Trump Country
I spent about half of my childhood in a small town in rural Pennsylvania called Williamsport. The town had a long history of industry. Originally it was a lumber town, yielding from the plentiful forests of the Appalachian mountains in which it was embedded, and utilising the river to deliver its produce for trade downstream. At that time, the main street in the town was known as “millionaires row” and allegedly at one point had the highest number of millionaires per capita in the United States.
When I lived there in the 90s and early 00’s, that history hung over its inhabitants like a cloud. Long gone were the millionaires and their homes were converted into apartments; and while the urban area had expanded, the biggest employers were in local colleges and hospitals rather than a central industrial base. On my way to school, we’d often pass derelict warehouses and rusting factories. The idea of ‘rust belt’ was instinctive to me long before I’d heard the term.
This is Trump heartland. Voters in the wider Lycoming County, where Williamsport is based, have voted 70% in favour of Donald Trump at each of the last three US Presidential elections. To say he is culturally at home in Williamsport would be an understatement. I understand completely Trump’s popularity when I put him in the frame of mind of many of the people I grew up with. And while there were and are so many wonderful people in Williamsport, I have many vivid memories of racism and xenophobia.
Williamsport and places like it all across America provide some of the basis for understanding Trump’s tariff obsession. Part of the motivation for him is the insidious capriciousness of a billionaire unused to the checks and balances of constitutional power, but he’s also setting out to solve a problem for his supporters. He thinks, simplistically, these kinds of economic measures in a zero-sum world will force the prosperity experienced abroad back to the parts of the US, like Williamsport, which believe they were left behind. His goal is economic prosperity in these places at the expense of others abroad. And while the simplistic nature of his solution might not match a complex web of factors underpinning rural economic decline, electorates often reward bold action. Trump understands the marketing appeal of using a sledgehammer, not unlike the use of heavy-handed props in an American action movie. Similarly, a disregard for the ‘rules’ or decorum is unimportant to him. If the world suffers, he and people like him will be fine, so what does it matter? Fundamentally, Trump’s worldview doesn’t care.
Enter Tariffs
The tariffs policy response is inextricably linked to the rallying cry of “America First” – a code for the maxim that might is right and that morality is relative to self interest. Underneath it all is a fundamental xenophobia and nativism that often overlaps with racism and sectarianism that to my mind and experience is indistinguishable from the foundational philosophies of American white supremacy, which explains his popularity with groups promoting that ideology. The ‘shining city on a hill’ as Ronald Reagan once described, built on the ‘melting pot’ of uniquely American immigrant experiences, has now metastasized into a neo-facist reactionary politics. This politics was present even in rural Pennsylvania in the 1990s, but it was accelerated by the fear and militarisation of the post-9/11 era.
So where does such a worldview end?
My sense is that Trump and his supporters will not be fully satisfied unless manufacturing and industry returns significantly to the United States and serves as an engine for revitalising parts of the US abandoned by the effects of internationalisation in the latter half of the 20th century. So much of this anti-internationalisation will be defined by what his supporters can see: where the plants are, who works in them, what the people look and sound like in those places. The more worrying trend is that the natural conclusion of that political trajectory leads you to a nakedly imperialist mindset of the world’s leading military power, one that does not see allies as equals but as vassals, one that sees exploitation and colonialism as necessary for economic prosperity (even if it requires moral decay), and rejects the sanctity of hard-fought human rights and international law in favour of the glorification of supremacy.
What Politicians Need to Do
The coming weeks and months will be critical in terms of Ireland’s and the EU’s response. In my role as an opposition TD, it’s important for me to be constructive in the paths forward, but also critical if the government’s response is inadequate. Given the recent engagements in the Dáil, it’s even more important that proper parliamentary scrutiny is part of our national debate. That’s in everyone’s interest.
In that vein, yesterday in the Dáil there were some concerning revelations from the Government. The strongest emphasis was on ‘negotiation’ as the preferred path forward. And while I admire the government’s optimism that Donald Trump ‘wants to do a deal,’ I think my description of his supporters’ motivations would lead you to believe that a deal that does not directly lead to the industrial supremacy of the United States over Ireland and others isn’t good enough. He doesn’t see the goal as a win-win outcome, but a win-lose one; so to solely rely on negotiation as an immediate path forward is a miscalculation in my view.
Secondly, it was right that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “we have to adapt in ways which go beyond the mere question of tariffs” when talking about the seismic economic shift encapsulated by Trump’s departure in the American economic model. We need to respond accordingly and that will require re-evaluating core assumptions about our own economy. Tellingly, the Minister for Finance today told the Dáil that the government “couldn’t replace” 10 billion in trade, which is true only if we don’t fully understand the extent of the tools at our disposal. For example, is an enormous exogenous economic shock not sufficient grounds for suspending the fiscal rules to save the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people? A significant increase in the State’s budget wouldn’t be too problematic if it was a once-in-a-century economic event and a reluctance to State intervention in the economy at this time could be severely counterproductive, in my view.
There are other countries that are going much further in their rhetoric and contemplated actions, like Canada’s new premier Mark Carney, who said “We must respond with both purpose and force. We are a free, sovereign, and ambitious country. We are masters in our own home”. Imagine that level of ambition from our own government – one that is focused more on what we can forge for ourselves rather than what we can yield from international partners. This moment will require deep thought and clear bold action. It’s not often that I agree entirely with IBEC on public policy issues, but they are absolutely right about one thing: “It is safe to say the announced tariffs on April 2 should be seen as the beginning of a change in the trade environment for Ireland, and not the end”.
I’ll be exploring these ideas and more in the coming weeks and months with export-driven businesses and workers and their representatives. I urge TDs from all parties to do the hard work of coming up with constructive responses in the weeks and months ahead. Let’s raise our understanding and make sure Ireland’s interests are protected — the economic future of the country depends on it.