely self-created) with its own Muslim population in Xinjiang province (which also shares a short border with Afghanistan) China’s bottom line clearly is maintaining stability and making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t become “a haven or transit corridor” for the Uyghur militants who have aroused its ire. (See the above-linked Economist piece for the quote.)

As a result, it’s more than a little interesting that a Chinese academic recently felt free to tell a Financial Times reporter that “Even though China has for a long time been extremely cautious about sending military forces overseas, if it is supported by a United Nations resolution, China might join an international peacekeeping team to enter Afghanistan.”

Alternatively, the Chinese bet that they can cultivate the Taliban’s pragmatic instincts by financing massive road-building and mining operations could pay off – in which case, the terror-base scenario feared in the United State may not materialize.

But the crucial strategic insight for Americans is that China and all of Afghanistan’s neighbors have compelling stakes in curbing Taliban jihadism and related terrorism, and that these stakes exist precisely because Afghanistan’s in their own neighborhood – and always has been. In other words, however important Afghanistan’s stability, moderation, etc has been for Americans thousands of miles away, it’s always been and remains far more important for the folks right next door. Even better, because some big powers are involved, a strong case can be made not only for their persistence in addressing the problem but their success.

If they fail, however, or get bogged down in their own forever war, that’s OK from the U.S. perspective as well – because they’ll keep the Taliban too busy to concentrate on attacking America. That’s not to say that the United States can therefore forget about sealing the border. After all, Afghanistan is hardly the world’s only concentration of jihadis.

But it does mean that the strategic case for the United States carrying the burden of intervening in Afghanistan specifically is weakening; that the case may have been weak all along – or at least once the Taliban was ousted from power and significantly weakened right after September 11 – and that as long as the neighbors can be relied on to act in their own self-interest (surely a long time), and especially if Washington tends to its border knitting, this case won’t emerge again.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Latest Figures Leave the U.S. Trade Picture as Foggy as Ever

Tags

aerospace, aircraft, Boeing, Canada, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, exports, goods trade, imports, Made in Washington trade deficit, manufacturing, non-oil goods deficit, reopening, services trade, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

With huge Chinese ports newly suffering the kind of congestion that’s clogged America’s West Coast ports for months, the U.S. and other national economies reopening at widely varying rates from their CCP Virus-induced shutdowns, and a worldwide shortage of semiconductors still undermining production throughout the world’s manufacturing industries, it’s tougher than ever to figure out what to make of the latest monthly U.S. trade figures (for May).

Oh, and I almost forgot: America’s long-time export and trade surplus standout, Boeing, keeps making bad news on the intertwined manufacturing and safety fronts, which means that its domestic and overseas sales could be depressed for months more.

So since they’re of such little help in figuring out the two biggest trade policy questions facing the country – about how different a post-pandemic trade normal may look from its pre-virus counterpart, and whether and how well the Trump tariffs are still working – it seems the best course to follow is simply reporting the highlights of the May report from the Census Bureau (and voicing some very tentative analyses where I have the courage).

These new data, which came out last Friday, revealed that the combined U.S. goods and services trade deficit increased by 3.14 percent between April and May – from $69.07 billion to $71.24 billion. The total was the second highest ever, trailing only March’s $75.03 billion.

The same general pattern characterized the goods trade gap, which widened by 2.76 percent (from $86.78 billion to $89.17 billion), also hit the second highest total on record, and also fell short of a March all-time high ($92.86 billion).

The best trade balance-related news came on the services side – which has been especialy hard hit by the virus and its effects, and where the surplus widened by 0.74 percent (from $17.80 billion to $17.93 billion) and improved for the first time since January.

Total exports advanced for the fourth straight month in May (by 0.64 percent, from $204.70 billion to $206.02 billion), and attained their highest level since December, 2019, just before the CCP Virus seems to have begun spreading from China.

Goods exports were something of a laggard – growing sequentially in May by just 0.30 percent (from $145.09 billion to $145.28 billion. More encouragingly, this level set its second straight monthly record.

Services exports fared better, up 1.47 percent on-month in May (from $59.62 billion to $60.49 billion) and producing their best monthly total since semi-pandemic-y March, 2020’s $60.62 billion.

But on all counts, U.S. imports rose faster.

The total import amount reached $277.26 billion in May, rising 1.27 percent from April’s $273.78 billion and representing the second highest total ever. Only the $277.69 billion figure from…yes…March has been higher.

Goods imports rose by a slower 1.18 percent, from $231.96 billion to $234.70 billion. And the total was another second highest, lagging only March’s $236.52 billion.

Despite their surplus growing, services imports rose considerably faster, by 1.77 percent, from $41.84 billion to $42.56 billion. That total was the highest since February, 2020 ($47.06 billion) – just before the virus’ arrival.

To a noteworthy degree, the worsening of the overall and goods deficits in May looks like a Boeing story. The narrowing of the U.S. civilian aircraft trade surplus (by $1.388 billion) accounted for nearly 64 percent of the increase deterioration in the overall trade balance, and 58.05 percent of the monthly growth of the goods trade gap.

Boeing’s troubles can’t be blamed for the entire year’s lofty deficit numbers. Far from it. In fact, between the January-to-May periods last year and this year, the $917 million shrinkage of the aircraft surplus has equalled less than one percent of the overall deficit’s increase during this time and just slightly more of the goods deficit. Aircraft trade numbers can be pretty volatile, too. But is the Boeing effect on the May data a portent of things to come? Stay tuned.

As known by RealityChek regulars, the best measure of how tariffs and similar trade policies are influencing U.S. trade flows is non-oil goods trade, which strips out oil (which hardly ever comes up in trade policymaking) and services (where global trade liberalization remains modest). And in this context, what jumps out right away from the May trade results (or what should jump out) is that this portion of the trade deficit rose much more slowly on month (0.33 percent) than the combined goods and services deficit (3.14 percent) or the total goods deficit (2.76 percent). And interestingly, without the poor civilian aircraft numbers, the “Made in Washington” trade deficit would have fallen month-to-month.

