A New Republican Mascot

            Now I know why the Republican emblem is an elephant. Or should I say a flying Dumbo. President Trump is jetting all over the world trumpeting his impassioned views on nuclear security, trade imbalances, and NATO obligations, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dutifully follows behind like a circus worker with a pail and shovel picking up Trump’s undiplomatic excretions.

            In his first year and a half in office, the President has had an extraordinary string of successes: tax reform, regulations cutback, judicial appointments, the environment, energy, and defense. I could go on. The point is that President Trump has accomplished more in a short time than anyone could have expected. But now his policies on trade are threatening to reverse all the progress he has made.

            When it comes to trade economics, President Trump is an ignoramus surrounded by dunces like Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross. The problem is that Trump sees any trade deficit as a sign that America is being taken advantage of. So first, he scuttles a healthy trade agreement (TPP) with Asian partners, then he antagonizes Canada and Mexico on NAFTA, and now he is embarking on a trade war not only with China, but with our European allies, believing that he can achieve better trade agreements simply because other countries need American markets more than we need theirs. He refuses to consider that this is a war in which everybody loses, starting with the American buying public.

            President Trump insists on fair trade as well as free trade. Fine. But there is a better way to achieve it than through rhetorical excesses and destructive tariffs. China’s unfair trade tactics and theft of intellectual property need to be addressed, to be sure, and European tariffs on American goods need to be reduced. But not by upping tariffs, and certainly not by invoking executive authority to do so on the absurd premise that the importation of German automobiles is a matter of national security.

            The president needs better advisers on economic policy. Or Mike Pompeo sooner or later is going to decide that he’s no longer willing to fill his pail with Dumbo’s droppings.