"We should treat our allies fairly and respectfully, and our demands should be reasonable, but the time has come to make them."
I'm very sympathetic to the overall picture you present of what the Trump administration *could* aim for, and I agree that such aims would involve some actions in the ballpark of ones it's already taken. I'm sure some figures in the administration hope to achieve something like what you're laying out here.
But Trump himself does so much to undermine the project that I can't really imagine it succeeding. His talk of making Canada the 51st state, or of annexing Greenland--in both cases conspicuously declining to rule out the use of military force--strikes me as something that makes it a lot less likely for our (former?) allies to agree to the kind of arrangement you're suggesting: this kind of talk is not interpreted by our allies as fair and respectful. The surging polling numbers for the liberals in Canada are a reflection of this; Poilievre was the overwhelming favorite, but now anything that looks like sympathy for or capitulation to Trump is politically toxic, and he's likely to lose the election. Even if he wins, it will have been so only because he managed to portray himself as no less hostile to Trump than Carney. It's hard for me not to expect similar dynamics in Europe (not just Denmark) with Trump striking the notes he consistently does. My bet is that getting other countries to go along with this realignment would require giving them a face-saving way to accept it; otherwise, they'll elect parties who make resistance to Trump a core part of their foreign/economic policy. And giving other countries a face-saving way of entering into a new economic order would require a kind of statesmanship and diplomatic touch that is completely counter to Trump's instincts.
“We do not try to run trade surpluses at the expense of other countries, and if we did they would scream bloody murder.”
America runs a very strong services surplus with most of its allies, particularly in tech. Believers in American exceptionalism argue that only America could ever develop such a robust tech industry, but China, a country with a weaker economy and innovation system than Europe, shows that restricting American Tech can lead to the development of (nearly) equally competent tech firms.
The EU welcomed American Tech firms with open arms for many reasons, but some of the strongest ones were linked to the state of the alliance. With the reconfiguration you propose there is a growing movement of thought arguing for much stronger restrictions on the American tech industry in the EU.
A balance in trade goods and defense will be hard to swallow for Europeans without an equivalent rebalancing in services. Considering the strength of American tech firms, I’m not sure this benefits US power in the long run.
"We shall see what Wednesday brings, but I’ll be looking in particular for discernible principles, applied consistently, on predictable timelines. Continued failure on those fronts risks discrediting the entire project and diminishing its prospects of success."
As a political theorist, theorizing comes naturally to you. In theory .... But theorizing veers very easily into rationalizing when we are trying to defend something that is increasingly indefensible. If we're learned anything over the last two months, this admin will not make any honest theorist happy. The tariffs aren't working as planned? Oh, no. Someone is conspiring against us. We need to double down. My money is on people who can't adapt to evidence that should lead them to question their assumptions, not strategic thinkers.
Oren writes: "The model here should be Israel, the American ally that generally asks us to stay home, it can handle its own business, thank you very much."
I guess Oren never ventures out of economics books, because this must be the single dumbest sentence he's has ever written, and truly makes me wonder how he could be so ignorant of Israel's relationship to the US. I say the following as a Jews who is deeply involved in Israeli politics: Israel almost NEVER handles its own business, and would never be able to do what it does without the iron-clad support of the US--often clandestine--which means the US has to physically and financially vanquish its enemies, whether Iraq, or Syria, or Iran, or Libya, or Yemen, and on and on. Israel is entirely dependent on the US for most of its weapons, and to protect them from sanctions at the UN. But perhaps Oren is simply ignorant of geo-politics. But can he really say as an economist that he's unaware that the US has literally evaporated trillions of dollars supporting and protecting Israel from its enemies?
Oren is a very smart guy, and I'll leave out for the moment the morality of what Israel is doing, but if he can't come up with a better 'model' for our foreign relations than Israel, we're really cooked.
Israel has significantly more military capabilities than Japan or any European nation is his point.
The US will be playing a very strong support role in any future Japanese or European rearmament. Right now it is so unbalanced as to be ridiculous...and it has been this was since end of the Cold War.
