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Mostrando postagens com marcador Donald Trump. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Donald Trump. Mostrar todas as postagens

sexta-feira, 15 de março de 2024

Donald Trump’s former trade chief makes the case for more tariffs - Robert Lighthizer (The Economist)

 A Economist resolveu dar voz ao maior e mais explícito protecionista nos EUA. Se Trump for eleito, o país ficará muito parecido com o Brasil na política comercial. PRA


Robert Lighthizer foi o “trade representative”( uma espécie de Ministro do Comércio Exterior) de Trump e provavelmente será o futuro Trade Representative do próximo governo americano caso Trump seja eleito (o que é bastante provável...) nas eleições de novembro próximo nos Estados Unidos

MD

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By Invitation | American trade policy

Donald Trump’s former trade chief makes the case for more tariffs

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There are economic, geopolitical and moral reasons to increase protectionism, says Robert Lighthizer

Robert Lighthizer 

WHEN AMERICA grew in the 19th century from a modest agricultural country into the world’s largest economy, tariffs were critical to its success. In recent decades, however, the T word has become toxic to some. Free-trade purists argue that tariff increases destroy capitalism. When tariffs rose during the Trump administration, and that didn’t happen, the purists claimed that we should ignore the facts and rely on their antiquated economic models.

Now that Donald Trump has proposed a modest tariff on many goods and larger tariffs on Chinese products, Americans deserve a reasoned public discussion. His stated objective with the broader tariff is to reduce America’s trade deficit and to rejuvenate American manufacturing. The China tariffs are designed to help America prevail in that all-important geopolitical competition.

The usual objections are raised. But the notion that tariffs are always good or always bad is guided more by theology than by reason. The truth is that they are often beneficial. In a pretend world of completely free and balanced trade and no government interventions, one can imagine tariffs being unnecessary. In the real world, though, they can be useful.

Since the end of the cold war, America has come as close as almost any major country in history to eliminating significant tariffs. It was a bold experiment, and it has failed. America has run up more than $17trn in cumulative trade deficits over the past 24 years. Now, foreign interests own over $18trn more in American assets than Americans own in all their countries. Foreigners will get the future earnings associated with those assets, and Americans will have to work harder to make up for the earnings they have lost.

These massive trade deficits also drag down American economic growth. Countries with persistent trade surpluses artificially lower global demand. Rather than expanding global production by buying foreign goods (how trade is supposed to work), such countries use massive market distortions to replace foreign production capacity with their own and use the proceeds of trade to buy long-term assets in countries with deficits. This slows growth in the deficit countries, particularly America.

These facts help to explain the collapse of American manufacturing, and, importantly, of advanced manufacturing. Today, America annually imports $218bn more high-tech products than it exports. It invented personal computers, yet now virtually none are made there, and those that are require imported parts. It led the world in making semiconductors in the 1970s and 1980s, yet today it makes only 12% of global supply and is wholly dependent on imports for the most advanced chips. America has fallen behind China in cutting-edge sectors such as advanced batteries, nuclear-power equipment and drones.

None of these developments result from the type of “comparative advantage” you read about in economic textbooks. Instead, they result from the industrial policies of other countries. South Korea doesn’t have a great steel industry because it has cheap ore. Taiwan isn’t a great semiconductor-manufacturing centre because it has inexpensive silicon. China’s manufacturing dominance was largely paid for by its government. These and other countries benefit from a mix of subsidies, domestic market restrictions, lax labour laws and numerous other policies aimed at giving their companies an edge in global markets.

In the case of China, its government distorts the market by allocating resources to manufacturing and away from consumption. As a result, its per-capita consumption is very low. Letting consumption rise to natural levels and allocating more resources to individuals is inconsistent with the communist theory of personal austerity and could threaten Communist Party control.

America should change its own policies because making things matters. There is an obvious national-security benefit from having a vibrant manufacturing base. America doesn’t just need munitions factories. In times of war it needs basic manufacturing, so it can scale up in order to, for example, make the steel used to build new defence plants.

