Stop obsessing about four more years of Trump

Much of the damage is already done.

January 25, 2025

In some circles, certainly in mine, worried conversations focus on what we might expect, (read: “be subjected to”) over the next four years of Donald Trump’s administration. How will our health care be impacted by appointing a vaccine sceptic as Commissioner of Health and Human Services? Will Trump (Can Trump?) follow through on his pledge to shut down the Department of Education? Does he really think that the QAnon promoting, election denying Kash Patel is qualified—and suitable—to be FBI Director? I guess if he thinks Patel is qualified to do this, then appointing Tulsi Gabbard to head Homeland Security makes perfect sense. Comparatively.

How will the second Trump administration deal with eleven million undocumented immigrants, including a half million “Dreamers” who were brought here as children by their parents? During his first administration he tried to scuttle Obama era Dreamer protections, and with this week’s assist from a Texas court he might very well be more successful this time around. We certainly know that he will try. Some of these Dreamers have children of their own now, who are US citizens by birthright, but of course the President wants to “cancel” that provision of the Constitution, a document he seems to regard as a set of suggestions as opposed to our founding principles. A federal judge reminded him of this reality on Thursday, calling Trump’s executive order canceling birthright citizenship “blatantly unconstitutional”. Will abortion access be even further restricted by a Republican administration that controls not only the Executive Branch but also the Senate and the House of Representatives, at least for the next two years? I should probably include the Supreme Court in this description of the Republican team, as the conservative Trump appointed justices certainly seem to have had their fingers on the scales of justice in their recent rulings favoring the new President.

Arguably, the biggest policy changes will be on the international front, and the biggest damage to our stature as the leader of the free world will occur here. Trump has made no secret of how he feels about our membership in the NATO alliance, casting doubt among our allies that he would honor “Article 5”, NATO members’ commitment that an armed attack on any member is to be considered an attack on all members. It is worthy of note that the one and only time that NATO’s Article 5 has been invoked was when we were attacked by Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Coupled with Trump’s dalliances with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his pen pal, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, our allies are rightly concerned about the United States’ allegiances. Trump’s increasingly nationalistic America First foreign policy proposals will create a global leadership vacuum as we vacate the world stage. Who will assume that leadership—and why would we forfeit it in the first place?

Trump criticizes our worldwide alliances as “globalist”, a slur in the MAGA vernacular. Taunting our global partners may be great applause-lines at rallies in Iowa, but those alliances are diplomatic necessities when we need help with things like implementing economic sanctions to put pressure on bad actors like Russia and Iran, or just to battle the global spread of the next virus—because viruses do not stop at national borders. We need global cooperation to do any of this. Instead of fostering a global alliance of strategic partners, Trump uses the same bullying tactics and threats that he uses with his lenders and business partners. The imposition of tariffs has become his favorite weapon, no doubt because he does not need Congressional approval to implement them. All he needs is a sharpie. His explanation of how tariffs work is demonstrably wrong—the exporting country does not pay the tariff—but unencumbered by any understanding of economics, he repeats the falsehood over and over, along with his mistaken description of trade deficits as “subsidies”.

By way of example, here in the north country of upstate New York, our local lumber company is Curtis Lumber. Because of our proximity to Quebec, we purchase a lot of building materials from Canada. If Curtis Lumber buys 2 x 4 spruce studs from Canada at $.50 per foot, and Trump imposes a 20% tariff on Canadian imports, Curtis will be paying 20% more, totaling $.60 per foot, for the same 2 x 4. Curtis Lumber pays the $.10 per foot tariff (not Canada). This proposed tariff percentage bounces around. Trump has threatened percentages from 10% to 60%. The importer would probably pass along all or at least part of the wholesale price increase to their customers. At the same time, US domestic lumber producers, who would see an increasing demand for their less expensive local product (ostensibly the point of a tariff) can increase the price they charge for 2 x 4’s, because even if they increase their price to $.55 per foot, they are still less expensive than their Canadian competitors who are now priced at $.60. The result in this example is that lumber increases in price by 10%. Add to the increase in price for lumber, the inevitable price increase for the $140 billion in oil and gas that we import from Canada annually, which would also be subject to his proposed tariff. Our imposition of a tariff would undoubtedly set off a retaliatory action from Canada who will place their own tariffs on products that they import from the US, like cars and trucks. Canada is reportedly already planning such a retaliation, focusing on places where it will have the greatest political impact – US red states.

