Dispatches

TRUMP’S G-7: NO TRADE DEAL, NO MILITARY DEAL, NO CLIMATE DEAL, YES ON HELPING HIMSELF.

Almost from the moment he stepped into the White House, Donald Trump has been conducting trade negotiations with China. Unsuccessful trade negotiations with China. Trade negotiations with China that have gone so badly that they’ve disintegrated into a trade war in which Trump has slapped on an increasing series of tariffs in order to prove his personal theory — a theory held by no one else anywhere — that tariffs are a good thing and trade wars are beneficial. However, the Trump-shy stock market and recession-worried nation can just relax, because none of that was serious. Now, says Trump, now “serious negotiations can begin.” Well, not actually now. But “soon.”

As the AP reports, Trump claimed during an interview at the G-7 (8/26) that his team of trade negotiators had received a pair of “very good calls” from their Chinese counterparts over the weekend. Those calls, said Trump, indicated that the two sides finally understood each other and are “dealing on proper terms.” All this means that “we’re finally going to have a deal.”

Which is nice. Except … China says it’s BS. Minutes after Trump spoke, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman joined other officials in saying that there were no calls, that they didn’t know what Trump was talking about, and that China was ready to “protect itself” and continue this trade war to it’s bitter, recessionary end.

Meanwhile, it’s not just economic deals that are baffling the great deal-maker. At the G-7 meeting, Trump also admitted that there was “no timeline” for reaching an agreement with the Taliban that would finally allow the US to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after 18 years of war. This is in spite of several proposed solutions that were agreed to by the Taliban and despite the fact that Trump ran for president on claims that he would bring the troops home immediately in 2016; then in 2017 said he would bring all troops home by 2018; and earlier this month said he would have all troops home by 2020. But at the G-7, Trump said there was “no rush.” Which may be the one thing he’s said that’s true. Because he’s not rushing.

Still, if Trump is struggling to deliver a “win” on either trade or military, at least he’s trying. When it comes to the climate crisis, Trump was literally a no-show. Trump was scheduled to attend a discussion on dealing with the crisis along with other G-7 leaders, but when the time for the meeting came, Trump’s chair was empty. And it stayed that way.

It wasn’t just the climate talk that got little attention from Trump. He hung around his hotel room for two hours longer than scheduled, enjoying a bit of executive time while the rest of the world was working. He kept German Chancellor Angela Merkel waiting for two hours before showing up to a scheduled one-on-one. At that meeting, he was asked about attending the climate session and told reporters that it would be “his next stop.” Except he didn’t stop. He skipped it completely.

The subject of that meeting with Merkel appears to be the ISIS fighters that the US has taken into custody and Trump’s threat to send them all to Europe if Germany and others won’t pay more for the US to keep them in facilities without trial. Or international inspectors. Trump slipped in some additional threats that he might have to impose some tariffs on European cars—still not appearing to realize that Mercedes, Volkswagen, and other German carmakers have factories in the United States.

But there was one area where Trump believes he actually made a deal, and it’s so important that it makes up for all the rest. According to Trump, his financially troubled Doral resort near Miami is “perfect” for next year’s G-7 meeting. Also according to Trump, the other leaders “love the idea,” and no other location “matches what his resort ... can offer.” However, like Trump’s other real-soon-now deals, there seems to be no actual agreement that world leaders will be coming next fall to pour a multi-million-dollar windfall into a club whose revenues have fallen by 69% in the last two years.

So, to recap: When it comes to trade deals, Trump continued to pass along lies with no sign of progress; when it comes to pulling American troops out of a war zone, there is “no rush”; when it comes to the climate crisis, Trump is a no-show; but when it comes to making a deal that would benefit no one but himself, Trump is all over it.

Which only proves that the G-7 meeting was just like any other week under Trump. (Mark Sumner at Daily Kos, 8/26)

TRUMP PROMISES BRITAIN ‘VERY BIG TRADE DEAL’ POST-BREXIT. At the G7 meeting in the French town of Biarritz, President Trump made vague, unspecified promises to Britain about how it would have itself a tremendous trade deal once it finally fulfills its promise to exit the European Union — despite the fact that neither the UK nor the EU have any idea what the final outcome of Brexit will look like, Luke Barnes noted at ThinkProgress (8/25).

“We’re having very good trade talks between the UK and ourselves. We’re going to do a very big trade deal, bigger than we’ve ever had with the UK,” Trump said. “At some point … they won’t have the anchor around their ankle, because that’s what they had. So, we’re going to have some very good trade talks and big numbers.”

Trump added on Sunday that he and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were also discussing “lots of fantastic mini-deals” and that they were “having a good time”. Again he did not offer specifics.