Furthermore, as economists like Harvard’s Ricardo Hausmann and MIT’s Cesar Hidalgo have shown, manufacturing a wide range of complex products is essential to building a high-performing economy. Despite accounting for around 11% of American GDP, manufacturing creates 35% of annual productivity increases and pays for 70% of business research and development. No sector employs more super-STEM(high-end science, tech, engineering and maths) workers. Because the ability to innovate is closely related to proximity to production, losing factories has a multiplier effect on growth.

But the greatest evidence of the failure of free-trade policy can be seen in the effect it has had on America’s middle and lower-middle class. The economy has lost millions of high-paying jobs, and the earnings of many American workers have been largely stagnant for decades (with the exception of a large jump in 2019). As a result, inequality has increased rapidly: the top 1% of Americans now own more wealth than the middle 60%.

This stagnation has devastated many communities. America has experienced an alarming increase in “deaths of despair”: suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol poisoning. Non-college-educated Americans now have a life expectancy nearly nine years lower than that of people with a degree. For most of American history workers could expect to be economically better off and to live longer than their parents. That has not been true since 2000. There are, of course, numerous causes for this calamity, but a failed trade policy is clearly one.

The question then becomes: how can tariffs help? Of course, they are a tool that should be used in conjunction with a pro-growth tax policy, a reduction in unnecessary regulation and the use of subsidies to develop key sectors like semiconductors. But because America’s economic imbalances are driven primarily by global trade flows, tariffs are the vital part of any serious reindustrialisation.

Economists have long recognised that in cases where significant distortions cannot be removed from a market, a second-best option is to take steps to offset the distortion’s effect. As Michael Pettis, an economist, points out, offsetting such foreign interference actually makes markets more efficient and increases the benefits of trade. For example, if a country subsidises a product or if a company dumps in another market, global rules allow the use of tariffs in response. In circumstances where the exporting country’s trade distortions are systemic, broad tariffs may be the only way to offset them and reinstate market forces.

The Trump tariffs proved this point. Before covid-19, real median household income in America rose from $70,840 in 2016 to an all-time high of $78,250 in 2019. From January 2017 to January 2020 the number of jobs in manufacturing rose by 419,000. The pandemic temporarily disrupted manufacturing growth. However, the tariffs have mostly remained in place, and from January 2020 to January 2024 American manufacturers added another 194,000 jobs.

Sector-level data confirm that tariffs supported domestic production of tariffed goods. According to a study by the non-partisan United States International Trade Commission (ITC), America’s Section 301 tariffs drastically reduced its dependence on imports of strategic goods from China and spurred domestic production of those goods. In the wake of the tariffs, imports of Chinese semiconductors, for instance, declined sharply (the largest annual fall being 72% in 2021) and American production increased (the largest gain being 7.8% in 2020).

The broader multi-country tariffs had an even more pronounced effect on domestic production of tariffed goods. The 25% steel tariffs, for instance, led to $22bn in new investment in steelmaking across the industry. Now, with relief from the pressure of foreign overcapacity, American producers are modernising their mills and building electric arc furnaces.

Furthermore, the price effects have been minimal. According to the ITC, the price of domestic steel increased by a mere 0.75% and overall steel prices by about 2.4%. Likewise, restrictions on imports of washing machines led to the opening of two new facilities, in Tennessee and South Carolina. Washing-machine prices fell back to pre-tariff levels after a brief adjustment spike, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics.

Granted, other studies have concluded that retaliation from China blunted some of the tariffs’ positive effects. But none of these studies challenge the ITC’s core finding that the tariffs boosted domestic production and employment in the tariffed sectors at a negligible cost to consumers.

Donald Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on all imported goods to offset economic distortions created by foreign governments, to reduce America’s trade deficit and to speed up its reindustrialisation. Experience suggests that this will succeed and that high-paying industrial jobs will be created. Indeed, a recent model from the non-profit Coalition for a Prosperous America, which unlike many other trade models does not unrealistically assume full employment, concluded that the tariffs will lead to an increase in real household income and millions of new jobs. Mainstream economists disagree with the notion that tariffs would increase household income, but in the pre-covid Trump years we did raise tariffs and median family income rose, too.