Who could have possibly known that the very stable genius would struggle to act rationally? Me thinks JD and Little Marco were right about him the first time, before they self-gelded in public... Oren's faith is admirable, if woefully naive. Though I tire of the constant s... talking of my country, I have to admit I enjoy watching folks like Oren as they contort themselves to defend Don's dementia and destruction. Apparently they can't quite accept that government by gas pain isn't likely to succeed. It's sad to say, but I think America needs to get it good and hard from Don and his cult. An extra dollop of irony is knowing that the worst impacts of Don's "plan" will fall hardest on his red state congregation. Good thing our popcorn is homegrown so I can afford it! Good luck America...
Cass says - "We shall see what Wednesday brings, but I’ll be looking in particular for discernible principles, applied consistently, on predictable timelines." I say - What kind of crackachino is Cass drinking? Trump principled, consistent and predictable? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Why bother to write the rest of the article?!?!?!?
I would posit that the US only cares about "balanced trade" because it's currently the loser on some metrics. We don't care about our trade surplus with Netherlands and Uk, South America, etc. - in fact, we like it. If we had trade surpluses with everyone, there would be zero talk of "balanced trade". So let's just be honest. We don't care about balance, we only care about winning. It is not a universalist principled stance, but rather a wholly subjective self serving stance, just like China's. Zero-sum, and no room for lasting peace. If we're talking about what "we" want, let's be honest.
You are delusional, the US has started hundreds of conflicts worldwide, it has ruined the economy of many nations and Israel is not your ally at all , they caused you to fight in seven countries that were not your enemy. They like you are full of it. BS.
While the status quo can generally be improved on, scraping it for this “multi-polar” world is a dangerous fantasy. It risks isolating and weakening the U.S. in a relative and absolute fashion.
As you say, the chance of success rests in making our own changes and inducing others to make changes of a kind that are sympathetic to our approach and ends.
Do not count on that working out so smoothly, if at all.
And you make no account for the disruption and pain for many, many in the meanwhile even IF successful. And relative catastrophe if it is not.
The order we helped to create can be worked on, but it should not be scrapped.
It's already a multi polar world as our plan to help China rise post 1989 has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams while the effort to fold China into American hegemony has failed dismally. China does not want to liberalize, Westernize and indeed wants to deindustrialize the rest of the world...and there is nothing the current system can really do to prevent this.
The failure of the current dying (dead?) international system could be simplified to our belief that encouraging China and Russia to join our capitalist free-market system would naturally lead to democratic reforms in those countries and that both countries would find it so beneficial that they would become stakeholders. That failed.
That’s why Cass’s reevaluation of our role and our principles and goals internationally is so useful even in places I think he’s wrong.
But I can’t see any sense at pretending that Trump’s actions won’t benefit Russia and China most of all. It’s like as if a neighbor says your house is a mess and when you say it’s not that bad, your neighbor walks inside with a sledgehammer and smashes your furniture, appliances, and walls. Then he smirks at you and holds a press conference to claim you haven’t kept up your home.
The best argument I can make for this is if you want to see the international trading system changed, short of having a world war, you need to break what is left of the old trading system to convince both business leaders in the US and foreign governments there's no going back.
Then if it goes well we get a Bretton Woods 2.0.
The problem as I see it is Trump has pissed a lot of people off. Yes sooner or later they will have to get over it and come back because they need access to US market, US dollars, US protection and are not going to be happy long term in the Chinese orbit. But Trump makes it less likely they'll come back soon and on terms favorable to US.
I saw your interview with John Stewart and was impressed with your analysis. But, and the big but, is why Trump feels he needs to humiliate and threaten the allies we need in order to isolate China. How does calling Canada “one of the nastiest countries to deal with” promote this new world economic order? They are participating in a trade agreement negotiated by the first Trump administration. Now, Canada has entered into economic agreements with China as a result.