Moreover, on a January-to-May year-to-date basis, the non-oil goods trade deficit worsened just about half as much (by 23.99 percent) as the overall deficit (45.82 percent), and somewhat more slowly than the goods deficit (26.44 percent). Given that the Trump China tariffs alone of some $350 billion amounted to some 15.21 percent of total U.S. non-oil goods imports in 2019 (and remain in place today), that could be a sign that the levies have succeeded in restraining that deficit’s growth. When it comes to the Boeing effect, however, it’s negligible here, too.

May was an especially bad month for U.S. manufacturing trade, as its chronically huge shortfall jumped by 3.01 percent, from $103.60 billion to 106.72 billion. Huge as that sounds, it was only the fifth worst such figure ever. Exports increased by 0.91 percent while the much greater amount of imports climbed by 2.01 percent. Again, the Boeing effect generated much (nearly 45 percent) of the monthly deficit worsening but less than one percent of the $116.57 billion year-to-date difference.

May was also a bad month for China tariff supporters. The U.S. goods deficit with the PRC grew by 1.90 percent on month – much faster than the 0.33 percent increase in the non-oil goods deficit that’s its closest worldwide proxy. U.S. goods exports to the PRC advanced by a healthy 5.54 percent. May monthly imports grew much more slowly (3.04 percent), but they’re more than three times greater.

On a year-to-date basis, moreover, the Sino-American trade gap is 26.92 percent wider than last year, which stands not only as faster growth than that of the non-oil goods deficit (23.99 percent), but another sign that of tariff failure, as the China deficit by this measure has been rising faster non-oil goods deficit since March. Still, it’s difficult drawing firm conclusions, since the recovery of China’s export-heavy economy from its pandemic experience has been faster than that of most other (often also export-reliant) U.S. trade partners. Moreover, the difference between the growth rates of the two deficits has narrowed dramatically since March, so it’s possible that the pre-pandemic pattern – which reflected much better on the tariffs – is steadily returning.

And let’s end on an unexpected note: In May, the U.S. goods deficit with Canada surged by 56.98 percent sequentially, to $3.69 billion. That’s the highest level since December, 2019’s $4.95 billion and the fastest monthly increase since January’s 74.04 percent. This monthly rise, moreover, was driven by U.S. imports, which reached $29.08 billion – the biggest monthly total since October, 2014 ($30.72 billion). The monthly increase: a strong but hardly record breaking 5.86 percent. American goods exports to its northern neighbor, however, rose by just 1.09 percent, to $25.39 billion. And year-to-date, the U.S. goods deficit with Canada has more than doubled, soaring by a 108.93 percent.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Let’s Hope the Lousy New U.S. Trade Figures are Transitory, Too

Tags

Commerce Department, Donald Trump, exports, Federal Reserve, GDP, gross domestic product, imports, Jerome Powell, real GDP, real trade deficit, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, West Coast ports, {What's Left of) Our Economy

No two ways about it. Until the longer term revisions come in, the first quarter of 2021 was a lousy one for inflation-adjusted U.S. trade flows – and lousy to a record extent. The only possible positive takeaway:  These numbers and the trends underlying them might be just as transitory and CCP Virus-induced as I (and many others)  believe today’s high inflation numbers are   

According to today’s final (for now) Commerce Department read on economic growth for the first three months of this year, the real gross domestic product (GDP – the government’s measure for the economy’s size) increased by 6.21 percent on an annual basis.

That’s an excellent figure although (like virtually all other economic data) it’s a considerably artificial number (because of the sudden reopening of the economy after equally sudden government-mandated shutdowns and resulting consumer caution), and although it’s a bit less than the 6.25 percent estimated last month. Indeed, it’s a big improvement over the 4.26 percent registered in the fourth quarter of last year

But the after-inflation trade deficit figures just keep rising – and reaching all-time highs. The initial read on this constant dollar trade gap for the first quarter was an annualized $1.1755 trillion. Last month, this figure was revised up to $1.1939 trillion. This morning’s result: $1.2123 trillion. Consequently, the price-adjusted first quarter trade deficit turns out to be 8.05 percent worse than the fourth quarter’s $1.1220 trillion.

Optimists can note that this sequential increase was smaller than the 10.12 percent rise between the third and fourth quarters of last year. But this slowdown is pretty modest.

Since the real trade deficit figure is higher than previously reported and grew faster, and the total economy grew slightly more slowly in inflation-adjusted terms, the trade shortfall’s bite into growth was bigger – 1.50 percent out of the 6.21 percent increase as opposed to the previously reported 1.25 percent out of 6.25 percent growth.

This means that, had the real trade deficit simply remain unchanged, the economy would have expanded 24.15 percent more after inflation in the first quarter. The previous GDP read yielded a figure of 20 percent.

In glass-half-full terms, that’s a smaller subtraction from growth than the multi-decade high 35.92 percent suffered in the fourth quarter. But it’s a lot of foregone growth nonetheless.

The constant dollar trade deficit as a share of GDP hit another new record, too – 6.35 percent. Upon recalling that the previous pre-pandemic high of 6.10 percent came in the fourth quarter of 2005, during the bubble whose bursting brought on the global financial crisis and ensuing Great Recession, that could be an ominous development.

And more bad news: The worsening of the real trade deficit came on both the export and import fronts in the first quarter. Today’s GDP report showed that inflation-adjusted U.S. overseas sales of goods and services dropped sequentially by 0.53 percent, while total American purchases from abroad increased by 2.30 percent.

So do these new figures foreshadow the new post-CCP Virus normal for U.S. trade – despite (or because of?) the Trump tariffs? We’ll find out more about the effects of trade policy once the next official monthly U.S. trade figures (for May) come out next Friday. 