In some cases tariffs higher than 10% will be needed. By using a mix of massive subsidies, low borrowing costs, forced technology transfer, near monopolisation of input material and a relatively closed market, China has created an industry that makes electric vehicles (EVs) much more cheaply than Western companies can. It is now flooding the EV market in Europe and threatening producers there with severe harm. It would do the same in America if not for 25% tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in 2018.

If China’s efforts to manipulate the EV market succeed, tens of thousands of American workers will lose their jobs and fall out of the middle class. In addition, America will send untold billions of dollars to an adversary that will use them to strengthen its armed forces and further threaten America.

Critics of the global 10% tariff allege that, if implemented, it will stoke inflation. There is much reason to be sceptical of this claim. To start, tariffs were raised in the Trump years and inflation stayed below 2%. Second, even an ardently anti-tariff think-tank, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, found that the direct effect on inflation of Section 301 tariffs was an increase of just 0.26 percentage points.

Furthermore, countries with persistent trade surpluses that implement pro-manufacturing policies have tended to have lower inflation rates than countries with deficits. This suggests that there may be little correlation between acting to protect your domestic market and your domestic inflation rate. Finally, it is worth noting that the driver of personal inflation for most Americans is energy, fuel and food prices and the cost of health care. These generally are not imported and would not be subject to tariffs in the Trump proposal.

Both economic and geopolitical facts strongly support the planned tariff increases. But there is also a moral case for them. Americans deserve productive jobs, strong families and thriving, safe communities. The free-trade policies of the past 30 years did not create any of this. The wreckage they have left behind is all around us. Properly used tariffs can be part of the solution. 

Robert Lighthizer was America’s trade representative from 2017 to 2021 and deputy trade representative from 1983 to 1985


