825 Eamonn Fingleton backs Trump on Trade. Trump = Kissinger Realism on Putin

Eamonn Fingleton backs Trump on Trade. Trump = Kissinger Realism on Putin

Newsletter published on 12 May 2016

(1) Eamonn Fingleton backs Trump on Trade
(2) Manufacturing is the Key to Trump victory over Hillary - Eamonn
Fingleton
(3) Trump 'America First' vs Republican elite Globalization
(4) Trade the key issue - "No more sweatshops or pollution havens
stealing jobs"
(5) A Protectionist Moment? - Paul Krugman
(6) Krugman vs "Protectionism causes Recessions" mantra
(7) Trump’s Ascent Watched With Wariness in Asia
(8) Howard Richman for Trump trade policy
(9) Trump = Kissinger Realism on Putin
(10) Trump vs DC foreign policy establishment
(11) Trump is taking back GoP from Oligarchs & Religious Fundamentalists
- Eric Margolis
(12) Republican establishment canvass a third party
(13) Republican elite vs Republican electorate - Pat Buchanan
(14) Trump's Jews - Brother Nathanael
(15) Will Trump Defy The Jewish Lobby? - Brother Nathanael

(1) Eamonn Fingleton backs Trump on Trade

http://www.unz.com/efingleton/trump-has-a-sound-trade-policy-but-where-will-he-get-sound-trade-policy-aides/

Trump Has A Sound Trade Policy, But Where Will He Get Sound Trade Policy
Aides?

Eamonn Fingleton

April 30, 2016

Donald Trump’s speech on foreign policy on Wednesday has been widely and
predictably misrepresented. The Economist, for instance, claimed to see
many "errors" there, yet curiously failed to identify a single one.

In suggesting his proposed strategy is riddled with contradictions, the
only substantiation the magazine offered was this:

     He….vowed that his America would be a "reliable friend and ally
again". But moments earlier he explained how he would begin his
presidency by summoning allied leaders for a summit to discuss how they
"look at the United States as weak and forgiving and feel no obligation
to honour their agreements with us."

Pace the Economist and its compulsion to belittle the Trump phenomenon,
his attitude to allies is no way contradictory. He is evidently
referring to trade agreements and is saying that just because a nation
like Japan or South Korea is classified as an American ally does not
relieve it of an obligation to honor its trade agreements. If such
nations continue to discriminate against U.S. exports, it will be they,
not a Trump-led America, that will fall short on obligations of friendship.

Trump’s larger point is that for any serious future Presidential
administration, trade can be a powerful lever in influencing foreign
partners – and not just China, whose rivalry with the United States is
now obvious and ever-present, but nations like Japan, South Korea, and
Germany, which have long used saccharine-sweet professions of friendship
towards the United States to try to slough off their trade obligations.

So much for the broad outline of Trump’s strategy. But if it is to work,
he will need a small army of reliable aides to implement it. Although he
has already named several advisors on other issues, he seems not yet to
have reached out to any trade experts. Yet in trade more than almost any
other area of policy, the devil is in the details and a President simply
has to delegate much of the strategizing and most of the negotiating to
trustworthy aides. The evidence of history is that the caliber of trade
negotiators in the past has generally fallen way below what the American
nation is entitled to expect.

The challenge for Trump is to find aides who cannot be either corrupted
or broken (in the latter case, via, for instance, blackmail).

The traditional first port of call for administrations in search of warm
bodies is, of course, the Washington think-tank industry. But far too
many think-tank types are hired guns whose only loyalty is to their own
pocketbooks. In any case, almost without exception think-tanks are on
the wrong side of the issues. So too for the most part are Washington
law firms and Ivy League universities.

A major part of Trump’s problem will be transforming the culture at the
Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Hitherto the
USTR seems to have been peopled largely by an amoral breed of young
lawyer for whom, in typical revolving door fashion, government service
is just a stepping stone towards the real deal, a big paying job in the
private sector. For such people, and their likely future employers in
the Washington foreign trade lobby, a reputation for standing up for the
U.S. national interest is not considered an asset.

Yet Trump is right to prioritize trade. It is not only a field that has
long cried out for strong presidential leadership, but it is one where,
given aides of appropriate commitment and strength of character, a
future President Trump could aim for large early victories.

As a practical matter, however, people of the appropriate caliber are
not thick on the ground. Some of the most clear-sighted trade economists
moreover are left-leaning Democrats like Robert Kuttner, Jeffrey
Madrick, and Robert Scott who will probably not be available to a
President Trump.

Meanwhile some key figures who in a previous life came to national
attention as trade hawks have long since tiptoed away from their former
positions and have even in some instances cosied up to persistently
protectionist nations (it may not be a coincidence that such nations are
noted for big-budget attempts to subvert intelligent American criticism
of their trade policies). In the nature of things, such experts are
better left unnamed but a useful litmus test is the extent to which they
have written about, say, Japan’s globally crucial car market. That
market remains as closed as ever and provides the Japanese car industry
with a high-profit sanctuary from which to "target" world markets.

A further problem is that many people with deep knowledge of the issues
(acquired typically in the 1980s and 1990s, when trade was last a
hot-button issue) are now in their late 60s or older. Whether they will
be as enthusiastic as the 69-year-old Trump for a new challenge is
anyone’s guess.

All that said, let’s name some appropriate names. Two people Trump
should call immediately (if he hasn’t already done so) are Patrick
Buchanan and Pat Choate.

Buchanan ran for President as a third party challenger in both 1992 and
1996 and among his top issues were America’s ill-advised trade strategy
and trade’s role in American industrial decline. A familiar face to the
American public from a long career as a television commentator, Buchanan
is an erudite historian who first came to prominence as a senior advisor
to Richard Nixon in the 1960s.

As for Choate, he was Ross Perot’s running mate in a 1996 presidential
campaign in which they strongly challenged Bill Clinton’s trade
policies. An institutional economist positioned on the moderate right,
he is a noted expert on the shortcomings of extreme laissez-faire. He is
also the author of Agents of Influence, a bestseller on the Washington
trade lobby, and in recent years has served as an advisor to corporate
America on international patent problems.

Here are a few other well-informed and reliable trade experts whom Trump
should seek out at the first opportunity:

Dan DiMicco. In his former capacity as chief executive of the Nucor
steel company, DiMicco fought many trade battles and is an expert on
East Asian dumping.

Ralph Gomory. A noted applied mathematician and former head of research
at IBM, he is the author, with William Baumol, of Global Trade and
Conflicting National Interests. In this book and follow-up papers,
Gomory has challenged the theoretical foundations of textbook free trade
theory.

Kevin Kearns. Head of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, an
organization representing domestic manufacturers, Kearns formerly served
as a foreign service officer in Germany, Korea, and Japan, and in that
capacity observed first-hand the obstacles faced by US companies in
trying to export to key foreign markets. In Japan, he opposed the
give-away of American taxpayer funded aerospace technology to the
Japanese FSX program.

Robert Lighthizer. A partner in the Skadden Arps law firm and a former
deputy United States Trade Representative (USTR), he divides his time
between traditional trade litigation, policy advice, and legislative
initiatives. He represents heavy manufacturing, agricultural and
high-tech companies and has been lead counsel in countless antidumping
and countervailing duty cases.

Richard McCormack. Publisher of Manufacturing & Technology News, a
well-regarded newsletter, McCormack is an expert on the practical
problems faced by U.S. industry in competing in rigged global markets.

Peter Morici. A professor of international business at the University of
Maryland and a former advisor to the U.S. International Trade
Commission, he is one of the few prominent academic economists who
forthrightly challenges his colleagues’ ivory tower commitment to
unilateral free trade.

Patrick A. Mulloy. A lawyer who served five two-year terms on the
bipartisan United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission,
he currently serves as a consultant to non-profit groups interested in
reforming U.S. trade and economic policies.

Michael Sekora. A noted physicist, he founded Project Socrates, a
classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program established in 1983
within the Reagan administration. He holds that the cause of U.S.
industrial decline is that U.S. decision-makers abandoned
technology-based planning and adopted economic-based planning at the end
of World War II.

Alan Tonelson. As research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry
Council Educational Foundation, he has written extensively on free trade
and globalization and their role in U.S. industrial decline.

How realistic is it to hope that a future President Trump can bring
America’s now persistently disastrous deficits under control? Many
observers are daunted at the scale of the undertaking. Kevin Kearns, for
instance, believes that the organizational effort required will be
monumental.

" Trump will need to formulate a comprehensive plan to fulfill his
promise to bring back jobs to America," Kearns comments. "It will
involve not just USTR and the Commerce Department, but also Treasury,
Defense, Energy, Labor and other departments and agencies. He will have
his work cut out finding people who share his vision and are willing to
man the various federal government positions to carry out his plans.
They exist, but they are few and far between. And certainly, there are
legions of lobbyists, think-tankers, and academics who would be only too
glad to take a job and subvert his program."

Eamonn Fingleton is the author of In Praise of Hard Industries: Why
Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future
Prosperity (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999).

