Hey, trade warriors, Germany has a massive trade surplus. So why is it so worried about America?

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• America would mourn Europe’s breakup

• The GOP’s cult of the businessman

 
No rich economy runs a larger trade surplus than Germany. Now if all the economics one knew came from the 2016 election season, one would think Germany had it made in the shade. The core economic thesis of the Trump campaign was that America’s large trade deficits have been reducing living standards for decades and reflected the nation’s deep economic weakness. Trade deficits = economic failure, or so argues Trumponomics.

Now put aside that the average American remains 20% richer than the average German.  Just set it aside. There’s this: Germany seems sort of anxious about its economic future, especially when it compares itself to … America. From a great Financial Times piece by reporter Guy Chazan:

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Hey, trade warriors, Germany has a massive trade surplus. So why is it so worried about America?

 
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America would mourn Europe’s breakup

When Theresa May meets Donald Trump this Friday, one has to hope that she can convince him on one major issue. It is not in the United States’ interest to see either the disintegration of the European Union or the unraveling of the euro. President Trump would be doing neither the U.S. nor Europe a favor by lending support to those European political forces that would like to see the failure of the European project and the end of the euro.

In recent weeks, Trump seems to have become a cheerleader for the unwinding of the European Union and the end of the euro. He has expressed the view that Brexit was a good idea and that other countries would soon follow the U.K.’s example and opt to leave the EU. He has also argued that Germany has been using the euro to gain an unfair competitive advantage in its international trade relations. These views now seem to be putting wind in the sails of Europe’s resurgent and anti-European populist movements in a year that will see important elections in France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany.

In championing the breakup of the European Union, Trump seems to be demonstrating a lack of historical insight. In particular, he seems to be overlooking the fact that the European Union changed for the better Europe’s historical course in the post-war period. Over the past 70 years, a continent, which had previously been ravaged by repeated wars and economic disorder, lived in peaceful harmony and economic prosperity in no small measure due to the creation of the European Union.

To her credit, May fully understands that even though the U.K. might have opted to leave the European Union, it still has a vital interest in a strong Europe. After all, even after Brexit, Europe will by far remain the U.K.’s main trade partner. The U.K. will also need a strong Europe as a partner in the upholding of shared democratic values on the continent.

 
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America would mourn Europe’s breakup

 
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The GOP’s cult of the businessman

Republican skepticism of experts — especially economists, climatologists, and Ivy League professors — has its limits. Military experts get a pass. So do supposed experts in running a business.

You can see that latter point in the CEO-heavy Trump administration, which features a rather novel combination of business acumen and government amateurism. If every Trump nominee gets congressional approval, notes Pew Research, his team will have more “businesspeople with no public-sector experience than have ever served in the Cabinet at any one time.”

You see, much as GOPopulists hate elites in general, they’re very willing to tolerate (or even celebrate) multi-billionaire elites as long as they’ve cut a paycheck. Cultural elites bad. Financial elites good.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. Many Republicans — including House Speaker Paul Ryan — found their way into right-wing politics through their exposure to thinkers such as Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Thomas Sowell. Republicans used to say they belonged to the “party of ideas.” Some still call themselves “Constitutional conservatives,” signaling deep allegiance to the notion that the American Project is based on a particular set of universal ideas, as manifested in its founding documents.

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The GOP’s cult of the businessman

 
Πηγή: American Enterprise Institute

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