Authoritarianism

Madison, Hamilton, and Good Sleep

Another semester of teaching around here is winding down and yesterday afternoon was the last seminar. My department happens to have a number of senior seminars that are "variable topics" courses; the precise content may differ semester to semester depending on the instructor.  The course was Political Science 484, Topics in U.S. Politics and Policy. I've taught this particular section in the past, but decided last winter that I would try something different.

Ackowledgement I Wish I'd Written

It's been nearly a year since I made any sort of contribution to this space. The main culprit was a book project on the re-negotiated NAFTA. About this time last year, the negotiations came to a rapid conclusion. I had to step on the gas. I'm rather pleased with the outcome. I'm happy to have some of my musings about he NAFTA in a single location. It should be on the shelf sometime later in October. I quite like the cover.

A Trump-Inspired Holiday Reading List... Humbug!!!!

There's no other way to put it, 2018 sucked. I still put a lot of faith in what James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers about "ambition being made to counteract ambition" as an antidote to the "mischiefs of faction." Even if Trump's election in 2016 signalled the status quo was no longer acceptable (a judgement of voters I understood), I slept well at night knowing the the famous "checks and balances" and the "separation of powers" would limit any of the worst impulses of an inexperienced, incompetent narcissist such as we have.

Some Election Day Non-predictions

Today is U.S. midterm election day. I've been doing a lot more thinking about U.S. politics of late than writing about it, in part because it's become such a depressing, rapidly changing dumpster fire. Rather than a bunch of predictions about the outcome, or an effort at scenario forecasting, I simply wanted to get a few things on paper that I'll be focusing on starting Wednesday November 7

Time to Vote

1) The States, in particular, who controls governors' mansions and the state legislatures. If the Democrats can show some signs of life in places they've neglected while the GOP has placed a strangle-hold, the makings of significant change could be on the horizon.

2) The 2020 Presidential Campaign begins Wednesday morning. The Democratic bench still seems worryingly thin, although there will likely be no shortage of entrants. Who, if anyone, will challenge Trump in the GOP primaries?
2a) Primary season may kick off with the first debates among candidates as early as the spring of 2019 (good grief).

NAFTA2.0,... Ahem, USMCA?

So, we have a deal. But what's in it? Is the North American sky about to fall as I argued in my last post? Has the North American Idea been thrown overboard by Donald Trump, once and for all? Is the new NAFTA2.0 a retrograde descent into economic nationalism?

Name will take getting used to

Here are a few quick (possibly inaccurate) thoughts on some of the provisions of what's officially being called the United States Mexico Canada Agreement.

What's in a Name?

The first thing to change is the name of the Agreement. Trump thinks the NAFTA label came with too many negative associations. Indeed, NAFTA1.0 has been a political football from the start. The irony of Trump's complaints about the NAFTA name is that he contributed mightily in a very short time to creating those negative associations; worst agreement ever negotiated, our negotiators were really stupid, the world is ripping us off...

I don't think USMCA is going to stick, except among public officials who are compelled to use the name. Moreover, I am a little worried that if things go sideways at any point, this particular acronym will be framed as "United States Made Canada do it."

Requiem for the North American Idea

There are many things about the Trump Presidency that keep me awake at night. After Trump was elected, I was among those who turned to James Madison and the Federalist Nos. 10 and 51 for solace. I was certain the same institutional design that intentionally put so many barriers in the way of "getting things done" would constrain Trump's worst (but then not fully appreciated) excesses. My alarm at the damage being done grows by the day. In fact, as great as Madison's design is, I'm not sure it was designed to constrain this kind of aberrational president, nor the sustained assault on the core institutions of American democracy.

I openly wonder who is going to put the toothpaste back in the tube? Can it be put back? Trump didn't create this mess so much as he's a manifestation of a host of problems that have been simmering for a long time. Indeed, one of the most insightful comments I read during all of the memorials around Sen. John McCain's death is that in selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, he played a significant role in laying the foundation of today's populist assault on the truth in the GOP

Rock Paper Scissors for Trade

To Trade or Not to Trade?