(2) Manufacturing is the Key to Trump victory over Hillary - Eamonn
Fingleton

http://www.unz.com/efingleton/after-indiana-now-that-trump-has-deep-sixed-cruz-heres-how-he-can-bury-clinton/

After Indiana: Now That Trump Has Deep-sixed Cruz, Here’s How He Can
Bury Clinton

Eamonn Fingleton

May 6, 2016

Last December I initiated a series of articles collectively headed "Why
Trump Is Winning." They were published at Forbes.com and, to say the
least, my editors there seemed underwhelmed. After all, the almost
universally touted conventional wisdom at the time was that Trump’s
support had a low ceiling. Once the field started thinning, his
negatives would supposedly bulk ever larger. My bet was the opposite:
once the field started thinning, attention would move away from his
reality-TV persona and other negatives, and would focus instead on his
issues. And there he would prove unstoppable. (For some of my
Trump-is-winning articles, click here, here, and here.)

Frankly Trump’s issues are the most powerful in any election in modern
American history. After his tour de force in Indiana on Tuesday, there
is little doubt that many voters have already got the message. But can
he win in November? Even today, not everyone is convinced. Certainly if
the British betting industry is to be believed, his chances are still no
more than half of Hillary Clinton’s.

Not for the first time, Trump is being underestimated. His advantage on
the issues will quickly prove even more telling against Clinton than
against Cruz or Rubio. Although Clinton has the woman card (and it may
be worth as much as seven or eight percentage points), she is more
vulnerable than almost anyone realizes on Trump’s most powerful issues.
Those issues are manufacturing and trade.

The story can be summed up in four points:

1. For several decades now manufacturing has quietly moldered as a
sleeper issue and even today elite American opinion is oblivious to its
epochal political and economic significance.

2. Given that Hillary Clinton has spent most of the last quarter century
close to or at the center of American policymaking, she has had an
unparalleled vantage point from which to assess the facts.

3. For most of that time she has been complicit in the cover-up of those
facts.

4. Her latter-day espousal of manufacturing has been undertaken
defensively and is a classic case of too little too late.

American cognoscenti have, of course, long viewed U.S. manufacturing as
an invalid in the painful last stages of a terrible illness. The best
apparently we can do is post a discreet "Do not resuscitate" sign at the
bedside. Attempts to revive manufacturing are seen as sentimental,
misguided, and, most of all, unnecessary. After all the United States is
now supposedly triumphantly leading the world into a new postindustrial era.

In reality, as Trump understands better than almost anyone, the
cognoscenti are fundamentally wrong. Their errors are traceable
ultimately to misconceptions in outdated Anglophone economics textbooks.

Before considering the textbooks, let’s first note some key empirical
evidence. Long ignored by American cognoscenti, the fact is that almost
without exception the world’s richest societies boast thriving
manufacturing industries, albeit capital-intensive ones that are a world
away from the labor-intensive manufacturing that is used in all
straw-man discussions among American establishment types. Wealthy
manufacturing nations include not only Germany but Switzerland, Austria,
the Low Countries, and Scandinavia (on many measures Denmark ranks as
the world’s richest society and certainly has for more than a generation
now been rapidly lengthening its lead over the United States).

There is also the evidence of East Asia. Not only have South Korea and
Taiwan leveraged manufacturing to bootstrap themselves into the upper
echelons of the world income table, but Japan is clearly (to anyone who
knows the country, as Trump evidently does) one of the world’s richest
economies. The impression otherwise is based on a few misleading
quarter-truths. There is, for instance, the matter of Japanese asset
values. Yes, after a tremendous and utterly unsustainable bubble in the
1980s (I declared it unsustainable at the time), Japanese stocks and
real estate duly fell to earth in the early 1990s. And, yes too, Japan’s
overall economic output has long been growing more slowly than in the
decades immediately after World War II. What the mainstream press has
missed, however, is that on a per-capita basis, real Japanese incomes
have been doing fine in recent years, and so have living standards. The
most obvious testimony to this is life expectancy, which has increased
nearly eight years since the 1980s (and this despite the fact that the
Japanese now eat a much more Western diet).

The overall economy’s slowdown is attributable not to lagging
productivity growth but rather to a consistently declining workforce (in
earlier decades, particularly in the miracle years of the 1960s, Japan
enjoyed a fast-growing workforce). The latter-day decline reflects no
terrible societal death-wish but rather the enactment of the Eugenic
Protection Act of 1948. Concerned about food security, the Tokyo
authorities legalized abortion on demand in a successful effort to cut
the birthrate by more than half. (The concern about food security was
not misplaced, incidentally. On a per-capita basis, Japan boasts little
more than one-third of China’s arable land. And China, of course, was
sufficiently concerned about food security in the 1970s to go one step
further than Japan with an explicit one-child policy.)

A glance at Japan’s recent underlying numbers reveals many areas of
remarkable – but strangely unpublicized – strength. Take autos, which
are by far the most important consumer product traded internationally.
In their electronics alone, autos feature as much advanced technology as
smartphones. Despite a declining national workforce, the Japanese auto
industry has more than doubled its global output in the last 25 years.
The Toyota story alone is remarkable. Whereas as recently as the late
1980s, GM enjoyed more than double Toyota’s global sales, now Toyota’s
sales are nearly one-third again higher than GM’s.

Japan’s progress in electronics has been even more impressive. Remember
that under Moore’s law, the number of transistors in integrated circuits
has long been doubling about every two years. What ultimately drives
such progress? The pace is set by super-precise production machines
known as steppers. These consist of arrays of huge lenses that use
optics to imprint ever more miniaturized patterns on optically
sensitized chips. The most advanced stepper lenses are available only
from Japan and the only other supplier is Zeiss of Germany.

If Japan’s leadership in manufacturing equipment is impressive, the
story is even more so in materials. In accordance with Moore’s law, each
new generation of chip requires a higher level of purity in materials.
Japan dominates the global supply of virtually all advanced
semiconductor materials, not least silicon. In the ultra-purified,
not-an-atom-out-of-place, form needed for the latest generation of
computer chips, silicon is available only from two Tokyo-based
companies, Shin-Etsu Chemical and SUMCO. Monsanto of the United States
once was a dominant supplier but it long ago fell by the wayside and so
more recently did the only remaining European supplier, Wacker Chemie of
Germany.

Let’s move on to a consideration of economic theory and its role in
American industrial decline. Anglophone textbooks have traditionally
identified just three key factors of production – capital, labor, and
land. Now a further factor has emerged that plays a decisive role in the
relative competitiveness of modern nations: production knowhow. Although
production knowhow is of vital importance right across the board in
advanced industries, its role is perhaps most clearly visible in the
semiconductor industry. When a new microchip is introduced, top
engineers may have to work for months honing production processes. At
the outset they may achieve a yield of flawless chips of perhaps no more
than 5 percent but as they debug the production system they may raise
the yield above 90 percent. Once acquired, the resulting knowhow can be
readily transferred to a plant on the other side of the world – and can
be harnessed almost instantly to help boost foreign workers’ productivity.

Because textbooks generally do not recognize the significance of
production knowhow, they overlook the fact that different nations employ
very different production knowhow strategies. Nations like Japan, South
Korea, Taiwan, and Germany, where regulators enjoy considerable direct
and indirect control of manufacturing, are careful to discourage the
flow of their nations’ most valuable production knowhow abroad, while at
home they often use cartels to share knowhow rapidly among domestic
manufacturers. That way, their own workers at home are provided with a
major relative advantage in the world productivity tables. By contrast
the United States and to a lesser extent other Anglophone nations are
much more casual and these days rarely impose significant restrictions
on technology outflows. This increasingly applies even in the case of
knowhow considered to have important military applications (whose
transfer abroad was in former times generally jealously restricted).

A further vital concern is that many nations have devised ingenious
policies to wheedle technology out of other nations. This is most
obvious in the case of China, which routinely specifies that as the
price of admission to the Chinese market foreign corporations must not
only manufacture on Chinese soil but bring their best technology. Such
technology then often quickly migrates to indigenous competitors.
American corporations are not the only victims but because they are not
backstopped by a strong and knowledgeable home country government they
are generally more exposed.

The effect on the U.S. economy has been inexorably enfeebling. The worst
part of it is that top U.S. corporate executives rarely have much
interest in raising the alarm. This is because they often strike
profitable side deals with foreign governments that boost short-term
profits and by extension the value of their stock options. In the long
run, however, American workers – and by extension the American nation as
a whole – carry the can. This applies in spades in the many cases where
a foreign factory that was recently in receipt of advanced American
technology starts exporting back to the United States.

Perhaps the most shocking exemplar of the technology transfer story is
aerospace. The process fleetingly became a hot-button issue in the late
1980s when the so-called FSX affair erupted during the administration of
Bill Clinton’s White House predecessor George H. W. Bush. The acronym
stands for "Fighter Support Experimental" and refers to a Japanese
program to acquire much of America’s most advanced airplane technology.
As recounted by Kevin Kearns, who as a key foreign service officer in
Tokyo tried to fight the deal, Japanese leaders essentially invented a
phony need for a fighter jet and by rigging the mission requirements
eliminated all existing off-the-peg U.S. fighter jets. A new plane had
to be built and it would be built – at vast cost – in Japan. In the name
of friendly alliance relations, the United States would supply American
production technology to a consortium of the Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and
Fuji industrial groups.

Kearns explains: "The Japanese FSX fighter program was designed to
advance the state of Japanese aerospace technology and manufacturing
know-how under the guise of countering the Soviets. Japan in fact did
not have the capability necessary to produce even a then
current-generation fighter aircraft, but was willing to expend scarce
defense resources to advance its industrial interests instead of
contributing to the common defense. FSX is a clear case of Japanese
defense free-riding while devoting its national resources to building
better consumer and producer goods, thus increasing its trade surpluses
with the United States."

