President Trump Fights the Insurgent Wing of the G.O.P.

Interesting. At NYT, "Trump Ran as a Renegade. Now He’s Trying to Keep Them at Bay":

Trump Ran as a Renegade. Now He’s Trying to Keep Them at Bay. https://t.co/ag9zMPTK5i

— Thomas Edsall (@Edsall) June 1, 2018

IUKA, Miss. — When Chris McDaniel first ran for Senate four years ago, his campaign became a cause for disaffected and restless Republicans across the country. Activists waving “Don’t Tread on Me” flags flooded Mississippi. Tea Party-aligned groups spent millions supporting him. Donald J. Trump — who was still a year away from announcing his presidential campaign — took notice and tweeted his endorsement: “He is strong, he is smart & he wants things to change in Washington.”

Mr. McDaniel, a state senator and an attorney, received more votes than any other candidate in that Republican primary, but eventually lost in a runoff to the incumbent, Thad Cochran. But now as Mr. McDaniel embarks on another run for Senate, his campaign contributions are a fraction of what they were in 2014. On a good night, a few dozen people show up to hear him speak. And President Trump is so far keeping his distance from the race.

Mr. McDaniel’s faded political fortunes point up one of the more unforeseen effects of Mr. Trump’s leadership of the Republican Party. Instead of elevating the renegade, insurgent conservatives who have vowed to challenge party leaders in Washington — candidates who are politically and temperamentally cut from the same cloth as the president — Mr. Trump has effectively shut off the oxygen to the noisiest and most fractious wing of his party.

He has endorsed almost every incumbent Republican senator, making it much more difficult for challengers like Mr. McDaniel to wage the kind of primary fights that have sown division inside the party for most of the last decade. In Alabama, Nevada and West Virginia, Mr. Trump has actively worked against candidates that had strong support from grass-roots conservatives.

And while the president has publicly carped at Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader — while also privately badmouthing them as unreliable and weak — he has maintained a partnership of mutual convenience with these frequent targets of the right’s ire.

Mr. Trump’s repositioning has led some self-styled conservative agitators to acknowledge that their bomb-throwing, anti-establishment playbook is in need of refinement.

“People are starting to realize that the anti-establishment thing is kind of a luxury we can’t afford right now,” said Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist who six months ago said it was his objective to see Mr. McConnell removed as the Senate Republican leader.

That effort has been put on hold. And Mr. Bannon’s rebellion has considerably smaller ambitions than it did six months ago, when he was trying to recruit challengers to every Republican incumbent senator up for re-election this year, with the exception of Ted Cruz of Texas...

Power corrupts? Nah. I think President Trump --- and his erstwhile advisers like Bannon --- are strategic politicians, and now in the driver's seat, they're careful about maintaining a pragmatic working coalition. It's not like they haven't been doing anything, especially on the economy.

Keep America Great!

And keep reading.

Boom! Atlanta Fed Boosts Second Quarter GDP Forecast to 4.8 Percent!

This is great. Curt Schilling tweets Breitbart.

And 4.8 percent is big, big growth for the U.S. economy. Normally, if we start getting above 3 percent the Fed wants to raise interests rates and put on the brakes. The big growth numbers will scare the s**t out of our trading partners, especially the Europeans, who can pound sand and suck on their double-digit unemployment rates.

Holy WINNING! 10-15 years of crap, 8 years of not even sniffing 3, now we're headed to 5!! https://t.co/7OKmNU6mSi #WINNING

— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) June 2, 2018

Despite Raids and Tariffs, California Farmers Still Back Trump

Well, it's the Central Valley. You'd think they'd still back Trump, over the diabolical Democrats. Sheesh.

At LAT, "Raids and tariffs? We'll take our lumps, say California farmers":

“You know what? The Cold War affected us, too, It’s not going to be free to win this war, but it may be worth it."--CA farmer https://t.co/i4HB6qgfuu

— Virginia Dare (@vdare) April 22, 2018

You might assume walnut grower Mike Poindexter would be regretting his vote for Donald Trump.

