Here is how things were set up in the White House in preparation for the president to make his announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs.
There were no prepared, approved remarks for the president to give at the planned meeting, there was no diplomatic strategy for how to alert foreign trade partners, there was no legislative strategy in place for informing Congress and no agreed upon communications plan beyond an email cobbled together by [Wilbur] Ross’s team at the Commerce Department late Wednesday that had not been approved by the White House.
No one at the State Department, the Treasury Department or the Defense Department had been told that a new policy was about to be announced or given an opportunity to weigh in in advance.
The Thursday morning meeting did not originally appear on the president’s public schedule. Shortly after it began, reporters were told that Ross had convened a “listening” session at the White House with 15 executives from the steel and aluminum industry.
Then, an hour later, in an another unexpected move, reporters were invited to the Cabinet room. Without warning, Trump announced on the spot that he was imposing new strict tariffs on imports.
By Thursday afternoon, the U.S. stock market had fallen and Trump, surrounded by his senior advisers in the Oval Office, was said to be furious.
In other words, there were no preparations at all. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears to have pulled a fast one. He invited executives from the steel and aluminum industries to an 11 a.m. meeting yesterday at the White House but he did not share their identities with anyone in the West Wing—not even chief of staff John Kelly. The Secret Service wasn’t alerted, so the executives were not pre-cleared to enter the grounds. At mentioned above, the meeting wasn’t on Trump’s schedule.
All this stealth seems to have been required to prevent any organized resistance from forming that could have prevented the president from making his tariff announcement. But the cost was that a very controversial policy change landed like a thud without the advance work needed to mitigate any of the predictable problems it would immediately produce. Allies were shocked. Republicans were dumbfounded. The markets plunged. And people who had been lobbying for the tariffs were not in place to sell them.
Trump is reported to have been furious with the response his tariff announcement received, but he evidently did not consider the need to have a communications plan in place ahead of time.
One Trump official explained to NBC News that Trump had come “unglued” on Wednesday night and that his decision to move ahead with the tariff announcement was made in a moment of anger that left him “gunning for a fight.”
To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, “This the president we have, not the president we might wish to have.”
But now we know how you can get Trump to start a war with Iran or North Korea. Just wait for him to be spoiling for a fight, sidestep his chief of staff and the White House schedulers, and invite a bunch of dissidents into the Oval Office to ask for regime change.
No further preparations are necessary.
And there are so many reasons for our god emperor to lose his shit.
Oh god oh god oh god oh god we are so fucked.
Notice the precautions again peremptory action that the White House puts in and Trump defeats.
We (and Congressional Democrats) just need to be more vigilant where the danger is actually coming from (Trump, not Putin, to start with). And we need the top level military and executive department people ready to know what is an illegal order and massively willing to resist one. That is a matter of visioning and networking, not so much at politicking or media.
“But now we know how you can get Trump to start a war…”
Call me naïve, but I think when Trump phoned the Pentagon he’d get:
“Sorry sir, can’t quite hear you. We must have a bad connection. Call back tomorrow after they work on the phones over here.”
Nice fantasy. It takes more visioning and networking than that. Who do you know who actually works at the Pentagon? Are they that sanguine?
Imagine how this is playing overseas.
Every day it is worse.
America has become the laughing stock – for a bunch of reasons. Trump is just the current punchline.
Bush II was the original punchline.
It’s clear America no longer can govern themselves. The system is outmoded. The system is corrupt. A significant portion of the electorate are selfish, ignorant cultists.
The rest of the world is just fed up with the excuses.
Well, I happen to be working right now overseas (Indonesia) and the answer is that it’s not playing well with those who pay attention to American politics. Especially the “America First” bullshit is especially concerning. Mind you, most people don’t have a deep knowledge of the utter bizarreness of the Trump Administration (and why should they) but what they do know is very troubling.
This is what happens when you have an ignorant moron for a president who knows nothing about trade, politics or basic logic. Ross rolled him, and instead of being angry with those who were horrified that he’d put forth such a bad idea, he should be mad at Ross for putting him in that position.
But ultimately it’s on him. He is too ignorant to be able to know when he’s being pushed into a bad decision.
But ultimately it’s on him. He is too ignorant to be able to know when he’s being pushed into a bad decision.
It’s part that but it’s also partially that he loves the chaos. Now Paul Ryan, and others, come to him groveling/pleading to not actually enact the tariffs.
The chaos we see in this administration is things going to sh*t because Trump’s ego requires that everyone around him is beholden or dependent on him in some form or fashion, when he doesn’t understand government, politics or policy to the extent that he can focus on goals, control outcomes and deliver. Witness his recent ego-driven madness on guns and trade. Similarly a few weeks ago on DACA. Or like firing Comey. Chaos. He ends up having to walk them back, or having others to scramble to clean up the mess, but mostly leading to even more “chaos.” The chaos that called for firing Comey led to Mueller. How’s that for outcomes?