Despite the transparent nature of Japan’s agenda, the Bush
administration acceded, and General Dynamics transferred to rising
Japanese rivals much of its most valuable technology. Richard Armitage,
who headed the State Department negotiating team, was later awarded the
Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun for contributions to
U.S.-Japan "mutual understanding."

Later, it was Boeing’s turn to transfer technology – and again the
recipients were mainly the Mitsubishi/Kawasaki/Fuji consortium. This
happened largely on Bill Clinton’s watch and there is no evidence that
he ever raised any objections.

The result has been that with each succeeding Boeing passenger plane,
Japan’s work share has increased. Whereas Japan contributed a mere 16
percent to the Boeing 767, which was launched in 1982, it contributed 21
percent to the 777, launched in 1995, and a whopping 35 percent to the
787, launched in 2011. It is worth noting that the 787 is the world’s
most advanced passenger plane. Its signature feature is superstrong,
superlight carbon-fiber wings, which make possible stunning savings in
per-passenger fuel consumption. Where are those wings made? In Japan by
the Mitsubishi group. Much of the production technology Mitsubishi
needed was served to it on a plate by Boeing.

The essense of Boeing’s deal with Japan is that in return for transfers
of American technology and manufacturing know-how, the Japanese low-ball
their prices for an ever more advanced array of components, materials,
and sub-assemblies. In many cases, Japan’s state-controlled airlines
further sweeten the pot by paying top dollar for U.S. airframes and jet
engines.

Back to Donald Trump and his forthcoming encounter with Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s decision to major on American decline was always right on its
merits but it will prove tactically devastating against Hillary Clinton.
While the entire American establishment – the academic world, the
think-tanks, the press as well as big business and Washington – shares
responsibility for American decline, one thing is undeniable: Hillary
Clinton has ranked as one of the most consequential members of that
establishment for a quarter of a century. Fate could not have provided
Trump’s "Make America Great Again!" campaign with a more suitable opponent.

Eamonn Fingleton is the author of In Praise of Hard Industries: Why
Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future
Prosperity (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)

(3) Trump 'America First' vs Republican elite Globalization
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36232280

Trump v Republican elite - the split explained

By Tim Swift BBC News, Washington

  6 May 2016

Is Donald Trump really a Republican?

That sounds like an odd question to ask of the presumptive presidential
nominee of the party, but Mr Trump isn't your typical conservative.

Mr Trump's Republican rivals have long called him a "New York liberal"
who can't be trusted to uphold their Republican values.

"I think what a lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a
standard bearer that bears our standards." House Speaker Paul Ryan said
on Thursday, explaining why he is withholding his support. Jeb Bush said
he would back "principled conservatives" rather than Mr Trump.

Mr Trump describes himself as a "commonsense conservative" and the fact
that his message has earned him millions of Republican votes suggests a
fracture between the grassroots and leadership.

Here are five key issues upon which the billionaire businessman diverges
from Republican orthodoxy as represented by leaders like Mr Ryan and
presidents of the past.

Immigration

Mainstream Republicans: Traditionally Republicans have favoured
increased immigration in keeping with the party's close relationship
with the business community. Both President Ronald Reagan and President
George HW Bush extended amnesty to millions of undocumented workers
while in office. Mainstream Republican figures such as Florida Senator
Marco Rubio initially favoured similar immigration reforms that would
have provided a "path to citizenship", but those efforts stopped after
meeting resistance from more conservative members of Congress.

Trump: Views on immigration have shifted rightward across the Republican
Party in recent years, but Mr Trump's views are some of the most extreme
in American politics. He has:

     advocated deporting nearly 11 million undocumented workers
     called for a border wall to be built between the US and Mexico
     said he would force Mexico to pay for the wall by threatening to
ban Mexicans in the US from sending remittances home

Most Republicans oppose mass deportations. While they support increased
border security, they do not advocate a border wall paid for by the
Mexican government.

Abortion

Mainstream Republicans: Almost all Republicans oppose abortion. In
recent years, Republican-controlled state legislatures have supported a
wave of regulations that have limited access to abortions - new laws
that have been met with legal challenges. The Supreme Court will likely
decide the fate of these regulations, making the recent vacancy on the
high court a critical issue for social conservatives. Social
conservatives have also aggressively targeted Planned Parenthood.
Although the group is one of the leading abortion providers in the US,
the health care organisation also provides cancer screenings,
contraception and screening and treatment for sexual transmitted
diseases. It receives federal funds for those services, while
regulations prohibit federal funds for abortions. Conservatives have
sought to cut off its federal funding to weaken the organisation.

Trump: While Mr Trump's stance is comparable to many Republicans, his
consistency is the issue. In the course of a week earlier this year, Mr
Trump changed his position on abortion at least five times, alarming
many social conservatives. This flexibility has convinced many social
conservatives that Mr Trump cannot be trusted to appoint a Supreme Court
justice who would oppose abortion rights. He has also publically praised
the work of Planned Parenthood, saying their non-abortion services
should receive federal funding. The organisation has done "very good
work for millions of women," Mr Trump said.

International trade

Mainstream Republicans: Republicans have long supported trade agreement
such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which increased
trade between Canada, the US and Mexico in the 1990s. Many Republicans
in the Congress currently support the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a
pending trade agreement between the US and many Pacific Rim countries.
Supporters of these agreements say the pacts increase economic growth
and enhance American competitiveness in the global market.

Trump: Mr Trump has aggressively criticised international trade
agreements, particularly Nafta, saying the pacts have harmed the US
manufacturing sector and cost millions of US jobs. He has pointed to the
country's massive trade deficit with China, saying tariffs are needed to
address the imbalance. Most Republicans oppose tariffs, saying they
would spark a trade war that would damage the economy.

Foreign policy

Mainstream Republicans: Republicans have long supported a muscular
foreign policy and have not shied away from supporting the use of
military force aboard. While generally opposed to government spending,
Republicans make a key exception for defence spending, allowing the US
military to maintain scores of bases overseas and protect the interests
of its allies in Europe and the Pacific.

Trump: Mr Trump has been a vocal critic of the Iraq War and says the US
need not be the world's policeman. While Mr Trump has supported
strengthening the military, he says he would do so by extracting
concessions from allies. He has repeatedly said the US should rethink
its commitments to Nato, saying other member countries do not pay their
fair share of the organisation's budget. He has also floated an idea
that South Korea and Japan could arm themselves with nuclear weapons -
eliminating the need for US protection.

Social services

Mainstream Republicans: A key faction of the Republican Party is made of
fiscal conservatives who view the federal deficit as a major long-term
problem for the country. After defence spending, two social services
programmes that benefit the elderly - Social Security and Medicare - are
the next biggest contributors to the deficit. Social Security provides
living expenses for workers older than 65 and Medicare provides health
care benefits to older Americans. Republicans - in particularly Mr Ryan
- have long supported changes to Social Security and Medicare that would
turn those programmes over to the private market. Mr Ryan currently
supports turning Medicare into a programme in which the government
provides vouchers that would be used to purchase private insurance.

Trump: Efforts to make changes to Social Security and Medicare are
deeply unpopular with American voters. Mr Trump has said he would not
make cuts or changes to those programmes and instead he would bolster
their funding sources by strengthening the US economy and reallocating
some foreign aid to the coffers of Social Security and Medicare.

(4) Trade the key issue - "No more sweatshops or pollution havens
stealing jobs"

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35981784

Are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders right about trade?

By Andrew Walker BBC World Service economics correspondent

11 April 2016

Would Donald Trump "wreak havoc on world trade" if he became US president?

That was the question posed in a recent Wall Street Journal column.

Meanwhile, an article in Forbes magazine describes another
non-mainstream figure still in the running for the White House, the
Democrat Bernie Sanders, as not having the "first inkling of what
[trade] is and why we do it".

Let's put aside the question of how likely it is that either will become
the 45th president. The fact that both have raised the issue of trade in
rather striking terms is still a sign of something wider going on in US
politics.

Both have expressed profound concerns about the impact of international
trade on the US economy and workers. As the quotes above show, both have
caused alarm or scorn among enthusiasts for trade liberalisation.

Both would represent a marked departure from decades of US trade policy
which has, with some diversions on the way, followed this path. 'Bad deal'

For Mr Trump, much of the focus is specifically on China: "Since China
joined the WTO [World Trade Organization in 2001] Americans have
witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens
of millions of jobs. It was not a good deal for America then and it's a
bad deal now."

He told the New York Times that he would favour a 45% tariff on imports
from China, although he has subsequently said the proposal is a threat
to get China to "behave".

He wants to put "an end to China's illegal export subsidies and lax
labour and environmental standards. No more sweatshops or pollution
havens stealing jobs from American workers".

Mr Sanders is not so far away. A release on his campaign website after a
speech in Pennsylvania says: "The North American Free Trade Agreement
[Nafta, which involves the US, Canada and Mexico] cost 850,000
good-paying jobs in the United States, including 26,300 in Pennsylvania.
Normalized trade relations with China [following China's accession to
the WTO] led to the loss of 3.2 million jobs including 122,600 in
Pennsylvania."

Both are also exercised about the trade deficit - the fact that America
buys more foreign goods than it sells abroad. They see that as a result
of unfair trade agreements and as evidence that the US is losing out -
"they are killing us on trade" is a phrase that Mr Trump has often used.

That idea is in stark contrast with the view of mainstream economics
that trade liberalisation is beneficial for all countries that do it. By
removing barriers that raise the cost of imported goods, countries can
specialise in producing what they do best, and consumers and businesses
can buy goods more cheaply.

