3 Crises: Trump's Agenda; Germany Splits; Israel Roiled

Policy in flux until 47th U.S. president takes office - and then what?

Nov 07, 2024

Trump's foreign policy evolves since his first term
The British still stuck and wrong about the 'mercurial' Donald
Germany's Green de-growth sucks but they sack the wrong person
‘Centrist’ extremists will limp on for three months
Israel in varying degrees of disintegration as PM fires war boss
No sign of change as wars limp on

(1,800 words or 9 minutes of your company)

Nov 7, 2024

Crisis 1, Trump's Agenda, Foreign & Domestic

This U.S. Election was relatively fraud-free, and the question is why. Taking this contrarian view (even to doubt the 2020 election is to invite derision) actually answers a question:

Kamala Harris delayed only a few hours in calling on her supporters to accept the election result.

Commentary among the U.S. foreign policy elite suggests they may be ready for a Trump foreign policy that departs from the neocon norm. Could it be multi-aligned rather than clinging to the hammer-looking-for-nuts of hegemony?

Are the British so stuck up on their wrong think, that they imagine they are dealing with the same mercurial Trump of his first term? (Yes).

Eight years after he first took office Trump is now a Washington insider — a figure on the diplomatic stage — who has for decades been able to get any world leader to answer his call, unlike Joe Biden.

To assume that his foreign policy has not evolved since 2016 makes an ass out of u and me.

Multi-angular world

The week before the election Foreign Affairs journal asked in the U.S. could lead in a world with less competition, more co-operation — not so much multipolar as multi-partner. [1]

This would abandon the rigid alliances of the Cold War, as well as the Pax Americana that followed when the U.S. reigned supreme. It was quoting a speech by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009.

Partnerships that serve the interests of trade do not, in this multi-aligned vision, have to map directly over alliances for military security.

A much quoted example is China brokering a thaw in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is building economic ties with Beijing, while still looking to Washington on matters military.

For the U.S. to capitalise on this should, the argument goes, mean looking beyond security partnerships and instead focusing on infrastructure, sharing technology and creating benefits for regions that create mutual ties.

Belt and broads

The U.S. could offer an alternative to Chinese infrastructure and investment, and broker partnerships between third parties where these align with U.S. interests.

Keen interest shown by African and Asian countries in China's Belt and Road Initiative is driven by a desire to develop, and not simply the narrow self-interest of China. Fighting it, is a fool's errand.

The Middle East, better understood as West Asia, is growing trade not just with China but India, retaining a relationship with Europe, while rediscovering trade with Turkiye. This is not yet U.S. policy.

Could it be?

Since October 7th 2023 the U.S. has deployed more troops to the region, and selling more weapons, retaining a military-first posture, linked to the Abraham Accords, while warning allies away from reliance on Chinese technology.

Jennifer Kavanagh writing for the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in January 2024 said the U.S. should map out an economic strategy to match its military ties, using venture capital and private equity to co-development and public-private partnerships. [2]

She argues that Europe can play a role: the Baltic states sharing maritime management and technology with Gulf states: Germany developing renewable energy with the same; and then Japan and South Korea could offer digital and telecommunications alternatives to China, while the U.S. could develop military technology in tripartite deals with South Korea and the Gulf countries.

In Southeast Asia countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, aware of the might of Chinese competition, have expanded defence ties with the U.S. while maintaining neutrality.

In contrast to a zero-sum game, all parties may find opportunities.

Orange man not-so-bad

Trump's first term was marked by withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, the signing of the Abraham Accords, preparation for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and continuing the previous administration's pivot to Asia.

Topics for which the press gave him grief, proved him right. His demand that junior partners in NATO pay their way is now common currency, with European leaders competing to outdo Trump: “You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent.”

German politicians sniggered and guffawed at Trump's warning that they were over-reliant on Russian gas. The country is now in its second year of economic decline after the detonation of the Nord Stream pipeline. The Berlin coalition of energy starvation, Green degrowth and endless war is now collapsing.

Although Trump accused China of taking advantage of the U.S. in trade, bilateral trade actually increased in his first term.

Four mouths after Russia invaded Ukraine we asked, "Could the U.S. abandon Europe to fight Russia alone?" [3]

CIA silver spoon

Pivot, exterminate, pivot, exterminate...

