Im-Politic: ‘Tis the Season – for Immigration Double Standards

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Associated Press, Chuck Schumer, CNN, illegal aliens, Im-Politic, Immigration, Mainstream Media. Nancy Pelosi, migrants, Open Borders, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Trump

All reasonable participants in the often angry national debate about American immigration policy surely agree that the deaths of migrant children in U.S. custody and the killing of a police officer at the hands of an illegal alien are comparably tragic. Why, then, have the Open Borders supporters treated them like night and day, focusing intently on the former and literally ignoring the latter? And why has President Trump so needlessly fed his own critics’ charges of cruelty, racism, and xenophobia on immigration policy with some double standards-setting of his own on these matters?

The discrepancy on the part of Open Borders advocates has been especially dramatic when it comes to Congress’ leading Democrats – who will assume control of the House of Representatives in January. House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, and other major figures in the party (including its likely presidential candidates) have uniformly expressed outrage at the deaths this month of two Guatemalan children held by the U.S. immigration authorities after being brought to the border by parents on long, arduous trips from their home country.  (See, e.g., here and here.)

But the early morning December 26 killing of a Newman, California police officer (and an immigrant himself) by a suspect identified as an illegal alien by local law enforcement officials has elicited no response at all – even from Pelosi, who represents a California district.

The same pattern marks the coverage of these incidents by the Mainstream Media, which has made its Open Borders sympathies abundantly clear in recent years. For example, the Washington Post this morning was still highlighting on its front page the controversy over the children’s deaths. But the police officer’s death didn’t even make the print edition. The killing was mentioned on the paper’s website three times yesterday and today. But all three items were taken from the wire services, meaning that the Post hasn’t as of now assigned one of its own reporters to investigate.  (See, e.g., here.)

The New York Times did cover the policeman’s killing with one of its own correspondents – and ran the story on page 15 of the news section today. But an article on the children’s deaths, which are no longer breaking news, received front page coverage.

Visit the website of the Associated Press, the world’s largest bona fide news agency, and you’ll see an article on the most recent Guatemalan child’s death right near the top of the home page. But you need to scroll way down to find a piece on the police officer’s killing.

CNN also featured a follow up on the most recent child death prominently on its home page. But its coverage of the police killing doesn’t appear anywhere. You need to look for it with the search engine.

In my view, President Trump has dropped the ball here as well. It’s true that his administration has expressed regret over both migrant children’s deaths, is investigating these events, and seeking ways to handle the new flood of migrants more effectively. It’s also true that the administration has blamed the children’s parents in part for putting them in dangerous situations to begin with – and I agree. I also fully support the administration’s insistence that the U.S. government’s responsibilities to its own citizens are qualititatively different – meaning greater – than to citizens of other countries.

But although Mr. Trump has tweeted about the shooting (without condolences for his family or his colleagues) he’s made no comment at all about the children’s deaths. And just as the Open Borders folks exhibited a major blind spot in failing to acknowledge the special shame surrounding the death of a public official who risked his life every day on behalf of others by an individual who commonsense immigration policies likely would have kept out of this country, the President has exhibited a blind spot in failing to acknowledge the special sorrow surrounding the death of a minor who bore no responsibility for his circumstances. And he could so easily have done expressed such sentiments without conceding a single inch of ground in his campaign for the most stringent border security regime.

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Im-Politic: Antisemitism by Any Other Name

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academia, antisemitism, Im-Politic, Lila Corwin Berman, Mainstream Media, Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, The Washington Post, Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome

Leave it to American academia today to produce an article that simultaneously claims that anti-semitism in the United States is and has always been much worse than commonly believed, and suggests that “the opportunities and privileges [American Jews] gained came not because America held particular promise for Jews, but rather because it withheld that promise in so many ways to so many other people.”

And leave it to the Mainstream Media to publish such simultaneously incoherent and offensive garbage – perhaps in part because author Lila Corwin Berman managed to inject into her diatribe major swipes at President Trump.

I’ve read and re-read the sentence quoted above, which appeared in this morning’s Washington Post, numerous times for fear of misinterpreting it. But I can’t understand how it can mean anything other than that throughout their history in this country, Jews in general have at the very least selfishly “seen no evil” as they’ve basked in America’s tolerance – and at the most bear significant responsibility for the oppression of other minorities, either actively, or passively, through their determination to keep affixed their self-serving blinder.

Not that anyone, including me, should rule any of these possibilities out of hand. But the author – a Temple University historian of American Judaism – offers no serious evidence or even detailed argumentation to support the charges. And absent any grounding in fact, how are the allegations not simple antisemitic slurs? Alternatively, to employ some terms widely used these days to link the President to atrocities like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, how does their simple voicing not “activate” or “encourage” or “release” or “embolden” such prejudice?

