With Choice of Trade Negotiator, Trump Prepares to Confront Mexico and China

Usually, Binyamin Appelbaum’s articles are pretty clear, but this one is confusing …

Partially because he’s trying to combine two different stories —

the appointment of a fairly hard-line “protectionist” Trade Representative …

with Trump’s “jawboning” of GM and Ford to keep manufacturing facilities in the US —

but also because Trump and his cronies have no idea about how to actually improve the difficult and worsening economic situation in the US …

Naming as the Trade Representative Robert Lightizer, “a Washington lawyer who has long advocated protectionist policies, is the latest sign Trump intends to fulfill his campaign promise to get tough with China, Mexico and other trading partners” …

While that kind of truculence towards two important countries is disturbing in and of itself,

even more so is that, in this truculence, “some Democrats are signaling a readiness to support Trump.

Nine House Democrats held a news conference Tuesday with AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, to urge renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] with Mexico and Canada.

“We wanted him to know that we’ll work with him on doing that,” Trumka said.

“I don’t think he has enough Republican support to do it, and rewriting the rules of trade is a necessary first step in righting the economy for working people.””

Which points out yet again how incredibly stupid the Democrats are about basic politics —

let alone failing to realize that, like Trump’s vaunted “white, working-class” supporters, and, sadly, Bernie Sanders,

those manufacturing jobs are NEVER COMING BACK to the US in any meaningful numbers,

no matter how many companies Trump can bully in the short-term to — seemingly — change their investment decisions …

It’s so typically stupid of DC Democrats — on the day when the Ethics Committee fiasco makes clear the RPBs and Trump are going to be at each other’s throats, if only the Dems will stay out of the way —

that they — and the labor movement — offer to HELP Trump since, as Trumka points out,

he doesn’t seem to have enough RPB votes for moves that will radically disrupt the existing framework of US trade …

“But wait,” you may say, “what about Trump getting Ford to keep jobs here, and getting GM scared ??? Doesn’t that show his tough-guy tactics work ???”

Not really … and certainly only in the very very short-term — if then …

No President has the time and / or energy to keep pressuring multi-national companies about their investment decisions, Trump’s megalomania about his super-powers notwithstanding …

He can do it now because he’s basically hanging out … he can fire off tweets, because he has no official political responsibilities at the moment …

Eventually, tho, he is going to get into office … and then his whole time situation is going to become much more pressured …

Even more important … at some point, there is going to be pushback from the corporations he’s pressuring …

They’re wary at the moment, precisely because he’s not yet in office and everyone is waiting to see what he’s going to do …

But at a certain point, they are going to get pissed off at him telling them how to run their business, and tell him to f–k off …

And once one company does something like that, then a lot — if not all — of them are going to feel free to do the same thing …

So while it may look at the moment like he “knows what he’s doing”, in fact, he doesn’t — and that is soon going to become clear to everyone …

And then we’ll all start to find out exactly how he deals with a whole country — and rest of the world — that he CAN’T order around and tell “you’re fired” …