Thanks for this portrait of Navarro, Justin. I always thought of him as a nutbar (i.e., fitting in well with the current Trump crowd) but now I know that at one time he was able to think straight. Depressing all the same, like almost everything else related to the USA these days.
It's an interesting profile in someone who, I think, was actually very prescient about a lot of the problems of globalization — but who got sucked into the cult of MAGA and completely lost the plot. There's a good number of them out there. (Glenn Greenwald, step right up.)
This was amazing, Justin. Before reading it, I was going to contact you to suggest you write about who is really behind all this nonsense, as we know Trump’s focus isn’t on anything other than himself.
Of course, all of this is just maddening, maddening. I'm old enough to have voted against Mulroney in the Free Trade Election of 1988. After the deal was signed, all kinds of industries in Ontario closed. I don't know how much of the early 90s recession can be attributed to that, but it threw thousands out of work. I read once that Ross Perot, who was a leader in the fight against NAFTA, believed that the US came out ahead of Canada after the FTA. And after all that, to read that powerful people sincerely (?) believe that we're the ones screwing them over?
Knowing what we know about Navarro, any thoughts Justin, as to strategy? Other than doing our best to decouple? Maybe be more treacherous and disingenuous?
I have a Ross Perot campaign t-shirt. It's one of my favorite things. (Not an endorsement of all his politics, I should say.) The simple fact is, yes, factories closed after we signed NAFTA: They we're going to close anyway. Our options were: Erect trade barriers (make things more expensive, make us uncompetitive, be poorer) or try and create efficient supply chains which helped us still make things here. It worked!
I don't really think there are clear winners and losers in NAFTA. I think the costs and benefits are so massive and unqualtifiable that all you can really do is say: Life is pretty good, and the alternatives don't look so hot.
As for what to do? I was certainly a big believer in the idea that you've got to keep offering Trump genuine plans to improve the bilateral relation and some shiny baubles to see if he relents. We should keep doing it. It might work.
But also I think it's clear he's going to enact these tariffs. So I think we need to move forward with our plan to make them as costly as possible, whilst improving trade links with other nations (particularly the EU and Mexico, but also with Korea, Peru, Turkey, Australia, NZ, Syria, etc etc). I genuinely think that we can mimize the impacts on us while maximizing the effects on them. We may be in four a rough 2-4 years, but I think we have an integral role to play in making sure that this damage is only inflicted for 2 years — and not 20.
"When America tilted right in 1994, Navarro went the other way: He went back to being a Democrat, and ran for Congress. He lambasted those who would “cynically ride a tidal wave of white male rage and anti-immigrant fervor right down the Potomac and into the White House.”
Wow! It amazes me that a MAGA loyalist who went to jail for Trump used to actually be woke before the word even existed.
Thanks for this portrait of Navarro, Justin. I always thought of him as a nutbar (i.e., fitting in well with the current Trump crowd) but now I know that at one time he was able to think straight. Depressing all the same, like almost everything else related to the USA these days.
It's an interesting profile in someone who, I think, was actually very prescient about a lot of the problems of globalization — but who got sucked into the cult of MAGA and completely lost the plot. There's a good number of them out there. (Glenn Greenwald, step right up.)
This was amazing, Justin. Before reading it, I was going to contact you to suggest you write about who is really behind all this nonsense, as we know Trump’s focus isn’t on anything other than himself.
Of course, all of this is just maddening, maddening. I'm old enough to have voted against Mulroney in the Free Trade Election of 1988. After the deal was signed, all kinds of industries in Ontario closed. I don't know how much of the early 90s recession can be attributed to that, but it threw thousands out of work. I read once that Ross Perot, who was a leader in the fight against NAFTA, believed that the US came out ahead of Canada after the FTA. And after all that, to read that powerful people sincerely (?) believe that we're the ones screwing them over?
Knowing what we know about Navarro, any thoughts Justin, as to strategy? Other than doing our best to decouple? Maybe be more treacherous and disingenuous?
I have a Ross Perot campaign t-shirt. It's one of my favorite things. (Not an endorsement of all his politics, I should say.) The simple fact is, yes, factories closed after we signed NAFTA: They we're going to close anyway. Our options were: Erect trade barriers (make things more expensive, make us uncompetitive, be poorer) or try and create efficient supply chains which helped us still make things here. It worked!
I don't really think there are clear winners and losers in NAFTA. I think the costs and benefits are so massive and unqualtifiable that all you can really do is say: Life is pretty good, and the alternatives don't look so hot.
As for what to do? I was certainly a big believer in the idea that you've got to keep offering Trump genuine plans to improve the bilateral relation and some shiny baubles to see if he relents. We should keep doing it. It might work.
But also I think it's clear he's going to enact these tariffs. So I think we need to move forward with our plan to make them as costly as possible, whilst improving trade links with other nations (particularly the EU and Mexico, but also with Korea, Peru, Turkey, Australia, NZ, Syria, etc etc). I genuinely think that we can mimize the impacts on us while maximizing the effects on them. We may be in four a rough 2-4 years, but I think we have an integral role to play in making sure that this damage is only inflicted for 2 years — and not 20.
(Apologies for making more typos than usual. I sometimes reply to comments on my phone!)
I've always wondered who Mulroney was working for.
"When America tilted right in 1994, Navarro went the other way: He went back to being a Democrat, and ran for Congress. He lambasted those who would “cynically ride a tidal wave of white male rage and anti-immigrant fervor right down the Potomac and into the White House.”
Wow! It amazes me that a MAGA loyalist who went to jail for Trump used to actually be woke before the word even existed.