You rightly point out that the US Military has been used by Western Europe, Japan, Korea and other Pacific countries instead of taking on that responsibility. The biggest beneficiaries of these agreements has been the US military industrial complex. They are the ones who have made the most money here. Over 3.4 trillion over the last 10 years. So to say that the United States is on the short end of this deal may be harder to justify.
I agree this change in operating would benefit the United States in the long run. Is Donald Trump the best arbitrator of this change? His character, judgment and negotiating tactics seem to run counter to your argument that we need to be clear and thoughtful in explaining this change. Sledgehammer tariffs, crashing markets and increasing inflation seem to run counter to that.
The US wrote Japan's constitution and ensured that it forbade Japan from waging war. Japan didn't use the US. The US determined it was best to keep Japan mostly disarmed to preserve peace in the Pacific. Because the last time it was armed it lead to this event you might have heard of. WW2.
YOU need to read history. I worked for the DOD and lived in Germany for 22 years. I am intimately aware of the lessons of WWII. Japan and Germany are the biggest beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan. Both their economies are at the top of the world’s economies. Again if you really understand what has happened since the end of WWII, you would see that the military industrial complex, an American enterprise has made billions of dollars. That’s where the wasted tax dollars have gone, keeping bases open in these countries. So the US has not been screwed over by Europe or Japan. Certain sectors have made lots of money ffs…… Trump’s idiotic moves are forcing Germany to rearm and become more involved in European conflicts. At the same time Elon Musk is supporting the AFD neo Nazi party. And you know where that leads.. or maybe you don’t .
I think Mr Oren forgot about one small but very important detail. America has no leverage anymore and Trump behavior even before tariffs announcement reduced US soft power to 0.
We already see crops of Trump genius moves. EU just announced 800b € arms purchases plan. Do you know how much will get American arms industry? 0, US companies are excluded and it shouldnt be surprise after even POTUS claimed they are not going to export fully functional weapons. EU in recent years was biggest customer of US military producers. Obviously you know what it means - people will get fired. And that was even before tariffs announcement!
As for those three so-called "demands":
1. If people in one country(USA) have a lot of cash then they buy a lot of stuff. But if you dont have competitive goods for other side to be purchased then well, you will not sell it. Simple as that. Remember President Trump complaining EU not buying American cars... but why we should buy cars from companies that are at BOTTOM of reliability in every ranking and more expensive than competition like Tesla or Ford? In the end it will mostly hurt American consumer. Because instead of buying $5 t-shirt from Vietnam factory he will need to buy same quality t-shirt from US company for $10. Thats why industries relocated to Asia in first place. And if you put tariffs to discourage people from buying imported stuff then well, your average Americans will be ones who loses most as they will need to pay more for less.
2. EU, Japan, Canada, Australia etc. have no aspirations to be global policeman like US, and this is why US are spending so much on military. Also example with Israel is ridiculously bad - Israel is surrounded by hostile to them(not without good reason!) Arab states. They need to be prepared as in case of new Yom Kippur war they could be wiped from earth even before US will be able to react.
3. Opposite, it will be China all-in. Oren is mistaken thinking that access to American market and unreliable and crippled American arms is enough to outweigh healthy trade relations with big partner who is a lot more reliable and predictable than Trump administration . Communist Party of China will not threaten 50% tariffs overnight for reject flight with illegal aliens. Aligning with US will be beneficial only for US government, not for people living in EU or Japan. And thats problem strangely is ommited from article.
I'm open to the ideas here, but a major weakness in them is not considering history and culture. For example suggesting Japan significantly rearm ignores the deep-seated fears of its neighbors, not only China, but Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc., which were colonized and treated brutally in the 20th century. Another example is African countries that are struggling to get a foothold after centuries of being taken advantage of by the mercurial technological superiority and arrogant condescension of western Europe and America, the latter of which didn't outlaw slavery until 1865, and still kept up discrimination and lynching for a hundred years or more after. From a purely business perspective, the author's ideas may appear sound, but genuine success even in business requires understanding human beings' history and culture.