Further, how does Berman square these contentions with her belief – strengthened by the Pittsburgh murders – that the United States has not been “an exceptional place for Jews,” and that they have been wrong to “see an exceptional future for themselves and their children in the United States”? Spoiler alert: She can’t. Worse, she doesn’t even try. And her editors at the Washington Post somehow missed this whopping contradiction.

What could possibly explain such evident incompetence? How about Berman’s decision to make sure to blast President Trump for displaying:

“how easily [American] exceptionalism can become a weapon for exclusion; this is the very purpose of ‘Make America Great Again.’ The president legitimizes white supremacy as one of ‘both sides’ of American life. He declares himself to be a nationalist without bothering to distinguish between his nationalism and the dark history of xenophobic and genocidal nationalism. He routinely gives cover to those who abuse vulnerable populations — trans people, refugees, immigrants, Muslims, people of color, children and women — by telling his followers that they are the victims. In all cases, what he calls the ‘greatness’ of this country is its ability to exclude whole classes of people as unfit and undesirable for its blessings.”

In other words, Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached new lows. As the Washington Post has just made clear, a newspaper’s flagship opinion section will publish in the same article claims that American Jews have had no reason to be grateful for the haven the United States has provided them, and insinuations that these Jews have been complicit in the nation’s failures to treat other groups justly. Just be sure to depict the President as an enabler of every form of bigotry under the sun.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: With Allies Like These….

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allies, Asia, auto tariffs, China, Europe, Germany, intellectual property theft, Japan, Robert J. Samuelson, South Korea, steel tariffs, tariffs, The Washington Post, Trade, Trump, value-added taxes, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Nationally syndicated Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson intended this week’s essay to show how foolish, and possibly disastrous, President Trump’s emerging new trade policy will be – including for the national security goals the administration has set. That’s why it’s so ironic that his column instead unwittingly revealed how thin a reed the nation’s long-time security strategy has been, and nowhere more so than in the importance it’s assigned to its long-time security alliances in Europe and Asia.

Samuelson’s piece conveys a warning that the administration’s trade policy moves so far are on course to undermine national security in two related ways: by ignoring the alleged imperative of enlisting its major allies in a multilateral campaign to discipline predatory Chinese intellectual property and related trade and industrial policies that need curbing; and by actually antagonizing these countries and thereby jeopardizing the very existence of those alliances.

This argument conveniently overlooks several big trade and security fundamentals. First, globalist pre-Trump American leaders themselves have insisted that they’ve long tried to create multilateral pressure on China’s rogue economic behavior for years before Mr. Trump became president – though it’s unclear how serious these efforts were. For example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal largely touted by the Obama administration for its potential to curb China’s influence contained a back door for numerous imports with major levels of Chinese content.

Second, it’s anything but obvious that U.S. alliances strengthen American security on net. As I’ve pointed out frequently (including this past week), they continue to expose the American homeland to the risk of nuclear attack even though the Soviet-style kinds of global threats their nuclear guarantees were intended to counter have been (literally) gone for nearly three decades. Moreover, as has been widely reported, the militaries of many of these allies have deteriorated so markedly that their potential as force multipliers for the United States is open to serious doubt.

But Samuelson’s analysis makes no sense even if these considerations are put aside. The key is in his own portrayal of leading U.S. allies – which he describes as livid about recent American steel tariffs, and sure to become even angrier is levies are imposed on their motor vehicle exports to the United States. Indeed, he worries, major auto-exporting countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea could well become so upset with the United States that they not only retaliate in kind, but unhesitatingly move to supply China with whatever high tech goods and services Washington embargoes or restricts.

In other words, these allies would redouble their efforts to feed the Chinese beast even though all of them face China trade, technology, and/or national security threats of their own, and even though the United States continues to provide them with crucial military protection – including, in the case of Japan and South Korea, from Chinese designs. But these same allies were supposed to be amenable to cooperating with Washington to deal with China? Even more revealing, the allies would choose to intensify confrontation with the United States instead of (finally) proposing concrete steps to deal with the China problem over which they profess concern.

And they would display no interest whatever in meaningfully removing the formidable obstacles they have created to block American automotive exports. (The recently reported German auto-makers’ proposal to eliminate all tariffs in the sector on both sides of the Atlantic would leave in place towering European value-added taxes – e.g., 19 percent in Germany – on motor vehicles and most other imports. No such U.S. equivalent exists either for autos or for light trucks and sport utility vehicles.)

