Andrew Rawnsley, yesterday in The Observer, and Martin Wolf, today in the FT, both have articles on the nightmare that a Trump government is creating for the UK government.
This is, of course, the corollary of the argument that I posted this morning that Trump himself will have a nightmare 2025 trying to deliver the policies he has promised, given that he will need to do so very quickly if he is to have any chance in the mid-term elections in 2026.
Does that mean that I disagree with Andrew Rawnsley and Martin Wolf? No, it does not. I entirely agree with them. Trump's arrival in the White House creates a nightmare, not just for the UK but other countries in the world, as Trump promotes the idea of utterly reckless government, using the USA as his testbed for doing so.
Within the existing framework of the UK economy, Trump's proposal of tariffs on trade is massively harmful to our economy, and to presume that he will not deliver on this policy would be very unwise.
The fact that the UK is outside Europe at this moment does make it more vulnerable than it would otherwise be.
And let's not pretend that if Trump tries his policy of expelling migrants, there will not be a flood of people out of the USA, some of whom will wish to come to the UK and claim political asylum here. Not all of them will have been expelled. Some will make a claim on the basis that they have a reasonable fear that they might be persecuted if they stayed in the USA, and given all that Trump has said about his plans for his opponents, that would appear to be entirely reasonable.
Then there is the issue of security. It seems highly likely that Trump is intent on making the situation in the Middle East more unstable by supporting Israel more wholeheartedly (hard as that is to believe). He is simultaneously appearing to support Putin when it comes to Ukraine, and within the current constructs, both policies are likely to create considerable instability.
If Labour are not panicked by all this, they should be. I might be entirely right in suggesting that Trump might have a nightmare in 2025 because trying to do so many reckless things at once might well backfire on him, but that does not mean that there will not be consequences around the world from his trying to achieve these goals. Rarely have we faced a situation that is more unstable.
But let me add one caveat, which is that this situation should provide us with the opportunity to discuss whether trade at current volumes is really desirable in the future, and it should also provide the opportunity to discuss whether there are better ways of managing international relations than we have used of late given the obvious failure of the current system. I am not in any way exonerating Trump's policy by saying this. What I am saying is that he is reacting very inappropriately to stresses that do obviously exist within the architecture of international relations at present, and that wise reaction would require that we consider what to do next if we are to solve many of the problems that we face.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
I think that emboldened by the likes of his funders and people like Musk, all we are going to see is nihilistic opportunism.
I think that deep down maybe everyone knows that we are on the road to nowhere and for some that means grabbing as much as they can.
Yup, Last Days of Rome syndrome. Grab what you can and get out while the going’s good. Starmer’s only problem is deciding which parasitic group he should be prioritising as they leech off us.
Initially Musk and then Trump, both explicitly admitted that his policies would cause US citizens (though not the wealthy, I’m sure) a ‘short term’ (Musk’s expression not mine) period of suffering but that this was necessary for the longer term gain of making America great again. So nobody in the US – or anywhere else – can be surprised at what’s coming from early next year. But as you say, the issue for other countries is how these policies impact outside America.
You mention the mid terms, which in normal situations would provide an opportunity to curtail Trump and his Project 2025 acolyte’s attempts to remake/destroy the US. But last week Rachel Maddow, in her summary of challenges the US is likely to face under Trump, noted that one of the things that may well happen is that they (Trump et al) change the amendment in the constitution that gives powers to Congress, thus making it into something akin to the Duma in Putin’s Russia (i.e. simply a rubber stamp mechanism). I agree with Maddow. I don’t think that the people who’ve put so much effort into putting together Project 2025 aren’t well aware that it could all be scuppered by the mid terms. Consequently, it’d be extremely dim of them not to think of ways round that (i.e. neuter Congress).