The principles you’re arguing for are reasonable although I think you are vastly underestimating the difficulty for Taiwan and even Japan (and you didn’t mention South Korea or the southeast Asian countries) from military defending themselves from China. Without American support and particularly to the US navy, it is rational for all those countries to cozy up to China and support China against the United States politically, economically, and even military. And then Australia and New Zealand might as well. But certainly the principles you advocate for are at least useful to consider, envision, discuss, and I think you’d find many across the political spectrum that would be for some and maybe all of them.
But my comment and your piece largely avoid the biggest issues. Trump domestically is attempting to destroy our democratic system by delegitimizing every center of power accept those he controls. Congress, judicial system, media, universities, large law firms, state governments. He’s used lies, illegal and unconstitutional actions and threats. Each week brings a new test as he and his team probe weaknesses. Who can we break today?
Internationally, Trump is trying to reconstitute a great power order in which the goal is to exploit weaker smaller states. I oppose it on moral and rational grounds. Moreover his methods have been disingenuous, from openly considering military actions, to lying about the real trade figures, to inventing an “emergency” so he can declare Canadian tariffs without Congressional authority. Advocating for Putin wasn’t necessary to fulfill your policy goals, it’s just selling out our ideals.
In the last 10 years many conservatives have thought they could guide Trump in some direction. Nothing has worked so far. I’d wager Trump “burns the boats”, sends the US into a recession, and then blames those advisors and targets them as part of the unelected deep state. And then these ideas will be poisoned by association because good people were willing to tolerate any unethical, vile, illegal, and even unconstitutional actions because it came with some sort of policy win. Balancing trade & military burden is the second term version of judges and tax cuts.
You make interesting points throughout this post, except when you compliment the sheep/henchmen on Trmp’s team - they have all proven already they have no spine and no morals and as such, certainly cannot be relied upon to safely and successfully administer a new world order.
"We should treat our allies fairly and respectfully, and our demands should be reasonable, but the time has come to make them."
I'm very sympathetic to the overall picture you present of what the Trump administration *could* aim for, and I agree that such aims would involve some actions in the ballpark of ones it's already taken. I'm sure some figures in the administration hope to achieve something like what you're laying out here.
But Trump himself does so much to undermine the project that I can't really imagine it succeeding. His talk of making Canada the 51st state, or of annexing Greenland--in both cases conspicuously declining to rule out the use of military force--strikes me as something that makes it a lot less likely for our (former?) allies to agree to the kind of arrangement you're suggesting: this kind of talk is not interpreted by our allies as fair and respectful. The surging polling numbers for the liberals in Canada are a reflection of this; Poilievre was the overwhelming favorite, but now anything that looks like sympathy for or capitulation to Trump is politically toxic, and he's likely to lose the election. Even if he wins, it will have been so only because he managed to portray himself as no less hostile to Trump than Carney. It's hard for me not to expect similar dynamics in Europe (not just Denmark) with Trump striking the notes he consistently does. My bet is that getting other countries to go along with this realignment would require giving them a face-saving way to accept it; otherwise, they'll elect parties who make resistance to Trump a core part of their foreign/economic policy. And giving other countries a face-saving way of entering into a new economic order would require a kind of statesmanship and diplomatic touch that is completely counter to Trump's instincts.
“We do not try to run trade surpluses at the expense of other countries, and if we did they would scream bloody murder.”
America runs a very strong services surplus with most of its allies, particularly in tech. Believers in American exceptionalism argue that only America could ever develop such a robust tech industry, but China, a country with a weaker economy and innovation system than Europe, shows that restricting American Tech can lead to the development of (nearly) equally competent tech firms.
The EU welcomed American Tech firms with open arms for many reasons, but some of the strongest ones were linked to the state of the alliance. With the reconfiguration you propose there is a growing movement of thought arguing for much stronger restrictions on the American tech industry in the EU.
A balance in trade goods and defense will be hard to swallow for Europeans without an equivalent rebalancing in services. Considering the strength of American tech firms, I’m not sure this benefits US power in the long run.