No one can fault these European and East Asian countries from acting in their own perceived interests – or even for trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Indeed, for decades, globalist American foreign policies have encouraged and actively enabled precisely this kind of free-riding. What these countries should be faulted for is posing as allies (let alone allies with justifiably hurt feelings), and worse, as paragons of sobriety and free market values nobly resisting a wrecking ball of an American President. As for any Americans and U.S. leaders who keep fooled by this act for so long and, more important, failing to take the policy hints – shame on them.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Fake News Attack on the Trump Metals Tariffs

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aluminum, Catherine Rampell, competitiveness, fake news, manufacturing, metals, steel, tariffs, The Washington Post, Trade, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Pundits like the Washington Post‘s Catherine Rampell have every right to warn that President Trump’s metals (and other) tariffs will ultimately harm the U.S. economy more than it helps. What they have no right to do is peddle demonstrably false claims like her contention that because of the price hikes so far seen for steel and aluminum since these levies came onto the American trade agenda earlier this year, companies reliant on these materials for their final products “are now less competitive.”

I call these claims demonstrably false because every month, the U.S. government publishes detailed statistics on the nation’s trade performance, and the data through April contain absolutely no evidence that domestic metals-using industries are on the ropes – or anywhere close.

Let’s examine what seems to be the national chattering class’ and policy establishment’s favorite measure of industrial competitiveness: American exports. If the Trump tariffs have indeed been pushing U.S. metals-using industries close to the ash heap of economic history, then their overseas sales for the first few months of this year (the tariffs became likely when the Commerce Department officially recommended them in mid-February), should be much lower than they were the first few months of last year – or at least growing much more slowly.

In fact, just the opposite has been seen, at least when it comes to three major sectors of the economy that are especially heavy users of steel and aluminum – transportation equipment, non-electrical machinery, and fabricated metals products.

Over the first four months of this year (the latest data available), America’s global exports in these categories were not only 5.83 percent greater than over the same period in 2017. The year-to-date growth rate was some 7.2 times higher than that for 2017 (0.81 percent).

Perhaps more significant, the difference between the January-April, 2018 export growth rates for these metals-using industries and their January-April, 2017 growth rates was much greater than for American manufacturing as a whole. During the first four months of 2018, total U.S. manufacturing exports have grown 7.45 percent year-to-date. That’s higher in absolute terms than the export growth for the metals-using industries, but this export increase has been only 2.12 times faster than their export growth rate for January-April, 2017 (3.52 percent).

But what about my favorite measure of American competitiveness – trade balances and how they’ve changed? I focus on these two-way flows because the theory of comparative advantage at the heart of all justifications for the freest possible global trade makes sense only if these surpluses and deficits have consequences for global production patterns.

After all, comparative advantage holds that trade is the best possible way to create the best possible global division of labor – meaning that in a world of unfettered commerce, countries that trade products and services most successfully will inevitably wind up making those products and providing those services most successfully, and that all countries will benefit on net. And the countries that trade products and services most successfully are those that amass the biggest surpluses in those products and services. The opposite propositions logically hold the impact of running deficits in various sectors.

As it happens, the trade balance figures don’t show or presage any apocalypse for America’s metals-using industries, either. During the first four months of 2017, their cumulative trade deficit with the rest of the world increased by 10.56 percent on year. For the comparable period this year, the deficit’s year-to-date growth rate was faster: 11.64 percent. But clearly, this trade shortfall didn’t grow much faster.

The comparison with trade deficits for manufacturing as a whole is instructive as well. During January-April, 2017, this trade gap increased by 10.19 percent on year. During January-April, 2018, the figure was 10.85 percent.

So the metals-using industries’ trade deficit did grow faster during both periods than the shortfall for manufacturing as a whole. But the difference in the rate of acceleration has been trivial. In the metals-using sectors, the deficit during the first four months of 2018 grew 1.10 times faster than it grew during the first four months of 2017. For manufacturing as a whole, the deficit during the first four months of 2018 grew 1.06 times faster than during the same period in 2017.

I’d be the last to argue that this situation will never change. The Trump metals tariffs haven’t been imposed very long. Moreover, they’ve been phased in, so the full impact of their final (for now!), most sweeping version hasn’t yet been felt.  

Nonetheless, the effects could also be swamped by the benefits metals-using sectors have gained from the new corporate tax cuts and the regulatory relief offered by the Trump administration – two policies that industry as a whole has hailed enthusiastically as major boosters of competitiveness.

What should be unmistakably clear, though, is that claims that U.S. metals-using industries are already suffering from the Trump steel and aluminum are no better than Fake News – and deserve nothing more than scorn from all fair-minded readers.

Making News: Back on National Radio Tonight Talking Trump and China – & More!

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China, Gordon G. Chang, Making News, The Daily Beast, The John Batchelor Show, The Washington Post, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to return to John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show tonight to discuss the latest – and arguably the strangest – twists and turns in President Trump’s China trade policy.  Click here to listen live on-line to what’s sure to be a lively segment with John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, and me at 10 PM EST.

