Liberation Day
On Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day”, the President gave America the “formula” for imposing tariffs ( sanctions) on most of the nations of the world. And the fact that he put the formula up is really all we need to know. One of my earliest professional mentors was Pete Nix, then principal at Watkins Memorial High School and later superintendent of the school district. If you wanted to “lose” a proposal to Pete, you’d surround it with all sorts of mathematical formulae and arcane percentages. Pete would look at you and drawl in his Dixieland accent, “Figures lie, and liars figure”.
I have friends who can interpret the “tariff formula”. But for the vast majority of us, Greek letters in an equation becomes a “black box”, or as Churchill would say; “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…”. Who knows what it means? For most Americans, it’s the Administration telling us, “You’re too stupid to understand what we’re doing, so just ‘trust us’. Move along, Move along.”
Pax Americana
After World War II, the United States was the leader of the free world. The international alliances, from the United Nations to NATO to CENTO to SEATO to the more recent AUKUS; maintained general peace, a peace that the US led, mostly through cooperation. America provided military and economic assistance. America promoted democracy. And American policy made a safer and better world economically and socially. For almost eighty years, America worked to maintain a world progression, a “Pax Americana” where worldwide conflicts, on the scale of World Wars I or II, and nuclear destruction were avoided.
Like any leader, the US made some mistakes. We can name them: Vietnam and Afghanistan, and other lesser failures. And like any “good” leader, the United States made sacrifices. The US spent a lot of American dollars to keep the world safer. And it also recognized that a worldwide economic “web” made a safer world, giving everyone a stake in prosperity. So America took a leading role, even accepting some losses, like the increased environmental standards of the Kyoto and Paris Accords. The US did so in order to encourage other nations to do the same. America had the best economy in the world – and used that to help the whole world. Wealth was spent on others to preserve peace and make life better.
Rogue Elephant
But there always was a different choice. Since the United States was the most powerful, both economically and militarily, America could choose to be the biggest “bully”. But that’s only if the “biggest kid on the playground” was “unencumbered” by alliances. As long as all of the interactions were one-on-one (bilateral in political science-ese); then the US would always have the advantage.
And that’s what the Trump Administration is doing. They are negotiating with Russia over Ukraine, often without Ukrainian involvement. That’s what a “bully” does, changes your life and tells you to “like it”. They are fracturing NATO, not only demanding that our allies pay more into the alliance, but even questioning the basic premise of Article Five – that every NATO nation will defend each member as themselves.
And now with the “Tariff Formula”, the Trump Administration is treating each nation as a “bilateral” rival. The “Greek letter figuring” allows them to be the “Bully”, one-on-one, towards every nation from Canada to Fiji. But a bully can’t be a leader as well. So the United States under Donald Trump abrogates our leadership role in the world. We are going “rogue”, acting with apparent impunity to the needs of other nations in the world, and the American populace as well. The United States is now a rogue elephant in the room, out of control and trashing everything. If that sounds a lot like Russia or China, it should.
The Biggest Bully
The “Tariff Formula” is a simple outgrowth of the overall theory of the Trump Administration. The United States is the biggest, strongest, most powerful Nation, perhaps in world history. It is our option, to use that advantage against every other nation. The world is a “zero-sum” game, every nation is either a winner or a loser. And America will win, at the expense of every other nation, even our neighbors, and even our friends. In the words of Darth Vader in Star Wars, “It is our destiny”.
The United States of America is no longer the leader of a world coalition. Instead, Trump sees us as Imperial America. It’s no surprise that the terms of the 19th century are returning to our language: like “manifest destiny” and “protective tariffs”. And it’s inevitable that the Star Wars terms (after fifty years of influencing American life) are now those of the “Empire”, not the “Rebel Alliance”. The US is no longer the leader of a cooperative world. Instead, the US is the rogue elephant, the biggest bully on the playground. That’s the world Donald Trump is giving us.
We can read that formula.
