This captures why, for all Trump’s big talk about trade deals, with India and China most recently, they never happen. Such deals are complex and require credible & transparent rules b/f foreigners move their money to another jurisdiction. Trump just can’t do that, can’t set /1
rules for an area and then back away. He always wants to intervene, to personally dispense favor or disfavor, to play to his audience on Twitter through high profile, politicized call-outs. That’s exactly the sort of erratic, political harnessment FDI hates. This is why T is /2
not the great negotiator he says he is. He constantly wants to re-write deals which are in place, or worse, just cheat on them like he did with Trump Organization contractors. No one can trust T. That’s why no US banks will handle TO money anymore either. This problem will get /3
worse as Trump staffs his government with lackeys who don’t see the larger utility of neutral, scientific, rational-legal frameworks, instead of technical experts who do.The failures from this will be minor initially, but they will widen over time, and at some point there will /4
a genuine crisis - think Bush 2 and Katrina - because of Trump’s personalization of government and disdain for expertise. That has always been the long-term threat of the modern GOP’s turn against science and intellectualism. Corona might be it, but I’m not sure Trump has had /5
enough time to degrade and corrupt the relevant institutions like the CDC. But at minimum you can be sure there will be no breakthrough trade deals, even if Trump is re-elected. At most you’ll get nothingburger renegotiations like USMCA which change almost nothing. END