Also, Gordon has been good enough to quote my views in two articles he published on this subject yesterday .  The first, a Washington Post op-ed focused on the threat posed by China’s predatory policies to the global trade system. You can read it at this link.

The second, a column for TheDailyBeast.com, analyzed the President’s bizarre decision to let off the legal hook a Chinese telecommunications entity convicted of violating American sanctions on countries like North Korea and Iran. (I refuse to use the word “company,” or “business” when describing these outfits because they have nothing to do with free market capitalism as practiced in the United States or anywhere else in the world.) 

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

Im-Politic: Why Prioritizing Dead White Guys’ Literature Isn’t Bigoted

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academia, critical thinking, culture wars, education, higher education, identity politics, Im-Politic, literature, racism, scholarship, The Washington Post, Trump, Viet Thanh Nguyen

One of the most dispiriting findings in recent years about the state of the nation concerns evidence that colleges are failing to achieve a fundamental goal: improving students’ critical thinking skills. (Click here, here, and here, for some leading studies showing that these institutions have failed to teach undergraduates “how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event,” in the words of a typical description of the conclusions. Here’s a dissenting view.)

And if Viet Thanh Nguyen, a University of Southern California professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist to boot, is the slightest bit typical, then it’s painfully obvious that a main reason for this sorry record is that way too many college faculty lack these skills themselves.

As presented in a Washington Post article yesterday, Nguyen’s argument is…well, it’s actually hard to tell what his argument is. As best as I can surmise, he’s upset that, in too many instances, American college students are discouraged from reading non-western literature, and that young literary scholars are discouraged (by continuing bleak job prospects stemming from intolerant appointment committees) from researching and writing on these works.

He cites his own experiences trying to climb the academic career ladder, as well as a controversy that’s just broken out at Barnard College in New York City over the demands of “some English majors” for “greater diversity in their curriculum.”

At the same time, Nguyen makes clear that since such issues became a bone of contention in the late-1980s and 1990s, reformers who “demanded more space for works by women, people of color, the working class, the queer and the non-white” have “triumphed.” In fact, their victory had taken place by the late-1990s.

The author’s belief that these “culture wars” are flaring anew on campuses, and that a Donald Trump-fueled revival of “white identity politics” is mainly responsible, is also puzzling – to say the least. After all, neither the President nor his more extreme, racially motivated supporters seem to have many supporters in the ranks of U.S. professors or higher education administrators. Nor does there seem to be any scarcity of courses and degree programs in non-western literature and culture in American academia.

So Nguyen’s article flunks three basic texts of critical thinking – advancing a coherent argument, providing serious evidence on its behalf, and refuting major evidence-based counter-arguments.

Nguyen’s real beef seems to be somewhat narrower, but no less important:  A charge that higher ed’s English and American literature curricula, especially in courses covering their seminal works (i.e., their canon), don’t make enough room for non-white and female writers. But here he falls short of meeting another important critical thinking challenge: placing objects or ideas in their proper categories. Here’s what I mean.

The study of literature obviously has to include a study of the entire environment in which that literature is created – including its history, economy, social structure, other aspects of its culture, etc. But first and foremost the study of literature is the study of an art form (which can be both fictional and non-fictional in nature). Therefore, it’s primarily concerned with how and why and how this literature’s aesthetic features have evolved; how successfully and skillfully, and creatively or derivatively, various authors achieved their goals and sent their messages; what the artistry of these works can tell us about how their creators perceived and interpreted, both knowingly and unwittingly, the various elements of their environments, characteristics of human psychology, and the crucial ideas that have molded the human experience; how these factors in turn influenced these authors; what their works reveal about these circumstances; and what, if anything, they can teach us today.

To apply Nguyen’s complaint and this definition of literature to the American canon, there can be no doubt that throughout its history, the nation’s population has consisted of many racial and ethnic groups (and more than one gender). There’s no doubt also that the various forms of contact these groups and genders have had with each other have influenced the worldviews, and therefore the literary output generated by each.

But there’s also no doubt that the influence of white males of European descent has been dominant, and that this dominance was especially pronounced in the nation’s formative years and decades – when the ideas and values and perspectives that have (so far) contributed the most to American culture (and other elements of its environment) began crystallizing. And the degree of injustice in part responsible for this group’s dominance has no intrinsic bearing on its role and its lasting influence. Nor does the inarguable fact that the influence of these white European-descended men itself consists both of admirable and shameful aspects.

So it makes perfect sense that American literature courses, especially at the more general level, to date have emphasized the works of these white males. By extension, it makes perfect sense that much less emphasis has been placed on the works of authors from other groups. Indeed, Nguyen himself explains why: In his words, these authors have been “submerged, overlooked and forgotten.”