Of course, one of my interests is the global trading system and my alarm at the damage being done here is also acute. The amount of damage Trump has done to America's leadership credibility in global trade is going to take a very long time to repair. It's unclear to me that it can be repaired since, in my view, Trump has arrived at the most inopportune moment for resolving important problems within. Smarter, more thoughtful voices were already calling for significant changes to how the global trading system's rules were written. Of note here, the basis for the long-stalled Doha Round of the WTO launched in late 2001 was development; hence the name Doha Development Round. Indeed, issues important to the developing world were to be the center-piece of the Round, starting with agriculture. We know what has happened there.

Much as I turned to Madison to ease my concerns about the erosion of American political institutions during Trump's reign, I similarly sought solace in the rules of the global trading regime. "We'll be able to ride this out," I thought. Moreover, "we've seen this movie before." Indeed, xenophobia in the hands of anti-trade populists has been the weapon of choice for centuries. Yet, I reasoned that rules largely designed and underwritten by U.S. leadership would, even in the face of nonsense from Trump, not quickly be tossed aside.  It was in America's interests to stick to the rules. Not only had the United States been a financial beneficiary of open, rules-based trade, the political prestige and leadership benefits of being the "indispensable" country for that system would surely appeal to Trump's better senses (or at least his ego).

Nope.

The Trade and Tariff Trumpster Fire

I've been searching high and low for sources of solace about the state of global affairs with Trump in the White House. They are depressingly hard to come by. I've found a sliver of solace in, believe it or not,... trade policy.

Progressive Trade Policy, Redux

Last November, the Government of Canada launched what it called a "Progressive Trade Policy" agenda. I wrote a little piece offering a few critiques (linked here). The punchline was that I thought it was devoid of much substance, starting with default proposition that trade liberalization as practiced was not progressive. Trade liberalization is inherently progressive. Always has been.

Trump, Trade, and Train Wrecks

I have noted in a few posts over the past year and a half how frustrating it is to try and follow the chaos and incompetence that is the Trump Administration. Apart from being completely exhausted (and exasperated) by nearly everything, it hasn't gotten any easier to see anything resembling coherence or a grand plan.

Competence Need Not Apply

Just after Trump's election in November 2016, I'd have to characterize my outlook as a kind of hopeful resignation. I was resigned to the fact that nativist populism had carried the day and that Trump had put forward too many policy positions on the campaign trail I simply couldn't support. However, I was hopeful that there would at least be a modicum of competence in their implementation. "Perhaps I'm wrong," I thought. "Perhaps those who voted for Trump saw something in his messaging I was missing?" "Perhaps voters in the UK had seen something similar months earlier when they narrowly voted to exit the European Union?" I was well aware that there were voters out there, under pressure economically, anxious about their status in the global economy, and disgusted by the evident ineptitude of our political leadership to do anything about it.

A NAFTA 2.0 Breakthrough? Don't bet on it yet....

The Sounds of Compromise?

There were some small glimmers of hope floated last week (March 19-23) that the NAFTA 2.0 talks were moving in a constructive direction. The source of that hope was testimony by USTR Robert Lighthizer before the House Ways and Means Committee on March 21 and Senate Finance on March 22. Specifically, Ambassador Lighthizer suggested there had be a convergence of positions on some of the most pernicious issues in the talks, notably on America's nonsensical position on rules of origin.

NAFTA, Frisco Style

I made a quick trip to the Bay Area last week to give a presentation to a group of University of Alberta alumni. In one of the surest signs of my getting older, I keep seeing more and more former students at these things. Apart from that, however, it's gratifying to see them come out and to learn about the interesting things they are doing.

The topic of my presentation was the NAFTA2.0 negotiations. The timing was good. The 5th round of negotiations had just concluded in Montreal the previous week and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was going to be in San Francisco in the following couple of days touting the merits of trade as well as the high-tech sector for Canada.

In future I might try and record some of what I say at these things. Now and then I say something interesting only to wish I had written it down somewhere. Actual PowerPoint presentation is linked here. However, I thought I'd try and reconstruct a bit of what I said with an "annotated" form of that presentation.