Since the inauguration, immigration officials have raided his Selma, Calif., office and China has slapped tariffs on his walnuts to retaliate against President Trump’s protection of steel, aluminum and manufacturing.

But you’d be dead wrong. Like many other farmers in the rural and conservative San Joaquin Valley, Poindexter, 46, is holding as steadfast as his trees.

“It’s not about sticking through thick and thin,” he said. “What is our other option? In California, they’re not willing to back [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein because she’s not liberal enough. They don’t have anyone who’s palatable to us.”

So, if Trump thinks a trade war will improve the market for U.S. goods, so be it, Poindexter figures. “You know what? The Cold War affected us, too,” he said. “It’s not going to be free to win this war, but it may be worth it. I don’t think you’ll have farmers go out and vote for Democrats over tariffs.”

Poindexter’s stoicism echoes across the farms of the San Joaquin Valley, where rural and suburban voters strongly supported Trump and where they regularly send Republicans to the House of Representatives. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield is in his sixth term, and fellow Republican Devin Nunes, farther north in Tulare, is in his seventh.

“If I’ve gotta take a few bullets getting caught up in the cross-fire, but after four years or eight years — however long he spends in office — we’re on a better trajectory as a country, then it’s all parred up,” said Matt Fisher, a fourth-generation citrus grower in Arvin, near Bakersfield. “I did my part, so to speak.”

Jeff Bortolussi grows half a dozen fruit crops at the eastern edge of Kingsburg, where he contributed to his precinct’s 70% tally for Trump.

He lives in the house where he grew up, and eagerly invites a visitor on a driving tour around a mile-square box of country roads to show off the spring crop: peaches and nectarines the size of a baby’s fist, almond and walnuts still too small to see, reedy blueberry bushes, leafy grape vines and trees pregnant with apples, pomegranates, clementines, persimmons and figs.

It’s that kind of diversity — California grows more than 200 crops — that could soften the impact of tariffs on the state. And it’s what differentiates California’s $45-billion agriculture industry from frustrated farmers in the Midwest, who heavily depend on a soy crop that faces tariffs of 25%. (A tariff raises the price for Chinese importers, making the U.S. crop less competitive.)

Bortolussi is as patient about politics as he is with his crops.

“A lot of this stuff needs to play out,” he said. “I think a lot of it is posturing, and his way of communicating, his ‘art of the deal.’ We really don’t know what’s going on.”

Even almonds, California’s second-largest agricultural export to China, may not suffer from tariffs as much as first thought, Bortolussi says. “The almond crop this year is going to be a little off, because it got a little freeze,” he said. “So, if the tariffs are going to affect almonds, this may be the year when it will have less effect.”

Last year, California sold $1.1 billion worth of nuts — almonds, walnuts and pistachios — to China, its third-largest foreign customer, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. China also bought more than $240 million in fresh citrus and table grapes from California in 2016, according to the department's data...

More.

Why China Will Lose a Trade War With Trump

Gordon Chang's a really nice guy, and super smart. I met him at the David Horowitz "Restoration Weekend" back in the day (2011).

I argued the same thing on Twitter in a quick throwaway rant, but it's true: China can't thrive without access to the U.S. market. We're that country's bread and butter.

At the Daily Beast:

In a contest of will, here's why #China will lose #TradeWars with #Trump @realDonaldTrump: https://t.co/tNK9exBi7X @thedailybeast

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) March 26, 2018

Trump Administration Announces $60 Billion in Tariffs on Chinese Imports

This is big.

And with a long list of exemptions for European and other allies, it's looking to be a focused trade war with China.

