Some Comments on Raimondo's "How We Will Win"

I will leave it to the interested reader to read Raimondo's post. The thesis seems to be that Trump's victory is versus a globalist conspiracy, enabled from a US standpoint by the logrolling collusion of the welfare/warfare state by the Dems and Republicans respectively. In this view. our international alliances are a quid pro quo in which immigration and trade policies are mechanisms that dovetail with US expanding global influence. Trump sensed that  this globalist scheme benefited the military-industrial complex and the financial/managerial class (with rigged monetary policy) at the expense of the lower/middle class (especially the more blue-collar, less educated workers): the hollowing out of the American industrial base: a reversal of fortune where our allies are enriched by no-cost military defense and local economies booming with the ever-growing number of US military bases overseas. Raimondo argues that the "genius" of Trump's conciliatory approach to Russia is that it takes out one of the long-term adversaries and checks on American expansion. Now, granted, Raimondo has left himself a little wiggle room by admitting Trump is inconsistent and an imperfect non-interventionist: he might even get us into another war or two. But Trump has exposed the nefarious globalist conspirators for what they are, but the globalists are done: you can't put the genie back into the bottle.

Now, first of all, I consider myself a neo-Old Right guy who has argued for non-interventionist policy, including reassessing our overextended, costly military footprint overseas and our alliances. And I know for an absolute fact that Trump is not one of us. This is a guy who think that Obama has hollowed out our military and vows to increase the budget, who vows to crush ISIS in the Middle East, restore torture as an interrogation method and target the families of terrorists. It is true that Trump has been arguing against allied "freeloaders" and has questioned NATO (but has floated recasting it against the terrorist bogeyman). One must not ignore his nationalist tendencies, and nationalism seems to correlate with the use of military power.

Indeed, Ron Paul, who Raimondo seems to admire, has made it clear what he thinks of Trump's authoritarianism:

Former Rep. Ron Paul tells CNN why a libertarian cannot endorse Trump's authoritarian approach.

"My biggest beef is, from a libertarian viewpoint, there is absolutely no difference, meaningful difference, between Hillary and Trump. They both support the military industrial complex, the Federal Reserve, deficits, entitlements, invasion of our privacy. And it's super nationalistic populism versus socialism. That is so removed from what we need to be doing. We need to remove ourselves from tyranny," Paul said Monday on CNN.

Second, Trump is neither principled nor knowledgeable on matters of policy. His criticisms of neocon policy seemed to be more contrarian, opportunistic and tactical ("a good defense is a good offense") than substantive. Whereas he made much of his exaggerated opposition to the Iraq War (with a disturbing admiration for authoritarians like Hussein and Putin, I thought much of it had to do with wanting to put opponent Jeb Bush on the spot. And he seemed to be more upset that the US didn't steal Iraqi assets to pay the costs of the invasion/occupation.

Third, Raimondo seems to buy into a typical Ron Paul/Mises Institute critique of trade pacts. There are several problems with this, not restricted to the following:

• The percentage of manufacturing jobs has been declining since at least the 60's and has been part of a more global pattern, not US-specific
• US manufacturing is bigger than ever, simply shifting to more value-added production. And the decline of jobs has less to do with cheaper labor elsewhere than with improving production technology. It frees up labor resources to be deployed elsewhere in the economy.
• Whereas any trade pact is mercantilisic in nature, it improves over the more protectionist and corrupt status quo which hurts consumers and a nation's competitiveness. NAFTA has rapidly expanded our exports to two of our top trading partners, Canada and Mexico. And let us not forget that about 95% of the global population live in other countries; other global competitors will gladly press the advantage of lower trade pact barriers.
• The real issues are not nefarious foreign competitors, but noncompetitive business tax rates and a nearly $2T regulatory burden. Also, keep in mind that even if China assembles a final product, many of the resources (materials and components) are often externally sourced (e.g., an iPhone and including American goods and services). Also, the US has a number of natural advantages, including logistics, abundant natural resources, and a diversified, educated workforce.
• Trump's economic illiteracy includes a conceptual misunderstanding of trade deficits, which can only be funded through capital surpluses. This net investment in the American economy benefits companies and workers.

There are other criticisms to make, but as a final point to this piece: Raimondo buys into a leftist critique that the welfare state (including entitlements) could easily be financed if the military-industrial complex would just wither away. Nonsense! The percentage of the military (which will never go to zero as a necessary function of the State) is less than 25% of the federal budget, while entitlements account for at least 70% and climbing in a rapidly aging economy. We don't really have real assets to hedge against entitlement costs, just bookkeeping entries of captive purchases to fund past Congressional operational deficits. This is not to say that we shouldn't streamline the Department of Defense and its missions/obligations; there is no doubt we cannot sustain being the world's policeman or afford a huge, climbing public debt, but government itself needs to be downsized across the board. The government is taking resources from the economy and overregulating it to the point that economic growth has been impaired.

Trump's strategy of trade wars and crippled immigration will impoverish the US economy and does nothing to address the resources needed to drive the future economy with an aging population.