For now, though (and probably after those new data), the most responsible answer I can provide is, “It’s too soon to tell.” Indeed, as if the U.S. economy still wasn’t being distorted enough by the rapid transition from pandemic-induced recession to robust expansion, and still facing enough consequent uncertainties, on top of the ongoing congestion at U.S. West Coast ports, a big logjam has emerged at a giant port in export-heavy China.

Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell noted that “This is an extraordinarily unusual time, and we really don’t have a template or any experience in a situation like this. We have to be humble about our ability to understand the data.” As the new U.S. GDP report should be making clear, American trade flows are no exception.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: It’s an Autos Story Again for U.S. Manufacturing Production

Tags

aerospace, aircraft, aluminum, apparel, automotive, Boeing, CCP Virus, chemicals, China, computers, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, electronics, facemasks, Federal Reserve, health security, inflation-adjusted output, machinery, manufacturing, medical supplies, paper, pharmaceuticals, PPE, printing, real growth, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, shutdowns, steel, stimulus, tariffs, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Earlier in the CCP Virus era, the U.S. manufacturing production story was largely an automotive production story – because the industry shut down so suddenly and completely during the pandemic’s first wave and the deep economic downturn it triggered, and then began reopening at a record pace. And today’s Federal Reserve figures show that domestic industry’s growth is being driven by dramatically fluctuating vehicles and parts output once again – but this time it seems due significantly to the global semiconductor shortage that’s deprived the sector of critical parts.

Also noteworthy about today’s Fed manufacturing release (which covers May): It incorporates the results of the benchmark revision of these data for the 2017-19 period. As explained in yesterday’s post on the subject, the new numbers create a new baseline for pre-pandemic manufacturing growth, and therefore a new picture of how big the virus-induced downturn was, and how strong the recovery has been – at least until the next benchmark revision. And of course, the new figures therefore supersede those in the April Fed release I reported on last month.

Automotive’s influence on the May numbers is clear from the following: Total inflation-adjusted sequential growth for U.S.-based manufacturing hit a strong 0.89 percent last month. Without automotive (whose 6.69 percent monthly output pop followed a 5.57 percent April drop), the increase would have been just over half that – a still solid 0.50 percent. Don’t be surprised if the microchip shortage keeps these results on a roller coaster.

Its May increase brought total real domestic manufacturing output back within 0.31 percent of its last pre-pandemic level, in February, 2020. In March and April, such production plummeted by 19.41 percent. Since then, it’s surged by 23.90 percent. For the record, as I wrote yesterday, the pandemic-spurred Spring, 2020 nosedive was slightly shallower (0.92 percent) than judged before the revisions (1.42 percent) but the comeback through this past April was a bit weaker (22.81 percent versus 23.27 percent).

Machinery making enjoyed a good month in May, and as known by RealityChek regulars, that’s good news for all domestic manufacturing and the rest of the economy, since its products are so widely used. Constant dollar output improved by 0.78 percent last month, and consequently, the sector is now 2.35 percent bigger in these terms than just before the virus started depressing the economy. One downside should be noted, though: The new revision indicates that the machinery recovery has actually be significantly slower than previously estimated.

Manufacturing’s list of other big inflation-adjusted production winners in May featured some real surprises. The apparel and leather goods industries remain shadows of their historic selves, but their real output last month jumped 2.59 percent – their best such result since January’s 2.06 percent. Moreover, this sector has grown in real terms by 6.74 percent since just before the pandemic – much faster than manufacturing as a whole.

After-inflation production in the small printing and related activities industry grew by 2.59 percent – also its best result since January (3.99 percent).

But some big sectors saw healthy gains in May, too – notably chemicals (whose products are also used throughout the economy) and computer and electrnics products. The former saw real production advance by 2.19 percent sequentially last month – its best such result since March’s weather-aided 4.08 percent. And the latter grew in May by 1.60 percent.

The biggest losers? Paper led this pack by far, with May constant dollar production sinking by 1.59 percent on month – its worst such showing since January’s 1.78 percent decrease.

Likely due to Boeing’s continuing production and safety problems (more on which later), the aerospace and miscellaneous transportation sector’s after inflation production sank by 0.95 percent sequentially in May – and that followed a 2.55 percent nosedive (no pun intended) in April. And wood products real output fell by 0.82 percent.

But the losers’ list contains a big surprise, too. Complaints keep coming that that the domestic steel and aluminum industries (and especially the steel-makers) have responded to tariffs simply by enjoying the higher resulting prices and sitting on these winnings. So it’s noteworthy that even after a 0.82 percent monthly real output decline in May, primary metals production after inflation is slightly (0.15 percent) higher than in immediate pre-pandemic-y February, 2020 – another such performance that’s bested that for all manufacturing.

The aforementioned problems suffered by Boeing keep coming through in the real output data for the aircraft and parts sub-sector of the aerospace and miscellaneous transportation industry. In May, inflation-adjusted output was down 1.47 percent on month – much bigger than the larger industry fall-off. And that came on the heels of April’s 2.21 percent decrease. Real aircraft and parts production is still 4.36 percent above its immediate pre-pandemic level, but given the ongoing post-CCP Virus worldwide rebound in air travel, these figures are definitely disappointing – and moving in the wrong direction.

By contrast, the big pharmaceuticals and medicines sector is still benefitting from reopening headwinds. May’s 0.22 percent monthly real output increase was admittedly modest, especially since this sector includes vaccine production. But it’s grown by 8.44 percent since the virus began spreading rapidly in the United States. on g – also delivered a disappointing performance in April, especially since it includes vaccines.

But both the May real production numbers and the benchmark revision left the vital medical equipment and supplies sector a conspicuous production laggard. This industry – which includes virus-fighting items like face masks, face masks, protective gowns, and ventilators – grew in real tems by just 0.19 percent sequentially in May, and April’s after inflation output was down 1.66 percent. As a result, this sector is turning out only 0.35 percent more product than just before the pandemic’s arrival – which doesn’t seem to augur well for national preparedness for the next pandemic.

