Art of the troll
Update: There is a new podcast online where I’m interviewed on neoliberalism.
Jim Geraghty of the National Review is usually somewhat more sympathetic to Trump than I am, but raised his eyebrows a bit after Trump’s recent antics:
Trump and his fans believe he’s demonstrating “toughness” in ways that previous presidents couldn’t. Perhaps. The question is, what happens after you’ve demonstrated your toughness? Does the other side capitulate, or does the other side dig in? No doubt it’s cathartic to visibly rage at the other side, but does it get you where you want to go?
Trump now interacts with the prime minister of Canada the same way he lashes out at Rosie O’Donnell, Mika Brzezinski, or Attorney General Jeff Sessions, by ripping into him on Twitter: “PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @g7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not b- pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!”
Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, raged on Fox News Sunday: “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door . . . that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.”
Talk about turning it up to eleven. When U.S. policymakers tell a foreign leader that there’s a special place in hell waiting for him, it’s usually a brutal dictator who’s committed atrocities and human-rights abuses.
[Actually, the Trump administration reserves phrases like “very honorable” for brutal dictators who imprison hundreds of thousands of people in Nazi-like concentration camps, where women are brutally raped, tortured and starved and children born there have to live out their entire lives in prison. Hell is reserved for Trudeau, who expressed displeasure with US steel tariffs that treat Canada as an enemy, not Kim (or Putin or Duterte or any of the other thugs that Trump likes.)]
It’s not clear to me if Trump is very bad at making deals, or is simply not interested. Maybe he thinks his fans just want to see 8 years of trolling, with nothing substantive accomplished. But there is one overlooked side effect of all this—it severely undercuts international Trumpism. Consider the plight of poor Doug Ford, who had been gaining on Trudeau in recent months:
“We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the prime minister and the people of Canada,” Doug Ford, the Trump-like renegade who was recently elected premier of Ontario, wrote on Twitter.
That’s sort of like if in 2016 Trump had been forced to say he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Obama. By making the attacks on Canada so over the top and absurd, the Canadian populist right is humiliated, and virtually forced to rally around the despised Trudeau.
When a small country is next to a very big country, the citizens of the small country usually know far more about the big country than vice versa. Americans may not know that Trump lies about trade with Canada (and even admits doing so), they probably don’t even care. But I’m pretty sure that a lot of Canadians know that the US runs a trade surplus with Canada, and that Trump is lying when he claims that Canada and the EU have much higher tariff rates than the US, and do care about the attacks. That’s the nature of small countries.
If your nationalism is based on unfairly demonizing foreigners, then it will inevitably run up against the nationalism of foreign countries. Thus while leftists like Sanders and Corbyn might view themselves as allies, two similarly placed nationalists will eventually be at each others throats. People with similar interests often become friends. But if your similar views are “everyone else is inferior to me”, that’s not much of a basis for friendship, even with someone with similar views. That’s why global nationalism will burn about, just as the earlier version in the 1930s was eventually discredited.
PS. Predictions for the Korea summit:
Kim wants the US to allow him to keep his nukes. To do this, he’s intending to make a few minor concessions in unimportant areas, and then issue some sort of vague promise to go nuclear free in the long run. Sort of like the promises North Korea made in earlier decades.
Kim wants to create a scenario where he doesn’t have to worry about an attack from the US, and perhaps the economic sanctions are made less severe.
Iran does not have nukes, but faces severe economic sanctions. Kim wants the reverse, to keep his nukes and to avoid strong economic sanctions.
My prediction is that either Kim will get what he wants, a sort of “Peace in Our Time” capitulation from the US on the nukes, or else the talks will fail to produce anything substantive. In other words, I predict the US will fail to achieve its objective.
There’s been some discussion of long-range missiles, but that’s a side issue. In the unlikely event that North Korea ever uses a nuke against the US, it would make far more sense to smuggle it into LA or NYC inside a bale of marijuana.
Tags:
11. June 2018 at 10:49
“If your nationalism is based on unfairly demonizing foreigners, then it will inevitably run up against the nationalism of foreign countries.”