That idea, and a desire to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression (which
was aggravated though not caused by trade restrictions), is behind the
gradual removal of trade barriers since World War Two.

There has been a more or less global effort to do this under the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) and, from 1995, the WTO. There
have also been many smaller scale moves between groups of countries,
including what is now the EU.

The US has agreements already in force with 20 countries, including
Mexico and Canada, under Nafta. The US has also completed negotiations
with 11 other countries for a deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership
and there are negotiations under way with the EU. Are gains redistributed?

The mainstream view that all countries gain from trade liberalisation
does not mean that all people do. It's just that the benefits exceed the
losses.

It should thus be possible for everyone to gain, if the winners
compensate the losers.

The US, like many other countries, has programmes to help people who
lose their jobs and there is one specifically targeted at those hit by
international trade, called the Trade Adjustment Assistance Programme.

One commentator described it (and its EU equivalent) as "tiny and
relatively ineffective", adding: "There is little political appetite in
the world's two biggest economies for a more serious attempt at
redistributing the gains from trade." Image copyright AFP Image caption
How much of a factor have imports from China been in US manufacturing
job losses?

And that does mean some people do lose from trade expansion. A group of
academic economists in the US wrote: "The increase in US imports from
China, which accelerated after 2000, was a major force behind recent
reductions in US manufacturing employment and… it appears to have
significantly suppressed overall US job growth."

They estimate job losses of at least two million between 1999 and 2011,
because of the direct and indirect impact of China's rise. They don't
attribute all the manufacturing job losses to China and trade, but their
analysis points to a real impact from competition from imports.

There is also research pointing to a political impact even before the
current campaigns for the presidential nominations.

Analysis at Georgetown University suggests that trade does affect
elections. It found that incumbent presidents tend to gain votes in
areas where exports have risen, but they lose support where competition
from imports has led to increased job insecurity. Backlash

And what about the US trade deficit?

Here, things get very complicated. While a trade deficit might be the
result of competitive imports, it can also be caused by low levels of
savings.

In fact there is a view that the trade deficit is not necessarily a bad
thing. A trade deficit has to be financed by borrowing or investment
from abroad, which can help drive interest rates down and stimulate job
creation.

On the other hand, there is a view that those considerations don't
really apply now at a time when interest rates are already very low. In
those circumstances a trade deficit really can cost jobs.

It is curious that this issue should come up so strongly now. The US
jobs situation is improving. The unemployment rate is 5%, and the number
of people with jobs has increased by more than 600,000 this year.

The Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, wrote: "A protectionist
backlash, like an immigration backlash, is one of those things where the
puzzle has been how long it was in coming. And maybe the time is now."

(5) A Protectionist Moment? - Paul Krugman

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/a-protectionist-moment/?_r=0

A Protectionist Moment?

Paul Krugman

March 9, 2016 4:32 pm March 9, 2016 4:32 pm

Busy with real life, but yes, I know what happened in the primaries
yesterday. Triumph for Trump, and big upset for Sanders — although it’s
still very hard to see how he can catch Clinton. Anyway, a few thoughts,
not about the horserace but about some deeper currents.

The Sanders win defied all the polls, and nobody really knows why. But a
widespread guess is that his attacks on trade agreements resonated with
a broader audience than his attacks on Wall Street; and this message was
especially powerful in Michigan, the former auto superpower. And while I
hate attempts to claim symmetry between the parties — Trump is trying to
become America’s Mussolini, Sanders at worst America’s Michael Foot —
Trump has been tilling some of the same ground. So here’s the question:
is the backlash against globalization finally getting real political
traction?

You do want to be careful about announcing a political moment, given how
many such proclamations turn out to be ludicrous. Remember the
libertarian moment? The reformocon moment? Still, a protectionist
backlash, like an immigration backlash, is one of those things where the
puzzle has been how long it was in coming. And maybe the time is now.

The truth is that if Sanders were to make it to the White House, he
would find it very hard to do anything much about globalization — not
because it’s technically or economically impossible, but because the
moment he looked into actually tearing up existing trade agreements the
diplomatic, foreign-policy costs would be overwhelmingly obvious. In
this, as in many other things, Sanders currently benefits from the
luxury of irresponsibility: he’s never been anywhere close to the levers
of power, so he could take principled-sounding but arguably feckless
stances in a way that Clinton couldn’t and can’t.

But it’s also true that much of the elite defense of globalization is
basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability, scare tactics
(protectionism causes depressions!), vastly exaggerated claims for the
benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection,
hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what standard
models actually predict. I hope, by the way, that I haven’t done any of
that; I think I’ve always been clear that the gains from globalization
aren’t all that (here’s a back-of-the-envelope on the gains from
hyperglobalization — only part of which can be attributed to policy —
that is less than 5 percent of world GDP over a generation); and I think
I’ve never assumed away the income distribution effects.

Furthermore, as Mark Kleiman sagely observes, the conventional case for
trade liberalization relies on the assertion that the government could
redistribute income to ensure that everyone wins — but we now have an
ideology utterly opposed to such redistribution in full control of one
party, and with blocking power against anything but a minor move in that
direction by the other.

So the elite case for ever-freer trade is largely a scam, which voters
probably sense even if they don’t know exactly what form it’s taking.

Ripping up the trade agreements we already have would, again, be a mess,
and I would say that Sanders is engaged in a bit of a scam himself in
even hinting that he could do such a thing. Trump might actually do it,
but only as part of a reign of destruction on many fronts.

But it is fair to say that the case for more trade agreements —
including TPP, which hasn’t happened yet — is very, very weak. And if a
progressive makes it to the White House, she should devote no political
capital whatsoever to such things.

(6) Krugman vs "Protectionism causes Recessions" mantra

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/the-mitt-hawley-fallacy/?_r=0

The Mitt-Hawley Fallacy

March 4, 2016 9:32 am March 4, 2016 9:32 am

There was so much wrong with Mitt Romney’s
Trump-is-a-disaster-whom-I-will-support-in-the-general speech that it
may seem odd to call him out for bad international macroeconomics. But
this is a pet peeve of mine, in an area where I really, truly know what
I’m talking about. So here goes.

In warning about Trumponomics, Romney declared

     If Donald Trump’s plans were ever implemented, the country would
sink into prolonged recession. A few examples. His proposed 35 percent
tariff-like penalties would instigate a trade war and that would raise
prices for consumers, kill our export jobs and lead entrepreneurs and
businesses of all stripes to flee America.

After all, doesn’t everyone know that protectionism causes recessions?
Actually, no. There are reasons to be against protectionism, but that’s
not one of them.

Think about the arithmetic (which has a well-known liberal bias). Total
final spending on domestically produced goods and services is

Total domestic spending + Exports – Imports = GDP

Now suppose we have a trade war. This will cut exports, which other
things equal depresses the economy. But it will also cut imports, which
other things equal is expansionary. For the world as a whole, the cuts
in exports and imports will by definition be equal, so as far as world
demand is concerned, trade wars are a wash.

OK, I’m sure some people will start shouting "Krugman says protectionism
does no harm." But no: protectionism in general should reduce
efficiency, and hence the economy’s potential output. But that’s not at
all the same as saying that it causes recessions.

But didn’t the Smoot-Hawley tariff cause the Great Depression? No.
There’s no evidence at all that it did. Yes, trade fell a lot between
1929 and 1933, but that was almost entirely a consequence of the
Depression, not a cause. (Trade actually fell faster during the early
stages of the 2008 Great Recession than it did after 1929.) And while
trade barriers were higher in the 1930s than before, this was partly a
response to the Depression, partly a consequence of deflation, which
made specific tariffs (i.e., tariffs that are stated in dollars per
unit, not as a percentage of value) loom larger.

Again, not the thing most people will remember about Romney’s speech.
But, you know, protectionism was the only reason he gave for believing
that Trump would cause a recession, which I think is kind of telling:
the GOP’s supposedly well-informed, responsible adult, trying to save
the party, can’t get basic economics right at the one place where
economics is central to his argument.

(7) Trump’s Ascent Watched With Wariness in Asia

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-ascent-watched-with-wariness-in-asia-1462355806

Donald Trump’s Ascent Watched With Wariness in Asia

Trump has accused some allies of being free riders and warned of a
rebalancing of financial commitments

By Mayumi Negishi in Tokyo, Josh Chin in Beijing and Rob Taylor in
Canberra, Australia

May 4, 2016 5:56 a.m. ET

As Donald Trump virtually locked up the Republican presidential
nomination, nations in Asia began to more seriously assess the potential
global impact of a Trump administration.

"We never imagined this would happen," said a senior Japanese Foreign
Ministry official. The ministry’s staff recently began compiling Mr.
Trump’s past statements about Asia and analyzing what effect a Trump
presidency would have on the region. But the task has been slow-going,
the official said. "Too much about Mr. Trump’s position and the
positions of his advisers is unknown."

The presumptive Republican nominee has accused some allies of being free
riders and warned of a rebalancing of financial commitments, sparking
particular concern in a region where China has become more assertive
militarily and North Korea has recently carried out atomic bomb tests
and missile launches.

Yuichi Hosoya, a member of Prime Minister Abe’s security advisory panel
and a Keio University professor, said a Trump presidency could benefit
China’s geopolitical ambitions in Asia. "China wants the U.S. to pull
away from the region as much as possible to create a regional order that
maximize China’s profit and security," Mr. Hosoya said.

