Mid-east peace elusive; China's move

 

Gordon L. Weil

Missing handshake

After almost any peace deal, the representatives of the two sides shake hands. 

When a conflict ends without a deal, it’s either because one side won or because it’s not peace but a truce, there’s no handshake.

In Northern Ireland, the two sides shook hands.  In the Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel, the two sides shook hands.  Even in Vietnam, Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger shook hands, though both regretted it when hostilities continued.

Eisenhower did not shake hands with a German general.  McArthur did not shake hands with the Japanese surrender representatives. 

At Sharm El-Sheik, while Trump basked in the aura of a yet unwon Nobel Peace Prize, Israel’s Netanyahu was absent to avoid being in the same room as Palestinian leaders.  Hamas was absent, perhaps of a split within its own ranks leaving people who know nothing other than terrorism in charge in Gaza.  No handshake.

Since the flash summit, Israel has killed Gazans because they came too close to the IDF and Hamas has refused to disarm.  Israel has slowed food supplies, because Hamas has not turned over all bodies of hostages, though they may be difficult to find.

In the final rush to free the hostages and line up Trump for an instant Nobel Prize, there was no apparent concrete action to put the next steps into motion. That was left for more negotiating though neither side has shown an inclination toward final peace. 

Trump can earn his Prize, but the U.S. must do much more.  Hamas holds on.  An international occupying force is urgently needed, including the still-reluctant Arab nations.  Israel must not limit food deliveries, and they must flow from Egypt, with the U.S. putting real pressure on Israel if necessary.

Meantime, no handshake = no peace.

Who’s worse?

Suppose a major power seeks to enrich itself at the expense of other nations.  It imposes tariffs without a basis for their rates and that probably violate the rules of the World Trade Organization.  It refuses to negotiate, but imposes conditions that will intentionally harm its trading partners.  It does not fully understand the impact of its trade policies on its own people.

Name the country.  China?  U.S.?

The correct answer is both.

The U.S. has also imposed high tariffs on key Canadian exports that have hit the economy there hard.  It wants to destroy an auto agreement with Canada that has existed for decades, since long before any free trade agreements.  Their auto industries are integrated. 

To oblige the U.S. and protect the auto deal, Canada had joined it in imposing its own matching 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.  That move gained Canada nothing with Trump.  Canada is blocked by no real negotiating progress.   Canadian people grow increasingly angry with Trump’s talk of their country becoming the 51st state.

Along comes China.  It offers to remove the reciprocal tariffs it placed on Canadian agricultural exports in response to the EV tariff, if Canada eliminates the EV tariff.  It will buy Canadian oil at market prices when Canada gears up to make such exports.  But Canada worries that China seeks great power equivalence with the U.S., Canada’s traditional ally.

This story is a bit oversimplified, but what is Canada to do?  Which is better for Canada?  With China, it can get some relief from Trump’s trade policy and immediately increase farm exports. Trump avows he wants to dominate the U.S. and Canadian auto markets.  Would Chinese competition improve the outlook for Canada?

It will take time for this testing to end, and perhaps U.S. policy may change.  But Canada won’t support “America First,” opting instead in favor of a newly strong Canada.  Losing the Canadian connection would be a massive unintended consequence of Trump’s trade policy.

Trump versus Marconi

On December 12, 1901, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi transmitted a message from England to Newfoundland.  It was the first wireless connection between two continents.  It began to shrink the world.

While globalism is rejected by some people, including Trump, Marconi made it inevitable. He sent a technological signal that the earth’s seemingly great distances would come to mean little.  An increase in world commerce would become inevitable as technology quickly followed, developing countless possible links across countries and continents.

“No man is an island,” wrote the British poet John Dunne.  After Marconi, no nation is an island.

The original America First believed that the U.S. could concede Europe to Hitler, because America was protected by a vast ocean.  U-boats off New York City quickly proved that wrong.

Trump does not seek world domination, but to make the U.S. an island of self-sufficient prosperity.   This simply cannot work without a high cost to Americans.  Despite the theories of some short-sighted economists, the bill is just beginning to be paid.