Tell that to yourself, Russophobe. 99% of Congress “unfairly demonizes foreigners” all the time. What else is new?
“But if your similar views are “everyone else is inferior to me”, that’s not much of a basis for friendship, even with someone with similar views.”
Nationalism is only preventative against international conflict when paired with a strict anti-imperialism. Nazi Germany fell apart due to imperialism, as did Italy and Japan. Currently, the populist right is less imperialist than mainstream Democrats. Marine Le Pen is at least as anti-imperialist as Macron.
11. June 2018 at 10:53
The various forms of imperialism of the late 19th century were fairly cooperative with each other due to a regime of general free trade and investment. What led that to fall apart was Austrian imperialism in regards to Serbia and German imperialism in regards to Russia.
11. June 2018 at 11:02
What you have to understand, Sumner, is that in American political discourse, “invade the world” and “don’t invite the world” are not positions that are correlated with each other.
11. June 2018 at 12:40
This is a good summation, and your prediction for the North Korea summit mirrors my own and those of most who are even mildly informed.
If Kim we’re interested in the kinds of policy changes necessary for a deal that’s actually in the US interests, we would have already seen changes in the propaganda produced in NK, for example. Also, I don’t think the insults hurled at Mike Pence indicated seriousness on their part, except for gauging US reactions.
The fact that Trump is meeting at all, before serious concessions, and that Trump is known to want to get American trips out of South Korea indicates advantages for NK going in. Of course, China would love to see us pull out, so they may link some meaningless trade concessions to an NK deal.
Yes, either the US will get a bad deal, or no deal at all.
11. June 2018 at 13:27
Scott,
Out of curiosity, what would have to happen for you to admit you were wrong about the NK meetings? I’m not challenging you, I’m curious.
11. June 2018 at 15:03
Trump is lying when he claims that Canada and the EU have much higher tariff rates than the US,
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Even in the European/German media you could read that European tariffs are over 5% on average on US products while US tariffs on European products are under 3% on average. In the details it’s even worse. Agriculture products like high quality US beef for example faces tariffs of mind boggling 60%. I have to eat shitty European meat. Why is that?
Another truth is that tariffs are hardly a Trump issue alone. Most politicians on both sides of the Atlantic love their tariffs because they are heavily influenced by lobbyists. Or in other words: They are completely corrupt.
There’s a very simple answer to Trump: European politicians could simple abolish all European tariffs. Tariffs are only hurting me as European consumer. So if they are really so in favor of free trade why aren’t they just abolishing all tariffs unilaterally?
Another truth is that tariffs are even worse for third world countries. African countries for example have close to zero access to the European market. No wonder that Africans are flooding Europe by the millions. If the products can not go to Europe then the African peoples will.
11. June 2018 at 15:26
“My prediction is that either Kim will get what he wants, a sort of “Peace in Our Time” capitulation from the US on the nukes, or else the talks will fail to produce anything substantive. In other words, I predict the US will fail to achieve its objective.”
Good thing nuclear weapons don’t exist.
11. June 2018 at 15:40
Trump’s antics? How about Trudeau’s antics? Trudeau insults Trump first and Trump retaliates. Trump seems the reasonable one. Similarly with Germany.
11. June 2018 at 16:06
@Christian,
“No wonder that Africans are flooding Europe by the millions. If the products can not go to Europe then the African peoples will.”
Come on, that is a stretch. Even within Africa without tariff barriers, there is giant population migration to urban centers like Kinshasa. Unfortunately, it looks like a miserable standard of living. That has little to do with trade barriers. People want to live in nicer cities. I imagine most everyone moving to Kinshasa would prefer moving to a nicer city anywhere else. Not just Europe, but US, Japan, Israel, China, Mexico, South Africa, nicer parts of South America, etc.
11. June 2018 at 16:35
I am very surprised that DPRK’s aggregate output is maybe almost equivalent to Siemens. (Fermi estimation,trial calculation)
11. June 2018 at 16:38
@Massimo
Well if that’s too heavy for you then word it a bit differently: The massive trade barriers are certainly not helping that they don’t move.
