The ever louder criticism of the Democratic Party in the US is that it has a cultural program but no economic one.
The Republicans, in contrast, have an economic program. The overarching idea seems to be to use tariffs to protect domestic industry from lower-cost, more efficient competitors from abroad. In theory, this will have several positive effects: protect domestic industry from foreign competition, persuade foreign firms to relocate manufacturing to the US and–along with shrinking government services for everyday Americans–provide funds for income tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. This last is the current iteration of Reagan’s “trickle-down” economics.
The party also seems to have a cultural program, whose public face is ICE. To generalize from ICE actions, its aim is to discourage immigration to the US, particularly by people of Hispanic heritage, and to arrest, deport and imprison foreigners working in the US. Taking a page from the 19th century South, it uses raids in public places, by masked, heavily armed agents in riot gear, to underline the propaganda message that no one is safe from them.
The most recent ICE performance is a raid on a electric car battery plant in Georgia where equipment was being installed by Korean technical workers. ICE put the workers in handcuffs and chains and carted them away for deportation. What apparently complicates the issue is that there are non Amreican technicians able to do this work and Congress has for years left the legal status of such workers in limbo. It wants the foreign investment but apparently fears local backlash from admitting foreign technicians into the country. So there’s been a “gentleman’s agreement” for years to let the work go forward without clarifying the workers’ legal status.
So, on the one hand, Trump has negotiated industrial investment of $500 billion by South Korea in the US. At the same time he’s approved the arrest and confinement of the workers who are making good on that promise.
Not a great way to run anything. My guess is that nothing like this could ever have happened in one of Trump’s real estate projects. Hence the question–is anyone running the show?
Makes me think think that the evolution of Japan over the past quarter-century might be a model to consider for predicting how the US will fare, at least over the next few years.