If I was a betting person (I’m not), I’d still wager on better days ahead for U.S. domestic manufacturing – because so many powerful supportive trends and developments remain in place, ranging from massive government spending and other forms of stimulus to the virus’ continuing retreat to waning consumer caution to huge amounts of pandemic-era consumer savings to ongoing Trump tariffs that keep pricing huge numbers of Chinese goods out of the U.S. market.

But no one should forget about a list of threats to the pace of manufacturing growth, if not growth itself – like the prospect of higher taxes and more regulations, and the possibility that consumer demand will keep growing but switch away from goods to the hard-hit but quickly reopening service sectors (which of course do buy manufactures). Inflation isn’t good for strong (real) growth, either, though I’m an optimist on this front.

Ultimately, though, I’m most struck by evidence of domestic manufacturers’ continuing optimism about the prospects of their businesses. If they’re still confident about their futures, that remains good enough for me.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Recent Revisions Muddy the U.S. Manufacturing Picture Still Further

Tags

Barack Obama, CCP Virus, China, Commerce Department, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, Federal Reserve, inflation-adjusted output, manufacturing, manufacturing output, metals, real value-added, tariffs, Trade, trade policy, trade war, value added, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As if the CCP Virus pandemic and its aftermath haven’t made gauging the real health of the U.S. economy difficult enough, the Federal Reserve late last month came out with its latest long-term (“benchmark”) revision of its domestic manufacturing production data that confuse the picture of industry’s recent status still further.

These revisions cover the 2017-2019 period, and as such, they’re especially important in gauging how U.S.-based industry fared under President Trump and the trade policy revolution he launched versus their performance during the second term of Barack Obama’s presidency and his standard trade policies. (As known by RealityChek regulars, these two time periods provide the best basis for comparison, since they came closest together during the same – expansionary – business cycle.) Moreover, because the revisions create a different baselines, they also affect the post-2019 period’s growth results for manufacturing, which include the pandemic period.

The Fed’s summary makes clear that the revisions show the inflation-adjusted expansion of manufacturing output during that Trump period to have been significantly slower than previously reported. That finding indicates that far from boosting manufacturing production, and particularly compared with the Obama years, the Trump tariffs (on steel and sluminum, and on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods from China) actually held it back.

Indeed, the revisions are so substantial that the picture they draw is a mirror image of the predecessor data – which showed that, at least before the virus struck, Trump-era manufacturing growth in real terms considerably bested the Obama-era performance. For that matter, the previous Fed numbers showed that domestic industry fared relatively well under Trump even counting the pandemic-induced recession year 2020.

Here are the results side-by-side for after-inflation manufacturing production growth in percentage terms:

                                                                   pre-revision               with revision

last four Obama years:                                   +2.45                          +1.30

Trump years pre-pandemic:                           +3.60                           -0.41

all four Trump years:                                     +2.13                           +0.82

So when it comes to growth – an especially important metric, since it’s tough to imagine creating many jobs without it – the new Fed revisions show that the second Obama term was better for U.S. manufacturers than Trump’s single term, CCP Virus or no.

Or were they? As also known by RealityChek regulars, the constant dollar output figures used by the Fed aren’t the only way to measure growth in manufacturing (or any other sector of the economy). Another is value-added, which attempts to avoid the double counting built into the standard output numbers created by their failure to distinguish between the value of the parts and components of a final product, and that of the final product itself. That’s why economists generally view them as the more revealing statistics. And in the above-linked announcement describing the revision and its methodology, the Fed says that the new numbers incorporate insights gleaned from the latest value-added figures (which are reported by the Commerce Department).

But when the latest version of these statistics are examined, they still show that domestic manufacturing grew much faster during the Trump years than during the final four Obama years. Here are the results in percentage terms when value-added is adjusted for inflation:

last four Obama years:                                    +3.88

Trump years pre-pandemic:                            +7.56

all four Trump years:                                       +9.22

One especially interesting feature of the above – the real value-added numbers show that U.S. manufacturing output actually grew further during the pandemic. In fact, even the revised Fed growth numbers show that industry has fared a good deal better so far during the pandemic than previously reported – with after-inflation production shrinking by just 0.92 percent between February, 2020 and this past April, not 1.42 percent.

Tomorrow the Fed will publish its first read on real manufacturing output for May. It will of course shed some more light on the status of domestic industry. But never forget that, given how the results will be revised not only several times during the next several months, but also about two years from now, the degree of illumination may be relatively modest.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Latest Data Remain Full of Normalization Puzzles

Tags

Biden, CCP Virus, China, construction, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, exports, goods trade, imports, inflation, inflation adjusted wages, labor shortages, leisure and hospitality, lockdowns, manufacturing, metals, non-oil goods trade deficit, non-supervisory workers, private sector, real wages, reopening, retail, services trade, shutdowns, tariffs, Trade, Trade Deficits, transportation, wage inflation, wages, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

While I was away for a few days last week, two major U.S. government reports came out both giving off conflicting signals on on whether the economy has started to return to normal in critical ways as the CCP Virus subsides and reopening, along with consequent changes in consumer behavior, proceed.

The monthly trade figures (for April) showed a sequential decline, following a record surge, in America’s chronically huge gap between exports and much larger amounts of imports. Moreover the monthly drop took place as economic growth sped along at unusual rates after being shut down by government mandates and consumer caution. So maybe they’re an early sign that a return to immediate pre-virus conditions has begun?

Or is their most important message that these deficits, and especially the import levels, are still hovering near all-time highs in (the most widely followed) pre-inflation terms even though the economy as of the latest (first quarter) numbers is still a bit smaller in (the most widely followed) inflation-adjusted terms than during the last full pre-pandemic quarter (the fourth quarter of 2019)?