"We shall see what Wednesday brings, but I’ll be looking in particular for discernible principles, applied consistently, on predictable timelines. Continued failure on those fronts risks discrediting the entire project and diminishing its prospects of success."
Lol--don't hold your breath, man.
As a political theorist, theorizing comes naturally to you. In theory .... But theorizing veers very easily into rationalizing when we are trying to defend something that is increasingly indefensible. If we're learned anything over the last two months, this admin will not make any honest theorist happy. The tariffs aren't working as planned? Oh, no. Someone is conspiring against us. We need to double down. My money is on people who can't adapt to evidence that should lead them to question their assumptions, not strategic thinkers.
Oren writes: "The model here should be Israel, the American ally that generally asks us to stay home, it can handle its own business, thank you very much."
I guess Oren never ventures out of economics books, because this must be the single dumbest sentence he's has ever written, and truly makes me wonder how he could be so ignorant of Israel's relationship to the US. I say the following as a Jews who is deeply involved in Israeli politics: Israel almost NEVER handles its own business, and would never be able to do what it does without the iron-clad support of the US--often clandestine--which means the US has to physically and financially vanquish its enemies, whether Iraq, or Syria, or Iran, or Libya, or Yemen, and on and on. Israel is entirely dependent on the US for most of its weapons, and to protect them from sanctions at the UN. But perhaps Oren is simply ignorant of geo-politics. But can he really say as an economist that he's unaware that the US has literally evaporated trillions of dollars supporting and protecting Israel from its enemies?
Oren is a very smart guy, and I'll leave out for the moment the morality of what Israel is doing, but if he can't come up with a better 'model' for our foreign relations than Israel, we're really cooked.
Israel has significantly more military capabilities than Japan or any European nation is his point.
The US will be playing a very strong support role in any future Japanese or European rearmament. Right now it is so unbalanced as to be ridiculous...and it has been this was since end of the Cold War.
Who could have possibly known that the very stable genius would struggle to act rationally? Me thinks JD and Little Marco were right about him the first time, before they self-gelded in public... Oren's faith is admirable, if woefully naive. Though I tire of the constant s... talking of my country, I have to admit I enjoy watching folks like Oren as they contort themselves to defend Don's dementia and destruction. Apparently they can't quite accept that government by gas pain isn't likely to succeed. It's sad to say, but I think America needs to get it good and hard from Don and his cult. An extra dollop of irony is knowing that the worst impacts of Don's "plan" will fall hardest on his red state congregation. Good thing our popcorn is homegrown so I can afford it! Good luck America...
Cass says - "We shall see what Wednesday brings, but I’ll be looking in particular for discernible principles, applied consistently, on predictable timelines." I say - What kind of crackachino is Cass drinking? Trump principled, consistent and predictable? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Why bother to write the rest of the article?!?!?!?
I would posit that the US only cares about "balanced trade" because it's currently the loser on some metrics. We don't care about our trade surplus with Netherlands and Uk, South America, etc. - in fact, we like it. If we had trade surpluses with everyone, there would be zero talk of "balanced trade". So let's just be honest. We don't care about balance, we only care about winning. It is not a universalist principled stance, but rather a wholly subjective self serving stance, just like China's. Zero-sum, and no room for lasting peace. If we're talking about what "we" want, let's be honest.
Bilateral trade deficits are not the problem . China runs massive surpluses with the whole world though and is determined to continue this.
You are delusional, the US has started hundreds of conflicts worldwide, it has ruined the economy of many nations and Israel is not your ally at all , they caused you to fight in seven countries that were not your enemy. They like you are full of it. BS.
This was one of the stupidest columns I have ever read on substack.
Take Heather Cox Richardson straying from history to shill for Democrats and multiply by one thousand.
"Continued failure on those fronts risks discrediting the entire project and diminishing its prospects of success." This is my worry, as well.
While the status quo can generally be improved on, scraping it for this “multi-polar” world is a dangerous fantasy. It risks isolating and weakening the U.S. in a relative and absolute fashion.