Same thing with his “businesses.” Chaotic in the sense that his petulant, spoiled child act caused damage to his family fortune, but it was papered over by his media image and “billions” of dollars. Yet he’s gone bankrupt six times. Chaos. Real businessman don’t think highly of his business acumen.
What I push back on is the idea that “chaos” is actually an intentional strategy, engineered and manipulated by Trump. When its said its usually with the not so subtle reference to “chaos theory,” implying some intelligence. Trump is cunning in some sense but he is not intelligent. And he’s ignorant. I don’t see him as some Grand Master creating chaos with certain outcomes in mind. And if it is it sure as hell isn’t working.
In his history, it must’ve been in the interest of somebody (a co-dependent-like underling) to rescue him or take advantage of him but still make him look like a success. I don’t know that, but it would suit the personality. For instance, the writer who wrote “Art of the Deal” knew there was no substance there, but went ahead and wrote the book anyway. It’s a little example.
What’s developing now is very disturbing. His mental faculties seem to have dimmed (maybe not everyday), and a clever, highly ambitious courtier is isolating him by getting rid of old time advisors and family, and replacing with his own lackeys.
If this courtier is successful … well the story has a couple of different possible denouements.
“For instance, the writer who wrote “Art of the Deal” knew there was no substance there, but went ahead and wrote the book anyway.”
That’s a great example that supports a general explanation.
The author knew who he was dealing with (a soulless, immoral, idiot) but he was paid handsomely to write the book. And that’s the case with everyone around Trump, including his wife, ex-wives and kids. They stick around for the money. We see the exodus of Trump white house aides who have nothing really to gain and everything to lose with respect to damaging their brands and respective careers working for Trump.
The kids hang in there for the trust fund. Trump has treated them horribly. I can’t imagine that Ivanka appreciates how her father has sexualized their relationship. Then there’s his long time security chief, and others, who could do no where near as better given their real skill sets. They stick around for the money.
The coincidence is this. This week Putin announced (hyped?) four major weapons systems that on their surface seek to point to the irrelevancy of the US arsenal surrounding Russia, threatening North Korea, and containing China in the South China Sea.
On the surface they are direct threats, without the same amount of rejiggering and contractor waste of the US forces currently arrayed in Europe and the Pacific.
The effect meant to be communicated is that the US does not have a strategic first-strike capability in reality from any theater. The Kissinger-Reagan security architecture is kaput. And the American Century is definitely last century. The announcement is also mean to caution soon-to-be president-for-life Xi Jinping that Russia will not snap to as second-among-equals.
Was Putin really that much more effective in this than Trump was on the steel tariff? Why or why not?
Except Putin is running for re-election, such as it is. So it was all likely bluster. Just look at his comments today!! And look who got the “exclusive” US interview yesterday. Megyn Kelly!! The whole NBC franchise is such a joke.
I wouldn’t panic just yet. A nuclear reactor powered cruise missile is just a bad idea in so many ways… The only thing it’s likely to threaten are the poor sods that have to store it, launch it and test it.
It’s going to take major investments on Russia’s part to move these things beyond the poorly done animation stage. Still, I guess you do have to give them some points for thinking outside the box.
The US dropped similar ideas in the 50’s, for good reason. No one wants a flying nuclear reactor buzzing through their country.
Convair b36
I made one reference today to Putin’s speech being like the “missile gap” era JFK weapons announcements (and even the intention to go to the moon within the decade) despite the fact that Putin’s media package was much more Soviet realism (despite the current ideology) and much more clunky. Not yet exactly Steve Jobs product-rollout quality.
There were Project Orion and Project Pluto which were only canceled 1963-1964, the last one being exactly the nuclear cruise missile idea Putin suggests now.
I should have mentioned project pluto. It never went anywhere of course, for the same reasons I stated before. Project Orion, OTOH, was (still is) a practical application for interplanetary flight. But the project was killed by the 1963 partial test ban treaty banning nuclear explosions in outer space. Freeman Dyson, who worked on it , said their motto was “Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970”. And they could have done it, too, if it wasn’t for those darned
kidstreaties!I’m not panicking but am interested in the US media who are panicking at Putin’s rather transparent tactic to argue that the US no longer (if it ever had) a first strike capability.
The way that the US national security policy has pushed the national security envelope as if the US still enjoyed the American Century after George W. Bush has been very destabilizing to the global order.