Meeting Johnson was reportedly one of the few bright spots for Trump at the G-7. The Washington Post reported (8/22) that Trump had repeatedly complained to his aides about having to attend the annual meeting, and that Johnson was one of the few people he was looking forward to seeing.

It didn’t help matters that Trump is currently engaged in several diplomatic spats. In addition to the ongoing trade war with China, Trump angered EU officials by suggesting that Russia should be re-allowed into the G-7 (it was kicked out after the invasion of Crimea in 2014). Trump had also caused anger earlier this week with his bizarre suggestion that the US should buy Greenland, which is a protectorate of Denmark.

Despite the fact that Johnson once said that Trump was “betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of president of the United States,” Johnson lathered praise upon Trump, saying that he wanted to “actually congratulate the president on everything that the American economy is achieving, it’s fantastic to see that.”

Johnson, however, is facing plenty of problems of his own when it comes to delivering Brexit, as he is now the third Conservative Prime Minister to be ensnared by this labyrinthine problem. After previously saying that the odds of a potentially economically devastating no-deal Brexit were a “million to one,” Johnson told the BBC at the G7 meeting that it was now “touch and go,” and that it “all depends on our EU friends and partners.”

One example of the intricacies is the Irish border. Johnson had previously appealed to the EU to drop a “backstop” agreement which would prevent a hard-border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The US in the past has warned that such an undermining of the Northern Ireland peace process would all-but cancel any hopes of a trade deal, but National Security Adviser John Bolton promised on a visit to London (8/12) that the UK would jump to the “front of the queue” for trade with the US if it went ahead and left the EU and Sen. Tom Cotten (R-AR) has written a letter signed by 44 Republican senators encouraging Johnson to proceed with Brexit without an agreement on trade and customs, which Irish authorities believe would lead to renewed militarization of the border in Northern Ireland.

TRUMP TRADE WAR DRIVES ‘FREE TRADE’ TO NEW HIGH IN POLL. Amid President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, the EU, Mexcio and Canada, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they support free trade with foreign countries, according to the latest national poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

That represents a new high in the NBC/WSJ survey on this question, and it’s a 7-point increase from the last time it was asked in 2017. In December 2015, before Trump was elected support for free trade was 51% while 41% said it was bad for America.

The NBC/WSJ poll conducted 8/10-14 and released Aug. 19 showed despite his overall job approval rating at 43% and disapproval at 55%, Trump’s approval rating in handling the economy is better, at 49% approval, 46% disapproval. But poll respondents who approved of Trump’s economic performance but disapproved of his overall job performance aren’t potential Trump voters in 2020, NBC News noted, as they back a generic Democrat over Trump, 73% to 5%. And the poll was conducted before movements of the bond market signaled the sharpest indication yet of an approaching recession.

The NBC/WSJ poll also showed only 36% approve of Trump’s handling of the aftermath of the El Paso and Dayton shootings that killed more than 30 people.

REPUBLICAN IMMIGRANT BASHING MAY HELP TURN TEXAS BLUE. The day before a gunman in El Paso carried out an attack against Latinos in a Walmart near the border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent out an anti-immigrant fundraising letter calling on Republicans to “DEFEND TEXAS NOW” and “take matters into our own hands,” according to news reports.

The fundraising appeal echoed the xenophobic rhetoric of Donald Trump, who has spoken of an “invasion” of migrants into the US. It also echoed the language in the racist “manifesto” allegedly written by the 21-year-old suspect before he killed 22 people at the Walmart near the US-Mexico border. The suspect, who traveled from a Dallas suburb 600 miles away, said the mass shooting was a “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas” in his hate-filled document, Sam Levin reported in the Guardian (8/22).

In the weeks since the massacre, law enforcement officials across the country say they have thwarted similar white supremacist attacks and mass shootings from potential gunmen who espoused far-right and racist viewpoints. In El Paso, which is 80% Latino, residents have said that Trump’s escalating attacks on immigrants and racist campaign speeches have created a climate that encourages this kind of violence.

Abbott and other GOP leaders in Texas have also faced increasing scrutiny over their anti-immigrant language in the wake of the Aug. 3 attack.

“Doing nothing will only lead to disaster for Texas,” the governor’s fundraiser letter said, adding of immigrants at the border: “How many are we NOT catching because of Washington DC’s inaction – and members of BOTH parties’ refusal to work with President Trump to secure our border?”

“It’s disgusting,” Manny Garcia, the executive director of the Texas Democratic party, said in an interview. “They know exactly what they are doing when they are using this kind of language and using this racist rhetoric to energize their base. It’s really disturbing. It’s alarmist, it’s threatening, it’s hostile.”