At the New York Times:

#Trump Hits #China With Stiff Trade Measures. https://t.co/rRh84qFeko

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 23, 2018

The risk of a trade war is testing China's president. His first response: a threat to retaliate with tariffs on $3 billion in U.S. goods. https://t.co/CGuc4B8B1R

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 23, 2018

China announced that it would impose tariffs on $3 billion worth of American-produced goods, hours after President Trump imposed tariffs on as much as $60 billion worth of Chinese goods https://t.co/6XAeTtGzq0

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 23, 2018

Ruchir Sharma, The Rise and Fall of Nations

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Ruchir Sharma, The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World.

Ford Investing $1.2 Billion in Plants as Trump Touts Jobs — #MAGA!

President Trump gets results!

At Bloomberg.

Also, at WaPo, and Neil Cavuto below:

Trump said Ford will invest at three Michigan auto plants https://t.co/4I5dDnS9H1

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 28, 2017

Training Workers for the New Economy

From Katherine S. Newman and Hella Winston, at the January/February 2017 issue of Foreign Affairs, "Make America Make Again":

Unlike the United States, Germany never abandoned vocational education. https://t.co/sODylrdnUM

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) December 15, 2016

Despite their many differences, the major candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election managed to agree on at least one thing: manufacturing jobs must return to the United States. Last April, the Democratic contender Hillary Clinton told a crowd in Michigan, “We are builders, and we need to get back to building!” Her opponent in the Democratic primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders, said the manufacturing sector “must be rebuilt to expand the middle class.” And the Republican candidate Donald Trump bemoaned bad trade deals that he said had robbed the country of good jobs. “‘Made in America,’ remember?” he asked a rally in New Hampshire in September. “You’re seeing it less and less; we’re gonna bring it back.”

It’s true that many manufacturing jobs have left the United States, with the total number falling by about a third since 1980. But the news isn’t all bad. After decades of offshoring, U.S. manufacturing is undergoing something of a renaissance. Rising wages in developing countries, especially China, and increasing U.S. productivity have begun to make the United States much more attractive to manufacturers, who have added nearly half a million jobs since 2010.

But these jobs are not the same as the millions that have disappeared from the United States over the past four decades. Workers in contemporary manufacturing jobs are more likely to spend hours in front of a computer screen than in front of a hot furnace. To do so, they need to know simple programming, electrical engineering, and robotics. These are well-paying, middle-skill jobs that require technical qualifications—but not necessarily a four-year college degree. Between 2012 and 2022, these will account for half of all the new jobs created in the United States.

Yet the U.S. work force is woefully unprepared to take advantage of this opportunity. In New York State, for example, almost 25 percent of these jobs will likely go unfilled. According to a 2015 survey by the consulting firm Deloitte, 82 percent of manufacturing executives expect that they will be unable to hire enough people. The situation is all the more troubling when so many young people in the United States desperately need work.

There is a better way. In Germany, a “dual system” of vocational training that mixes classroom learning with work experience has helped drive the youth unemployment rate down to historic lows. The United States used to take a similar approach, but its commitment waned after decades of federal neglect and cultural antipathy to manual labor. It’s long past time to resurrect it.

NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

In the years following World War II, the United States embraced vocational education. High schools prepared students for highly sought-after blue-collar work by training them to become aircraft mechanics or automotive repair technicians. The United States had hundreds of vocational schools where students studied welding, construction, and electrical engineering alongside a standard high school curriculum. These schools helped create a thriving blue-collar middle class.

But by the 1960s, white-collar positions had started to outstrip blue-collar jobs in number and prestige as the service sector came to dominate the economy. In 1963, Congress passed the Vocational Education Act, which provided federal funds to train students who were at an academic or socioeconomic disadvantage. The legislation was well intentioned but had the unintended consequence of encouraging the public to associate vocational education with troubled youth. A decade later, in 1972, the sociologist Richard Sennett found that many young people were embarrassed by their parents’ working-class origins and that older people felt at an increasing distance from their children as those children entered more prestigious jobs than their own. The stigma has stuck: parents in even very poor neighborhoods today believe that attending college is essential for a well-paying career and that middle-skill jobs are an inferior choice for their children. As a result, over the past four decades, the quality of technical education declined as investment in equipment and teacher training fell off, and private-sector interest has waned.