Indeed, the deficits are gargantuan even though President Biden has left former President Trump’s substantial tariffs on metals and goods from China practically untouched. 

The monthly inflation numbers (for May) are similarly confusing. They revealed that consumer prices (just one inflation measure published by Washington, but an important one) rose by 4.93 percent in seasonally adjusted terms. That was their fastest annual pace since September, 2008’s 4.95 percent. Surely, as widely claimed (including by the Federal Reserve, which wields so much influence over the economy, this upswing stems from a combination of bottlenecks resulting from (1) the sudden, widespread reopening; (2) the unusually low overall inflation numbers generated a year ago, when the economy was near the depths of its viruts- and shutdown-induced slump; and (3) the immense dose of stimulus injected into the economy by both elected politicians and the unelected Fed.

At the same time, the Fed has told us that its stimulus isn’t ending anytime soon, and although the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats are displaying some cold feet about approving more such levels of economic fuel (e.g., in the form of outlays on infrastructure, and a wide variety of income supports and enhanced unemployment benefits), it’s difficult to imagine that most or even much of this spending will actually be withdrawn even once a post-virus recovery is an indisputable reality.

But the biggest surprise of all: Despite the economy-wide inflation pressures, and by-now-routine claims that employers are dealing with nearly crippling labor shortages, wages overall adjusted for inflation keep going down.

Compounding the confusion over whatever conclusions can legitimately be drawn from these two reports: They cover two different months.

But let’s begin with the most important details from the April trade report. The ambiguity embodied in the data begins with the total deficit figure. The record March result was revised up from $74.45 billion to $75.03 billion but April’s $68.90 shortfall for goods and services combined, though the second worst monthly figure ever, was 8.17 percent smaller. That’s the biggest sequential drop since February, 2020 (8.39 percent), when China’s export-heavy economy was still largely closed because of the virus.

The same holds for the goods trade gap. The record March figure was revised up, too, from $91.56 billion to $92.86 billion. But April’s $86.68 billion result represented a 6.65 percent monthly decline, and this falloff was the biggest since the 8.39 percent plunge of January, 2019 – when American businesses were still adjusting both to Trump’s tariffs and anticipated tariffs.

Also still fueling the high U.S. deficits – a worsening of services trade balances. Here, U.S. trade has long been in surplus, but the surpluses keep shrinking because service sectors like travel are still suffering from the pandemic’s arrival and the consequent decimation of travel and othe transportation in particular. In fact, the April figure of $17.78 billion was the lowest since September, 2012’s $18.62 billion.

One key set of trade flows does, however, provide some evidence of Trump tariff effectiveness – U.S. non-oil goods trade, which encompasses those exports and imports whose magnitudes are most heavily influenced by trade policy (because, as known by RealityChek regulars, trade in oil is almost never the subject of any trade policy decisions and services trade liberalization remains at very early stages). In April, the monthly shortfall retreated 4.16 percent from its March record of $90.12 billion to $86.37 billion – which is only the fourth highest such total ever.

The import figures I focused on last month exhibit the same overall patterns: April saw big drops from record levels but the absolute numbers remain distressingly high. March’s initially reported record $274.48 billion in total imports was revised up considerably – to $277.69 billion. April’s total of $273.89 billion represented a 1.37 percent drop, but nonetheless was the second worst such figure on record.

March’s record monthly goods import figure was upgraded, too – from $234.44 billion to $236.52 billion. April’s total of $231.97 billion was a 1.92 percent drop but these purchases also still represented the second highest of alll time.

As for non-oil goods imports, the $215.33 billion April total was 1.98 percent down from an upwardly revised record $219.68 billion, and also the second biggest ever. Biggest drop since last April’s 10.91

Whether normalization is returning in manufacturing is more difficult to tell. Imports in March hit a record $207.59 billion, and did drop by 4.59 percent sequentially to $198.06 billion in April. That decrease, however, was a typical monthly move for manufacturing imports, and the April figure was still the third highest ever.

Incidentally, the April manufacturing deficit of $103.60 billion was 4.64 percent lower than March’s $108.66 billion. The March total was the second highest on record, but April’s figure was only the seventh all-time worst. The record, $110.20 billion, came last October, and it’s notable that the gap has narrowed on net despite the resilience shown during the pandemic period by manufacturing output.

More evidence of the Trump tariffs’ impact comes from the data on goods trade with China – whose products have attracted nearly all of these levies, and that cover hundreds of billions of dollars worth of products. The April figure of $37.59 billion was 6.56 percent lower than its March predecessor – a thoroughly unexceptional sequential decline and monthly level by historical standards. But the monthly dropoff was consideraby greater than the aforementioned 1.98 percent decrease for non-oil goods – the closest global proxy.

As a result of all these inconclusive developments, I’ll be awaiting the May trade report with even more interest than usual.

But despite all the uncertainties I mentioned at the start of this post, those May inflation figures have made me more confident than before in my previous contention that current price surges are anomalies by the extremely low inflation generated by the CCP Virus-battered economy of a year ago, and by the sudden reopening of so much of the economy following the long shutdowns and lockdowns. Even clearer, as I see it: Claims of significant, troubling wage inflation are especially weak.

After all, that 4.93 percent year-on-year May price increase followed a previous May-to-May rise that was just 0.22 percent. That was the feeblest such rise since September, 2015’s 0.13 percent. In addition, May’s month-to-month 0.64 price advance was smaller than April’s 0.77 percent. Two months do not a trend make, but these numbers certainly don’t point to raging inflation fires.

Nor do the wage data. Otherwise after-inflation total private sector wages wouldn’t be down more on-month in May (-0.18 percent) than in April (-0.09 percent). And the same couldn’t be said of constant dollar wages for non-supervisory workers (-0.20 percent in May versus flat in April).

Getting more granular, the price-adjusted wage trends are as bad or worse in construction; trade, transportation and utilities overall; retail trade; and education and health services.