Unfortunately, it looks like a miserable standard of living. That has little to do with trade barriers.
Are you kidding me? How is Africa supposed to catch up when there are massive trade barriers???
Europe is pumping billions of dollars of useless “foreign aid” into Africa each year instead of simply abolishing all trade barriers. Pure madness and corruption.
I bet European migration to the US was at its peak when the tariffs were highest as well.
11. June 2018 at 16:39
I am very surprised that DPRK’s aggregate output is maybe almost equivalent to Siemens one. (Fermi estimation,trial calculation)
11. June 2018 at 16:50
Even within Africa without tariff barriers
Africa is full of trade barriers. Sure, people like to move from the countryside to the bigger cities but usually within the same country. People cross borders (especially cultural and language borders) only when they absolutely have to.
Very high tariffs and the fact that every non-European migrant gets the full Social Security package from day one are a very deadly combination.
11. June 2018 at 17:22
Harding, Yes, lucky Trump and the other nationalists favor free trade.
Bob, If the North gives up all of their nukes, or keep at most a half dozen. Not promises to, but does. Otherwise they win. BTW, I very much hope I am wrong, and that Kim gives up all his nukes. That would be great.
Christian, You said:
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Even in the European/German media you could read that European tariffs are over 5% on average on US products while US tariffs on European products are under 3%”
Then I suggest you rely on another media, one that is more accurate. EU tariffs average 3% and US tariffs average 2.4%. That’s not a meaningful difference.
You said:
“There’s a very simple answer to Trump: European politicians could simple abolish all European tariffs.”
Well, the Canadians abolished virtually all tariffs on US goods–how’s that working out for Canada?
Do you seriously believe it is tariffs that Trump is upset about? Trump doesn’t even know what a tariff is. He thinks the VAT is a tariff. I wish my commenters would wake up to the fact that nothing Trump says should be taken seriously. Then we might be able to have an intelligent discussion here.
Massimo. No, Trudeau did not insult Trump. Why do you even bother to post here if you have nothing to say? When even Jim Geraghty thinks you are too easy on Trump, maybe it’s time rethink your worldview.
11. June 2018 at 18:03
Yes, not only does Trump not know what a tariff is, but is using trade deficits as his primary metric in judging the “fairness” of trading relationships. Given that protectionism can’t lower trade deficits, and nor can ending protectionism, what incentive do other countries have to try to work with Trump? Even when there are overall trade surpluses for the US, is the case vis-a-vis Canada, Trump looks for sectors within the data and any deficit he finds he wants to rectify. Then, there’s the problem that trade deficits don’t actually matter.
How can Trump possibly make things better?
11. June 2018 at 18:49
@sumner, “Massimo. No, Trudeau did not insult Trump. Why do you even bother to post here if you have nothing to say?”
Wow, Larry Kudlow said precisely that https://youtu.be/m7S3CadEbVs
To transcribe Kudlow’s words:
“He [Trudeau] holds a press conference. The President is barely out of there, on the plane to North Korea. And, he starts insulting us. He starts talking about ‘US is insulting Canada’, ‘we Canada are not going to be pushed around’. In general it was an attack on the President.”
11. June 2018 at 19:16
“Yes, lucky Trump and the other nationalists favor free trade.”
Sumner, I’m not pro-Trump.
11. June 2018 at 19:19
“I wish my commenters would wake up to the fact that nothing Trump says should be taken seriously. Then we might be able to have an intelligent discussion here.”
Oh; I’ve long been awakened to that fact. Given your ridiculous claim Trump’s tweet referencing the jobs report before its release conveyed any information at all, it seems you still haven’t fully awoken to that fact.
11. June 2018 at 21:16
Massimo Heitor, If you want to know what Trudeau said, why would you refer to the dishonest Kudlow. Trudeau said nothing that he did not already say repeatedly in public and private in previous days and Trump followed that by saying the relationship was a “10”. Heitor, if you haven’t learned how Trump operates by this point you will never learn.