And likely Putin is not calm with his ally Xi Jinping’s recent elevation in status. Nor is he sure about his ability to keep a lid on conflict in the Korean peninsula.
Doing whatever Russia did to rid itself of Hillary Clinton looks to have delivered a far more dangerous Donald Trump and given Xi Jinping more latitude of action than he would have had with a more deliberate US President.
You mean the weapons that were announced with animations worse than those on cheap Saturday morning cartoons? I don’t mean to belittle the potential threat, but I have to say that I’m skeptical.
You should equally or more sceptical of weapons with better animation in their sales presentations. F-35 anyone?
Star Wars has been vaporware for 30 years.
Having some honesty about weapons and military budgets absent a trial in a general war is a very dicey thing to arrange despite its benefits to the world.
Yeah, except that the missile, about the size and shape of a Tomahawk Cruise missile apparently can go thousands and thousands of miles farther than a cruise missile, can easily go around obstacles like those sci fi “smart bullets” and still carry a nuclear payload. This is patently Putin theater for the Russian rubes.
Of course it is for a Russian audience primarily, but its impact in the West has come from its pointed message to NATO that their notion of being able to deliver a pre-emptive strike without cost is a major illusion–and they might lose three carrier groups and launch a full-scale nuclear war as a result.
Too many Americans have had a “turn ’em to glass” attitude for too long about nuclear weapons. And aggressive warfare for small reasons.
Putin’s sole intention relative to the West is to argue that all those missile defense batteries in Eastern Europe will not allow a NATO first strike and regime change in Russia. That has been Putin’s first concern ever since the “Orange” revolution in Ukraine.
This is all so much baloney. Russia has nuclear attack submarines. Nobody east or west is contemplating a “NATO first strike and regime change in Russia”. This is nutso arglebargle.
We can’t ignore George Bush’s recklessness, however:
Putin’s Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile Is Bigger Than Trump’s; There’s no point in competing with Russia’s new trove of bizarre doomsday devices.
However, yes, I’m sick and tired of seeing the left worrying about make-believe wars and ignoring the wars that are actually happening, who initiated them, and who is an active aggressor. Let’s be very clear: if Putin was in charge during the fall of the Soviet Union, he would have sent in the tanks.
It was Republican strategy during the Obama administration to never let Obama achieve progress on US-Russian relations. The point men for that were Lindsay Graham and John McCain. They are still at it but now they are against Trump but not often for the right reasons. One wonders who they are working for.
4000 nuclear weapons just between the US and Russia is still sufficient to do all the bad things we feared during the Cold War when there wer 40,000 nuclear weapons, a good number of which were on active alert at all times and there were three documented near catastrophes.
We certainly cannot ignore Dick Cheney’s goading and George W. Bush’s recklessness with nuclear weapons and with the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
Trump has not yet crossed major Rubicons like the ABM treaty but is reckless enough to do it for anything else that his self-reported good friend Vladimir Putin (except of course when he realizes that Mueller is close to having the goods on his campaign staff who, what is the word I’m looking for, “colluded” with contacts who in turn “colluded” with Russian security services. After 17 months, there is much more evidence before testable institutions. Some of it very well might start being tested very some is what is becoming known as Mueller Time.
US Russia relations deteriorated in significant part because of Putin and his own imperial aggressions. I don’t plan on playing “imperial Olympics” here and whose imperialist advances was more problematic with tit-for-tat, but no one told him to invade Ukraine and Crimea, or assist and prop up Assad in his genocide.
US-Russia relations deteriorated when the post-Soviet Russian economy deteriorated under Jeffrey Sachs’s advice for a shock effect to start capitalism and what emerged was oligarchy and starvation. Ordinary Russians felt betrayed by 50 years of US propaganda about freedom and prosperity. It was more a betrayal of policy that did not treat Russians as it treated Europeans after World War II.
Putin was their Trump-style reaction.
Yes, the shock doctrine in action. But our misdeeds doesn’t excuse Putin’s imperialism. It’s important to understand why and how he came about, but not when it’s used as a defense of his actions as if they’re reasonable.
Lindsey Graham thinks it would be good for our security and stabilization to have a war with NK.
As for those bombs, I saw on the tv that a mere 100 of the bombs would eliminate life on earth.
I doubt Putin wants a war! But what pisses me is that Trump can rattle the bombs against NK and Iran and doesn’t say a peep against Russia. What’s up with that? Some would think Putin’s got the goods on Trump.
Trump just started a trade war because he was pissed off about something. There’s your stability. Also, collusion is not a crime. It’s not a legal term as I understand. We all say it but makes no never mind, you need conspiracy.
You know exactly what’s up with that. The Trump Organization is financially in hock.