domingo, 3 de dezembro de 2023

O Capitólio como ringue de luta livre - Le Figaro

 Donald Trump prépare un programme musclé en vue de sa réélection

Le Figaro, 2/12/2023

Le Projet 2025, élaboré avec des cercles de réflexion conservateurs, orchestre la « revanche » de l’ex-président.
À LA MI-NOVEMBRE, au beau milieu
d’une séance en commission
du vénérable Sénat américain,
Markwayne Mullin, sénateur de
l’Oklahoma et trumpiste convaincu,
a failli en venir aux mains avec
Sean O’Brien, le patron d’un syndicat,
venu témoigner sur des
questions économiques. Depuis
des mois, les deux hommes se bagarraient
sur les réseaux sociaux.
Après avoir lu à haute voix les
tweets injurieux du syndicaliste
qui le mettait au défi de se battre, le
sénateur Mullin, un ancien lutteur,
lui a lancé : « C’est ici et maintenant
! » « OK, parfait », a rétorqué
O’Brien, ajoutant qu’il « adorerait
» régler sur le champ leur différend.
« Eh bien, debout ! Remue
tes fesses », lui a lancé le sénateur
en se levant. Bernie Sanders, le
président de la commission, a essayé
en vain de rétablir l’ordre,
avant de hurler : « Vous êtes sénateur
des États-Unis, comportezvous
en tant que tel ! » Le même
jour, Kevin McCarthy, l’ex-speaker
républicain de la Chambre, a
été accusé d’avoir donné, dans un
couloir du Congrès, un coup de
coude bien senti dans le dos de son
collègue Tim Burchett qui avait
voté son limogeage en octobre.
Kevin McCarthy a nié l’avoir fait
exprès.
Il y a toujours eu des altercations
au Congrès. La plus mémorable
s’est produite en 1856, lorsqu’un
anti-abolitionniste a frappé sauvagement
à coups de canne un sénateur
opposé à l’esclavage. Ces
derniers temps, cependant, les républicains
font assaut de virilité.
C’est à celui qui se montrera le plus
bravache, le plus belliqueux, le
plus macho. « Cette hypermasculinité
n’est pas nouvelle, mais elle est
aujourd’hui plus fréquente, plus
forte et plus débridée que dans le
passé », affirme l’historienne
Kristin Kobes Du Mez. Dans son livre
Jesus and John Wayne (1), elle
fait remonter la glorification du
cow-boy rugueux et sans état
d’âme à l’idéologie évangélique
conservatrice.
Les femmes aussi
Ces dernières années, Donald
Trump a popularisé la testostérone
en politique et normalisé l’usage
des menaces, des déclarations incendiaires,
des attaques humiliantes
contre ses ennemis… Il a qualifié
récemment l’un de ses
adversaires de « fils de p… », un
autre de « gros porc ». Il porte une
admiration sans borne aux dirigeants
à poigne, de Vladimir Poutine
à Kim Jong-un. En juillet, ce
grand amateur de boxe s’est fait
photographier avec des combattants
d’arts martiaux mixtes
(MMA) lors d’un match à Las Vegas.
Tout un symbole !
Cela ne dérange pas sa base, loin
de là. Selon un sondage récent, un
tiers des conservateurs n’exclut
pas le recours à la violence en politique
et estime que « de vrais patriotes
» pourraient s’en servir s’il
s’agit de « sauver » le pays. « Donald
Trump a fait émerger quelque
chose », jusque-là « maintenu derrière
les normes et la civilité », estime
le sénateur républicain Mitt
Romney.
Conscients du succès politique
de la formule, nombre de conservateurs
la copient sans vergogne.
Sur le réseau X, la représentante
Marjorie Taylor Greene a traité un
collègue de « lopette ». Nikki Haley,
ex-ambassadrice à l’ONU et
candidate aux primaires, a qualifié
à la télévision l’un de ses rivaux de
« raclure ». Ron DeSantis, le gouverneur
de Floride, a défié Donald
Trump « d’avoir assez de couilles »
pour participer à un débat télévisé.
Sa porte-parole a ensuite tweeté
élégamment une photo de balles de
golf en suggérant à l’ancien président
de s’en acheter « une paire ».
Tous les prétendants aux primaires
se présentent aussi comme
des John Wayne modernes, partisans
d’un retour à la loi du Far
West. Donald Trump veut revenir
au peloton d’exécution, tirer sur
les individus qui dévalisent en
bande les magasins, et il « regrette
» de ne pas avoir fait exécuter
son ex-chef d’état-major des armées…
Ron DeSantis, diplômé de
la fac de droit de Harvard, parle de
« zigouiller net » les trafiquants de
drogue à la frontière mexicaine,
sans autre forme de procès. Il a
promis également de « couper la
gorge » des fonctionnaires fédéraux,
avant de préciser qu’il
s’agissait « d’une figure de style ».
Quant à l’homme d’affaires Vivek
Ramaswamy, il rêve de mettre
« sur des piques les têtes des
100 leaders du Hamas ». Et bien
sûr, tous se disent prêts à envahir
militairement le Mexique pour
écraser les cartels de la drogue.