Mr. Trump has been a strong critic of China’s trade policies, which has
had a sobering effect on some observers in the country. Shi Yinhong, an
international-relations expert at Beijing’s Renmin University, said he
was wary of Mr. Trump’s antitrade stance.

"Based on what he’s said so far, if he were to become president, I’m
afraid U.S.-China relations would suffer some major upheaval," Mr. Shi said.

A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment
on Mr. Trump’s status as the presumptive GOP nominee at a regular press
briefing on Wednesday, saying it was "an internal affair of the U.S."

In South Korea, Mr. Trump has created some anxiety by saying that Seoul
unfairly benefits from the protection of the U.S. military, which has
around 28,500 troops in the country and is obliged by a bilateral treaty
to provide defense from any North Korean attack.

A senior official at South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Seoul was
seeking to contact the campaigns of the U.S. presidential candidates,
including Mr. Trump’s, to explain the Asian nation’s foreign policy and
ensure smooth communication.

On Wednesday, the national daily JoongAng Ilbo said in an editorial that
South Korea needs to prepare for a possible withdrawal of U.S. forces
and warned that Mr. Trump’s vow to impose tariffs on Chinese products
could start a trade war.

Mr. Trump has said that the U.S. should end military arrangements with
countries such as Japan and South Korea and allow them to build their
own nuclear arsenals.

Tang Siew Mun, who heads the Asean Studies Centre at the ISEAS Yusof
Ishak Institute in Singapore expressed concerns about the fate of the
pending Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal under a Trump
administration. "Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia have expended enormous
domestic political capital to get on board the TPP and a U.S. back down
will have serious ramifications for their bilateral relations with the
U.S.," Mr. Tang said.

In Australia, political reaction over Mr. Trump’s ascendancy has been
muted, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull having several times
declined to comment on the Republican race and Mr. Trump’s ascendancy to
avoid diplomatic ructions with Canberra’s main strategic ally.

"That is a matter for the American people," Mr. Turnbull said last month
when asked if he could ever see himself lining up with Mr. Trump at an
international summit.

But Michael Fullilove, who heads the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based
international-affairs think tank, said Mr. Trump’s victory in Indiana
Tuesday night was a "bracing day for America’s friends in Asia."

Ted Cruz’s withdrawal from the presidential race "means that the
Republican Party—traditionally strong on Asia—will be led by a man who
is wholly allergic to America’s alliance network."

Mr. Trump does have his supporters in Asia. At the new Trump Tower
Manila, a 56-story development due for completion later this year,
Filipino builders and security guards working on the site expressed
strong support for Mr. Trump’s presidential bid Wednesday, though they
said they knew nothing of his tussle with Mr. Cruz. "Definitely, if he
wins it will be good for the Philippines," said overseer Jerry Garcia.
"We all like him. His sons have visited us here."

—Alastair Gale, Yuka Koshino, Trefor Moss and Celine Fernandez
contributed to this article.

Write to Mayumi Negishi at mayumi.negishi@wsj.com, Josh Chin at
josh.chin@wsj.com and Rob Taylor at rob.taylor@wsj.com

(8) Howard Richman for Trump trade policy

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/would_trumps_trade_policy_really_cause_a_recession.html

Would Trump's Trade Policy Really Cause a Recession?

By Howard Richman and Raymond Richman

March 8, 2016

On Thursday, Governor Mitt Romney gave an anti-Trump speech in which he
called upon Republicans to vote for anybody but frontrunner Donald Trump
so as to produce a brokered convention.  Romney claimed that Trump's
economic plans would cause a recession. He said:

     If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects
for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished. Let me explain
why[.] ... His proposed 35 percent tariff-like penalties would instigate
a trade war and that would raise prices for consumers, kill our export
jobs and lead entrepreneurs and businesses of all stripes to flee America.

On Friday, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the U.S. goods and
services trade deficit was $45.7 billion in January, up one billion
dollars from $44.7 billion in December.  January exports were $176.5
billion, $3.8 billion less than December exports.  The reduction in U.S.
exports predicted by Romney just happened, but Trump is not yet
president.  On February 26, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced
that U.S. economic growth slowed to a measly 1.0% during the last
quarter of 2015, but Trump is not yet president.  Billionaire investor
Jim Rogers predicts a 100% chance of a U.S. recession within a year. If
he is correct, a recession will occur, whether or not Trump is elected
president.

It is true, as Romney claims, that Trump has called for tariff-like
penalties to prevent American factories from moving abroad and also to
bring currency-manipulating countries (including China, Japan, and
Mexico) into trade-balancing negotiations.  But would Trump's tariff
threats slow U.S. economic growth?  No!  Exactly the opposite!

Trade-surplus countries have a lot more to lose from a trade war, so
Trump's negotiations would likely succeed.  For example, in 1981,
Congress threatened trade-balancing import restrictions against
trade-surplus Japan, which resulted in President Reagan negotiating
"voluntary restraints" on Japanese automobile exports.  As a result,
Japanese automobile companies built factories in the United States that
continue to employ American workers and to buy American-made auto parts,
greatly increasing American incomes.

Positive Effects of Tariffs

Even if Trump's negotiations did not succeed, the American economy would
benefit if he imposed his tariff-like penalties.  First, government
revenues would increase, which would reduce the budget deficit.  Second,
American consumers would be encouraged to switch their purchases to
American producers and to the products of those countries, such as
Brazil and Canada, that buy more from us when we buy more from them.
America would become more attractive to foreign manufacturers and to
American manufacturers who had moved their factories abroad.  American
factory production would increase, and so would the employment and
incomes of American workers.

Romney's current attacks are ironic, because during the 2012 campaign,
Romney talked tough on Chinese currency manipulation and other trade
violations.  Romney said that the U.S. should tell China, "You can't
keep on holding down the value of your currency, stealing our
intellectual property, counterfeiting our products, selling them around
the world, even to the United States."  But Romney's attack on Trump
reveals Romney's stance as the sham that many of us suspected it was at
the time.  Trump is right to propose imposing significant tariffs on
China precisely because of the litany of trade violations 2012 Romney
claimed to be exercised about.  But now Romney claims that if Trump does
anything about China's rampant mercantilism, it will lead to a
depression.  Clearly he planned to go no farther in his China trade
policy than another ineffectual round of asking China to stop its
mercantilism.

In short, Romney doesn't appear to understand the economics of trade.
Economic research about the "tariff-growth paradox," including one of
our own academic papers, has found that tariffs hurt economic growth
only when trade is relatively balanced.  But periods of history during
which world trade has been relatively balanced (such as 1840-1865 and
1950-1973) have been followed by periods during which world trade became
more and more unbalanced.  The world is once again experiencing a period
of high trade imbalances (like the 1890s and the 1930s) in which
trade-deficit countries can grow more rapidly simply by increasing their
tariff rates.  Anything that Trump does to balance the enormous U.S.
trade deficits will be economically beneficial.

How Trade Deficits Have Been Hurting the U.S.

When countries run trade surpluses with the United States, they give us
trade deficits.  Those trade deficits reduce aggregate demand for
American products, American incomes, and investment in American
factories.  In his speeches, Trump has focused upon the three countries
that have large trade surpluses with the United States: China, Japan,
and Mexico.

     China.  Despite running huge and growing trade surpluses with the
United States, the Chinese government won't let its people buy
American-made Boeing passenger jets, Cadillac SUVs, or Caterpillar
tractors.  Instead, the Chinese government forces Boeing, GM, and
Caterpillar to build new factories to China in order to sell to the
Chinese market.  If Trump's negotiations force China to import as much
from the United States as we import from them, American companies could
locate new factories in the United States for shipment of their goods to
China.  Also, American farmers would export more meat to China.  The
benefit to American exporting industries and to American workers would
be enormous.

     Japan.  Under the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement,
Japan can continue to manipulate the yen-dollar exchange rate so it can
grow its enormous trade surpluses with the United States.  With the yen
priced low compared to the dollar, the costs of production in Japan will
continue to be low compared to the costs of production in the United
States.  These low costs give Japanese vehicle and electronic producers
high profits, which they have plowed into R&D and robotics so that they
can continue to gain market share in their competition with U.S. vehicle
and electronic producers.  If anybody but Trump is elected, American
companies that produce in the U.S. will continue to lose market share in
their competition with Japanese producers.

     Mexico. Despite being part of the NAFTA free trade agreement with
the United States and Canada, Mexico manipulates the dollar-peso
exchange rate so that its businesses have lower costs than businesses
that produce in the United States.  As a result, American industries
move factories to Mexico.  If Trump succeeds in his negotiations with
Mexico, U.S.-Mexico trade will move toward balance.

Effect of Trump's Trade Balancing on the U.S.

So if Trump succeeds, how much would his trade balancing help the U.S.
economy?  Doing so would cause businesses to locate new factories within
the United States.  Since R&D gets located near factories, new
innovations would be invented in the United States.  Since workers learn
by doing, American workers would gain on-the-job skills, increasing
their pay over time.  Since American workers buy services from American
service providers, American entrepreneurs would prosper. In sum,
Americans would get more pay, more factories, more R&D, more
innovations, and a more prosperous country.

Trump is the only candidate who has consistently opposed TPP. Although
he voted against fast-tracking it on final passage, Senator Cruz had
helped TPP get momentum by co-authoring an op-ed with Paul Ryan in its
favor.  The other Republican candidates have always supported TPP, and
Hillary Clinton was part of the administration that negotiated it. All
are members of the Republican/Democrat establishment consensus, which
supports overseas production in return for campaign contributions.

