Missing the Point – President Trump Owes the World, and America in Particular, an Apology

It’s bad enough that President Trump lies so often that there’s no longer any way to know when he’s telling the truth.

His authoritarianism, imperialism and reckless disregard for our Constitution and the rule of law are threatening our democracy and national security.  To put it mildly, he’s an awful President.  Turns out that he’s also an awful person.

He’s either lying to us, too lazy to find out, or too dumb to understand the difference between trade deficits and tariff rates – and that we, the American people, are the ones paying the tariffs he’s imposing.  No matter what he says, his tariffs do not collect money from foreign countries.  The Trump tariffs are domestic taxes.  They are paid by importers who then pass the cost of those tariffs onto you and me in the higher prices we pay for what we purchase.

I could go on but, after yesterday’s “kissing my ass” speech, I’m feeling exhausted.  I find myself lost somewhere between overwhelming disappointment and creepy disgust with President Trump’s behavior.

At last night’s NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) dinner, President Trump, boasting about what he describes as the desperate clamoring of world leaders to talk to him, to beg his forgiveness under the pressure of tariffs he has imposed, claimed they were “kissing my ass” hoping to strike a deal.

Even if his description of the situation is technically correct and hyperbole-free – which I seriously doubt, certainly not when it comes to China and our European allies – the vulgarity of his bully-speak is inexcusable.  It’s rude, crude, and stupid, given that it will do nothing to encourage the willingness of other countries to engage with us in productive conversations about tariffs or any other issue.  Not incidentally, the President and his obsession with tariffs he clearly doesn’t understand has given China a huge potential gain, politically and economically, as the principal beneficiary from the trade war President Trump started.  It makes us less, much less, not more secure.

China has 1.2 billion people compared to our 340 million and what is already the world’s second largest economy.

President Trump’s vulgarity is such that I’m tempted to wonder out loud if he was raised by wolves, but that would be doing wolves everywhere a disservice.

Someone – and by that I mean “we,” collectively, the American people – needs to remind President Trump and Republicans in Congress in no uncertain terms, that he is not in charge of us.  That he is our employee, hired by virtue of last year’s election, to run our government.  In a good way, and most assuredly not into the ground.  When he claims that other countries are “kissing my ass,” he speaks only for himself, not for our people.

He needs to apologize to world leaders and the American people – courteously, even if he has to fake the impression of sincerity – for the language of his remarks.  But he can’t.  He’s unable to do the right thing by his persistent malignant narcissism that prevents him from admitting to having made a serious mistake that has embarrassed our entire nation and degraded its storied history.

Republicans in Congress, how much of this President are you going to take?  What does it say about your putting loyalty to President Trump’s incompetence and misbehavior before the country and people at whose pleasure you serve?

 

P.S.  I have a screen in my office where CNN is running.  So, I watch a lot of news, probably too much.  President Trump has no specific, durable tariffs strategy.  He’s winging it.  He’s a gold mine for media in the breaking news business.  Dominating the news cycle is his thing.  It makes him feel good.  The mess he’s making in the process of all this publicity is just collateral damage, a side gig for his ego that makes him high.

Tariffs for China are now at 125%, effectively doubling the price of goods we buy from China, our third largest trading partner.  Back and forth, back and forth we go, locked in a trade war that President Trump started, but doesn’t know how to finish.  He’s in this way over his head.  …China has already started countering with non-tariff related initiatives.  What’s Trump going to do when China stops buying American debt entirely and encourages its allies and trading partners to do the same?  Or ask for their Pandas back?

Last postscript.  With Trump perfecting his ability to flip-flop the stock market, would anyone be surprised to find out that he and some of his billionaire buddies, in and out of his administration, are actively profiting from insider trading?