As the Republican “brand” becomes increasingly anti-Latino, it could move Texas closer to electoral blue, making Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) vulnerable in 2020. Cornyn has struggled in popularity, with a February Quinnipiac survey showing him less popular than Sen. Ted Cruz, who won by less than 3% two years ago during a midterm cycle when turnout was lower than in presidential cycles, Albert Morales noted at Latino Decisions (8/22). A Texas Tribune poll in June showed Cornyn with only 37% approval while 34% disapprove. (Cruz had 47% approval.)

At least two Republicans have filed to challenge Cornyn in the GOP primary. On the Democratic side, Beto O’Rourke, who came 214,921 votes short of beating Cruz in 2018, has decided to continue his presidential bid rather than return home to face Cornyn, but Democratic challengers include M.J. Hegar, a veteran who lost narrowly in a 2018 congressional race, and state Sen. Royce West of Houston. If the Senate race is close, Latinos could sway the election. Latino votes have spiked from 1.09 million in 2014 to nearly 1.9 million in 2018, but 3.7 million Latinos were eligible but did not vote, Morales noted. Another 400,000 Latinos aged 17-18 will be eligible to vote for the first time in 2020. if they can make their way through the hurdles Republicans have placed in the way. A June poll conducted for UnidosUS by Latino Decisions found 69% of Latinos indicated they are “almost certain (48%) or “probably will” (21%) vote in next year’s primary elections. The usual Latino turnout is closer to 50%. And 68% of Texas Latinos express frustration with how “President Trump and his allies treat immigrants and Latinos,” and 58% say Washington politicians ignore them and “take Latinos like me for granted.”

Cornyn has a relatively moderate reputation in Texas, but he will have to fully embrace Trump to win an expected primary. “Doing so, however, will force him to backtrack or dance around the immigration issue in the general or suffer damage among voters outside Trump’s base, especially the growing ranks of Texas Latinos,” Morales noted.

FEC CAN’T FUNCTION, THANKS TO MITCH McCONNELL. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) — intended to be a group of no more than three Democrats and no more than three Republicans overseeing the federal campaign finance system — has been operating with just a bare quorum of four for the past 18 months. With the resignation of Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen, at the end of the week, the commission will be virtually paralyzed as it heads into the 2020 election year, Josh Israel reported at ThinkProgress (8/26).

The reason for this: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his Republican-controlled US Senate.

The FEC is a peculiar agency. It was created in 1974 to enforce finance laws for House, Senate, presidential, and vice presidential campaigns. Unlike most agencies, neither party is allowed to hold a working majority of seats at any time. Scott Harshbarger, the former president of the campaign finance reform group Common Cause, once quipped that the FEC is “probably the only agency in Washington that has done from the beginning exactly what it was intended to do, which was to do nothing.’’

But while the commission has often deadlocked along party lines — especially in recent years — it still has played some role in issuing fines, auditing campaign filings, and investigating corruption. With just three active members, it will be able to do none of that.

The six commissioners are appointed by the president — subject to Senate confirmation — to serve a single six-year term. The terms are staggered so two (typically one Democratic and one Republican commissioner) are up every two years. If no successor is confirmed, commissioners may stay on as long as they are willing.  While the positions were once filled in pairs with little fanfare, since McConnell (an avowed foe of campaign finance law) became majority leader in 2015, not a single commissioner has been confirmed. Petersen and the remaining commissioners are all serving expired terms.

President Trump has made little effort to appoint new commissioners since taking office. But the one nomination he has made — pro-Trump attorney Trey Trainor of Texas — has been waiting for a confirmation hearing since September 2017.

McConnell has dubbed himself the “grim reaper,” blocking virtually all legislative action in the United States Senate and focusing almost exclusively on confirming Trump’s nominees. But the Federal Election Commission has been a notable exception.

HURRICANES MAKE SPIDERS MORE AGGRESSIVE, STUDY SAYS. As if climate change wasn’t making things difficult enough, a peer-reviewed study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution (8/19) found that in the wake of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, some spider populations are becoming more aggressive, as damage from extreme weather events such as hurricanes are creating habitat changes that affect animals in those areas.

Researchers found that as a result of these weather events, one spider species, Anelosimus studiosus, has begun to evolve because of natural selection. 

The study showed that hurricanes decrease the populations of flying insects, so there is less available food for spiders, Jonathan Pruitt, the research chair at McMaster University and study lead author told USA Today.

That means the remaining populations need to be able to attack quickly and effectively. Therefore, the aggressive spiders were more likely to survive in the long term.

The spiders are not aggressive towards humans. At least not so far.

