When Trump first came to Washington he thought the town was filled with the kind of “lightweights” he had known as a wealthy real estate developer dealing with obsequious politicians at fundraisers. A class that would be impressed by wealth and bend over backwards to accommodate a successful billionaire, or if not, would be no match to his acumen and skill. He quickly found out, as he himself tells the story, that the whales in NY were nothing like the sharks in the Capital who were far worse. This was because as any political scientist will tell any economist the currency of power is very different from that of money. It took Trump eight years to ultimately figure this out enough to get himself reelected and the power of the status quo ante literally threw everything including the kitchen sink against him during that period. Has he mastered the hornets nest of Washington politics by this point? Yes, whatever your politics, and this site is neutral, you’d have to conclude he has at this point consolidated his power in Washington to a considerable degree.
However, there remains the question of whether Trump still suffers from what might be called the “carpenter problem”. I’ve discussed this at length in other posts but I want to consider this question anew here in terms of one crucial element and a few current examples. To restate the problem Socrates in Plato’s famous dialogues goes around Athens trying to find out what people really know. It turns out the trust fund kids of trust fund kids, to update the account, have a bad education and don’t know much at all including how granddad got his wealth and power which they act like was simply inevitable. Like in more recent history with some of the Vanderbilt heirs, who ended up losing everything, they are like a noble carrying a sword who doesn’t know how to use or not use it. The politicians like many current day politicians are what Socrates calls rhetoricians–they are good at talking, but they really don’t know much of substance at all, just how to manipulate people and use language as a weapon. But the carpenters are different. They know a lot indeed about carpentry. They have some real knowledge which is to be very respected. However, when you ask some of them about almost anything they tend to just say”Its a lot like carpentry” and assume carpentry explains everything, which obviously it doesn’t. This problem in our specialized world is very common and not just among tradesmen but in practically every field. The liberal arts were supposed to correct this risk in the elite and citizens but its not practiced very much today. It’s one reason the great investor Charles Munger, Warren Buffet’s partner, said that the liberal arts was the best education to succeed in the markets.
Now, I have said that Trump represents the more hardcore real-politique approach which is true. The international organization approach which has dominated American foreign policy for the most part since the end of the Cold War has much to be said for it, but as has always been the case, often underestimates the machinations and dangers of power in the world. I have also argued that whatever one’s own politics the international organization approach had probably become too ascendent in recent years even for its own good and that many problems can not be fixed by NGOs and supra-national institutions and structures. In this regard Trump is simply restoring an equilibrium between these two prominent approaches. You can agree or disagree with his specific policies and choices, but its hard to argue the world has become a safer place without such a realist perspective.
Here’s the problem though: to the extent Trump is truly a realist in foreign policy this will overcome his tendency to think like a carpenter or in this case a billionaire that everything in foreign policy can ultimately be reduced to making deals and economics. These two tendencies to approach everything as deal making and to assume there’s always an answer in foreign policy in those terms is in tension and contradiction with his, on the other hand, championing a realist revival by the US.
And here is the point of this long discussion: Just like when he first came to Washington on the foreign world stage now he is trying to make “deals” in places that are very rough indeed and the risk is he is making the same mistake twice in some cases. I know he isn’t afraid to use military force as he has in fact done but his long antiwar stance in many cases such as with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and his surrounding himself, and there are good things about this too, with figures who are skeptical, let us say, about the use of force on a broader scale suggests he might not be realist enough. His real-politique approach stands in conflict with his “carpentry” business approach. And this is the question reflective students of foreign policy, even many who are supporters or at least tolerant of much of what he’s done in this area, are trying to understand. Will the desire for deals make him do costly blunders in power politics and miscalculations regarding some of the rougher spaces in the world and potential enemies of the US.
A deal with England–no problem. Deals with a Vietnam or South Korea or Japan, again, no problem. They need American trade and are not a threat to the US. However, what about the harsher more powerful actors—a China or even the EU with its long history in realist politics. And even more importantly because all trade deals are so to speak in Trump’s wheelhouse being economic, what about the pure power settings like a nuclear deal with Iran or a peace deal in the Ukrainian war. Are Trump and Witkoff, another real estate developer, and there’s no denying they both have already accomplished some amazing things in foreign policy, up to the task of these kinds of deals. Will they jettison their realism for a deal in ‘carpenter” fashion or do the actors involved already assume rightly or wrongly that Trump will be unwilling to use power on a broader scale? Or is it unfortunately the case that the pursuit of power on the world stage is even worse than dealing with power in a place like Washington. Will they naively assume that politics follows economics when, as we keep arguing in this site, the opposite is actually the case. Will they be up to the tasks they face here. Let’s hope so and that “carpentry” is kept separate from the necessary realism and at no point supplants it.
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