America First

"If he was thinking he could scare us with the sound of a dog barking, that's really a dog dream" North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told reporters in New York adding that Trump’s warnings are just a nonsensical “dog dream."

You know I've been openly critical of Trump and his policies here. My fondest hope has been that he accidentally gets some things right.

I do acknowledge that when one of his policies both aligns with reality, and it moves us towards a better world, we should applaud it. He probably doesn't understand why it works, though .

America First seems to be one of those policies. I believe that a good government is a selfish one. I've never liked the idea of "president as leader of the free world". Screw that. We have enough trouble managing our own affairs. I totally endorse the idea that we shouldn't have to carry any water for Japan, Saudi Arabia, or East Timor. Trump's job is to preserve the interests of the USA. Period. The more these other countries do for themselves, the better for everyone. America First, if it really is policy, is good policy, because it puts our resources where they belong: in the defense of our best interest. Nothing more, nothing less.

What leads me to believe that the Donald does not really believe it himself, though, is this insane sabre rattling he is engaged in with  "Little Rocket Man". If he believes in America First, what good does it do to take pot shots at Pyongyang? That is, unless he happens to think that the interests of the USA are met by using up expensive ordinance, to the benefit of the military industrial complex.

America is not served when we spend blood and treasure for another country. We might loudly proclaim that it's better to fight in the Iraqi desert than in our own backyards. But it's impossible to justify fighting over a piece of Iraqi desert, if you stop to think about it.

Similarly, America First is not being served when we conduct trade wars. Sanctions, embargoes, tariffs, and restrictions hurt all of us, and our trading partners. Our only weapon is the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, and the only two outcomes are higher prices and accelerating de-dollarization. The end result is less strength for America. We should be kicking down barriers to trade, not putting up new ones.

Finally, America is not served by building arbitrary walls either. Attracting new blood is our best hope of working through a demographic malaise the likes of which has already afflicted Japan and will slowly strangle us. No, we don't have to invite over thousands of new dependents, but we do have to put some real taxpayers back into the system, if for no other reason than to start covering LBJ's bad bets.

So, the Donald is still light years away from restoring a decent economy. What he proposes will have an opposite effect of what he promises. In that sense his results will be like that of most politicians. "If you like your doctor", for example, or "peace in our time". America First should be America First, and that means we should stop fighting other countries' wars, and figure out how to improve their lives (and ours); through free trade, and sensible immigration.