And TPP is not just about trade.  It is also part of the open borders
agenda, to which the establishments of both political parties subscribe.
  Under TPP, foreign service providers will be able to recruit cheap
workers in Mexico and Malaysia and bring them legally to the United
States to take American service-sector jobs.  The destruction of the
American middle class will accelerate.  The popularity of socialist
candidate Bernie Sanders tells us where this is going.

The economic case for Donald Trump is clear.  If any other candidate is
elected, U.S. economic growth will continue to stagnate in the 1% to 2%
range.  In contrast, Trump's trade policies would return the United
States to its normal 3% per year growth.  If any other candidate is
elected, median U.S. family income will continue to decrease, but if
Trump is elected, it will return to its normal increase.  Under Trump,
the U.S. middle class, a bulwark against socialism, will gradually be
restored.

The Richmans co-authored the 2014 book Balanced Trade: Ending the
Unbearable Costs of America's Trade Deficits, published by Lexington
Books, and the 2008 book Trading Away Our Future, published by Ideal
Taxes Association.

(9) Trump = Kissinger Realism on Putin

http://atimes.com/2016/05/trump-open-to-bromance-with-putin-but-from-a-position-of-strength/

Trump open to bromance with Putin, but from a position of strength

By M.K. Bhadrakumar on May 1, 2016

The venue chosen by Donald Trump, Republican frontrunner in the US
presidential race, to make his major foreign policy speech last
Wednesday was significant.

It was the Center for the National Interest, a Washington-based public
policy think tank that is better known as the Nixon Center, established
by late President Richard Nixon.

The Nixon Center is headed by Dmitri Simes, an ethnic Russian Jew who
migrated to the US in the early seventies and became a noted
Kremlinologist identifiable with the Henry Kissinger school of ‘Old
Guard’ pragmatists who advocate strategically useful modus vivendi with
Russia.

Indeed, the salience of Trump’s speech is that he shares Kissinger’s
views on how the US should manage its relations with Russia (and China).
Reproduced below is the passage from Trump’s speech outlining his
thinking toward Russia:

     We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia… We have
serious differences… and must regard them with open eyes. But we are not
bound to be adversaries. We should seek common ground based on shared
interests. Russia… has also seen the horror of Islamic terrorism. I
believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia – from
a position of strength – is possible. Common sense says this cycle of
hostility must end. Some say the Russians won’t be reasonable. I intend
to find out. If we can’t make a good deal for America, then we will
quickly walk from the table.

Trump’s preferred choice ought to be to negotiate with his Russian
counterpart. This stems from a pragmatic outlook on the realities of
Russian power and interests and an openness to the idea that a
reconciliation between Moscow’s concerns and Washington’s necessities
may be possible.

 From the Kremlin’s perspective, the most enchanting thing about a Trump
presidency would be that it may not be obsessed with America’s
‘exceptionalism’ and is unlikely to push the ‘democracy project’ in Russia.

Washington, under successive administrations starting from Bill Clinton,
was devoted to the project to transform Russia into a western democracy.
On the contrary, Trump, like Kissinger, would believe that the Kremlin
remains always open to wheeling and dealing and the trick lies in
putting together the correct alchemy and make an offer that it cannot
refuse.

Ukraine becomes a test case. Will a settlement over Ukraine be possible
on the lines of Kissinger’s recommendation – namely, a militarily
non-aligned Ukraine that satisfies Russian needs of a buffer on its
historically volatile western borders, while also assuring Ukraine’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity?

Again, Trump sees the fight against terrorism and ‘radical Islam’ as an
arena where he could find "common ground based on shared interests" with
President Vladimir Putin. The only issue on which Trump has threatened
to use military force is against radical Islamists. His DNA is similar
to Putin’s.

Neither loses sleep over the contradictions that spew Islamist
radicalism in the Greater Middle East (which includes the Caucasus and
Central Asia.) Interestingly, if Tahrir Square erupts all over again,
Trump and Putin would share the angst over President Fatah al-Sisi’s
survival, since they’d dread the return of the Muslim Brotherhood (even
if the Brothers retake power through democratic means.)

However, Trump is unlikely to share the Middle East with Putin, since he
considers the region (and its petrodollar states) far too vital to US
interests. Thus, Russian diplomacy’s capacity to exploit the fractured
alliance between the US and its regional allies – Israel, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, etc. – may diminish in a Trump presidency.

But then, Trump can offer a trade-off to Putin with regard to Central
Asia, the Caucasus and the Black Sea. Whether the latter will be content
with such bit trade-offs remains to be seen. The point is, Russia
aspires to play a global role, but there is no evidence that Trump sees
Russia as an ‘equal partner’.

A clash between Russia’s vaulting ambitions on the global stage and
Trump’s refusal to concede them may ensue at some point. Trump made it
clear that he hopes to negotiate with Russia from ‘a position of
strength’. For sure, he will take American military superiority over
Russia to new heights.

In the present state of the Russian economy, the Kremlin cannot afford
an arms race with the US. Again, Trump regrets that President Barack
Obama was not pushing robustly enough the deployment of the US missile
defence system in Central Europe. Now, that’s a ‘red line’ for Russia –
US attempt to establish ‘nuclear superiority’.

Russia’s option lies in edging closer to China. Putin’s forthcoming
visit to China next month will show which way the wind is blowing.

Russia has recently begun voicing support for China against the US
involvement in South China Sea disputes. Russia keenly harmonizes its
stance with China’s on North Korea problem. Russia and China are on the
same page in opposing the deployment of US’ ABM system in Northeast Asia.

Significantly, Russia’s Aerospace Defence Force conducted an exercise
with China for the first time last week aimed at practising "combined
operations" of the two countries’ missile defence task forces to counter
potential US attacks with ballistic or cruise missiles.

Trump earlier on gave an impression that he regarded the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) as an archaic relic of the Cold War. But in
Wednesday’s speech, he sought to make the alliance more efficient,
without doubting the raison d’etre of NATO.

Europe watches the prospect of a Trump presidency with some trepidation
but that does not mean the end of history for Euro-Atlanticism. Trump
understands the centrality of the US’ trans-Atlantic leadership in its
global strategies. He will not brook Russian attempts to weaken the
western alliance or to exploit the disarray within the European Union.

There are of course glaring gaps in Trump’s vision. The devil invariably
lies in the details. Trump did not take any view on the western
sanctions against Moscow, which, from the Kremlin’s viewpoint is the
ultimate litmus test of his intentions toward the containment strategy
pursued by successive US administrations since the nineties.

The Russian pundits already propagate a ‘bromance’ between Putin and
Trump. But that is to underestimate Trump’s grit, as evident from the
brutal campaign he waged to get this close to storming the Republican
Party citadel.

Trump will unlikely ease the pressure on Russia until the withdrawal of
Russian presence in eastern Ukraine is complete, which of course is
predicated on a broader settlement. It stands to reason that back
channels are at work. In Wednesday’s speech, he steered clear of
mentioning Ukraine or Crimea.

Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian
Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s
ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001). He
writes the "Indian Punchline" blog and has written regularly for Asia
Times since 2001.

(10) Trump vs DC foreign policy establishment
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/04/trump-president-elections-candidate-foreign-policy-dc.html

Trump meets the DC foreign policy establishment

WASHINGTON — Reading from a teleprompter, Republican presidential
front-runner Donald J. Trump addressed the Washington foreign policy
establishment at a speech at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel on April 27,
calling for a less interventionist US foreign policy that values
stability over democracy, and which would put America first.

Author Laura Rozen

Posted April 27, 2016

"In the Middle East, our goals must be to defeat terrorists and promote
regional stability, not radical change," Trump said in the rare foreign
policy address, hosted by the Center for the National Interest, a
Washington think tank associated with the Nixon administration, and its
journal, The National Interest.

Restating his opposition to President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of
Iraq, Trump said President Barack Obama and his first-term secretary of
state — and Trump’s presumed 2016 Democratic presidential rival, Hillary
Clinton — had pursued reckless military interventions against tyrants in
the Middle East that had opened up a vacuum into which had flowed the
so-called Islamic State (IS) and chaos.

"It all began with the dangerous idea that we could make Western
democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in
becoming a Western democracy," Trump told the Washington audience that
included a few rows of supporters and advisers, the board members of the
host think tank and several dozen journalists.

"We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what
we unleashed," Trump said. "Civil war, religious fanaticism; thousands
of American lives, and many trillions of dollars, were lost as a result.
The vacuum was created that [IS] would fill. Iran, too, would rush in
and fill the void, much to their unjust enrichment. Our foreign policy
is a complete and total disaster."

"Although not in government service, I was totally against the war in
Iraq, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle East,"
Trump said. "Sadly, I was correct, and the biggest beneficiary was Iran,
who is systematically taking over Iraq and gaining access to their rich
oil reserves — something it has wanted to do for decades. And now, to
top it all off, we have [IS]."

Trump criticized the Obama administration for not walking out of the
Iran nuclear deal talks as a negotiating tactic to get a tougher deal,
but notably he did not say that he would tear up the deal were he to be
elected. He also repeated several times the quite conventional assertion
that Iran could not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.

"In negotiation, you must be willing to walk," Trump, most famously the
author of "The Art of the Deal," said. "The Iran deal, like so many of
our worst agreements, is the result of not being willing to leave the
table. When the other side knows you’re not going to walk, it becomes
absolutely impossible to win."