Richard Engel had a piece on Jeffery Lewis last night on his special on N. Korea. It was a really interesting segment- Jeffery Lewis is the director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, where they do “open source” analysis of nuclear proliferation issues, including N. Korea’s nuclear & missile programs. It’s really interesting stuff and it’s pretty wild how much they can come up by just looking at material that’s publicly available on the internet.
He also does the Arms Control Wonk blog and podcast. Very geeky stuff, but he has a good sense of humor. The current podcast talks about Putin’s new weapons. Much more informative for the engineer in me than the hyperventilating mainstream media.
The open-sourcing of intelligence work like this is great. Bellingcat is similar in how crimes in Syria were documented. All out there, readily accessible to anyone with public knowledge.
You don’t think it is for a Russian audience?
You don’t think Putin wants to get NATO anti-missile defenses away from Russia’s borders?
You don’t think that Putin has been arguing that the US and NATO seek regime change at Russia’s margins through internal political movements nicknamed “color revolutions”?
You don’t think that Russian weapons would be effective if brought to a test? That’s a switch from the superman Soviets that used to inspire fear in the US only to be superseded by the superman terrorists.
Nutso arglebargle is thinking a nuclear war can be won and therefore should be fought.
Chessboard Near East. NATO leadership (USAsians) is provoking a war with Putin’s Russia. NK action will provoke retaliation from both China and Russia. Trump will attempt to eliminate the self-interest of South Korea which will come under immediate fire from NK. Russia is building new military bases in ally Syria. The result of the West’s provocation for regime change through jihadist proxies and funding from KSA, UAE and Qatar. Great support for Syrian opposition from the Atlantic Council. The Obama White House let ISIL expand as a force to fight the Syrian Army. Similar to present support for the Kurds fighting inside NE Syria. Turkey has all but switched allegiance from NATO partnership to Putin’s Russia because of self-interest. Europe also has split politically from Erdogan’s Turkey. So the new Near East alliance is formed by Iran – Syria – Iraq (partly) – Turkey and Russia. Any attack on Iran will get a response from the alliance. See my earlier writing about the CENTO states and the Baghdad Pact. These same states were used by the US to contain Communist expansion of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Putin succeeded to maintain Russia’s key naval bases of Sevastopol on Black Sea and Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea. Important defensive moves, Russia has no global footprint to threaten US might in an unipolar world.
Funny, I don’t recall our president saying anything. Guess it is not all that important to him. But trade, now that’s the thing for today.
So that gives a pass when he brings up a pre-emptive nuclear strike again?
Is Trump dangerous or is Trump so non-serious that he becomes dangerous in a different way, or is Trump, as his supporters believe, wily like the Roadrunner cartoon character.
Personally I think he has a serious personality disorder and I believe him to be unfit to be President. What he does at any moment is his whim, who spoke to him last or tickeled his ego – that sort of thing. He starts trade war out of some misplaced anger or the thought that the trade deficit is greatly harming us. Never mind any negotiations or pre planning, just jump right in, no big deal. Let’s hope he is a bit more careful with nuclear bombs. He is dangerous.
Trump has been in the office for over a year now. Wouldn’t you think that by now, someone, through a combination of flattery, toadyism, and bureaucratic infighting and backstabbing would have become the power behind the throne.
Makes you wonder if there’s not an evil genius somewhere who engineers the downfall of anyone who’s about to move into such a positiion.
I think there is a “someone” who is the power behind the throne, but their hold on this might still not be very strong. Seems to be slowly eliminating rivals.
It’s a bit like trying to ascertain the existence of dark matter by observing its effects on other things. Tricky business that.
Stephen Miller
Doesn’t seem like enough wattage there.
Whose fingerprints are all over the separations?
Who is it that wants to be in the public eye, but has not made a very good impression so far?
Frustration thy name is Trump.
When he spoils for a war, he digs out his list of people who have criticized him and goes after one or more of them, like one of his impersonators on SNL, not North Korea.
He spends an inordinate amount of time being in a state of rage lately. What? No golf? No Disco parties? Melania not answering her phone?
I look at all this and still know in my heart that Pence would be worse.
Federalist 68:
Nice try, Hamilton. Didn’t work and faded with time … but today it seems like we should revisit this.
As Stephanie Kelton said on twitter: One, two, three four… I declare a trade war.
I see Lindsey Graham is spoiling for a fight with NK. Said a war with them would bring stability. He is waiting in the wings for the next time Trump is upset about something, like in 5..4..3
He’s addicted to the adrenalin rush associated with chaos, as are many who are addicted to high risk activities. The chaos also keeps him the center of attention.
That’s what comes of being a meth addict for so many years, I guess ! Gotta have that adrenaline rush..