Prof. Sumner, When the media compare Doug Ford to Trump it’s facile. Trump is remarkable and unprecedented, as you already know.
11. June 2018 at 21:50
If you had asked me, “What are the odds Trump can win the GOP nomination?” At one point, I would have answered, “Oh, maybe 14,000 to one.” Then he won the nomination. Trump crushed the Bush Dynasty and GOP establishment like a glass at a Jewish wedding. Then he won the Electoral College. I still don’t believe it.
If you had asked me, “Do you think someone like Stormy Daniels would have an affair with Trump, or a Playmate of the Year?” I would have said no. “They can have affairs with lots of rich guys who are nicer and younger and smarter than Trump.”
But they did! The playmate wanted to marry Trump! Both ladies insist money was not involved.
Will Trump pull a rabbit out of the hat in Singapore?
I say, “No.”
12. June 2018 at 06:41
‘…the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time…’
When does the Nobel Peace Prize get announced? I mean, Obama got it for merely being elected. Now that Trump has undone one of Obama’s (and Clinton-Jimmy Carter’s) bigger blunders, shouldn’t Trump be at least as recognized as Yasser Arafat?
12. June 2018 at 07:49
Courtesy of the WSJ, here’s a bit of Trump’s press conference in Canada;
————–quote—————-
Q Mr. President, you said that this was a positive meeting, but from the outside, it seemed quite contentious. Did you get any indication from your interlocutors that they were going to make any concessions to you? And I believe that you raised the idea of a tariff-free G7. Is that —
THE PRESIDENT: I did. Oh, I did. That’s the way it should be. No tariffs, no barriers. That’s the way it should be.
Q How did it go down?
THE PRESIDENT: And no subsidies. I even said no tariffs. In other words, let’s say Canada — where we have tremendous tariffs — the United States pays tremendous tariffs on dairy. As an example, 270 percent. Nobody knows that. We pay nothing. We don’t want to pay anything. Why should we pay?
We have to — ultimately, that’s what you want. You want a tariff-free [sic], you want no barriers, and you want no subsidies, because you have some cases where countries are subsidizing industries, and that’s not fair. So you go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy-free. That’s the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance. I mean, that would be the ultimate thing…
…In fact, Larry Kudlow is a great expert on this, and he’s a total free trader. But even Larry has seen the ravages of what they’ve done with their tariffs. Would you like to say something, Larry, very quickly? It might be interesting.
MR. KUDLOW: One interesting point, in terms of the G7 group meeting — I don’t know if they were surprised with President Trump’s free-trade proclamation, but they certainly listened to it and we had lengthy discussions about that. As the President said, reduce these barriers. In fact, go to zero. Zero tariffs. Zero non-tariff barriers. Zero subsidies.
————–endquote———–
I particularly like, ‘That’s the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance.’ Seems I remember someone mentioning that once, here.
12. June 2018 at 07:52
@Christian,
“Africa is full of trade barriers. Sure, people like to move from the countryside to the bigger cities but usually within the same country. People cross borders (especially cultural and language borders) only when they absolutely have to.”
OK, Africa is full of trade barriers. But those aren’t the cause of the African population migrations from rural agrarian life to urban life.
No, people don’t cross borders only when they absolutely have to. I have tons of friends who’ve moved from the US to Europe, for a slightly nicer job or for cultural preference. Everyone I know has moved across state barriers in the US. I know people who’ve moved to the US from Mexico, China, Japan, India, and Ethiopia and it was because they were seeking a better life, not because they absolutely had to move.
12. June 2018 at 09:40
From my understanding, the difference between these negotiations and earlier negotiations is that the blockage around North Korea is significantly stronger than prior sanctions. For me, the biggest lesson from the Iraq war was that sanctions do in fact work. I think the relationship with China was key. Also, North Korea scaring Japan and South Korea with the missile tests and nuclear testing. The option that seems unsaid is North Korea keeps developing nuclear missiles and the United States with the help of Asian allies starve the country to death, and the United States will put trade and banking restrictions on our allies to avoid cheating, especially penalties on the individual companies.
