At first glance, this title may strike you as odd. After all, Trump’s hopes for winning that coveted accolade were mainly linked to him ending Russia’s aggression against the Ukraine – within 24 hours or thereabouts.
Yet it turned out that the deal our peace-maker had in mind was the unconditional capitulation of the Ukraine. To begin with, Trump sided with North Korea, Russia and Belarus to vote against condemning Russia for that aggression, or even recognising it as such.
Then he agreed with Putin that the Zelensky government was illegitimate because it refused to hold elections while 20 per cent of the country’s territory was occupied by the Russians. Consequently, Trump had accepted every Russian demand before the negotiations even began.
Proceeding from that wobbly platform, his representatives have now proposed that the Ukraine be treated the way the victorious Allies treated Nazi Germany, splitting it into sectors. To be fair, the Ukraine will be magnanimously allowed to control one of them.
The nuanced differences between Nazi Germany and the Ukraine seem to have escaped Trump. First, the former was the aggressor and the latter the victim of aggression. Second, Nazi Germany was thrashed, while the Ukraine is still holding her own. And third, Nazi Germany was an anti-Western totalitarian dictatorship, while the Ukraine is a pro-Western democracy, albeit not as perfect as Trump’s version of that form of government.
Predictably, the Ukrainians refused to bend over and offer Trump his favourite gluteal tribute. There go his chances for the Nobel, right? Wrong.
For at the other end of the earth the Donald has managed to achieve an improbable peace-making feat that has been defeating diplomats’ best efforts for centuries. Surely, that accomplishment merits the ultimate recognition.
You see, Asian, what used to be called Oriental, countries have a long history of animosity towards one another. The Chinese hate the Japanese, so do the Vietnamese, the Chinese hate the Vietnamese and also the Koreans, who too detest the Japanese. The Japanese both hate and despise them all. China wants to occupy Taiwan, and the Taiwanese have stated their intention to fight to the last man.
And the less said about China and India, the better. It’s only by a tremendous exercise in self-restraint that the two countries have so far refrained from lobbing nuclear bombs at each other.
This maelstrom of ill-will also draws in Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia. All those countries are at daggers drawn with their neighbours in the region, especially Japan but also China and India.
Such sentiments go back a long way, centuries definitely, millennia in some cases probably. Wars involving the countries mentioned are too numerous to count (including some during my lifetime) and if, as is prudent, you believe their rhetoric, they are nowhere near finished.
But then rode in Trump, wearing the white vestments of a peace-maker. And, in one fell swoop, he made those warring nations realise they have more things in common than those setting them apart. Unity has emerged out of disunity, friendship out of enmity.
Trump set out to cut off America’s economic nose to spite China’s face by introducing 125 per cent tariffs on all Chinese imports. The Chinese responded in kind, which has effectively put paid to all trade between the world’s two biggest economies.
The other day I tried to argue that, while that American policy made no economic sense at all (unless the underlying aim is to impoverish US consumers), it could be justified in terms of strategic necessity. Communist China is getting too strong and too dangerous, making it vital for America to repatriate some manufacturing while also enfeebling China.
That argument owed more to my reluctance to come across as an anti-Trump zealot than to any serious analysis. Repatriating strategic industries does make sense, and not just for the US. But that would take much more than just stopping trade with China.
Also, although the tariffs will damage China, they certainly won’t destroy her. Trade with the US accounts for only two per cent of China’s GDP. Losing that would hurt, but the Chinese are used to pain. And even if they weren’t, there would be precious little they could do about it without asking their communist rulers for another Tiananmen Square.
Then again, ready remedies are on offer. China may simply start dumping her exports on Europe and all other continents except the southern half of North America. And her strategic position has been strengthened no end because all those other countries have also been hit with punitive tariffs, although neither they nor anyone else can figure out what it is they are being punished for.
With the world’s biggest economy declaring war on them, the problems those countries had with one another began to look trivial. Now they are ready to close ranks against the common enemy, which is America expertly guided to the precipice by Trump’s hand.
Japan and North Korea have already signed an agreement with China, and you aren’t getting any prizes for figuring who will be the senior partner in that alliance. The other countries I’ve mentioned are in the advanced stages of similar negotiations, and even the EU is making overtures to Peking.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited China yesterday, and Xi told him that China and the EU should “jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices” of the Trump administration. Sanchez agreed with alacrity: Spain and, by implication, the EU aren’t going to follow America’s suit.
Also, the EU and China are discussing the possibility of removing European tariffs on Chinese cars, to be replaced with a minimum price instead. Next Xi will visit Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia, while his ministers are holding high-level discussions in South Africa, Saudi Arabia and India. The subject is the same: greater economic cooperation.
If that doesn’t get Trump his Nobel Peace prize, I don’t know what will. One thing for sure: he isn’t going to win one for economics.
When the stock market crashed last week, Trump just shrugged. Who cares?
Well, he should, considering his braggadocio during his first term, when he took the credit for the markets going up. Make up your mind, Donald: either your policies affect the stock market or they don’t. If they do, then the same person responsible for the ups is also responsible for the downs, as dialectics would suggest.
Then came a little legerdemain, with Trump declaring out of the blue a 90-day suspension of the worst tariffs. He had obligingly told his loyal lieutenants about that a few hours in advance, giving them time to buy at rock bottom. When the stock shot up, his friends cleaned up, with, for example, Musk rumoured to have made over $30 billion.
The market euphoria didn’t last, and the bond market crashed next. When that happened to the shares, Americans, 65 per cent of whom are involved in the market one way or another, cringed. But what happened to the bonds was even worse.
US Treasury bonds finance the country’s sovereign debt, to the tune of some $36 billion. Their yields determine the cost of public (also, indirectly, private) borrowing. And the yields depend on the traders’ confidence – or in this case lack thereof.
Markets are unsentimental, and they aren’t going to kiss any portion of Trump’s anatomy. With the US economy suddenly unpredictable, and its government playing Russian roulette with each chamber in the cylinder loaded, some invisible button got pushed and institutional investors began to get out of the T-bills.
As an immediate result, the cost of borrowing went up, just at the time when America needs to refinance $9 trillion of her debt. Inflation rise is sure to follow, and more borrowing will be necessary to fund even more borrowing.
Add to this the rising prices of all goods wholly or partly imported, which is to say just about all goods, and US consumers are going to bear the brunt of Trump’s illiterate brinkmanship. Hence, if he is to make that trip to Stockholm at all, it won’t be because of his seminal contribution to economics.
Yet, as far as I’m concerned, he is still in the running for the Peace Prize. That’s the least the Nobel Committee can do for someone who made China, India and Japan see eye to eye.