The two big exceptions: the leisure and hospitality workforces that have been so decimated by the virus (and especially the non-supervisory group) and the transportation and warehousing sub-sector of the transportation and utilities industry category that contains a trucking sector unusually strained by the rapid reopening. In both cases, however, (and especially the leisure and hospitality industry), inflation-adjusted wages in absolute terms are well below the national private sector average. If anything, therefore, it seems like some wage inflation for these workers is long overdue.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Latest Nod to Trump-ism – Israel-Palestinians Policy?

Tags

Abraham Accords, Antony J. Blinken, Biden, Binyamin Netanyahu, Blob, China, diplomacy, Donald Trump, Gaza, globalism, Hamas, Israel, Jared Kushner, Middle East, North Korea, occupied territories, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, tariffs, Trade, two-state solution, West Bank

As known by RealityChek regulars, one of the leading – and most surprising – features of the Biden administration is a tendency to continue certain Trump administration policies that the current President, and much of the globalist bipartisan policy Blob decried as dangerously naive, xenophobic, short-sighted, isolationist, protectionist [feel free at this point to insert your own scornful epithet].

Now on top of tariffs, China trade and economic strategy, and North Korea policy, there’s a sign that the Biden approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict can be added to the list. My evidence? Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s remarks this morning on the latest eruption after a meeting in Jerusalem with the Jewish state’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

The most specific policy statements Blinken made focused tightly on the need for reconstruction aid for Gaza – where Israeli military strikes aimed at stopping Hamas rocket attacks inflicted serious damage – as well as the need “to work to expand opportunity for Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank, including by strengthening the private sector, expanding trade and investment, and other means. Assistance and investment like these will help foster a more stable environment that benefits Palestinians and also benefits Israelis.”

By contrast, there were only the most glancing references to resuming diplomatic efforts to bring lasting peace to the region – principally, Blinken’s report that he and Netanyahu discssed “other steps that need to be taken by leaders on both sides to set a better course for their shared future. As President Biden has said, we believe that Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely; to enjoy equal measures of freedom, opportunity, and democracy; to be treated with dignity.”

And beyond that – nothing. Not even a mention of a negotiated two-state solution that President Biden continues to support as the end goal of U.S. diplomacy.

That looks awfully Trump-y because a focus on economic development in Israel’s occupied territories to ameliorate their populations’ pressing day-to-day needs and create credible hopes for decent living standards and further progress, and an unmistakable deemphasis on returning Israeli and Palestinian leaders to some kind of bargaining table, was a definite hallmark of the former President’s approach to dealing with the conflict. The idea was that the promise and growing reality of prosperity on the West Bank and in Gaza was the best hope for reducing the appeal of violence and creating the conditions in which realistic compromises could – some day – be accepted.

Indeed, Trump’s peace plan conspicuously began with a purely economic proposal – a fund raised from private investors in the Persian Gulf states and other countries that would spend $50 billion over ten years on infrastructure and development projects in the occupied territories. As the plan’s main author, Trump son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner explicitly stated upon its unveiling, “Today is not about political solutions — we will get to them later.”

And although Mr. Biden just issued a re-endorsement of two-state, it’s more than a little interesting that during his Senate confirmation hearings, Blinken acknowledged that “Realistically it’s hard to see near-term prospects for moving forward on that.” That’s hardly a sign of perceived urgency. Perhaps more revealing: The numerous recent articles (all pre-dating the latest Middle East fighting) reporting Mr. Biden’s determination to deemphasize the Middle East as a U.S. foreign priority to begin with – and evidence the administration was following through in official policy declarations and staffing decisions.

Not that this relative indifference marked a significant change in candidate Biden’s campaign positions. In fact, he praised the Trump “Abraham Accords” that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries. And although Mr. Biden did charge that Trump’s strong pro-Israel tilt had made a negotiated Israel-Palestinian settlement “even more difficult,” his campaign’s main foreign policy statement didn’t even mention the issue. (Perhaps that’s because he reserved his more detailed – and somewhat more critical – verdict for his campaign’s articulation of a policy toward “the Jewish community.”)

But the foreign policy Blob’s judgement were much harsher – largely because Trump was seen to be recklessly ignoring the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations and the supposedly obvious reality that not only was peace between Israel and the Palestinians was impossible without taking the latter’s interests seriously, but that meaningful progress toward pacifying and even stabilizing the entire Middle East was as well. (See, e.g., here and here).

It’s an exaggeration to say that the President has now repudiated this pre-Trump conventional wisdom on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But he’s clearly in no rush to embrace it. And given his other adoptions of Trump-ian stances, it strikes me as evidence that not only is Mr. Biden moving away from pre-Trump globalism, but that the days of this strategy dominating American foreign policymaking writ large are numbered themselves.    

Following Up: The Democrats’ Trump/Ukraine/Impeachment Hypocrisy is Now Complete

Tags

Adam Schiff, Alexander Vindman, Biden, Bill Taylor, Bob Mendendez, Democrats, Donald Trump, Eric Swalwell, Fiona Hill, Following Up, foreign policy, globalists, impeachment, Jeanne Shaheen, Mainstream Media, Marie Yovanovitch, Nancy Pelosi, national security, natural gas, Nordstream 2, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

As known by RealityChek regulars, I’ve devoted two posts lately (here and here, and here) to the puzzling matter of President Biden’s policies toward the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline. The reason: For months during the last half of the Trump administration, any number of leading Democrats and globalist U.S. diplomats and other officials had justified the first effort to impeach the former President largely because he allegedly threatened key U.S. national security interests by hinging American military aid to Ukraine to its government’s cooperation in investigating charges against Mr. Biden (then a likely Democratic presidential candidate and therefore political rival) and his family.

Indeed, the first Article of Impeachment expressly stated that Trump “compromised” and “injured” national security for precisely this reason.