Finally, it’s worth also asking exactly whose going to be President. Yes, Trump will kick it all off because he wants to wallow in the ‘glory’ of the moment – and will do so for the rest of his days. But beyond the first few months? He was the laziest President in history the first time round, so after the first flush of glory expect much less this time round. On which point, well worth watching MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on this from last week.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-president-who-who-will-really-do-the-job-rfk-musk-223894597636
Looks like Musk influence is very strong at the moment – several investigative journalists following things carefully saying this should be viewed as a co-presidency. Same journalists saying that the ‘sharp pain’ promised is part of the plan to force crypto as a new gold standard and abolish the Fed with dire global economic consequences. Lots of evidence that is being pursued on Twitter yesterday with Vivek , Ron Paul and other scaries going after Powell and questioning the legal constitution of the Fed and indeed fiat currency. Would be very interested in Richard’s take on this and the plans to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve under a bill promoted by Sen. CynthiaMLummis. There is the assumption that other countries will follow suit. What are the implications? What do you make of this debate about the controversial ECB paper on the distributional impacts of crypto https://www.techopedia.com/ecb-bitcoin-report-push-for-a-digital-euro:
.
Sample from Ron Paul ‘This week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was asked if he would step down if President Trump asked him to resign. Powell answered “No.” The law does not permit the president to fire the Fed chairman.
Powell didn’t mention, however, that The Federal Reserve is unconstitutional to begin with. No power was ever granted to the federal government to create a monopoly bank that manipulates interest rates and counterfeits money.
So the big issue is not who has more authority over the other; the president or the Fed chairman.
The issue is that the Federal Reserve should not exist at all!’
Noted
investigative journalists need views to survive so perhaps everything they say, in particular anything remotely sensationalist, should be considered in that context. Which is not to say certain things aren’t being mooted in some quarters… where do you think money comes from, Cathy, if not the govt-owned Fed? Or are you still a Jekyll Island believer? I know that whole idea’s been discredited but not everyone accepts it…
I wonder what’s next for the republicans but US politics as a whole.
Trump can only serve 1 more term, or will he try to get the constitution changed? President for life? Unlimited terms?
But where do the republicans go post Trump? They’ve been exposed for their support of a lunatic so have zero credit. Take away Trump’s maverick appeal and tou’re left with a pile of unelectable losers.
Democrats – they need to tear down their house and rebuild it from scratch. Get rid of the old white men and hand the reins over to the group of powerful young women who recently joined congress and are actually coming out with kind-of-left, vaguely social-democratic policy ideas.
If the USA can shed the baggage of Trump I believe it can get back on point.
For Richard and readers: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/11/why-the-enthusiasm-for-mass-deportation-a-hard-and-likely-largely-losing-way-to-deal-with-illegal-immigration.html.
Thanks
A good report
It looks to me that Trump isn’t planning any new laws for this. The laws that the USA already has permit the deportation of illegal immigrants. This plan to apply the law is not even an original proposal as this has been done before by previous Presidents from both sides.
And that’s worrying.
It has been done – more by Obama than most
But the change of scale is massive
It is an enormous constructive change
One thing the world has a shortage of is constructive change. Amen to that Richard.
Speaking of being reckless…………..since Laboured has announced changes to Right To Buy (RTB), we have been inundated with over 300 RTB applications.
When the Tories came in 2010, they stopped what they did not like much quicker and almost overnight in some cases – and most of it was helpful stuff.
I do not know why Laboured are taking so long on this, they should have dealt with it much sooner and quickly. We have lost close to 2000 affordable homes since 2010 alone in my local authority (LA) and temporary accommodation is bleeding us dry like most LAs up and down the country.
You know……………………I think that it is time that we devised a system of retribution for bad politicians – some sort of sanction, some sort accountability to the people they have hurt or lives that they have negatively affected.
I have to say sometimes that the injustice of it all overwhelms me.
‘Utterly reckless’ is right – demonstrated by Trump’s appointment of Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel – https://aje.io/pxmfbw?update=3319760