The problem with international socialists is that they negotiate for their own benefit as opposed to the benefit of their constituents. They vilify the people who live in their own country as opposed to people living in other countries. As far the 1930s, reading the national socialists platform is so very different than anything like current attitudes. It would be like comparing globalists to the international brotherhood of the French Revolution, which lead to war with Austria and war across the world. The core issue is that elected leaders have a fiduciary duty to represent the interests of the clients who hired them. It seems that the middle class is squeezed between not being able to their goods in other countries while having labor imported at cheaper prices. I have a serious question, how much of income inequality and the stagnation of middle class wages is due to importing cheaper labor? They wages are higher than their home country, but those aren’t used as part of the calculations, and increasing the number of people at the lower end of the distribution much decrease the average. Is this factored into their calculations?
One issue I’m noticing with academic economists is they forget micro-economics, and part of micro-economics is negotiation. In Zig Zigler’s books, you start by saying what you are selling is terrific and what they are selling is horrible in order to get a better price. Also, there seems to be a lot, this how we have always done it, which I think from management books does not lead to innovation or growth.
I do not how it will play out; however, I do feel that there is more oversight of this president, which will allow for better control and monitoring. For example, it seems that the Iran deal was terrible because it was done in secret, without much transparency, and with an outcome that was already decided. This goes for trade as well. If a trade war leads to a severe recession, then Bill Maher will get his wish, and the United States will hire a new president. Also, wasn’t Rocket Man an insult? In mind it’s hard to judge insults in politics. Everybody seems to be insulting everybody else, and we only seem to notice the cases where we feel they are insulting us or who we feel we relate to. It’s like Dennis Rodman, everyone hates him when he played on the opposing team, and everyone loves him when he plays on our team. What a great example of comparative advantage? There are so many people who are smarter, and there was only one person who knew both men personally.
As far as human rights, do you feel that the Iran deal was bad and we should have been more belligerent because, per PBS, they jail and torture teenage girls for questioning what is taught in school? I think it is tricky, since Gaddafi was a sadists who tortured girls for his own pleasure, and that situation turned into a giant mess.
12. June 2018 at 10:26
“Doug Ford, who had been gaining on Trudeau in recent months:”
Doug Ford was running for (and was elected) Premier of Ontario; he may have scored points running against Trudeau (though for an Ontario leader, not as much as Alberta United Conservative leader Jason Kenney, considering long Alberta hatred of the Trudeau family for the NEP. Kenney also has had to agree with Trudeau as well as pro-pipeline Albert NDP Premier Rachel Notely). It’s Andrew Scheer who is the leader of the federal Tories who endorsed Trudeau’s approach. Andrew Scheer won the federal Tory leadership by beating initial front runner Maxime Bernier, who actually wanted to end the horrible dairy supply management, something that Trudeau and Scheer both support.
12. June 2018 at 10:26
Doug Ford is an interesting example of “what if a conservative populist wasn’t anti-immigrant but instead disproportionately got immigrant votes?”
12. June 2018 at 11:10
Massimo, So your evidence that Trudeau insulted Trump is that an administration official claims he did? Do you not know the meaning of the term “insult”?
Ben , You said:
“I say, “No.””
And you’d be correct.
Patrick, This might be the saddest of your long series of increasingly deranged posts. Imagine how you would have reacted if Obama had done this sort of meeting? Do you actually not see your own bias?
And what’s the point of including a Trump press conference that makes Trump look like a fool? Are your trying to mock Trump? Canada’s trade policies are quite similar to US trade policies, even on agriculture.
Robert, You asked:
“As far as human rights, do you feel that the Iran deal was bad and we should have been more belligerent because, per PBS, they jail and torture teenage girls for questioning what is taught in school?”
No, I supported the Iran deal.
12. June 2018 at 11:25
John, You said:
“Doug Ford is an interesting example of “what if a conservative populist wasn’t anti-immigrant but instead disproportionately got immigrant votes?””
Good point
12. June 2018 at 15:41
I dunno.