As you say, the chance of success rests in making our own changes and inducing others to make changes of a kind that are sympathetic to our approach and ends.
Do not count on that working out so smoothly, if at all.
And you make no account for the disruption and pain for many, many in the meanwhile even IF successful. And relative catastrophe if it is not.
The order we helped to create can be worked on, but it should not be scrapped.
It's already a multi polar world as our plan to help China rise post 1989 has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams while the effort to fold China into American hegemony has failed dismally. China does not want to liberalize, Westernize and indeed wants to deindustrialize the rest of the world...and there is nothing the current system can really do to prevent this.
Well said Mr. Pete.
The failure of the current dying (dead?) international system could be simplified to our belief that encouraging China and Russia to join our capitalist free-market system would naturally lead to democratic reforms in those countries and that both countries would find it so beneficial that they would become stakeholders. That failed.
That’s why Cass’s reevaluation of our role and our principles and goals internationally is so useful even in places I think he’s wrong.
But I can’t see any sense at pretending that Trump’s actions won’t benefit Russia and China most of all. It’s like as if a neighbor says your house is a mess and when you say it’s not that bad, your neighbor walks inside with a sledgehammer and smashes your furniture, appliances, and walls. Then he smirks at you and holds a press conference to claim you haven’t kept up your home.
The best argument I can make for this is if you want to see the international trading system changed, short of having a world war, you need to break what is left of the old trading system to convince both business leaders in the US and foreign governments there's no going back.
Then if it goes well we get a Bretton Woods 2.0.
The problem as I see it is Trump has pissed a lot of people off. Yes sooner or later they will have to get over it and come back because they need access to US market, US dollars, US protection and are not going to be happy long term in the Chinese orbit. But Trump makes it less likely they'll come back soon and on terms favorable to US.
I saw your interview with John Stewart and was impressed with your analysis. But, and the big but, is why Trump feels he needs to humiliate and threaten the allies we need in order to isolate China. How does calling Canada “one of the nastiest countries to deal with” promote this new world economic order? They are participating in a trade agreement negotiated by the first Trump administration. Now, Canada has entered into economic agreements with China as a result.
You rightly point out that the US Military has been used by Western Europe, Japan, Korea and other Pacific countries instead of taking on that responsibility. The biggest beneficiaries of these agreements has been the US military industrial complex. They are the ones who have made the most money here. Over 3.4 trillion over the last 10 years. So to say that the United States is on the short end of this deal may be harder to justify.
I agree this change in operating would benefit the United States in the long run. Is Donald Trump the best arbitrator of this change? His character, judgment and negotiating tactics seem to run counter to your argument that we need to be clear and thoughtful in explaining this change. Sledgehammer tariffs, crashing markets and increasing inflation seem to run counter to that.
The US wrote Japan's constitution and ensured that it forbade Japan from waging war. Japan didn't use the US. The US determined it was best to keep Japan mostly disarmed to preserve peace in the Pacific. Because the last time it was armed it lead to this event you might have heard of. WW2.
FFS read your damn history.
YOU need to read history. I worked for the DOD and lived in Germany for 22 years. I am intimately aware of the lessons of WWII. Japan and Germany are the biggest beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan. Both their economies are at the top of the world’s economies. Again if you really understand what has happened since the end of WWII, you would see that the military industrial complex, an American enterprise has made billions of dollars. That’s where the wasted tax dollars have gone, keeping bases open in these countries. So the US has not been screwed over by Europe or Japan. Certain sectors have made lots of money ffs…… Trump’s idiotic moves are forcing Germany to rearm and become more involved in European conflicts. At the same time Elon Musk is supporting the AFD neo Nazi party. And you know where that leads.. or maybe you don’t .
I think Mr Oren forgot about one small but very important detail. America has no leverage anymore and Trump behavior even before tariffs announcement reduced US soft power to 0.
We already see crops of Trump genius moves. EU just announced 800b € arms purchases plan. Do you know how much will get American arms industry? 0, US companies are excluded and it shouldnt be surprise after even POTUS claimed they are not going to export fully functional weapons. EU in recent years was biggest customer of US military producers. Obviously you know what it means - people will get fired. And that was even before tariffs announcement!