But Trump did not say he opposed a negotiated deal in principle to
restrict Iran’s nuclear program.

Similarly, while criticizing the Obama administration for not being
tougher in its stance, Trump seemed to share Obama’s skepticism about
military interventions, especially in the Middle East.

"We’re getting out of the nation-building business and instead focusing
on creating stability on the world," Trump said.

Trump also said that while he was willing to use US military force if
necessary, he would be willing to try to improve relations with Russia.

"We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia and China,"
Trump said. "We have serious differences with these two nations, and
must regard them with open eyes. But we are not bound to be adversaries.
We should seek common ground based on shared interests. ... I believe an
easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia — from a position
of strength — is possible."

"Some say the Russians won’t be reasonable," Trump said. "I intend to
find out. If we can’t make a good deal for America, then we will quickly
walk from the table."

"Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction," Trump said.

Trump took no questions after his hourlong address. Seated among the
first rows of invited foreign policy guests was Harold Rhode, a former
Pentagon official who during the Bush administration had been involved
in a controversial back channel to a CIA blacklisted Iran-Contra era
figure, Manucher Ghorbanifar.

Asked if he was dismayed by Trump’s disdain for the regime change
ambitions that had fueled the Bush administration’s intervention in Iraq
and the back channel with Ghorbanifar, Rhode said he was not. "I think
he is going to be our next president," Rhode said to Al-Monitor of Trump.

Among other Trump foreign policy supporters in attendance was Walid
Phares and John Hajjar, a Quincy, Massachusetts-based attorney, who
after the address praised Trump’s speaking out on behalf of the Middle
East’s Christians and in opposition to radical Islam.

"We have made the Middle East more unstable and chaotic than ever
before," Trump said in his address. "We left Christians subject to
intense persecution and even genocide. Our actions in Iraq, Libya and
Syria have helped unleash [IS]. And we’re in a war against radical
Islam, but President Obama won’t even name the enemy."

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the head of the Washington office of the National
Council of the Resistance of Iran — the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq's political
wing — attended the Trump speech April 27. Asked afterward what he
thought of it, he said he was still digesting it.

It was also notable the Republican foreign policy heavyweights who were
not in the audience, many of them veterans of the Bush/Cheney
administration, some of whom have expressed alarm about the Trump
candidacy as being anathema to more interventionist, neoconservative
foreign policy values.

Trump, for his part, indicated he would not be looking to the
establishment to fill the ranks of his administration. "My goal is to
establish a foreign policy that will endure for several generations,"
Trump said. "That is why I will also look for talented experts … not
people on TV and writing in The New York Times with a history of foreign
policy failures."

Trump also reasserted in a somewhat toned-down way his previous call to
halt the immigration of Muslim refugees to the United States because of
security concerns.

"We must stop importing extremism through senseless immigration
policies," Trump said. "A pause for reassessment will help us to prevent
the next San Bernardino or worse — all you have to do is look at the
World Trade Center and September 11th."

Trump said he would defeat IS quickly if elected president, but said he
would not spell out the details how so that he would be unpredictable to
the terror group.

"I have a simple message for them," Trump said of IS. "Their days are
numbered. I won’t tell them where and I won’t tell them how. We must, as
a nation, be more unpredictable. But they’re going to be gone. And soon."

(11) Trump is taking back GoP from Oligarchs & Religious Fundamentalists
- Eric Margolis

Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 21:10:15 +0000 (UTC) From: "fja0527@bellsouth.net"
<fritza2tt@yahoo.de>

US Republicans Fear The Donald

by Eric Margolis

May 7, 2016

http://ericmargolis.com/2016/05/us-republicans-fear-the-donald/>http://ericmargolis.com/2016/05/us-republicans-fear-the-donald/

NEW YORK – It’s been a treat watching the arrogant, Masters of the
Universe Republicans wring their hands and ululate over the terror that
is Donald Trump.

Most of my serious Republican friends don’t know what to do: they yearn
to be close to power, but fear backing Trump will make them pariahs at
their local golf club. So they are still hiding in the closet.

‘I am Shiva, destroyer of worlds!’ That’s Trump’s message to America’s
oligarchs. And scared they should be because even a modest Trump
revolution would threatens their corrupt, stultified political system
and their wallets.

As a former conservative Republican who has watched his lifelong party
become a vehicle for special interests and religious fundamentalists, I
say ‘blow it to smithereens.’ Build a new party that represents
America’s 99%, not the gilded 1%.

I’m sick of reading the New York Times sneer at ‘uneducated white male
workers who support Trump.’ What about all the welfare recipients who
are the core of Hilary Clinton’s supporters?

Trump is an American Mussolini who vows to make the trains run on time.
But at a deeper level, he threatens three of the nation’s most sacred
cows: 1. imperial war-making, the American Empire, and the military
industrial complex; 2. the vast power of Wall Street and its shameful
tax breaks; 3. the Israel lobby and its undue influence over US foreign
policy.

No wonder his candidacy has produced so much fierce opposition and cries
of anguish. Trump is remarkably brave, or incredibly foolish, to gore
all these sacred cows at the same time.

Still, Trump is answering a deep current in American politics, dating
from the Founding Fathers, that wants to avoid foreign entanglements and
wars. Foes call this isolationism. In the Trump view, the US has drained
its resources and mental energy waging wars abroad that have brought it
no benefit at all except a rickety empire.

In 2015, US warplanes dropped 23,144 heavy bombs on six Muslim nations.
US forces are now fighting in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen,
Somalia and West Africa. Do we really wonder why so many furious Muslims
want revenge against the west? Trump has yet to understand this.

But Trump is right when he says no more foreign wars. Equally important,
it’s time to begin dismantling the US Empire which is precisely what
invites attacks we call ‘terrorism.’

Today, NATO does not defend the US or Europe. It is a control mechanism
that keeps Europe under American strategic domination. It should have
been ditched when the Soviet Union collapsed. Instead, we see the
Washington neocons who control the Obama administration’s policy
planning to send a full US armored brigade to Russia’s western border,
and intensifying air and naval patrols there. Madness, and likely
stepping stones to a new war.

Candidate Trump advocates grown-up dialogue and cooperation with Russia
and an end to Hillary Clintons’ crass war-mongering and hate Putin campaign.

Trump’s call for ‘even-handed’ US policy in the Mideast was greeted with
fury and horror by Israel’s partisans who are now asking Washington for
$4.2 billion in annual military aid.

But Trump’s daring effort to forge peace in the Mideast has run head-on
into the mighty US Israel lobby which helped orchestrate a ferocious
anti-Trump media campaign.

Now, it appears Trump has met his match. Pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon
Adelson has just made peace with Trump and announced he will support the
Republican candidate. This sends an important message out to Israel’s
supporters to lay off the Donald. In return, Trump just announced he
actually favors more Israeli settlements on the Occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, the slighted Republican establishment is still sulking and
won’t endorse Trump – yet. Its leaders are right when the say Trump must
change his speech regarding Mexicans and Muslims. But they don’t really
care about either.

What they really do care about is the danger of cutting the Pentagon’s
$700 billion annual budget, protecting the military industrial complex,
and defending Wall Street from government investigation. After all, it’s
Wall Street that funds Congress.

The Republicans opposing Trump are not, as they claim, conservatives.
They are advocates of big, big government, foreign wars, welfare for
favored industries, tax breaks for farmers and key supporters. And, of
course, almost half of GOP voters call themselves fundamentalist
Christians, making today’s party a semi theocratic, far right political
movement.

Real conservatives are for low taxes, small government, no foreign wars
and states rights. Rather what Trump is preaching.

(12) Republican establishment canvass a third party

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2016/0505/Is-the-Republican-establishment-now-a-third-party

Is the Republican establishment now a third party?

Some Republican insiders' push for a third-party alternative to Donald
Trump suggests they are now outsiders in their own party.

By Peter Grier, Staff writer May 5, 2016

Remember when the GOP was so worried about Donald Trump running as a
third party candidate in the general election that it pushed a loyalty
pledge on presidential hopefuls? Now the wingtip is on the other foot.
Disaffected Republican loyalists are talking about mounting a
third-party effort to challenge Mr. Trump, instead.

It’s unclear if the chatter is serious. Right-leaning pundit Jennifer
Rubin writes Thursday in The Washington Post: "There are several groups
with access to funding, in communication with one another, working on a
third party run."

William Kristol, Weekly Standard editor and a charter member of the
#NeverTrump club, appears to be shopping around for a possible
candidate. His primary target on Thursday was Sen. Ben Sasse (R) of
Nebraska, the only Republican senator to say outright they won’t vote
for the party’s new presumptive nominee. Senator Sasse has been flooding
social media with posts imploring someone, anyone, to step up as an
alternative to Trump and Hillary Clinton. Recommended: What do you know
about Donald Trump?

Sasse has said he can’t run because he still has three small kids at
home. As a father with grown children, Mr. Kristol’s been telling him
that time spent at home with youngsters is overrated. (Yes, he’s being
sarcastic, but only a little.)

"Those three little kids will enjoy their dad’s 6-month campaign – do
home schooling on the plane, see the country..." Kristol tweeted
Thursday afternoon.

     Those three little kids will enjoy their dad's 6-month campaign--do
home schooling on the plane, see the country... https://t.co/yNZRun9cpl
     — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 5, 2016

A third-party effort can’t win, of course. Ms. Rubin writes that there
is a path, but it involves denying anyone a 270 Electoral College vote
majority and throwing the election into the House of Representatives.
That’s unrealistic. No reasonable possible candidate, including Sasse,
former Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, ex-Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, or even
Mitt Romney, has the star power and voter appeal to pull that off.