Tant pis si la plupart de ces promesses
sont clairement en infraction
avec la loi… « Historiquement,
la masculinité agressive va de pair
avec l’autoritarisme. Et l’on voit en
ce moment des attaques sans précédent
contre la démocratie américaine
», note Kristin Kobes Du Mez.
Se démarquer
des démocrates
Les candidats républicains ne se
contentent pas de propos musclés.
Ils vantent aussi leur forme physique.
Robert Kennedy, qui se présente
sous la bannière d’un indépendant,
s’est filmé torse nu en
train de faire des pompes. Vivek
Ramaswamy a exhibé ses abdominaux
à deux reprises dans des vidéos,
sur un court tennis et au volant
d’un Jet-Ski, pour illustrer sa
« préparation » au débat télévisé.
Nikki Haley, elle, se prend pour une
James Bond Girl: «Quand vous donnez
des coups, ça fait plus mal si vous
portez des talons », assure-t-elle.
Jouer les machos musclés a le
mérite d’attirer l’attention, particulièrement
des jeunes conservateurs
sur les réseaux sociaux. C’est
également une façon de se démarquer
des démocrates défenseurs
des transgenres et des gays. À
quand un Donald Trump torse nu
et en short sur un ring de boxe ? ■
H. V. (À WASHINGTON)
(1) «Jesus and John Wayne. How
White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith
and Fractured a Nation », Liveright
Publishing.
Rouler des mécaniques est à la mode chez les républicains
HÉLÈNE VISSIÈRE £@hvissiere
WASHINGTON
ÉTATS-UNIS Il y a un point positif
dans la campagne de Donald
Trump : il ne cache pas ses intentions
et parle ouvertement des
mesures qu’il prendra, une fois
réélu. Le côté plus négatif, c’est
qu’il propose un programme bien
plus radical que celui de son premier
mandat. Sa réélection « serait
la fin de notre pays tel qu’on le
connaît », prophétise Hillary
Clinton. Joe Manchin, sénateur
démocrate de la très conservatrice
Virginie-Occidentale va plus loin :
« Il va détruire la démocratie en
Amérique. »
L’ex-président a manifestement
adopté les thèmes et la rhétorique
des autocrates pour lesquels
il a un faible. Dans un
rassemblement électoral, il a vanté
les mérites de Viktor Orban, le
dirigeant de Hongrie, et se présente
comme un leader à poigne :
« On va éradiquer la racaille communiste,
marxiste, fasciste et gauchiste
qui vit comme de la vermine
» dans le pays, a-t-il clamé. Un
terme utilisé avant lui par la propagande
nazie.
Les États-Unis sont loin de ressembler
à l’Allemagne des années
1930. Mais un second mandat serait
« désastreux », estime George
Edwards, professeur de sciences
politiques à l’université Texas
A&M. « En 2016, Donald Trump
avait autour de lui des adultes qui le
canalisaient un peu. Cette fois, il va
s’entourer de loyalistes et il n’y
aura personne pour lui résister. »
Et comme il maîtrise désormais les
rouages de la Maison-Blanche, il
lui sera plus facile de contourner
les obstacles.
En 2016, il n’avait pas préparé
son arrivée au pouvoir et avait recruté
une équipe disparate sans
expérience. Ses premiers mois
avaient été chaotiques et nombre
de ses réformes furent bloquées
par des recours en justice. Cette
fois, l’ex-président et ses alliés
n’entendent pas faire les mêmes
erreurs. En coulisses, The Heritage
Foundation, un cercle de réflexion
très à droite, a concocté,
en collaboration avec des dizaines
de groupes conservateurs, un
grand plan d’action baptisé
« Projet 2025 », qui ne laisse rien
au hasard. Cette vaste opération
élabore des réformes, planche sur
la mise en oeuvre de décrets que le
nouvel élu pourra signer dès son
arrivée, examine les contre-attaques
légales possibles…
La priorité de Donald Trump, à
l’entendre, c’est de « se venger ».
Il prévoit de forcer le ministère de
la Justice à mettre en examen ses
ennemis politiques, dont William
Barr, son ancien Attorney General
(ministre de la Justice), et le général
Mark Milley, ex-chef d’étatmajor
des armées. Il nommera
« un procureur spécial » pour
poursuivre Joe Biden et sa famille
et s’attaquera à « tous les procureurs
marxistes » (comprendre,
nommés par les démocrates).
Sa vengeance passe également
par une purge massive de l’Administration
fédérale qui, selon lui, a
freiné ses réformes. Il entend remettre
en vigueur un décret, signé
juste avant son départ, qui élimine
les protections sur l’emploi des
fonctionnaires. Il pourra ainsi limoger
jusqu’à 50 000 employés,
pense-t-il, et les remplacer par des
vrais trumpistes. Une des missions
du Projet 2025 est de constituer
“Lors de son premier
mandat, les garde-fous
ont fonctionné, mais
ils ont été affaiblis

