Global Vacancy, US Security/Economy

[Thanks_Tom RR]

I have been reading about Trump's comments regarding lessening America's role in global affairs. I wondered what everyone's thoughts are about this plan, particularly as it pertains to US economy and security.

 

Right now, I doubt the effectiveness of the plan. If we remove our influence in the Middle East like Trump has said, then we leave a vacuum that, like what happened in Afganastan in the 90's, could allow for powers that pose risks to US security to gain influence in the region.

 

Also, if we lessen our economy ties in Asia, like Trump wants to with Japan and Korea, that would allow China to grow its economic control of this region and damage our potential trade with those countries.

 

I don't see how his plans are effective to support the US.

[Danny Bateman]

I'm right there with you.

 

Trump certainly excites his base with a lot of these plans, and to people who idolize him, his populist, nationalist, isolationist message sounds appealing.

If you dig a bit deeper, I have a very hard time finding that any of it is rooted in any serious underlying strategical or logical reasoning. I've long thought Trump's plans are best described as "destabilizing".

 

Militarily, he's all over the place. I listened to his first scripted foreign policy address, and came away perplexed. The overriding narrative he was trying to push was "America first", but he contradicted himself nonstop. He talked about not getting into reckless interventions, but in the next sentence talked about the need for America to "be strong and go hard after it's enemies". He discussed wanting to wipe ISIS off the face of the earth "so fast you wouldn't believe it" and lambasted Obama's handling of the situation, but seemed reluctant to commit to any kind of actual strategy. He talked about not wanting to play world police, but also talked about how decisive and strong the US military would be. And of course, he threatened to remove us from NATO.

 

Basically, Trump offered no cogent strategy whatsoever, he just threw as much as he could at the wall and hoped people came away from it with something they liked. It's a pattern for him at this point, and a disturbing one. To me, it smacks of obfuscation and wanting to hide whatever it is that he really thinks. It really annoys me when he talks about the need to be "unpredictable" again, because it's a clear stand-in for "I don't really know what I'm talking about" and beyond that, US unpredictability on a world stage is exactly what we don't need.

 

I don't think he really understands the dynamics of US foreign policy, and why we do the things we do. Hell, his response to what he would've done better in Iraq in an interview with Wolf Blitzer was that he would've "taken the oil". I don't think he realizes that we maintain a military presence with bases scattered around the world so that we can ensure quick action in a situation requiring it and keep tensions low among countries that are hostile with our allies. We are, in fact, the most powerful military in the world. To him, none of that stability matters, and he's willing to forgo it for some good sounding nonsense about "putting America first".

 

Economically, Trump loves to bash free trade deals (as does Sanders), but economists across the board believe that free trade is a net positive with targeted negatives in particular sectors such as manufacturing. We'd been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs since the late 90's, and the underlying reason is up for debate. Lots of people love to blame NAFTA and other free trade agreements. I personally think automation has hurt the industry greatly as well. I'm not sure what the root cause(s) are specifically, but I find simply blaming free trade agreements to be too simplistic. Remember, they do help hold down costs on goods for everyone. If we slash and burn our free trade agreements and return to isolationist economic practices, we'd correspondingly see a bump in jobs because we'd have to manufacture many more goods ourselves, but it would be offset because the prices of goods would skyrocket across the board.

I do think there's moves that we could make to improve some of our trade deficits, but I'm not one of these anti-free trade advocates.

 

Furthermore, his economic policies are ridiculous. Slapping 35-45% tariffs on China is a good way to ensure a trade war. Keeping billions in remittances back to Mexico to pay for his wall would destroy our relationship with them. And of course, we're going to get our of debt by defaulting and paying back less than we owe. Here's an article on that.His answer to everything is "I'll make a deal" or "I'll negotiate", which depends upon the farce that he's some great negotiator.

 

Lastly, you're right about power vacuums. As long as we maintain our presence around the world, such things can't really happen. If we start pulling out of the Middle East or Asia too carelessly (as was the case in Libya), it not only fosters the growth of more terrorist organizations, but could allow countries already with a powerful presence, like China (as you mentioned) or Russia to assume more power there.