DEA MARKS BEGINNING OF THE END OF ‘REEFER MADNESS.’ The federal government announced plans to expand cannabis research (8/26), paving the way for the robust clinical trials cannabis experts believe will force the government to downgrade marijuana’s Controlled Substances Act classification, Alan Pyke noted at ThinkProgress (8/26).

The decision came just two days before a key deadline in a lawsuit against the agency brought by cannabis researcher Dr. Sue Sisley of the Scottsdale Research Institute. Sisley had sought to end three years of stalling by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The regulatory filing, and the warm remarks from Attorney General William Barr that accompanied it in a press release, effectively mean Dr. Sisley’s won. Coupled with Barr’s ardently anti-pot predecessor Jeff Sessions’ departure, progress toward looser federal treatment of cannabis may resume.

“Until today, no one could do anything. We were handcuffed, in limbo,” said Shane Pennington, a member of Dr. Sisley’s legal team. “Now they’ve done something. It’s a huge, huge deal.”

The actual notice published in the Federal Register is characteristically dry, but it says the DEA will soon unveil a proposed regulation to govern applications to grow cannabis for scientific and medical research. For half a century, only one grow was legally approved for such purposes — a University of Mississippi facility contracted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

That monopoly on production has hampered researchers like Dr. Sisley for years. The U-Miss project only produced a handful of strains of cannabis and their cultivation methods produced low-grade flower. Dr. Sisley’s research — which probes cannabis’s potential to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and focuses on combat veterans — required product of higher quality, more consistent quality, and a wider variety of chemical makeups. The subtleties of cannabis chemistry go far beyond the THC that produces a recreational high, and some researchers believe other attributes of the plant might have various psychological and physiological benefits.

A monopoly on production for research meant NIDA and the growers in Mississippi had no incentive to deliver what Dr. Sisley and her peers wanted for their studies.

Back in 2016, the DEA claimed to be ready to smash up NIDA’s single-actor control of research cannabis back. That announcement was greeted with great fanfare in the research and drug policy communities, and prompted Dr. Sisley to apply for a research-grow license from the DEA later that year.

But it was only a departmental policy. There was no follow-through. Nobody at the government would respond to her application or the dozens of others filed since. And because there were no federal regulations related to the 2016 policy memorandum, Dr. Sisley’s attorney explained, it was almost impossible to force the agency to do what it had promised.

JUDGE SAYS GEORGIA MUST USE PAPER BALLOTS IF NEW VOTING SYSTEM NOT READY BY 2020. A federal judge (8/15) ordered Georgia to be ready to use handmarked ballots in next year’s presidential primary in case a new $106 million voting system is not ready in time for its 2020 Democratic nominating contest, Reuters reported.

In a long-running dispute over Georgia’s voting system, the judge banned use of the paperless voting machines after 2019, but denied a request to bar them for municipal elections this November.

The state’s “long and twisted saga” of voting systems “is finally headed towards its conclusion,” US District Court Judge Amy Totenberg wrote in a 153-page ruling.

Georgia, one of five states to use touchscreen machines with no paper record, has used direct-recording electronic voting machines since 2002. The machines have drawn criticism from various advocacy groups and federal agencies, including US Department of Homeland Security officials.

The state earlier this year ordered a new voting system with ballot-marking devices, which Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said will be installed in time for the March 24 presidential primary.

CARGILL’S FAMILY OWNERS GET BEST PAYOUT SINCE 2010. Farmers may be strapped, but the 125 family members that control Cargill Inc. got the biggest payout since 2010 as the top privately held US firm posted the strongest two-year performance in at least a decade, according to reports.

The world’s No. 1 trader of agricultural commodities paid the Cargill and MacMillan families $643 million in the fiscal year that ended in May, amounting to about $5 million a person on average, according to the accounts reviewed by Bloomberg. The company pays them the equivalent of 20% of the average profit of the previous two years, compared with as much as 50% across firms in the S&P 500 index.

Cargill, which counts 14 billionaires among its ruling circle in one of the largest concentrations of wealth in any family-controlled business, declined to comment on the payout. The latest dividend is the highest since the 2010 fiscal year, when a record $728 million was distributed, data compiled by Bloomberg based on annual reports and historical bond prospectuses show.

Cargill’s distribution increased from $551 million in the previous fiscal even as the company and its competitors face headwinds in the form of President Trump’s trade war with China, which has ensnared US-grown agricultural products such as soybeans and altered commodity flows.

Over the past two fiscal years, the Minneapolis-based company posted a total profit of $5.66 billion, the most in a two-year period in at least a decade. In July, it said that it was reviewing its business due to operational challenges and a slowdown in earnings. Still, Cargill’s results have been buoyed by its focus on protein, making it less reliant on trading.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2019

Populist.com