July 30, 2019: Trump's China Deal Proves a Flop

 

7/30/19: In the spring of last year the president was bragging about his deal-making skills where China was concerned. The tariffs he had imposed were taking a bite out of the Chinese economy, he said. The Chinese were ready to give up. “Under our potential deal with China,” the president explained, “they will purchase from our great American farmers [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted] practically as much as our farmers can produce.” 

Now, Trump is mad. Sixteen months after he made that great deal, the Chinese have failed to come through. 

It was no deal at all.

 

 

Trump learns again – or at least should – that diplomacy is a bitch. And it’s easy to complain about what your predecessors failed to do. 

But you’ll fail too. 

 

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The iron law of supply and demand decrees: Employers shall seek the cheapest labor available.

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This blogger agrees: We should press the Chinese on trade. But a large part of our problem has been that big America corporations are happy to shift jobs to China, something Karl Marx could have never foreseen. That is, capitalism helping communism, as it were, to cut its own throat. 

Most of the jobs we’ve lost aren’t coming back. They may shift again to Vietnam, Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh. 

It’s a reality Trump and the GOP dare not address. If workers lack power to make demands for higher pay and benefits, the iron law of supply and demand decrees: Employers shall seek the cheapest labor available. 

It “worked” when slave labor was free. 

It “worked” when poor families had no choice but to put young children in factories. 

It “works” today when companies, including the Trump Organization, hire undocumented labor. 

It “works” when Chinese employees put in ninety hours a week, but aren’t in position to demand overtime. 

It “works” in Bangladesh, where safety standards are lax to the point of non-existence. Big corporations are happy to ask the Bangladeshi to slave away in unsafe conditions. If a factory catches on fire and dozens of workers are killed, or a factory collapses on workers’ heads, killing 1,100? 

Supply and demand.

 

Go find other desperately poor people who haven’t been smushed and they’ll sew your jeans and assemble your tennis shoes. 

And do it cheap.

 

* 

“The time for silence is over.” 

TO SAY THAT JULY is not ending well for the 45^th President of the United States is an understatement. The three top religious officials at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington D.C. decide they must speak. In a statement titled, “Have We No Decency?” they write, 

As faith leaders who serve at Washington National Cathedral – the sacred space where America gathers at moments of national significance – we feel compelled to ask: After two years of President Trump’s words and actions, when will Americans have enough?

 

We have come to accept a level of insult and abuse in political discourse that violates each person’s sacred identity as a child of God. We have come to accept as normal a steady stream of language and accusations coming from the highest office in the land that plays to racist elements in society.

 

This week, President Trump crossed another threshold. Not only did he insult a leader in the fight for racial justice and equality for all persons; not only did he savage the nations from which immigrants to this country have come; but now he has condemned the residents of an entire American city…. (See: 8/1-2,2019)

 

Make no mistake about it, words matter. And, Mr. Trump’s words are dangerous.

 

These words are more than a “dog-whistle.” When such violent dehumanizing words come from the President of the United States, they are a clarion call, and give cover, to white supremacists who consider people of color a sub-human “infestation” in America. They serve as a call to action from those people to keep America great by ridding it of such infestation. Violent words lead to violent actions.

 

When does silence become complicity? What will it take for us all to say, with one voice, that we have had enough? The question is less about the president’s sense of decency, but of ours.

 

As leaders of faith who believe in the sacredness of every single human being, the time for silence is over. We must boldly stand witness against the bigotry, hatred, intolerance, and xenophobia that is hurled at us, especially when it comes from the highest offices of this nation. We must say that this will not be tolerated. To stay silent in the face of such rhetoric is for us to tacitly condone the violence of these words.