On the other hand, a third party "Real Republican" candidate might
provide someone for worried down-ballot GOP candidates to reference.
Look at GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who’s locked in a tough
reelection battle. She’s said she’ll support Trump, but won’t endorse
him. What’s that mean? It’s a straddle the media will ask about for
months to come. A factional GOP ticket could give her someone else to
back without seeming too disloyal.

But the real problem about this unrest among the party elite is that
it’s about them as much as about real GOP voters. They’re appalled by
Trump and think he’ll lead the party to defeat, but lots of
rank-and-file party members don’t agree with that, and are happy with
Trump. Who was their choice, after all.

Right now, Trump’s got a 59 percent favorable rating among Republican
and Republican-leaning voters, according to Gallup. His unfavorable
rating in the party is 35 percent, for a plus-24 net favorable.

Among GOP voters, Trump is far more popular than, say, Mr. Romney, who
is now underwater with a minus-34 percent favorability among
Republicans. Ted Cruz? He’s underwater too, with a minus-6 net favorable
rating.

Yes, Trump enters the general election as the most unpopular
presidential candidate since the advent of polling, overall. But that’s
because his ratings with Democrats and independents are truly abysmal.
Many in the GOP elite/establishment class see that and are worried about
the consequences. Some continue to cast about for third-party
alternatives. The larger Republican electorate does not feel that same way.

(13) Republican elite vs Republican electorate - Pat Buchanan

Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 10:39:53 +0000 (UTC) From: Frederick Adam
<fja0527@bellsouth.net>

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2016/04/19/is-the-gop-risking-suicide-n2150497

Is the GOP Risking Suicide?

Pat Buchanan | Apr 19, 2016

Donald Trump has brought out the largest crowds in the history of
primaries. He has won the most victories, the most delegates, the most
votes. He is poised to sweep three of the five largest states in the
nation -- New York, Pennsylvania and California.

If he does, and the nomination is taken from him, the Republican Party
will be seen by the American people as a glorified Chinese tong.

[...] The deeper problem here is the refusal of party elites to realize
that the world has changed.

The Bush dynasty is done. Jeb Bush, the Prince of Wales, understands
this. He will not be going to Cleveland.

The primaries have starkly revealed that a new era is upon us.

Even the neocons, the dominant element among the 121 foreign policy
experts who declared in an open letter that they will never work for a
President Trump, testify to this.

They see Trump's victories as a repudiation of their legacy, and a Trump
presidency as the end of their post-Cold War ascendancy.

And given the disasters they have produced for America, from Afghanistan
to Iraq, Libya and Yemen, the nation would be well rid of them.

Indeed, Trump's victories, and the energies he has unleashed, are due,
not only to his outsized persona but to his issues.

People believe Trump will secure the borders, halt the invasion, embrace
tariff and trade policies to reduce imports, and restart the production
of goods, Made in the USA, by and for Americans.

In his first inaugural, Woodrow Wilson said, "The success of a party
means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and
definite purpose."

Bush Republicans saw their "large and definite purpose" as creating a
"New World Order" and "ending tyranny in our world."

Trump seems to see repairing, rebuilding and restoring America to
greatness as the "large and definite purpose" of the party he would
lead. And a new emerging Republican majority seems to agree.

If Trump had been routed, as first expected, then his message could
rightly have been regarded as outside the mainstream. But Republican
voters rallied to the issues he raised.

To either ignore the clear instructions of its electorate, or renounce
their chosen messenger, would be for the Republican Party to forfeit its
future, and cling to a discredited and dead past.

(14) Trump's Jews - Brother Nathanael

http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1112

Trump’s Front Row Jew Boys

By Brother Nathanael Kapner

April 20, 2016 ©   "OUR JOBS ARE BEING SUCKED OUT of this country,"
Trump warned in his victory speech celebrating his win in the New York
primary last night.

Not only his family, but Trump’s Jewish business buddies—big players in
New York City finance and real estate—stood with him in the front row.

Carl Icahn, Howard Lorber, Ben LeBow, and Steve Roth were cited by name
as Trump pointed them out with heaping praises to his supporters at the
Trump Tower gathering.

"That’s my boy!" proclaimed Trump of Steve Roth, a high-rolling real
estate mogul known for his "philanthropy" to, (why, of course), Jewish
institutions such as the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the
Roth Center For Jewish Life at Dartmouth College, and the NYU Medical
School.

Special honor was given to Trump’s friend, (and bankruptcy rescuer),
Carl Icahn, who gets honorable mention as a "savvy trader" at every
Trump rally where Donald promises that "Carl will bring our jobs back"
faster than a speeding bullet, (except for the ones Carl invests in, in
China and Mexico.)

Then we have Ben LeBow in Trump’s front row, whose sleazy eyes match his
"Red Mafiya" luxury hotel deal in Kiev, Ukraine.

And not to be ignored, Trump mentions Manhattan real estate mogul,
Howard Lorber, as part of his "evolving team" who will join forces with
his fellow "front row Jews" to negotiate trade deals that will make
America great again.

Lorber brags about his mentor, Ben LeBow, who doubles as his business
partner, and trumpets his agenda for diversity:

"I will fight to maintain diversity in New York City," vows Lorber.

THAT MAY BE well and good.

But for the White Supreme "Trumpeteers" who think Donald is the "great
white hope"…these kind of statements by his front row boys don’t quite
live up to their hope.

All told, Trump is on his way to the Republican nomination and sucking
jobs back from China and Mexico is his top priority.

With Jews on his team, what kind of sucking can we expect?

If we can suck Oreo cookies back then America has a chance to taste
really great again!

Especially the ones marked "kosher."

(15) Will Trump Defy The Jewish Lobby? - Brother Nathanael

http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1115

May 6, 2016 @ 12:29 am

Will Trump Defy The Jewish Lobby?

By Brother Nathanael Kapner

Trump is only scratching the surface.

For the real problem plaguing America underpins everything else whether
it’s jobs, immigration, morality, or foreign affairs.

I’m talking about the Jewish Lobby which has such a death-grip on
America that if we don’t do something about it, our country is toast.

Take jobs. Trump’s only got one part right.

[Clip: "Our jobs are being sucked out of our states. They’re being taken
out of our country and we’re not going to let it happen anymore. We’re
going to stop it."]

Sucked out, but also, sucked in, via H1B visas that give foreigners our
white collar, high-tech jobs.

But don’t you dare say so, for the ADL, just one of the powerful Jewish
Lobbies, will accuse you of bigotry towards those whose skin doesn’t
match their "white" collar jobs.

Trump did cite H1B Visas as an issue, but backed off when he got heat
for it.

It’s Jewish Wall Street—an invisible "Lobby"—that’s to blame, shipping
our jobs abroad. They don’t underwrite corporate stocks for nothing.

Next, take immigration. Trump says we’ve got a problem. But he gets only
one part right.

[Clip: "Some of the things you’ve said haven’t made people happy. You
say the Muslim ban is about security, not about religion, but you would
block all foreign Muslims. That’s—let me just finish."

"Go ahead."

"One and a half billion people from coming into this country. Are you
saying that all of them are potential security threats?"

"We have people flying airplanes into World Trade Centers. We have
people shooting people in California like happened last week. We have
big problems, problems that nobody understands."]

If Trump wants to stop it he needs to repeal the "Open Immigration Law
Of 1965?—pushed by the "American Jewish Committee."

For the law removed the quotas and qualifications of immigrants coming
from Third World countries.

For when Jacob Javits announced, "Open the Flood Gates!" every creed,
color, and low-skilled worker, have been flooding our shores.

Next, the decline of morality

The transgender nonsense is taking a giant leap forward, legally, and
the ACLU—a Jewish Lobby for sure—is litigating against schools and
states that oppose transvestites from using women’s bathrooms.

Trump’s got it all wrong with this one.

[Clip: "So if Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into Trump Tower and want to
use the bathroom, you would be fine with her using any bathroom she
chooses?"

"That is correct."

"Different issue, also a social issue…"

"You know there’s a big move to create new bathrooms. Problem with that
is for transgender that would be a, first of all, that would be
discriminatory in a certain way, it would be unbelievably expensive for
businesses and the country. Leave it the way it is."]

Always the bottom line, huh Trump? How much will it cost? But the
cheaper price leads to the bottomless pit.

"God made them male and female" and birth certificates prove it. How
‘bout we leave it the way it is, huh Donald?

On to foreign policy.

The neo-con think tanks—yes, a Jewish Lobby—has turned our foreign
policy into cuddling Israel.

When Trump was touting his America First policy which would put the
brakes on policing the world, a swarm of them picked up their pens and
wrote themselves a letter.

Chertoff, Kagan, Edelman, Cohen—like a guest list to a Bar
Mitzvah—signed their names to warn of imminent danger if Trump gets in.

Fortunately for Trump…unfortunately for the rest of us…he saved himself
from apostatizing from the Jewish screed.

I mean, there’s nothing worse for a politician than to deviate from the
Jewish script.

For in front of a group of 17,000 AIPACers, Trump told them exactly what
they wanted to hear:

[Clip: "We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the
Jewish people, Jerusalem. (APPLAUSE) And we will send a clear signal
that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally,
the state of Israel. (APPLAUSE)"]

No daylight? America grows pale under a thick Jewish cloud.