GEORGE EDWARDS, ”
PROFESSEUR DE SCIENCES POLITIQUES
À L’UNIVERSITÉ TEXAS A & M
Quand vous
donnez des
coups, ça fait
plus mal
si vous portez
des talons» NIKKY HALEY,
DIPLOMATE,
CANDIDATE
À L’INVESTITURE
RÉPUBLICAINE
POUR L’ÉLECTION
PRÉSIDENTIELLE
DE 2024

sexta-feira, 15 de setembro de 2023

Joe Biden deveria renunciar à reeleição - The New York Times

Joe Biden é um presidente impopular e sem alguma recuperação ele poderia facilmente perder para Donald Trump em 2024. 

 THE NEW YORK TIMES, 13/09/2023

O que, em si, não é nenhuma surpresa: seus dois antecessores também eram impopulares neste ponto de suas presidências e também corriam perigo em suas postulações à reeleição. Mas com Trump e Barack Obama havia explicações razoavelmente simples. Para Obama, o índice de desemprego de 9,1% em setembro de 2011 e os ferimentos das batalhas do Obamacare. Para Trump, o fato dele jamais ter sido popular, tornando índices baixos de aprovação o padrão natural de sua presidência. 

 Para Biden, contudo, houve uma lua de mel normal, meses de índices de aprovação razoavelmente altos que terminaram apenas com a caótica retirada do Afeganistão, e desde então tem sido difícil condensar uma explicação para o que tem prejudicado sua popularidade. A economia está melhor do que no primeiro mandato de Obama, a inflação está baixando e a temida recessão não se materializou. As guerras lacradoras e as batalhas sobre a covid que prejudicaram os democratas não são mais fatores centrais, e as guerras culturais pós-Roe parecem um terreno mais amigável. A equipe de política externa de Biden tem defendido a Ucrânia sem uma escalada perigosa com os russos (até aqui), e Biden alcançou até legislações bipartidárias, cooptando promessas trumpistas sobre política industrial no caminho. Isso criou uma mistificação entre democratas sobre por que tudo isso não é suficiente para dar ao presidente uma vantagem decente nas pesquisas. Eu não compartilho dessa mistificação. 

Mas acredito que há uma incerteza real a respeito de quais são as forças mais importantes prejudicando os índices de Biden. Comecemos com a teoria de que os problemas de Biden ainda decorrem principalmente da inflação — que as pessoas simplesmente odeiam ver os preços aumentando e que o presidente não recebe crédito por evitar a recessão porque os aumentos de salários foram consumidos pela inflação até recentemente. Se for esta a questão principal, a Casa Branca não terá muitas opções além de paciência. O pecado original inflacionário do governo, o gasto excessivo no Plano Americano de Resgate Econômico, não se repetirá, e exceto pela possibilidade de um armistício na Ucrânia aliviar parte da pressão sobre os preços do gás, não há muitas outras alavancas políticas a se acionar. 

A esperança tem de ser que a inflação continue a baixar, os salários reais aumentem consistentemente e, em novembro de 2024, Biden receba o crédito que não está recebendo agora pela condição da economia. Um afastamento do centro Mas talvez não seja só a economia. Em várias pesquisas Biden parece estar perdendo apoio de eleitores de minorias, continuando uma tendência da era Trump. Isso levanta a possibilidade da existência de um repuxo para os democratas em relação a temas sociais, no qual mesmo que lacração não seja frontal e central, o fato de que o núcleo ativista do partido está posicionado tão à esquerda gradualmente empurra afro-americanos e hispânicos culturalmente conservadores para o Partido Republicano — num movimento muito parecido com o de democratas brancos conservadores que vaguearam gradualmente para a coalizão republicana entre os anos 60 e 2000. Bill Clinton conteve temporariamente esse movimento rumo à direita comprando brigas públicas com facções à sua esquerda. 

Mas a estratégia de Biden não é esta. Ele se moveu um pouco para a direita em temas como imigração, no qual a visão de políticas do progressismo vai mal. Mas Biden não faz alarde sobre suas diferenças com o flanco progressista. Eu não espero que isso mude — mas isso pode estar lhe cobrando de maneiras um tanto invisíveis para os progressistas neste momento. Um presidente idoso Ou talvez o grande problema seja apenas a ansiedade latente sobre a idade de Biden. Talvez seus índices de aprovação despencaram primeiro na crise do Afeganistão porque a retirada americana evidenciou o absentismo público que com frequência caracteriza sua presidência. 