Sorry for the book. But you're right, and I feel very passionately about how empty and contradictory this "plan" is.

[HuskerShark]

 

 

Militarily, he's all over the place. I listened to his first scripted foreign policy address, and came away perplexed. The overriding narrative he was trying to push was "America first", but he contradicted himself nonstop. He talked about not getting into reckless interventions, but in the next sentence talked about the need for America to "be strong and go hard after it's enemies". He discussed wanting to wipe ISIS off the face of the earth "so fast you wouldn't believe it" and lambasted Obama's handling of the situation, but seemed reluctant to commit to any kind of actual strategy.

Committing to a specific strategy (especially without first consulting the generals and people in the know of the situation) would be flat out idiotic, and there is absolutely no reason to expect to know what the exact strategy would be - not to mention he'd be broadcasting that strategy to the enemy as well.

 

I do expect him to be very conservative with our military because he values the people and the economic resources that it takes to have boots on the ground.

 

When there are evil threats in the world (such as ISIS), that is when he would encourage strength and effectiveness with the military.

 

 

Economically, Trump loves to bash free trade deals (as does Sanders), but economists across the board believe that free trade is a net positive with targeted negatives in particular sectors such as manufacturing. We'd been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs since the late 90's, and the underlying reason is up for debate. Lots of people love to blame NAFTA and other free trade agreements. I personally think automation has hurt the industry greatly as well. I'm not sure what the root cause(s) are specifically, but I find simply blaming free trade agreements to be too simplistic. Remember, they do help hold down costs on goods for everyone. If we slash and burn our free trade agreements and return to isolationist economic practices, we'd correspondingly see a bump in jobs because we'd have to manufacture many more goods ourselves, but it would be offset because the prices of goods would skyrocket across the board.

I do think there's moves that we could make to improve some of our trade deficits, but I'm not one of these anti-free trade advocates.

He's not anti-free trade either, but the reason these companies are leaving and establishing their plants in Mexico is because their cost of labor and production goes way down if they put their plant there, and currently there's no penalty because they can bring their goods back into the US and sell them without taxation. There's no need to make it more complicated than that.

 

Yes, automation has a part in reduction in manufacturing jobs in the US, but that's a step in the right direction, while companies leaving the country is not.

 

 

Furthermore, his economic policies are ridiculous. Slapping 35-45% tariffs on China is a good way to ensure a trade war. Keeping billions in remittances back to Mexico to pay for his wall would destroy our relationship with them. And of course, we're going to get our of debt by defaulting and paying back less than we owe. Here's an article on that.His answer to everything is "I'll make a deal" or "I'll negotiate", which depends upon the farce that he's some great negotiator.

So Japan and China can be tough with us on trade, and we're expected to bend over backward to appease them because we're afraid of conflict? That is the exact weak mindset that has been driving our trade deals for decades, and that's why America has $20+ Trillion in debt.

 

And yes, Trump knows how to negotiate.

 

I have been reading about Trump's comments regarding lessening America's role in global affairs. I wondered what everyone's thoughts are about this plan, particularly as it pertains to US economy and security.

 

Right now, I doubt the effectiveness of the plan. If we remove our influence in the Middle East like Trump has said, then we leave a vacuum that, like what happened in Afganastan in the 90's, could allow for powers that pose risks to US security to gain influence in the region.

 

Also, if we lessen our economy ties in Asia, like Trump wants to with Japan and Korea, that would allow China to grow its economic control of this region and damage our potential trade with those countries.

 

I don't see how his plans are effective to support the US.

Personally, I think we're still observing Trump collect all the information and put the pieces together as to what specifically he would do. The thing that Trump has a firm grasp on that he is 100% correct about is that we have the leverage in situations such as Saudi Arabia where we are protecting them with our military and getting nothing in return. Trump preaches all the time that he would be fine with having military influence in these places, but we can't keep getting nothing.

 

You seem very open-minded and undecided, so I'd recommend that you go watch some of the speeches from his rallies when he visits states. I just watched the one from Fresno the other day, and I think you'd get a lot of the blanks filled in if you gather the information from his speeches.