Now, if the aim is the entirely worthy objective of learning more about these marginalized groups as such, then of course exposure of their literature is essential. But the greatest responsibility for achieving this goal logically belongs with other academic disciplines – which focus on the histories, social structures, broader cultures, etc. of these groups. Acquaintance with their literature is also needed to understand how these groups have influenced the dominant culture.

And of course, as greater opportunities have opened up for marginalized groups, their output inevitably has become more influential as well, and requires more attention in order for purely literary studies to remain truly representative and accurate. For example, it’s clearly not now legitimate to study American literature as a whole since the early or mid-twentieth century without recognizing the substantial role played by female, African-American, and Jewish authors.

More recently, writers from other groups have gained significant audiences and critical acclaim. Their works will surely wind up making lasting notable and lasting contributions to the nation’s culture. As a result, they should surely be spotlighted prominently in future curricula, and in particular in survey-type as opposed to more specialized courses. In addition, scholars right now should by all means be debating which works should qualify for this status. But it’s far too early for academia to reach an intellectually respectable consensus on the matter.

Moreover, this more recent prominence of previously marginalized groups creates no valid reason for concluding that their contributions to the national canon have so far been comparable with the contributions of the dominant group for most of U.S. history. Think of it this way: As stated above, Jewish authors have played an important role in American literature since roughly the middle of the twentieth century. But it would be utterly misleading to argue that Jewish authors played an important role in American literature before then.

One interesting wrinkle here – how to handle the likelihood that any number of overlooked works by submerged American groups fully measure up in artistic terms to the acknowledged classics. These works need to be found because, by definition, they would contain major insights into all the crucial issues addressed by great literature. Scholars should be searching for them and describing their virtues, and their discovery should be deeply appreciated by everyone who appreciates the value of great literature.

But because prologue cannot be past, even in these cases (and if readers have any examples or candidates, feel free to let me know about them), it would be essential — and intellectually honest — to specify that their effect on the nation’s literary and broader cultural life would need to be potential and prospective. Claiming a marked effect on the American story to date would amount to speculation or wishful thinking at best, and cheerleading at worst – none of which should have any place in genuine scholarship.

Im-Politic: Why America (Desperately) Needs that White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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CNBC John Harwood, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, Margaret Sullivan, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Trump, White House Correspondents Association, White House Correspondents' Association Dinner

The pre-Trump era version of myself would be heartily applauding part of Margaret Sullivan’s recommendation for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. According to the Washington Post media columnist, this event, “should be the last. It never has been a particularly good idea for journalists to don their fanciest clothes and cozy up to the people they cover, alongside Hollywood celebrities who have ventured to wonky Washington to join the fun.”

The post-Trump era version of myself is more struck by this follow-on Sullivan observation: that nowadays, the event

“has become close to suicidal for the press’s credibility.

“Trust in the mainstream media is low, a new populism has caught fire all over the Western world, and President Trump constantly pounds the news media as a bunch of out-of-touch elites who don’t represent the interests of real Americans.

“The annual dinner — or at least the optics of the dinner — seems to back him up.”

In fact, that points to the reason that I believe and hope the dinner continues: as Sullivan and other defenders of the establishment press indignantly insist that this stereotype is at best completely inaccurate at best and at worst a malicious lie spread by figures – like the President – who hope to destroy this pillar of democracy.

But since the 2016 presidential campaign began in earnest, nothing has been clearer than how the mainstream media’s hostility to Mr. Trump has stemmed from far more than dismay about his personal vulgarity or from journalists’ legitimate concerns about his personal business and possible conflicts of interest. (By contrast, in my view, for reasons described here, the Russia collusion charges look manufactured.) The President’s harsh coverage has also resulted from his strong opposition to the longstanding elite consensus on trade, immigration, and foreign policies that too often have put Main Street Americans last, but that the national media has swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

Indeed, these reporters and editors and pundits have repeatedly hanged themselves with their own words. Remember CNBC’s John Harwood asking Mr. Trump at an October, 2015 Republican candidates’ debate if he was running “a comic book version of a presidential campaign”? Remember The New York Times‘ publisher acknowledging after the Trump victory that such dismissive (at best) views so pervaded the newspaper’s campaign coverage that it needed to “rededicate itself” to the “fundamental mission of Times journalist. That is, to report America and the world honestly…”?

How nice it would be to report that the Mainstream Media has learned some lessons and changed its tune, or at least its smug posture. But no one who’s literate, who follows many Big Media journalists on Twitter, or who watches the vast majority of news talk shows, could possibly see any progress. In news coverage, the treatment of major issues continues following the apparent rule that the only valid – or indeed, sane – position to take is the one opposite of the President’s. On the televised talk shows, this Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to be invariably accompanied by non-stop sniggering, chortling, and raised eyebrows seem just as common as ever.