Talvez alguns eleitores assumam agora que um voto por Biden é um voto na desafortunada Kamala Harris. Talvez exista simplesmente um vigor intensificado em campanhas presidenciais que dê vantagem a Trump. Em qualquer caso, um líder diferente com as mesmas políticas poderia ser mais popular. Sem nenhuma maneira de elevar um líder assim, porém, tudo o que os democratas podem fazer é pedir para Biden mostrar mais vigor público, com todos os riscos que isso pode implicar. Pelos menos é uma — espécie de — estratégia. 

O problema mais difícil para Biden abordar poderá ser o tormento da depressão privada e do pessimismo geral que paira sobre os americanos, especialmente os mais jovens, que foi piorado pela covid mas parece arraigado em tendências sociais mais profundas. Eu não vejo nenhuma maneira óbvia de Biden tratar dessa questão por meio de algum posicionamento normal. Eu não recomendaria atualizar o “discurso do mal-estar” de Jimmy Carter com a terminologia terapêutica do progressismo contemporâneo. E também não considero que o presidente seja o político adequado para travar uma cruzada contra o desarranjo digital ou algum arauto do reavivamento religioso. Biden elegeu-se, em parte, definindo a si mesmo como uma figura transicional, uma ponte para um futuro mais jovial e otimista. 

Agora ele precisa de alguma crença generalizada nesse futuro melhor para ajudá-lo a reeleger-se. Mas onde quer que os americanos venham a encontrar esse otimismo, nós provavelmente passamos bastante do ponto em que um presidente de aparência decrépita poderia esperar ser capaz de, ele próprio, gerá-lo. / TRADUÇÃO DE GUILHERME RUSSO

sexta-feira, 5 de agosto de 2022

Viktor Orban: o novo chefe da extrema-direita mundial - Ishaan Tharoor (The Washington Post)

 

Orban at CPAC brings the ‘far-right international’ into focus

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas on Aug. 4. (LM Otero/AP)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas on Aug. 4. (LM Otero/AP)

By Ishaan Tharoor
with Sammy Westfall 

The Washington Post, August 5, 2022

“The globalists can go to hell,” thundered Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “I have come to Texas.”

He was delivering what was essentially the opening keynote of the four-day Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas — the preeminent convening organization of the American right-wing movement. The conference Orban helped kick off will conclude in part with a speech from former president Donald Trump. And the message the Hungarian leader sent was one that united Republican anger at “liberal hegemony” with his own narrative of illiberal triumph.

 

In his remarks, Orban laid out the clearest platform yet for what some analysts have dubbed “the far-right international,” a notional alliance between far-right and ultranationalist parties on both sides of the Atlantic. He trumpeted his hard-line stances against immigration, his staunch Christian nationalism, his opposition to “gender ideology” and his indifference to those who view his quasi-autocratic rule as a threat to democracy in the heart of Europe.

Orban made no bones about his contempt for U.S. Democrats and the supposed liberal media. “They hate me and slander me and my country as they hate you and slander you,” Orban said of Democrats at CPAC. “We should unite our forces.”

“We must take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels … we must coordinate the movements of our troops because we face the same challenges,” Orban added, gesturing to the upcoming U.S. midterm and presidential elections and European parliamentary elections in 2024. “These two locations will define the two fronts in the battle being fought for Western civilization. Today, we hold neither of them. Yet we need both.”

 

Orban chose to gloss over the outcry that followed a major speech he made last month. Just across the border in neighboring Romania, in a picturesque town home to a considerable ethnic Hungarian population where Orban delivers an annual address, he warned, among other things, that Europeans must not “become peoples of mixed race.”