All of this, obviously, is inflationary. The economist community has warned about this, en masse, but no one in the White House cares because it does not fit their narrative or fit on a bumper sticker. Canada—or China, or Mexico—do not pay for these new tariffs any more than Mexico paid for the wall – all 80 miles of it. But he will keep repeating it, over and over, at every rally. Not only does imposing a tariff on items imported from Canada, arguably our closest ally, make no economic sense, it is also in direct contravention of the United States – Canada - Mexico Trade Agreement that Trump (re)negotiated with Canada and Mexico in 2020. Which brings me to the point of my earlier statement that most of the damage from the Trump administration has already been done, particularly with regard to global affairs. Unfortunately, the impacts of the damage will far outlast Trump’s residency in the White House.

The 2020 trade agreement with Canada came about because when Trump took office in 2016 he tore up the agreement that had been in place since 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Disruptor in Chief is starting off his new tenure exactly where he left off, rescinding our participation in the Paris Global Climate Initiative. There are four countries on planet earth that are not parties to the Paris Agreement: Yemen, Iran, Libya, and now, thanks to Donald Trump, the United States. Great company we’re in, don’t you think?

Another casualty of the incoming administration is our membership in the World Health Organization. Trump finally got to exact his vengeance on the global health research organization, cancelling our membership in (and monetary support of) WHO, which he says mishandled the Covid epidemic during his first administration. (He of the “Let’s try bleach” as a Covid remedy story.) The immediate result is that our own Center for Disease Control will no longer have access to global data when the inevitable next health crisis erupts. Lawrence Gostin, public health law professor at Georgetown University, described Trump’s action as “a cataclysmic presidential decision. Withdrawal is a grievous wound to world health, but a still deeper wound to the U.S.” Like it or not, we all live on the same planet, and that planet does not revolve around Donald Trump.

He did the same thing with the Iran Nuclear Agreement in 2018. This agreement was not a bilateral agreement between just Iran and the US. There were numerous parties to the agreement including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the entire European Union, Russia, China, and of course, Iran. All of these countries had negotiated for years to allow a reduction in economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for stringent limits on Iran’s growing nuclear capability, with international monitors to insure compliance. And then Trump tore it up. Ditto the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the United States had negotiated over many years with twelve Pacific rim countries including Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada and Chile. After taking office in 2016, Trump withdrew the United States from the Agreement, before it could be ratified, much to China’s jubilation. Which of these countries will ever trust us again to honor an agreement if the new president just tears up what the last administration negotiated?

I remember a Trump suggestion during his first campaign, regarding the billions of dollars (700b+) of US Treasury debt that is held by China. He said he wanted to renegotiate the terms of the debt and buy the bonds back from China at a discount. His staff had to explain to him that the sovereign debt of any country is guaranteed by the issuing country, that US Treasuries carry the “full faith and credit of the United States” with an absolute promise to pay interest and principal in full at maturity—a financial practice that this man is totally unfamiliar with.

Trump treats our allies and global strategic partners the same way that he treats his business partners and bankers. Everything is negotiable, and after you have done that, if you see an opportunity to gain advantage, everything is re-negotiable. (Read “The Art of the Deal”.) Trust, loyalty, cooperation, honoring commitments, these are sentimental niceties that are for suckers and losers. Our standing in the international community is not what it was a decade ago. Our international trading partners have no idea where they stand with us. They have no idea if they will be hit with tariffs, or if Trump is just bluffing, or if his comments are performative, just bluster and more red meat for his rally attendees. With Trump in the White House our defense partners have no idea if we will even show up. Our European allies have no idea if Trump would actually side with Putin if he decides not to stop his territorial expansion at Ukraine. One of the original 1949 NATO members, Denmark, is confronted with a fellow NATO member—us (!)—threatening their own territory in Greenland. Panama also finds itself in Trump’s crosshairs. We can hardly criticize Putin’s encroachments in Europe when we are threatening our own allies with our own plans for illegal territorial expansion.

All of this comes at a price. The impact of this new distrust is yet to be calculated, and I do not believe it will disappear when Trump’s term is up. Our standing in the international community, along with the world’s perception of our commitment to the core values of democracy and basic human rights are now in question, and we have brought it on ourselves. In foreign affairs, perception is reality. If the global community no longer trusts you to lead, if they do not trust you to honor your commitments, if they no longer trust your judgement, then you can no longer lead. This distrust will hamper us for generations. We were teetering on the brink of losing all credibility after electing Trump in 2016, but we had the chance to try and rebuild our position in 2020 when we did not return him to office. We could explain away the four years of his first presidency as an aberration, and that we had learned from that mistake. Tragically, in 2024 the voters of the United States told the world that we really did believe in what Trump stood for. The problem now is not that the international community distrusts Trump. Our problem now is that the world no longer trusts us.

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