Latest news with #pre-Trumpian
Telegraph
03-04-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Trump has unleashed utter havoc on the world, and Britain will not be spared
It is a charming self-deception to imagine Britain has been spared the worst because it was hit only with a 10pc tariff, forgetting the 25pc hit on steel and cars. It is beyond delusional to progress from that false assumption to think that Britain might even profit positively from Trump's near-complete destruction of the post-War trading and security system. This country has chosen to be an independent trading nation outside any protectionist bloc, and I voted for this in the halcyon pre-Trumpian world of June 2016. But that renders it a little rowing boat bobbing about on the rough oceans, hyper-dependent on stable trade and finance under the ethos of the World Trade Organisation – now dead. The greater damage to the British economy comes from the recessionary shock to Europe, and from the drastic spillovers of global retaliation, not from the direct tariff hit. It is compounded by the diversion of exports from other countries shut out of the US, whether Chinese rebar steel, or EU-made cars. British service exports to the US may be shielded but the business model of the services industry is not, since much of its revenue comes from lubricating world trade and investment. Twenty countries have free trade agreements (FTAs) with the US. That made no difference when Trump attacked: 25pc for Korea; 24pc for Japan (partial trade deal). He has brutalised Canada and Mexico even though they are part of the North American pact (USMCA) that he negotiated himself. Nothing he signs is worth the paper it is written on. Sir Keir Starmer is condemned to stay calm and keep pushing for a UK-US trade deal. But have no illusions even if he succeeds: any deal will be hostage to wild mood swings in the White House, weaponised at a later date to force the Maga agenda upon us or to yield to the cultural nihilism of America's tech brotherhood. Trump may well use it to try to turn back the clock and force the UK to recarbonise the economy. It would be nice to think that the UK could have it both ways, securing an Atlantic trade deal and becoming a manufacturing platform for EU companies seeking tariff-free access into the US market. But does anybody think that either Washington or Brussels will tolerate this for long? Will the Commission meekly roll over the Brexit trade deal (TCA) next year if the UK has a sweetheart accord with the US, secured by abandoning trade solidarity and bowing to every Trumpian demand?
Washington Post
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Virginia spurned Trump three times. Why do its pols idolize him?
The bellwether political battle of the year seemed all set — an exciting, all-female showdown in the Virginia governor's race between an ex-CIA operative turned dynamic Democratic House member and the tough-talking, assault-rifle-toting Republican lieutenant governor. Abigail Spanberger vs. Winsome Earle-Sears facing off in purplish Virginia — with its two Democratic senators and its Republican governor, all consummate exemplars of pre-Trumpian suburban appeal — would test how the Trump-Musk deconstruction of the federal government was going over in a state where Democrats have won five straight presidential elections but have gone four for eight since 1993 in races for governor.
The Guardian
05-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on Trump's foreign policy: an alarming new order takes shape
Nothing about Donald Trump's notion that Gaza should come under US control makes sense according to established laws and norms of international relations. But the current White House regime despises the old way of doing things and intends to reshape the world so drastically that restoration of a pre-Trumpian order will be impossible. The absurd incoherence of Mr Trump's proposal that the US 'take over' Gaza doesn't make it any less sinister. The requirement that 2.2 million Palestinians be forcibly resettled in neighbouring Arab states amounts to unambiguous endorsement of a criminal atrocity – ethnic cleansing. The idea that the land, having been requisitioned by the US government, will then be transformed into a Mediterranean 'riviera' is disturbing and grotesque in its detachment from reality. Mr Trump is treating a war zone at the centre of one of the world's most intractable conflicts as if it were a patch of derelict Manhattan real estate. He is toying with the lives of millions of people in the idiom of a corrupt property developer and with the methods and ethics of a mafia boss. The inevitable consequence of handling complex international issues with cruel and bovine simplicity is to spread fear, uncertainty and instability. It adds gratuitous volatility at precisely the moment when the opposite approach is imperative to preserve the fragile ceasefire in Gaza. Every government in the Middle East, except Benjamin Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist coalition in Israel, rejects Mr Trump's intervention as dangerous and counterproductive. That is also the view among the US's European allies – or the countries that two weeks ago considered themselves free-thinking allies of the US but now see that no such concept exists in the president's mind. He recognises only clients, rivals and enemies. It is possible to move between those categories by deploying flattery and offering favours. But durable alignment based on mutual interest, legally binding treaty obligations and democratic values is a model that no longer has currency in the White House. That is a tremendous boost to the geopolitical ambitions of Russia and China. It vindicates a vicious might-is-right approach to international relations. It legitimates the kind of imperialistic land grab that Vladimir Putin is pursuing in Ukraine. For Beijing, an age of American unreliability offers lucrative avenues of economic and strategic expansion. China sees a vacancy for itself as the world's most predictable superpower. There is a common rationalisation that explains his recklessness as opening moves in a negotiation. His most outlandish ideas, like American appropriation of Gaza, are thus sanitised as the freewheeling improvisations of a 'transactional' businessman. He is cast as a master of brinkmanship who uses shock and chaos to wrongfoot opponents before settling, in the end, for more sober outcomes. That analysis looks increasingly naive, even if it tallies with the president's self-image. He might think he is just doing 'deals', but others should be clear that the correct terms are coercion and extortion. There are plenty of examples from history of capricious potentates spreading disorder in their own territories and abroad. There is no precedent for that happening to the world's most powerful democracy, and no playbook to guide that country's former allies in handling the situation. But one thing is now clear – hoping Mr Trump's America might be cajoled into following the old rules is not a safe strategy.