Elbridge Colby, the grandson of CIA director William Colby, and a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under president Donald Trump, has argued that the “U.S. must leave Ukraine to Europe and prepare for conflict with China.”

Colby’s promotion within the Trump circles from deputy assistant secretary of defense to a more senior role, like National Security Adviser, would signal a significant shift in US attention.

Mike Pompeo, Trump's CIA director and then as Secretary of State, is committed to Ukraine, writing in the Wall Street Journal in July of a $500 billion “lend-lease” programme, seeing both Russia and China as a threat.

Moderating between these two views Trump may be swayed by Ukraine's main businesses: mineral sales and human trafficking. Trump signed an executive order "Combating Human Trafficking and Online Child Exploitation in the United States."

JD Vance said in April, before being chosen as Trump's running mate:

"We have built a foreign policy of hectoring, moralizing, and lecturing countries that don’t want anything to do with it. The Chinese have a foreign policy of building roads and bridges and feeding poor people.
And I think we should pursue a foreign policy of diplomacy, of respect and a foreign policy that is not rooted in moralizing; its rooted in the national interest of this country."

Home bend

Turning to the domestic, Trump's policy may follow the lines of his first term: with a focus on limited government, states' rights and lower taxes.

Automotive may take the headlines as he delivers on his pledge to auto workers to limit Chinese imports and the outsourcing of assembly. With union members supporting him in droves, Trump may ease off on driverless vehicles

The international audience will see if he takes an axe to environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments, as he has promised.

He is likely to further reduce the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget, especially since Justices banned bureaucrats from making up new rules and regulations: the oddly-named "Chevron deference" which said courts must defer to new rules imposed by agencies.

See 3 Crises: Happy 'No Deference' Day - Down those 4th July hotdogs as the war horses charge (Jul 04, 2024)

Oil production would be revived, cutting the time for permits, increase drilling on Federal land.

Robert F Kennedy Jr could take a role in health, with a commission into the cause of rising chronic disease. He may investigate the function of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This are just some of the topics Trump has mentioned, yet even these would be a stentorian task in just four years, and would likely face pushback. [4]

Safety first

Ret. Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn says the priority is physical security. With the campaign over, Trump needs to go into bunker mode as he prepares for inauguration.

Washington DC voted 95 per cent for Harris, which shows its divide with the rest of the country. Trump is on course to win all seven of the swing states in the 2024 race and both the House and Senate, beating Harris by a humiliating margin.

Washington is 95 per cent in the Democrats' pocket because it's full of organisations with their hand stuck firmly in the government pocket.

Government cannot be changed without removing the networks of non governmental organisations (NGOs) that have a voice in setting policy, and profiting from it.

Crisis 2: Germany's Coalition Splits

Germany's ruling coalition has fallen apart. They performed disastrously in the elections in eastern Germany in September 2024, but the Greens/SPD on the one hand, and the Free Democrats on the other, also disagreed on policy.

In October, FDP finance minister Christian Lindner effectively denounced the coalition's entire economic and financial policy.

Funny business — using billions of euro earmarked for Covid, to shore up climate policy — which the top court ruled illegal, leaving a €60 billion hole in the budget.

The Greens/SDP want to replace welfare with a citizens' income, add 400,000 new homes each year, pensions were to be financed from the stock market.

Neoconservative buccaneering takes a lot of money. The West has printed money for too long and the debt. The British government collapsed two years ago over borrowing, and it is in the same situation again. So are other Western governments.

Worse, they de-industrialised.

Scholz will concede a confidence vote on January 15. If he loses, a snap election is set to take place by March. [5]

Crisis 3: Israel Rumours of Coup

Israel is in ferment over the firing on Tuesday of the popular (relatively) defence minister Yoav Gallant.

“Last night, it became official: Israel is being led by a prime minister who is a danger to state security,” veteran military correspondent Yoav Limor wrote, calling the move “a stinging slap in the face to everyone who has paid the price of this terrible war.”

It has re-opened division that were seen during the Covid response when Haredi (ultra orthodox) community resisted the "safe and effective." Now it is military service — from which they are exempt.

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth carried the headline “Gallant’s Dismissal was Carried Out for the Sake of Haredi Parties” — a reference to political pressure from ultra-Orthodox groups to scuttle a bill that challenges their exemption from military service.

The prime minister's spouse Sara Netanyahu has previously accused elements in the military of plotting a coup. [6]

What can change?

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