Mr. Biden never explicitly accused Trump of comprising American security by weakening ties to a supposedly crucial ally. But he certainly insinuated comission of this “high crime or misdemeanor” by charging that Trump “betrayed this nation.”

So I believed it was worth spotlighting that the Biden administration had for months been moving toward a decision that would both unquestionably endanger Ukraine and enrich Vladimir Putin’s Russia – whose apparent designs on Ukraine have prompted the United States (including the Trump administration) to provide it with various kinds of weapons and other military supplies to begin with. That decision: nixing significant sanctions on companies building the pipeline, which would transport Russian natural gas directly to Europe, in the process bypassing the previous transit route through Ukraine and enabling Russia to avoid the need to pay literally billions of dollars’ worth of tolls to its neighbor. And yesterday, the Biden administration made the move official.

For the record, I don’t consider Ukraine a vital or even important ally of the United States (for reasons explained, e.g., here). But Americans were told consistently during the first Trump impeachment hearings and actual proceedings that it was, making at least ironic a Democratic administration’s pursuit of a policy bound to enrich the country threatening Ukraine – and at Ukraine’s expense.

And at least as interesting, during the period that Mr. Biden has made his Nordstream intention clear, and since the final decision was announced, it’s become clear that most of the Democratic and diplomatic voices that touted Ukraine’s centraility to America’s own safety didn’t believe their own claims either. And ditto for the Mainstream Media news organizations that breathlessly reported and even endorsed them.

How do I know this? Because none of Trump’s main accusers along these lines seems to have had anything to day about Mr. Biden’s unmistakably anti-Ukraine decision. And my charge is easily verifiable. Just Google “Nordstream” and any of the following names: Alexander Vindman, Marie Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill, Bill Taylor, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell. In various roles, these folks were leading the charge to dump Trump because of his Ukraine record and the related claim that he was a ” Manchurian” candidate and then President who won the presidency by accepting Putin’s help during the campaign in return for doing the Russian dictator’s bidding.

And do you know what these Google searches come up with? Not a peep of protest about Mr. Biden’s Nordstream decision. Incidentally, some of these figures have been commenting some on Ukraine-related issues. Vindman, for example, co-authored a Washington Post op-ed piece in March urging the West as a whole to toughen its stance against Russia’s “blatant violations of human rights and unrestrained repression of opponents both at home and abroad.” He urged Germany “in particular [to] reconsider its business ties to Moscow — specifically the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline which is nearing completion” and the United States and the United Kingdom to strengthen existing Nordstream sanctions. But nothing about Biden indifference to the matter even though it was already becoming apparent – and certainly nothing since.

Three weeks later, after the President imposed sanctions on Russia for cyberattacks and election meddling, Schiff – the lead House impeachment manager in 2019 – noted that “While appropriate, sanctions alone will not be enough to deter Russia’s misbehavior. We must strengthen our own cyber defenses, take further action to condemn Russia’s human rights abuses, and, working in concert with our Allies and partners in Europe, deter further Russian military aggression.” But he said nothing about Nordstream at all.

At least as important, I can’t find a single instance of a Mainstream Media journalist even seeking the Nordstream views of either figure, or of their other impeachment-period Ukraine-philes.  

Some Democrats have condemned the Mr. Biden’s Nordstream decision – notably, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. But although both voted to remove Trump from office in part because his Ukraine actions jeopardized national security (see here and here), neither mentioned taking any punitive measures against Mr. Biden even though in the long run his Nordstream decision could undermine Ukraine’s independence far more than Trump’s brief suspension of the arms aid.     

It’s true that the Ukraine national security charge wasn’t the only accusation leveled against Trump in 2019. He was also impeached for violating the law in holding up the military assistance Congress approved for the country.  But as pointed out in this post, nothing in the statute in question regards such presidential actions as impeachable. Certainly they’re far from the first course of action. Instead, the law specifically instructs Congressional plaintiffs to bring a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court.

As for the claim that Trump abused the power of the Presidency by launching an official investigation of a political opponent for purely political reasons, the revelations since of Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine during his father’s vice presidency show how premature – to put it kindly – that conclusion was.   

Aa a result, given the outsized role played by the Ukraine charge’s substance, the indifference shown this year to that country’s fate by Trump’s 2019 prosecutors strengthens the case that the first impeachment pretty thoroughly abused power itself.  The one silver lining (and it’s not negligible):  At least the Democrats and other Never Trumper globalists aren’t beating the Ukraine war drums for now.

Im-Politic: Our Dysfunctional Watchdog of Democracy

Tags

Anthony S. Fauci, Barry Meier, Biden, Buzzfeed.com, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, democracy, Donald Trump, facemasks, Im-Politic, journalism, lockdowns, Mainstream Media, masks, Russia, Steele dossier, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Thomas Jefferson, Trump-Russia, Wuhan virus, Yellow journalism

A New York Times article posted this past weekend strongly reinforces a suspicion that I’ve held for some time about the title of most worrisome – because largely neglected – existing threat to American democracy. It’s not demagogues who get elected to high (or even the highest) public office. It’s not white supremacists or Antifa. It’s not voter fraud or voter suppression. It’s not Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It’s not even the kind of disinformation and misinformation and even election interference that he and other foreign dictators (like China’s Xi Jinping) have engaged in.

Instead it’s our own Mainstream Media – including the gargantuan social media platforms that have come to play such a huge role in determining what news Americans see, watch, and hear.

Why are these news organizations so dangerous? For two main reasons. First, their democracy-subverting activities are much more subtle and therefore harder to identify than those of the above culprits. Second, their ever-growing partisanship and arrogance is destroying what has long been relied on as the nation’s fail-safe mechanism – a watchdog press.

To be fair, this idea has always been problematic, even though throughout U.S. history, prominent Americans have made statements like “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost” (Thomas Jefferson) and “Democracy Dies in Darkness” (the Washington Post).

