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Krugman: For Trump, Failure Is the Only Option
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/opinion/trump-nato-failure.htmlFor Trump, Failure Is the Only Option
By Paul Krugman
July 12, 2018
So Donald Trump went to a NATO summit, insulted our allies, then made the absurd demand not just that they increase defense spending which they should but that they raise it to 4 percent of G.D.P., much higher than the bloated military spending in his own budget. He then claimed, falsely, to have won major concessions, and graciously declared that it is presently unnecessary to consider quitting the alliance.
Was there anything our allies could have done that would have mollified him? The answer, surely, is no. For Trump, disrupting NATO doesnt seem to be a means to an end; its an end in itself.
Does all of this sound familiar? Its basically the same as the story of the escalating trade war. While Trump rants about other countries unfair trade practices a complaint that has some validity for China, although virtually none for Canada or the European Union he hasnt made any coherent demands. That is, he has given no indication what any of the countries hit by his tariffs could do to satisfy him, leaving them with no option except retaliation.
So he isnt acting like someone threatening a trade war to win concessions; hes acting like someone who just wants a trade war. Sure enough, hes reportedly threatening to pull out of the World Trade Organization, the same way hes suggesting that the U.S. might pull out of NATO.
Its all of a piece. Whatever claims Trump makes about other countries misbehavior, whatever demands he makes on a particular day, theyre all in evident bad faith. Mr. Art of the Deal doesnt want any deals. He just wants to tear things down.
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Krugman: For Trump, Failure Is the Only Option (Original Post)
dalton99a
Jul 2018
OP
dhill926
(16,234 posts)1. nails it....
we have a psychopathic nihilist as our president....hope we survive...
BigmanPigman
(51,430 posts)2. I thought I have heard him say thousands of times,
"I am a builder, I build things, great things". He doesn't build anything but walls. He only knows how to destroy (alliances, treaties, contracts, etc).
MBS
(9,688 posts)3. One of Krugman's best ever.
He encapsulates exactly what feels so discordant and wrong about this awful moment in our history, and why I continually feel like I am in some Twilight-Zone version of my country, instead of the real one .