So please, White House Correspondents’ Association! Keep holding this so-called “Nerd Prom” (the favorite, false modesty-dripping insider nickname for the event)! In fact, double down on the current format! Keep booking hate-mongering comedians/ennes! Keep hobnobbing with virtue-signaling celebrities! Keep looking like courtiers rather than watchdogs!

In other words, keep taking every opportunity to remind the public how completely you’ve merged with the comfortable you’re supposed to be afflicting! Keep sinking your own credibility beyond repair! And as a result, keep hastening the day when you’ll be replaced by the kind of press corps a healthy democracy needs.

Making News: Cited in The Washington Post, Newsweek…& More!

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Breitbart.com, Making News, Newsweek, steel, Steel News, tariffs, The Washington Post, Trade, Trump, WAKR-AM

Those Trump tariffs kept me awfully busy this past week – here’s a quick rundown of media-related developments:

Yesterday morning, I was interviewed on Akron, Ohio’s WAKR-AM on the new course apparently being taken in U.S. trade policy. I’ll post a link to any podcast that becomes available, but unfortunately, WAKR doesn’t present podcasts comprehensively.

Also yesterday, my analysis of the new U.S. manufacturing jobs numbers was cited in a post on the subject by Breitbart.com Economics and Finance Editor John Carney. Here’s the link.

On March 7, my views on senior White House economic aide Gary Cohn’s tariff-related resignation were quoted in this Washington Post article.

That same day, this Newsweek piece referenced my findings strongly indicating that many other U.S. trade partners have filling the vacuum that’s been left in the American market by tariffs that have kept out much Chinese steel – including by simply sending their imports from China stateside.

And also on March 7, Steel News featured coverage of my Monday CNBC appearance on the Trump tariffs. Here’s the link.

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

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Trump Steel Trade Critics Offer Recipes for (Continued) Failure

Tags

Barack Obama, China, European Union, globalization, Japan, national security, Russia, steel, tariffs, The Washington Post, Trade, trade law, Trump, World Steel Organization, World Trade Organization, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The case for bold new Trump administration steps to ensure the U.S. steel industry’s continued viability is so clear that even opponents can’t help but (unwittingly) make it.

Thus this morning, The Washington Post editorial board praised – or at least seems to have praised – the Obama administration’s imposition of the tariffs on imports of Chinese steel because the world’s overwhelming source of overcapacity is China. The Post also urged the White House to remember that in order to avoid “international destabilization,” it’s critical to keep relying on “global institutions such as the World Trade Organization.”

Yet as the paper implicitly recognizes, none of these approaches has succeeded. What else can reasonably be concluded from its acknowledgment that the although the world’s “major governments, including President Barack Obama’s administration, have long recognized” the problem of Chinese fueled steel overcapacity,” the glut continues to create “unsustainable downward pressure on producers’ prices….” That’s “unsustainable” as in “can’t be sustained.” As in “if the downward pressure isn’t stopped, steel producers will start going under.”

The Post, however, has left out some crucial information. Specifically, the pressure on global steel producers has been far from uniformly felt. According to the latest (2015) figures from the World Steel Organization, which represents most of the global industry, the United States runs the world’s largest steel trade deficit by far measured in volume (which leaves out the distortions created by falling prices). At 26.5 million tons, it was nearly 80 percent greater than that of the world’s next biggest net steel importer (Vietnam, at 14.9 million tons), and nearly seven times greater than that of the European Union (3.9 million tons).

China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and others are running surpluses, with China lapping the pack at 98.4 million tons and Japan, universally described as a staunch U.S. ally, coming in second at still-impressive 34.9 million tons.

These skewed trade patterns, moreover, are unmistakably affecting national steel output. For example, according to the World Steel Organization, in 2010, as the world’s recovery from the Great Recession was becoming established, the United States accounted for 7.46 percent of global steel output by volume. In 2016, its share had shrunk to 4.95 percent.

China clearly has been the big winner, with its share of world steel production rising from 42.62 percent to 50.16 percent during this period. Japan has boosted market share as well – albeit only from 6.49 percent to 6.60 percent. The European Union and Russia have lost ground – but the losses have been minimal. The former’s global market share has dipped from 11.54 percent to 10.43 percent. The latter’s is down from 4.48 percent to 4.45 percent.

Even weirder: America’s economic growth during this period has outstripped the recoveries of all these countries except China, and its manufacturing sector has recovered (though not completely) thanks largely to a rebound in the steel-intensive automotive industry.