 

From his perch in Transylvania, Orban summoned the spectral menace of racist ideologies that have long haunted Europe. One long-term Orban adviser, Zsuzsa Hegedus, tendered her resignation with a letter that described Orban’s speech as “a pure Nazi text worthy of Goebbels,” and the “racist” culmination of an increasingly “illiberal turn.” (She later backtracked, appearing to echo Orban’s defenders that his remarks were misconstrued. You can read an English translation of his speech here.)

Orban supporters say that he was speaking principally about simply limiting migration and preserving European “civilization.” Even then, he used hopelessly bad historical analogies to make his claim, styling Hungary as a modern-day bulwark against Muslim encroachment as it was in supposedly fending off the Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna in 1683. In truth, the Ottoman army had myriad Christians in its camp, including thousands of Hungarian peasants marshaled by the Hungarian Protestant nobleman Imre Thokoly.

Whatever the case, Orban’s rhetoric now is a sign of an ideologue who is increasingly unrestrained on the world stage. “It’s one thing for Orban to drop words such as ‘replacement’ into his speeches — a dog whistle to white supremacists and their ‘Great Replacement Theory,’ but seemingly innocuous to other people,” wrote Andreas Kluth for Bloomberg Opinion. “It’s another to give speeches that sound like passages of the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935.”

Was it “an accidental slip?” Kluth pondered. “Or a sign of growing confidence, signaling a clearer line in future?”

No matter the geopolitical feebleness of Hungary in its own right, Orban and his allies see themselves as standard bearers for an illiberal future. “We do hope that you can learn from us the political mind-set how to be a successful conservative, as we also learn from you, and from Ronald Reagan,” Miklos Szantho, director of the Center for Fundamental Rights, a Hungarian think tank believed to be funded by Orban’s government, said at a CPAC gathering organized in Budapest in May. “As he put it so many years ago, ‘We win, they lose.’ That is what the Hungarian right has done.”

Big elections are around the corner — from the United States to Italy, where a party whose origins are rooted directly in Italy’s fascist past may soon lead a new governing coalition, to Brazil, where embattled far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is already echoing Trump’s falsehoods over the threat of a stolen election.

In February, Bolsonaro visited Orban in Hungary and celebrated the “affinities” they shared and “values ​​that we represent, which can be summarized in four words: God, homeland, family and freedom.” That motto, noted Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, echoed the slogans of Italian fascists in the 1920s and ’30s, which were imported by their Brazilian counterparts and also given voice by the right-wing Portuguese dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar.

None of these observations or criticisms seem to check Orban and his ilk. On Thursday, he returned the favor, casting the West’s “liberal progressives” as the successors of totalitarian communism. “We have seen what kind of future the globalist ruling class has offered,” he said. “But we have a different future to offer.”

 

What is that future? I explored that in a three-part series earlier this year on Orban’s political impact on U.S. Republicans, many of whom admire his dismantling of Hungary’s media establishment, his war on LGBT rights and his aggressive attempts at boosting his country’s birthrates. They are quieter about — though possibly still supportive of — his bending of the country’s judiciary and erosion of European democratic norms.

“This is the desire to build an ‘illiberal international’: a world shaped by the kind of politics that eschews the rules-based international order, liberal democratic norms, and transparency; institutions, and norms that currently make it possible for the European Commission to sanction Orban’s government and for the West to sanction Putin’s Russia,” wrote Andras Toth-Czifra, a Hungarian expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

“By hitching themselves to someone who has put himself forward as a post-liberal intellectual, I think American conservatives are starting to give themselves permission to discard liberal norms,” Lauren Stokes, a historian at Northwestern University, told the New Yorker for a lengthy piece on Orban’s American appeal published in June.

“When a Hungarian court does something Orban doesn’t like — something too pro-queer, too pro-immigrant — he can just say, ‘This court is an enemy of the people, I don’t have to listen to it,’ ” she added. “I think Republicans are setting themselves up to adopt a similar logic: if the system gives me a result I don’t like, I don’t have to abide by it.”

“In order to win, it is not enough to know what you’re fighting for,” Orban told the CPAC crowd on Thursday. “You should also know how you should fight: My answer is play by your own rules.” That’s a message the Republicans appear to be hearing loud and clear.