The move away from vocational education accelerated in the 1980s, when a 14-month-long recession triggered a crisis of confidence in U.S. education more generally...

Keep reading.

Out Next Tuesday: Ann Coulter, In Trump We Trust

ICYMI, at Amazon, Ann Coulter, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!

Out August 23rd: Ann Coulter, In Trump We Trust

ICYMI, at Amazon, Ann Coulter, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!

Nervous Breakdown Election?

Actually, nah.

I think folks are perfectly lucid about things, but just now at Drudge.

He's linking CBS News Dallas, "Woman’s Home Vandalized Because of ‘Trump’ Signs."

Also, at CBS News Pittsburgh, "Trump Voter Shot After Bar Political Debate Turns Violent."

Heh, good times.

Donald Trump Slams Hillary Clinton in Economic Policy Speech (VIDEO)

Via AP:

Here's Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth

More on economics, considering Trump's big speech on the economy right now.

At Amazon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War.

Reupping Ian Fletcher's, Free Trade Doesn't Work

Donald Trump's speaking right now on economic policy. He was saying "free has big benefits," while at the same time talking about how he was going to bring "trillions of dollars" back home, heh.

Good times.

Here's Fletcher's book, at Amazon, Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why."

VIDEO): Greenpeace Leaks Documents on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

At the Guardian UK, "Leaked TTIP documents cast doubt on EU-US trade deal":

Talks for a free trade deal between Europe and the US face a serious impasse with “irreconcilable” differences in some areas, according to leaked negotiating texts.

The two sides are also at odds over US demands that would require the EU to break promises it has made on environmental protection.

President Obama said last week he was confident a deal could be reached. But the leaked negotiating drafts and internal positions, which were obtained by Greenpeace and seen by the Guardian, paint a very different picture.

“Discussions on cosmetics remain very difficult and the scope of common objectives fairly limited,” says one internal note by EU trade negotiators. Because of a European ban on animal testing, “the EU and US approaches remain irreconcilable and EU market access problems will therefore remain,” the note says.

Talks on engineering were also “characterised by continuous reluctance on the part of the US to engage in this sector,” the confidential briefing says.

These problems are not mentioned in a separate report on the state of the talks, also leaked, which the European commission has prepared for scrutiny by the European parliament.

These outline the positions exchanged between EU and US negotiators between the 12th and the 13th round of TTIP talks, which took place in New York last week.

The public document offers a robust defence of the EU’s right to regulate and create a court-like system for disputes, unlike the internal note, which does not mention them.

Jorgo Riss, the director of Greenpeace EU, said: “These leaked documents give us an unparalleled look at the scope of US demands to lower or circumvent EU protections for environment and public health as part of TTIP. The EU position is very bad, and the US position is terrible. The prospect of a TTIP compromising within that range is an awful one. The way is being cleared for a race to the bottom in environmental, consumer protection and public health standards.”

Keep reading.

Currencies Across Asia Fall Sharply Against U.S. Dollar

At WSJ:

Currencies across Asia including the Chinese yuan dropped sharply against the U.S. dollar Thursday, with markets caught off-guard as the Singapore central bank restrained the appreciation of its currency to stoke growth.

The yuan saw its biggest one-day depreciation since January, and the Singapore dollar fell by the most within a day this year. Meanwhile, the South Korean won weakened after the ruling party lost its parliamentary majority.

Asian currencies had firmed up against the greenback in recent weeks, partly thanks to the Federal Reserve having signaled it would raise interest rates at a slower rate this year than previously expected. Economic policy makers from the Group of 20 nations had pledged at a meeting in February to avoid sparking a currency war through competitive devaluation.

A weakening of the yuan against the U.S. dollar in its daily fix weighed on currencies across the region, after a 0.46% depreciation—the biggest since January.