In other words, according to the Post editorial board, due to global overcapacity, the U.S. steel industry is facing unsustainable (and largely artificial) pricing pressure, the worldwide statistics make clear that this pressure is in a class by itself…and the Trump administration is being advised to stick with responses that have been manifestly incapable of preventing this dangerous situation.

It’s perfectly respectable to oppose as a solution the kind of national security-focused tariffs that the Trump administration is considering – even though the advantages they offer (they need no Congressional approval and they can be implemented relatively quickly as well as flexibly) are substantial. But if critics – domestic and foreign – are genuinely interested in solving the longstanding world steel problem in a timely manner, they’ll start proposing alternatives that haven’t already failed.

Im-Politic: More Illegal Immigration Coddling from the Washington Post

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Associated Press, crime, Darwin Martinez Torres, detainers, Germantown, hate crimes, illegal immigrants, Im-Politic, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Maryland, Montgomery County, Muslims, Nabra Hassanen, Northern Virginia, Rockville, The Washington Post

Hard as it is to believe, The Washington Post news department’s coddling of illegal immigrants looks to have passed a new milestone. On April, I explained how the paper’s news editors and reporters (not the opinion folks) apparently have decided that drunk driving isn’t a serious crime when the guilty are living in the United States illegally.

This past week, the Post has acted conspicuously determined to ignore crucial questions of suspected criminals’ immigration status when they threaten to ruin or even complicate another prized narrative – that Muslim Americans are being victimized by a record surge in hate crimes prompted by irrational fears of Islamic terrorists stoked cynically by politicians like President Trump. Such journalistic selectivity is bound to intensify questions about the legality of any Americans of Hispanic heritage arrested for crimes, both when they’re justified and when they’re not.

There’s an alternative explanation for the paper’s behavior that’s comparably disturbing: In an effort to calm public fears about the public safety risks created by indulgent immigration policies, it’s been trying to sweep such immigration questions under the rug because it did report the status of two Hispanic teenage immigrants just a month before, when they were charged with a rape at a high school in the area. In early May, the charges were dropped, seeming to vindicate allegations that immigration policy critics had been using the case to demagogue their cause.      

The latest crime in question was the abominable killing of an Muslim teenage girl from the Virginia suburbs early last Sunday morning. The story quickly attracted national attention, and the Post‘s early coverage demonstrated the obvious reason: The local police seemed determined to classify the murder as an instance of road rage, while many in the local Islamic community — including the victim’s family — along with others insisted that it amounted to the latest hate crime committed against innocent Muslim Americans.

As the Post pointedly reminded readers in its report on Monday:

“Police said Monday they aren’t investigating the death as a hate crime, but the issue was on the minds of many Muslims on Sunday.

“Last month, two men on a Portland train were stabbed and killed after they intervened to protect two girls who were being harassed with anti-Muslim threats, according to authorities.

“Sunday night, a van struck a crowd of pedestrians, including worshipers leaving a pair of mosques in London. Witnesses said the pedestrians were struck as they departed late-night prayers.

“The ADAMS Center [victim Nabra Hassanen’s mosque] has a paid armed security guard at the Sterling site, according to [Arsalan Iftkhar, an “international human rights lawyer and commentator” who attended services at the mosque]. He said many mosques have increased security since six Muslim worshipers were killed at a mosque in Quebec earlier this year.

“Sunday night, a van struck a crowd of pedestrians, including worshipers leaving a pair of mosques in London. Witnesses said the pedestrians were struck as they departed late-night prayers.

“The ADAMS Center has a paid armed security guard at the Sterling site, according to Iftikhar. He said many mosques have increased security since six Muslim worshipers were killed at a mosque in Quebec earlier this year.”

And this focus on the hate crimes charge continued through the Post‘s last comprehensive coverage of the murder, on Wednesday.

But from the start, one crucial aspect of the murder appeared to be undermining claims that animus against Muslims was the suspect’s motivation – an aspect oddly neglected by the Post. As the paper specified from the outset, he was a young Hispanic-surnamed male – Darwin Martinez Torres. But nothing else about him was reported.

That may not sound suspicious to someone unfamiliar with that part of northern Virginia – or even worth writing about at all. But Sterling and environs have long hosted a large population of illegal immigrants. The offense in question was unmistakably felonious and abhorrent, not some trifle. So there are valid public safety issues involved, with large numbers of Americans understandably wanting to what kinds of individuals their leaders have – knowingly – welcomed into their country and their neighborhoods.