At this point it looks like Dennis Rodman and Don Trump have accomplished what the US State Department and the perma-state could not for decades.
Or perhaps the perma-state does not truly want peace.
Dennis Rodman and Don Trump?
As they say, “Never judge a book by its cover.”
12. June 2018 at 16:06
BTW– evidently Tyler Cowan agrees with me on Trump and Rodman.
12. June 2018 at 16:21
Ben, You said:
“At this point it looks like Dennis Rodman and Don Trump have accomplished what the US State Department and the perma-state could not for decades.”
That’s right, a deal that gives everything to Kim, and gets nothing in return.
12. June 2018 at 19:21
Scott-
Maybe.
But see Tyler Cowen, he seems high on the deal.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/06/north-korean-summit-deal.html
My days in DC are decades back, so I have no special insights. Maybe Cowen knows people closer to the actual event.
From afar, I think the Trump-Kim deal is wonderful.
What is not to like about normalized relations between the Korean people (pawns divided in a Cold War power struggle), and a North Korea that wants to “do a Vietnam” (develop with foreign capital).
I could even go further, and say North Korea is looking for a way to avoid Chinese hegemony, very much like Vietnam. Trump has tapped into that.
I place kittle faith in geopolitical analyses, “power politics” and all the like, as so often such jibber-jabber talks about “prestige” and not about economic results.
Trump is canceling useless (indeed, counterproductive) displays of military power and talking about economic development.
How is this bad?
Side thought: How much of the anti-summit slant in the media is China-planted?
China sure does want North Korea is gravitate away from Beijing. Which is inevitable, once Koreans start mingling, and start up businesses, and building out cross-border infrastructure. The Koreans will surely want to work together.
The US should be on that side of the fence, which will leave China on the outside militating for continued hostilities among Koreans.
Fascinating topic.
13. June 2018 at 07:27
‘Do you actually not see your own bias?’
It’s true. Great minds think alike.
13. June 2018 at 07:58
Brian,
I can judge Trudeau speaking directly, without Kudlow or any other Trump administration interpretation, : https://youtu.be/qKLU8_jDMaQ
Trump + Trudeau administrations had a face to face meeting at the G7 Summit, Trudeau gave harsh comments immediately after the meeting, the Trump administration staff felt betrayed by Trudeau’s public comments, and Trump’s admin verbally retaliated.
“Trudeau said nothing that he did not already say repeatedly in public and private in previous days”
I don’t know what Trudeau said in private, but it seems quite feasible that Trudeau indicated one thing to Trump’s Team and gave a different message to the press and that Trump’s team had justification to feel betrayed.
The “gotcha” here is how dare Trump insult Trudeau and not more evil figures across the globe like Kim Jong Un or Putin. That’s a weak “gotcha”. While most Americans acknowledge at some logical level that Kim Jong Un is much worse and than domestic figures like Trump or Obama or Hillary, it’s quite normal to get more angry about the latter, and not care so much about whatever Kim Jong Un is doing across the globe. This blog is the Trump Derangement Syndrome blog, not the Kim Jong Un Derangement Syndrome blog.
13. June 2018 at 17:47
Massimo Heitor, perhaps you have an English comprehension problem. Watch the video you posted and then quote me Trudeau’s insult. You will find that you are unable.
13. June 2018 at 18:17
BTW, Navarro has already apologized. Kudlow will probably not apologize.
14. June 2018 at 05:03
Dear Mr. Sumner,
a) George Orwell criticises in his notes on nationalism, that people tend to understand events in terms of victory and defeat. Criticism of their favoured party is perceived hostile and no matter what the respective party does must be considered a victory. Sometimes I wonder whether it is even possible to be understood given those preconditions.
b) Is there a political resource like soft power? If there is, the US lost a lot of it recently. Considering Soft Power, Trump handed China and North Korea a lot of it. Is there any way to express soft power in terms of economics?
What could we measure to empirically show Soft power and assign a Soft-Power-Value to a nation? How could we use that value to find an actual effect on the economy? Is there a scientifically sound way to do that?
14. June 2018 at 10:08
Philipp, Good comment.