The region’s currency markets had started the day on the back foot as traders assessed first the impact of South Korea’s elections, followed by Singapore’s surprise easing.

Movements of the yuan fix, which determines the levels at which the currency can trade inside mainland China, have recently been more determined by market forces. Today’s depreciation reflects strength in the U.S. dollar on Wednesday.

Thursday’s yuan depreciation was the biggest since Jan. 7, when markets had speculated that moves to weaken the yuan could trigger a global currency war. Competitive currency devaluation hasn’t materialized among major economies since then, but other central banks in smaller countries in Asia are loosening policy in the meantime.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore became the latest to surprise markets by easing its policy stance as it warned of threats to growth. The Singapore dollar fell as much as 1.1% to 1.3654 against the U.S. dollar, the biggest intraday move since mid-December.

The Korean won weakened 0.7% to 1153.305 to the dollar after South Korea’s ruling party lost its parliamentary majority, raising doubts about the government’s ability to push ahead with economic reforms.

“The Singapore economy is projected to expand at a more modest pace in 2016 than envisaged in the October policy review,” the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement. The central bank also forecast a decline of between 0% and 1% this year in headline consumer price inflation, which has been falling every month since November 2014 as a result of measures intended to cool the economy. It warned, too, that any pickup this year in core inflation, which strips out the cost of private road transport and accommodation, may be less than previously anticipated.

Singapore’s central bank flattened the expected appreciation of the Singapore dollar, setting the rate of appreciation of its nominal effective exchange rate to zero. Previously, it had been set to gradually strengthen to avoid importing inflation from overseas. The Singapore dollar trades in a band against a basket of currencies.

In easing, Singapore’s central bank was following others around Asia. India, New Zealand and Indonesia have all cut interest rates in the past six weeks, and Japan implemented negative interest rates on some deposits earlier this year.

The International Monetary Fund lowered its global growth forecasts for the year ahead to 3.2% this week, down 0.2 percentage point from projections issued in January...

More (and don't miss the cool graphics at the click-through).

Free Trade Doesn't Work

The author Ian Fletcher sent me a copy of this book a few years back, and then harangued me with constant emails about publishing a book review. Hey, I can't power through all these tomes on demand, lol.

Still, talk about timely. I wonder if this guy's lobbying for a trade policy position in the upcoming Donald Trump presidential administration, heh.

At Amazon, Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why.

Also, from Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents.

More, from Jeff Madrick, Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present. And from Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few.

BONUS: From Professor Benjamin J. Cohen, Currency Power: Understanding Monetary Rivalry.

Giant Container Ship Unloads at Port of Los Angeles (VIDEO)

An absolutely amazing vessel.

At WSJ:

The largest container ship ever to visit U.S. shores completed its first stop at the Port of Los Angeles ahead of schedule Tuesday night. Analysts, however, say U.S. ports aren’t prepared to regularly handle the peaks in container activity that such megaships present.

As global trade volumes swell and shippers seek to drive down costs, they are turning to larger, slower but more efficient vessels that strain the capacity of even the most efficient ports. Leading to the arrival of the 1,300-foot-long Benjamin Franklin, owned by French shipping line CMA CGM SA, officials at the Port of Los Angeles undertook an unprecedented level of preparation.

Trucking companies were notified of the glut of arriving containers, and railcars were positioned weeks in advance to ensure a speedy turnaround, according to a CMA CGM news release. The Benjamin Franklin, the largest container vessel ever to visit a U.S. port, carries a maximum of 18,000 20-foot equivalent units, a standard measure for container cargo.

Two weeks before the colossal ship arrived, the port received detailed information on container count and placement on the ship, as well as a breakdown of their destinations—to the Midwest via rail, for example, or to local retailers or inland warehouses to be unloaded. “Typically, we get that information 36 to 48 hours before the vessel arrives,” said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.