Moreover, a Post update later that day offered evidence suggesting Torres’ illegal status: U.S. immigration authorities had requested that local officials put a “detainer” on him – meaning that they were looking into deportation. Now on the one hand, the federal government can place detainers on and deport legal immigrants as well as illegal. But on the other hand, that decision should have raised a red flag with the Post right away, and the question could have been answered with little effort. But no one on the team of reporters assigned the story by the paper seems to have pursued the matter. The hate crimes issue and related concerns voiced nationally about American Muslims’ safety clearly were their top priorities.

As early as Monday, however, it was clear that Martinez’ immigration status was indeed in doubt with the authorities. The Associated Press reported that day that they determined he is “a citizen of El Salvador and there’s probable cause to believe he lacks permission to be in the U.S.”

But even though this AP report appears on the Post‘s website, it prompted no investigation of Torres’ status by the paper itself, either.

Moreover, on Tuesday, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson announced that Torres is in the United States illegally. Readers of the The New York Times, FoxNews.com, The Daily Caller, and CNN received this information. But nearly a week later, the Post staff itself still has not mentioned it. Neither, weirdly, has the Associated Press – but it’s not the Washington, D.C. area’s leading news organization.

Sadly, this journalistic inevitably raises the question of whether the Post has decided to cover up the legal status of other Hispanic Americans arrested for crimes. For example, also earlier this month, two Germantown, Maryland high school students were murdered on the eve of their graduation. The trio arrested? Jose Canales-Yanez, Edgar Garcia-Gaona, and his brother Roger Garcia. Any mention of their immigration status in the Post coverage? Nope.

But like Sterling, the Germantown area is home to many illegal immigrants, as well as a center of violence from criminal gangs whose crimes are becoming ever more brutal and that are often extensions of similar organizations in Central America. The police force of surrounding Montgomery County has not ruled out a gang angle, and according to Help Save Maryland, an organization favoring stricter immigration controls and enforcement, a photo of one of the suspects reveals a form of tattoo often sported by Central American gang members.  

It’s true that Montgomery police chief Thomas Manger has stated that “to my knowledge, there were no ICE detainers filed in those cases” resulting from some of the suspects’ previous arrests.” But it’s also true that Montgomery County has declared itself to be a safe haven for immigrants – if not an out-and-out sanctuary city – and that Manger has dutifully declared that it’s not his job to determine anyone’s immigration status.

Curiously, moreover, Post reporters and editors were decidedly more aggressive in March, when two Hispanic teenagers, including a minor, were accused of raping a younger schoolmate at Rockville High School in Rockville, Maryland — also in Montgomery County.  The paper’s first article on the incident prominently mentioned that Henry E. Sanchez “a native of Guatemala who arrived in the United States about seven months ago, has a pending ‘alien removal’ case against him, court officials said Friday. ‘He is a substantial flight risk,’ Montgomery County Assistant States Attorney Rebecca MacVittie said in court Friday.

“[Jose O.] Montano has been in the United States for about eight months, MacVittie said. Details about Sanchez’s removal case, or Montano’s immigration status, couldn’t immediately be learned Friday.”

Moreover, the Post‘s own reporting several days later contend that both suspects “were among tens of thousands of young people who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in 2016.” Prosecutors dropped the rape charges against the pair in early May. Was the paper’s much more restrained coverage of immigration issues in the two, more recent, murder cases an attempt to keep anti-immigration sentiment in the public under control?    

It’s vitally important to be clear here. As suggested immediately above, I believe that many municipalities and states are ignoring their responsibilities to help the federal government enforce immigration law. But insisting that the Post inquire about the immigration status of criminal suspects is completely different from insisting that state and local governments, whose immigration law enforcement responsibilities are limited and reactive, proactively publicize the immigration status of criminal suspects.

It’s also completely different from insisting that the federal government, whose immigration law responsibilities are extensive and often proactive, seek out and publicize this information whenever an arrest is made by any level of government, even for serious infractions (although I’m leaning strongly in this direction, given the nation’s enormous and possibly still growing population of illegals).

Instead, insisting that the Post and the rest of the media at least seek this information simply entails insisting that they play their proper role as watchdogs of democracy – pressing for accountability for wielders of public and private power, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Viewed from a different perspective, the government at all levels enjoys certain established authority to keep information from the public for various, highly specific reasons – e.g., to protect national security or safeguard Constitutionally guaranteed privacy rights. In order to help ensure that this authority is not abused, the media’s job is to release whatever information it can procure, with certain exceptions that it generally has complied with voluntarily (e.g., protecting information whose exposure would immediately threaten national security and/or the lives of military and intelligence personnel whose lives literally are on the line, or the privacy of minors). When disputes arise over where these respective lines should be drawn, the judiciary steps in to try to provide the answer.

At least since the era of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, the Post has epitomized a national media that understands these distinctions and acts accordingly. Does it now believe that, for reasons it has yet to explain, that its coverage of illegal immigration is an exception?