As for those three so-called "demands":
1. If people in one country(USA) have a lot of cash then they buy a lot of stuff. But if you dont have competitive goods for other side to be purchased then well, you will not sell it. Simple as that. Remember President Trump complaining EU not buying American cars... but why we should buy cars from companies that are at BOTTOM of reliability in every ranking and more expensive than competition like Tesla or Ford? In the end it will mostly hurt American consumer. Because instead of buying $5 t-shirt from Vietnam factory he will need to buy same quality t-shirt from US company for $10. Thats why industries relocated to Asia in first place. And if you put tariffs to discourage people from buying imported stuff then well, your average Americans will be ones who loses most as they will need to pay more for less.
2. EU, Japan, Canada, Australia etc. have no aspirations to be global policeman like US, and this is why US are spending so much on military. Also example with Israel is ridiculously bad - Israel is surrounded by hostile to them(not without good reason!) Arab states. They need to be prepared as in case of new Yom Kippur war they could be wiped from earth even before US will be able to react.
3. Opposite, it will be China all-in. Oren is mistaken thinking that access to American market and unreliable and crippled American arms is enough to outweigh healthy trade relations with big partner who is a lot more reliable and predictable than Trump administration . Communist Party of China will not threaten 50% tariffs overnight for reject flight with illegal aliens. Aligning with US will be beneficial only for US government, not for people living in EU or Japan. And thats problem strangely is ommited from article.
I'm open to the ideas here, but a major weakness in them is not considering history and culture. For example suggesting Japan significantly rearm ignores the deep-seated fears of its neighbors, not only China, but Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc., which were colonized and treated brutally in the 20th century. Another example is African countries that are struggling to get a foothold after centuries of being taken advantage of by the mercurial technological superiority and arrogant condescension of western Europe and America, the latter of which didn't outlaw slavery until 1865, and still kept up discrimination and lynching for a hundred years or more after. From a purely business perspective, the author's ideas may appear sound, but genuine success even in business requires understanding human beings' history and culture.
The principles you’re arguing for are reasonable although I think you are vastly underestimating the difficulty for Taiwan and even Japan (and you didn’t mention South Korea or the southeast Asian countries) from military defending themselves from China. Without American support and particularly to the US navy, it is rational for all those countries to cozy up to China and support China against the United States politically, economically, and even military. And then Australia and New Zealand might as well. But certainly the principles you advocate for are at least useful to consider, envision, discuss, and I think you’d find many across the political spectrum that would be for some and maybe all of them.
But my comment and your piece largely avoid the biggest issues. Trump domestically is attempting to destroy our democratic system by delegitimizing every center of power accept those he controls. Congress, judicial system, media, universities, large law firms, state governments. He’s used lies, illegal and unconstitutional actions and threats. Each week brings a new test as he and his team probe weaknesses. Who can we break today?
Internationally, Trump is trying to reconstitute a great power order in which the goal is to exploit weaker smaller states. I oppose it on moral and rational grounds. Moreover his methods have been disingenuous, from openly considering military actions, to lying about the real trade figures, to inventing an “emergency” so he can declare Canadian tariffs without Congressional authority. Advocating for Putin wasn’t necessary to fulfill your policy goals, it’s just selling out our ideals.
In the last 10 years many conservatives have thought they could guide Trump in some direction. Nothing has worked so far. I’d wager Trump “burns the boats”, sends the US into a recession, and then blames those advisors and targets them as part of the unelected deep state. And then these ideas will be poisoned by association because good people were willing to tolerate any unethical, vile, illegal, and even unconstitutional actions because it came with some sort of policy win. Balancing trade & military burden is the second term version of judges and tax cuts.
You make interesting points throughout this post, except when you compliment the sheep/henchmen on Trmp’s team - they have all proven already they have no spine and no morals and as such, certainly cannot be relied upon to safely and successfully administer a new world order.