Eamonn Fingleton writes: Trump’s larger point is that for any serious future Presidential administration, trade can be a powerful lever in influencing foreign partners – and not just China, whose rivalry with the United States is now obvious and ever-present, but nations like Japan, South Korea, and Germany, which have long used saccharine-sweet professions of friendship towards the United States to try to slough off their trade obligations.
So much for the broad outline of Trump’s strategy. But if it is to work, he will need a small army of reliable aides to implement it. Although he has already named several advisors on other issues, he seems not yet to have reached out to any trade experts. Yet in trade more than almost any other area of policy, the devil is in the details and a President simply has to delegate much of the strategizing and most of the negotiating to trustworthy aides. The evidence of history is that the caliber of trade negotiators in the past has generally fallen way below what the American nation is entitled to expect.
The challenge for Trump is to find aides who cannot be either corrupted or broken (in the latter case, via, for instance, blackmail).
The traditional first port of call for administrations in search of warm bodies is, of course, the Washington think-tank industry. But far too many think-tank types are hired guns whose only loyalty is to their own pocketbooks. In any case, almost without exception think-tanks are on the wrong side of the issues. So too for the most part are Washington law firms and Ivy League universities.
A major part of Trump’s problem will be transforming the culture at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Hitherto the USTR seems to have been peopled largely by an amoral breed of young lawyer for whom, in typical revolving door fashion, government service is just a stepping stone towards the real deal, a big paying job in the private sector. For such people, and their likely future employers in the Washington foreign trade lobby, a reputation for standing up for the U.S. national interest is not considered an asset.
Yet Trump is right to prioritize trade. It is not only a field that has long cried out for strong presidential leadership, but it is one where, given aides of appropriate commitment and strength of character, a future President Trump could aim for large early victories.
As a practical matter, however, people of the appropriate caliber are not thick on the ground. Some of the most clear-sighted trade economists moreover are left-leaning Democrats like Robert Kuttner, Jeffrey Madrick, and Robert Scott who will probably not be available to a President Trump.