Yes, despite the bedrock Constitutional system of separation of powers, it’s been essential for some influential force outside government to “guard the guardians.” But embedded in the very consequent need for private ownership (to ensure that the press can independently monitor the government) is the danger that these owners will solely or mainly use their power to further their own particular interests, not society’s.

All of which is to say that we’ve long had a national conundrum to deal with. But it doesn’t seem unreasonable to conclude that, once journalism clearly exited its sensationalistic “Yellow” phase and (probably in the years following Wold War II), started acting like a profession that needed to embody and uphold standards of accuracy and objectivity, the major media met its watchdog responsibilities fairly well – over both government and the private sector.

What the author of the Times piece, former journalist Barry Meier, makes clear, is that there’s not only more reason than ever to fear that the commitment to objectivity is rapidly weakening (and these fears have been amply justified lately, as I’ve reported here). There’s also more reason than ever to fear that the kind of commitment to accountability watchdogs must accept – inevitably entailing an acknowledgement of legitimate outside criticism and the imperative of correcting mistakes – seriously is fading as well.

These worries have been triggered by two specific observations made by Meier about the Mainstream Media’s handling of the charges that former President Trump colluded with Russia to ensure victory in the 2016 election. As Meier recounts, these accusations were supercharged by reports that a former British super-spy had uncovered evidence that Trump’s personal misbehavior had exposed him to Russian blackmail, and resulted in his turning into a latterday Manchurian Candidate who would be forced to do Moscow’s bidding.

The infamous “Steele dossier” that supposedly made this case was published by a website called Buzzfeed.com in January, 2017 – shortly before Trump’s inauguration – and although no serious efforts at confirmation or even finding any supporting evidence were made, “countless articles, television shows, books, tweets and blog posts about it appeared.” (The dossier also formed part of the basis of the FBI’s request to a special U.S. court to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016, and Bureau Director James Comey’s March, 2017 disclosure that this investigation was continuing poured additional fuel on the Trump Russia fire.)

By 2019, Meier goes on, the Steele dossier had been exposed as a bogus hatchet job. But by that time, of course, the collusion firestorm had dominated the Trump presidency, along with equally offbase news coverage of his administration, and surely compromised its ability to govern effectively.

Why this prolonged media focus? In large measure, as Meier explains, because “It was easy for many journalists to believe that Mr. Trump would do anything to win, even — given his stance with…Putin — collude with Russia.” Indeed, as the author observes, they picked up this ball and ran with it even though “Steele said that his information needed to be confirmed….”

This flagrant anti-Trump bias was bad enough. Much worse, though was the media’s response once the dossier had been debunked. In Meier’s words:

“[A] few reporters who had written about the dossier had backed away from it. ‘Some people have wanted to maintain that the dossier is checking out when, as far as I can tell, it hasn’t,’ said Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News. He was in the minority. When Erik Wemple of The Washington Post wrote a series of columns about the media infatuation with the dossier, most journalists he contacted either defended their work or ignored his inquiries.”

Even though Meier, Isikoff, and Wemple all work for Mainstream Media organizations themselves, these revelations are more disturbing because they cast doubt on these news organization’s willingness, either individually or collectively, to admit that a major preoccupation of theirs that shaped American politics for years was an utter crock. And in a similar vein, they’re grounds for great skepticism that these same media will produce accurate post-mortems on the actual actions by governments or by individual politicians that conformed with this Get Trump obsession.     

The reason for this reluctance is obvious: Their credibility – their most precious asset, even in this hyperpartisan era – would be devastated. But if these powerful companies won’t self-correct or correct the records of others – and in some systematic, comprehensive way that can make a difference, not in dribs and drabs – especially on a matter of this importance, then their watchdog reputation gets thrown out the window.

And as far as I’m concerned, good riddance. But if the big national media can’t be relied on to play this role responsibly, who or what can? And can a democracy worthy of the name long survive without actors that can credibly set the record straight before the archives are fully open to historians years and even decades from now?

Moreover, we’re getting an example of how such flawed Mainstream Media performance could be a literally fatal flaw – and on mass level.  Specifically,  evidence has appeared throughout the CCP Virus pandemic that sweeping lockdown- and mask-wearing-centric mitigation strategy pursued in most of the country at the behest of the public health establishment was completely and tragically mistaken. (See, e.g., here.)  America’s major national news organizations have obviously bought in to the stay-at-home and mask-up claims, as shown, for example, by their near canonization of leading lockdowns proponent Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s head immunologist and now President Biden’s top medical adviser. 

I’d like to believe that if conclusive evidence emerges invalidating this virus-fighting approach, and supporting measures with potentially greater effectiveness during future pandemics, the news would be trumpeted all over the Mainstream Media even if the federal government tried to hush it up.  But as of now, expressing the hope that the real story might become known looks like nothing so much as practicing quackery.  

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Biden Keeps Following The Trump on China Trade

Tags

Biden, China, Donald Trump, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Katherine Tai, Phase One, tariffs, Trade, trade war

“China is the big winner of Trump’s ‘phase-one’ trade deal with Beijing. True to form, [then President Donald] Trump is getting precious little in return for the significant pain and uncertainty he has imposed on our economy, farmers, and workers.”

– Candidate Joe Biden, January 15, 2020

 

“President Joe Biden’s chief trade negotiator pledged to build off the deal with China reached under Donald Trump and said that….[the] Biden administration respects the continuity of the so-called phase-one agreement….”

– Bloomberg.com, May 5, 2021

 

(Sources: “Biden Slams Trump-China Trade Deal as Lacking on Key Disputes,” by Jennifer Epstein, Bloomberg.com, January 15, 2020, Joe Biden Blasts Trump Phase One U.S.-China Trade Deal – Bloomberg & “Biden Trade Chief Pledges to Build Off Trump’s China Agreement, by Eric Martin, Ibid., May 5, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-05/biden-trade-chief-pledges-to-build-off-trump-s-china-agreement?srnd=economics-vp)