Knowing it all farther ahead of time “gave us a great line of sight as to how we should plan railcar assets, truck power and longshore labor,” Mr. Seroka said, adding that it is a system the port wants to replicate as more large ships come to call...

More.

Why Trade Deals Are a Tough Sell

At the Wall Street Journal, "Why Opposition to Trade Deals Is So Entrenched":

HAMBURG—Few places have a longer affinity for free trade than this German city, home to one of Europe’s busiest ports.

The city’s left-leaning government overruled environmentalists in 2012 and approved deepening the Elbe River for bigger container ships. License plates boast of the city’s founding role in the Hanseatic League, a medieval alliance that was among the world’s first free-trade blocs.

But unease over new trade deals runs deep in Hamburg these days, as it does in the U.S. and across much of the developed world. The more aggressively leaders push to expand the reach of multilateral agreements into sensitive zones such as drug patents and investor protections, the more aggressively opponents push back.

Ire here is directed at portions of the proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, which would join the U.S. and the European Union in a vast common market with more than 800 million of the world’s richest consumers.

The freshly completed Pacific trade deal between the U.S., Japan and 10 other countries has sparked similar outcries, underscoring the challenge of completing sweeping pacts that go far beyond eliminating tariffs—few of which exist between the U.S. and Europe...

Keep reading.

China Rolls Out First Large Passenger Jet (VIDEO)

This is interesting, at WSJ:

BEIJING—China’s first large passenger jet rolled off the assembly line on Monday after years of delays, bringing Beijing’s dream of developing a rival to Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE closer to reality.

Still, the single-aisle C919 airliner won’t be delivered to airlines for at least another three years, highlighting the difficulties China has faced in becoming a global player in aviation.

Developed by state-run Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd., or Comac, the twin-engine jet was initially set for its first flight in 2014, ahead of commercial deliveries starting in 2016. Production setbacks forced Comac to repeatedly extend its deadlines. Company executives say flight testing should start next year, with deliveries expected in 2018 or 2019 at the earliest.

Comac hasn’t disclosed list prices for the C919.

Thousands of guests, including government officials and aerospace executives, witnessed the C919’s rollout at an assembly plant near Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, according to Chinese state media.

As patriotic songs blared in a large hangar, the C919 prototype—decked out with white, blue and green Comac livery—emerged from behind red curtains under a banner that proclaimed “Dreams take flight” in Chinese, footage aired by state broadcaster China Central Television showed. The jet was then towed past guests before slowing to a stop just outside the hangar.

The 158-to-174 seater, designed in Shanghai but incorporating components sourced globally, relies on foreign technology, including avionics from Rockwell Collins Inc. and engines developed by CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric Co. and the Snecma engine unit of France’s Safran SA. The jet is expected to undergo ground and flight tests spanning two to three years, before attaining certification from China’s civil-aviation regulator and entering commercial service.

China unveiled plans to develop the C919 in 2006 as part of a decadeslong effort to create an advanced aerospace sector capable of breaking the Airbus and Boeing duopoly. Coming after an abortive effort in the 1970s and early 1980s to develop a large commercial jetliner, the C919 was meant to help satisfy growing air-travel demand on the mainland, competing with the likes of Airbus’s A320 family and Boeing’s 737 series.

Airbus and Boeing, in separate emailed statements, congratulated Comac and welcomed competition from the Chinese aerospace firm, saying the aviation market is large enough to accommodate an additional manufacturer.

Airbus and Boeing, for their part, are seeking to shore up their market shares in China by building up an industrial footprint on the mainland, and developing new aircraft that can outperform coming Chinese rivals. Airbus assembles some A320s in the northeastern city of Tianjin, while Boeing in December announced plans for a 737 completion-and-delivery center in China, where aircraft will be painted and interiors installed.

Both companies also plan to widen the number of jets they make using carbon-fiber composite materials, which are lighter and considered more efficient. Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney said last year that Boeing was considering a new composite-materials aircraft that would replace its 737 Max in part because of potential competition from the C919...

More.