The Never Ending Tale

Policy by Tweet:  Perhaps it was the news that he is a subject of the Russia investigation, something more ominous than anyone in the administration wants either Trump or us to believe, or perhaps it’s the simmering Stormy Daniels story, temporarily quiet but likely to reemerge at any moment.  Whatever the cause, Trump has become more impetuous than ever and has started blurting out policy decisions without first consulting with his advisors and staff. During his visit to Ohio, he announced that he wanted to withdraw US troops from Syria as soon as possible, leaving the military gasping for air, then he announced that he wanted to send the military to the Mexican border, another ill informed decision. After a day of heated discussions with his military advisors, Trump agreed to leave US troops in Syria for a few more months so that they can “finish” their ISIS destruction mission, but he’s made it clear that he wants them out soon and that he doesn’t want to contribute to Syria rebuilding or stabilization.  Ironically by broadcasting a timeline, he’s doing something he said that he would never do, something that he criticized Obama for doing when he announced his timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Of course when he said that he was a reality star running for president, now he’s the guy trying to come up with a policy to deal with one of those really complicated situations.  As to Mexico, border crossings have been historically low and a study from the Department of Homeland Security last fall reported that “the border was at its most secure and most impervious to immigration point in history.” It would be fair for Trump to take credit for the decline, however, he’s so obsessed with the idea of building a wall that instead of running around bragging about his achievement, he’s decided to move ahead with a plan to send military reinforcements to the border.  Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced that she has informed the governors of four border states that she will be seeking their assistance.  Later in the day Trump formally signed a national order calling up National Guard troops for border duty because "the security of the United States is imperiled by a drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border," or at least that’s what he believes because Fox News reported a surge, and if Fox says there is a surge than there is a surge. US law limits what troops can do, they can’t participate in immigration enforcement but can serve in support roles like training, intelligence gathering, and construction. Both Obama and Bush sent the National Guard at a time when crossings were at higher levels, even so their moves were criticized as costly and of limited effectiveness. Trump hasn’t yet quantified the cost of sending the troops but when he does, don’t be surprised if his budget includes some wall building activities, this could be another attempt to shift the cost of the wall to the military budget.   

The Trade War:  As expected the stock markets opened sharply down yesterday on tariff concerns.  Those fears were initially fed by Trump’s early more tweets, particularly one that said “We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!”  Trump’s illogical tweet was then countered by some calming words from new Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow, who may not be much of an economist but is a skilled talking head.  He tried to assure market participants by asserting that the likelihood of the tariffs really going into effect was minimal, sharing his confidence that ongoing negotiations with China would result in a much better outcome, better trade figures and few, if any, tariffs.  Though Kudlow’s optimistic assessment helped swing the markets into the plus columns, his rosy view may be unrealistic.  Trump’s protectionists trade advisors Peter Navarro and Robert Lighthizer are pushing hard and the Chinese don’t appear eager to back off.  Expect a bumpy ride with lots of market volatility going forward.   

Human Resources:  Despite his Trumpian accomplishments EPA head Pruitt’s ethical lapses may do him in yet.  Yesterday during an interview with Fox News’ Ed Henry he garbled his disingenuous response to a question about the large pay bumps that he had arranged for two of his hometown staff members by saying he had no idea who had authorized their pay increases but that he would get to the bottom of it.  This morning Kevin Minoli, the career EPA ethics watchdog who signed off on Pruitt’s $50 a night rental arrangement with an energy lobbyist, backed off his original report by saying that his original opinion “doesn't cover facts that were excluded from the legal contract between Pruitt and the landlord” because they hadn’t been provided to him. His new ethics memo goes on to say “Some have raised questions whether the actual use of the space was consistent with the terms of the lease. Evaluating those questions would have required factual information that was not before us and the Review does not address those questions."  It’s looking more and more like Pruitt may have one foot out the door.  On his way out, he may pass one of Interior Secretary Zinke’s newest hires, Susan Combs.  Zinke decided that she was perfect for the job of protecting federal wildlife despite or perhaps because of her earlier statement comparing proposed endangered species listings to “incoming Scud missiles” and her ongoing fight against the Endangered Species Act.  Zinke had previously tried to make Combs an assistant secretary for policy, management and budget but that position required Senate confirmation and was held up by several Republicans and Democrats so the determined Zinke, who is totally confident that she is the right person for Interior, found her a position that doesn’t require confirmation.  On his way out soon to be “former” national security advisor HR McMaster went out of his way to slam Trump’s reluctance to act forcefully against Russia by saying "We have failed to impose sufficient costs" on Russia and as a result "the Kremlin's confidence is growing." He listed a series of actions by Russia that warranted condemnation, including cyberattacks against the US and its NATO allies, and unsafe intercepts of US and NATO military forces.  Trump may have to hold on to McMaster for a few more days, his newest appointment, John Bolton is apparently facing some ethics headwinds of his own related to his political PAC which had already been actively contributing to 2018 midterm candidates.  Bolton’s PAC was also an early and eager user and beneficiary of Cambridge Analytica’s data mining services, activities currently being scrutinized by Special Counsel Mueller’s investigators.  The last national security advisor caught up in an FBI investigator was Michael Flynn, and that didn’t work out all that well for him or Trump.  As to Cambridge Analytica it turns out that they glommed on to far more Facebook data than was originally reported.  Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg admitted that as a result of his company’s lax data protection policies, up to 87 million Facebook users’ information may have been shared with Cambridge Analytica. That data was collected through an app called thisisyourdigitallife built by academic Aleksandr Kogan in collaboration with Cambridge Analytica.  Kogan is a professor at Cambridge University who “coincidentally” also works in Russia with at St Petersburg State University.  This story gets weirder and more complex  by the day.