Kissing the ring

There’s been a lot of talk lately—as there should be—about Donald Trump’s meeting at the White House with a group of governors and members of Congress from farm states to discuss American trade policies. Well, let’s be specific: Trump only invited Republican governors and members of Congress from farm states. So, Governor Burgum and Senator Hoeven: Present. Senator Heitkamp, with whom Trump enjoys a cordial relationship and whom he was earlier considering for a Cabinet position: Not present. (No word on why Representative Cramer wasn’t there.)

The big news from the meeting: After making American withdrawal from the multi-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which he said was “raping our country,” one of the core, bedrock promises of his campaign (along with withdrawal from NAFTA) and then following through on the first promise within days of taking office, Trump announced, just off the cuff, that he was putting his National Economic Council director, Larry Kudlow—the three-times-married television personality who was fired from his job at Bearn Stearns for cocaine addiction—in charge of getting us back onboard with the TPP, as it’s known. Never mind that nothing in Kudlow’s career suggests he has any idea how to do anything remotely like this. Never mind that the eleven other countries that signed the agreement without us last month have zero interest in letting us back in. What Trump—with all the wisdom and foresight we’ve come to expect of the great thinker—did, in exiting the TPP, was cede the economy of the entire Western-facing world to China while shutting off that territory to American export markets, of which North Dakota is one of the largest. (If Trump follows through on his threat to withdraw from NAFTA, North Dakota stands to lose 33,000 jobs and $3.5 billion in exports.)

Then again, listening to Donald Trump has become like that old joke about the weather in North Dakota: Don’t like it? Wait a few minutes. Later that same night, Trump tweeted that he’d only consider rejoining TPP if the other countries gave him a better deal than what they offered President Obama. This obviously makes a ton of sense—it’s like me saying I’d only consider rejoining my relationship with Penélope Cruz if she gives me a better deal than what she offered Javier Bardem, her husband.

Governor Burgum, though, called the meeting “super productive.” Exactly what was produced was left unsaid. But Burgum also said that he supports a “steady approach to negotiations with China,” leaving people to wonder: Is he aware that Donald Trump is the President of the United States? The man can’t hold the same opinion for longer than it takes to pay off another mistress and tweet out his next outrage.

Senator Hoeven said, about the meeting, that “we want to get China to end their unfair trade practices, but need to do so in a way that prevents retaliatory tariffs on our ag products.” Yes—just like I want to get my three-year-old son to end his unfair no-napping practices, but need to do so in a way that prevent retaliatory tantrums on my sanity. File these thoughts under Wouldn’t It Be Nice. Also: China already announced, two weeks earlier, retaliatory tariffs on soybeans, wheat, corn and more than 100 other American products. (China buys $14 billion in American soybeans each year.)

But what about the rest of the big White House meeting—what else did Trump have to say? Mostly he lied through his teeth—again, not a big surprise:

“We have some tremendous numbers coming out from companies. . . Apple, as an example, is investing $350 billion in plants.” (Apple, in fact, has no plans to build any American plants.)

“We’re starting to get much better results at the World Trade Organization, (WTO), because they know we’re not playing games anymore. . . I mean, if you look at it, 25 years ago, or whatever it was, it was really set up to take advantage of the United States.” (This is, simply, crazy talk: The U.S. was the principal architect of the WTO, which was created explicitly to help us make more money in an easier way. There’s also no truth that we’re getting better results now—we’ve long been winning 91 percent of the cases brought against us at the WTO—far more than any other country.)

“We lose (on trade) with almost everybody. We lose with Canada. . . I mean, no matter where you go, it’s very rare—very rare that our country has a surplus.” (We have a trade surplus with more than half of the countries we trade with—including Canada.)

“Remember what I said: When you’re $500 billion down, you can’t lose a trade war.”

I guess we’ll see about that, eh?