Washington Wednesday: Peace through trade

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 30th of July. This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

President Trump is back in Washington after a long weekend in the UK.

Back in July, President Trump extended the deadline for new trade deals to avoid higher tariffs. With the August 1st deadline looming, the White House has far to go, but has landed deals with major allies, including Japan and the 27-nation bloc of the European Union. Here’s Trump announcing the deal with EU President Ursula Von Der Leyen:

VON DER LEYEN: Indeed, basically the European market is open. It's 450 million people. So it's a good deal. It is a huge deal

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about this and other political stories of the week is Hunter Baker. He’s a political philosopher and World Opinions Contributor, and Provost at North Greenville University.

MAST: Hunter, good morning.

HUNTER BAKER, GUEST: Good morning.

MAST: Hunter, there’s a lot to discuss with these trade deals and what they mean for the U.S. and the President, but what stands out most to you?

BAKER: Well, Donald Trump took a huge risk when he came out with his Liberation Day announcement with these just almost crazy seeming tariff levels that he was setting for various nations around the world. And I think that some people were bemused by it. I think that some people were freaked out by it. We may all remember that our 401ks plunged there for a while as everyone reacted to the financial uncertainty. But really the president did not look good in that moment. I think even the people who were his allies in this were kind of shocked by that opening volley that he fired. But now we're a few months on the other side of that, and he is looking pretty good. mean, you know, he, now has a major deal with Japan, a major deal with Europe, or at least that's final kind of being finalized. That's going to put pressure on others. For example, South Korea, not to get left out in the cold, not to get a worse deal than say Japan gets. And so the simple fact is, that is that his strategy is beginning to look a lot less like chaos and a lot more like a success for this presidency.

MAST: I think it’s notable that a Wall Street Journal Opinions piece said this–and I’m paraphrasing–even if you don’t approve of Mr. Trump’s trade policy, there’s something to be learned here… other presidents have tried to get America’s allies to share more of the burden and open up their markets to American goods…and haven’t gotten anywhere.

I don’t think it’s unfair to say that this does feel different—seeing an American president so active and even dominant in international affairs…not something that happened in the four years prior. What do the president’s successes in the last few weeks say about the capacity, still, for America’s influence on the world stage?

BAKER: Well, the influence is being exerted in a different way. In the past, I think that we acted more like we had to be kind of the benevolent power, stabilizing Asia, stabilizing Europe, making deals that were favorable to them. A lot of that stuff sort of left over from our need to counter the Soviet Union. And now we have an American president who is basically just looking out for American interests in a very straightforward way. And it's the kind of thing that we have seen China do. mean, China has been flexing its muscles for years, basically saying to people, “If you want access to our markets, then you're going to make the following concessions.” And Donald Trump recognizing that the American economy is a behemoth on the world stage is saying, “If you want access to these markets, you're going to make deals that are more favorable for the United States.”

REICHARD: Adding on to that, Hunter, another story is that President Trump used trade negotiations to help broker a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia. Here’s Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim:

MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER ANWAR IBRAHIM: Prime Minister Hun Manet and Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai have expressed their positions and willingness for immediate ceasefire, immediate ceasefire, and return to normalcy. The United States President Donald J. Trump has been in contact with the leaders of both countries, urging the leaders to find peaceful resolution to the conflict.

This is one of several peace deals that President Trump has helped broker over both his terms in office… How central would you say peace is to Trump’s legacy?

BAKER: I think it's very big for him. I think that he recognizes, as have other American presidents, that being a peacemaker on the world stage is a key to being remembered well, to being thought of as a great president. You think about Jimmy Carter. His presidency didn't turn out all that well, but people still remember the Camp David Accords as a major achievement for him. And I think that Trump is highly conscious of that, and he's decided to put some of that muscle into the peace process and very appropriately for someone who leads the way he does by including trade as part of the incentive.

MAST: One area where peace seems impossible is in Gaza. I’m sure you’ve seen many of the images coming out of Palestinians holding out bowls for food, and headlines talking about starvation and famine.

Reporters in the UK asked President Trump if he agrees with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there is no starvation in Gaza.

TRUMP: Based on television I’d say not particularly, because those children look very hungry. But we’re giving a lot of money and a lot of food.

But Hunter, there are reports that images of at least one child portrayed as being a victim of starvation is actually suffering from health issues unrelated to malnutrition. Should knowing details like that change how we view images like these coming out of a warzone?

BAKER: Well, the first thing to say is that this is a tremendously complex situation. We don't have just sort of two powers that have a disagreement. There's a reason that the Israel-Palestine conflict has been enduring for decades upon decades and never seems to be solved. And that's in part because there are many, including Hamas, who say Israel has no right to exist, that it must be removed from the map. So you don't have just ordinary negotiations with someone who takes that kind of a position. So Israel can't just kind of let their guard down and deal in a more reasonable manner. There's a reason that they're so vigilant, but that complicates these kinds of things where they are reluctant to let others bring in supplies. They are reluctant for anything to happen that Hamas might be able to abuse or use against them. And that badly exacerbates the humanitarian situation. yes, what you've pointed out, different images that are used, there's been kind of a secondary war fought on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube of people trying to influence the way people think about this conflict. And we are all gonna have to become a lot more savvy and careful. And journalists are gonna have to do a tremendous job to help us all to understand what's really going on.

REICHARD: Before we started recording, you mentioned an article about a different kind of tribalism in the U.S. Tell us about it and how President Trump has influenced the political landscape?

BAKER: Yeah, so it's really interesting. There's a sort of a new political tribe study that's been done by Echelon Insights. And while we tend to think of Americans as kind of left and right or extreme left and extreme right, they have identified something more like 10 to 12 different tribes of people in the United States and sort of emphasizing what their different beliefs are. But the thing that we sort of havea coherence around something kind of like fiscal liberalism and social conservatism. Now, when I say social conservative, I don't think pro-life because, because we're not exactly winning there, but we're winning in, in other ways. And Americans are kind of starting to go for this thing, maybe influenced by Donald Trump a little bit, that is big government combined with more of a social conservatism, in other words, sort of resisting the progressive vanguard with things like human sexuality and having male athletes in female sports and things like that. But it's just a tremendous study that sort of gives you a sense of how complex the American political landscape has become.

MAST: Is there anything you can extrapolate or predict from that about the future of the political gridlock we’ve seen over the past several years?

BAKER: I think that there's a couple of things. I think that we are really kind of seeing the final unraveling of the Cold War. I think that the Cold War set our sort of our political camps for a long time and slowly but surely the impact of having that one major enemy on American politics has kind of washed away. And now we have different things that we're really focused on and that's what we're starting to see.

REICHARD: Wrapping up…Hunter, anything else you’re watching as we head into August?

BAKER: Yeah, the big thing I would say is that everybody is focused on the midterms, but they need to remember that the midterms are not until 2026. So there's a long way to go. Donald Trump is doing better in opinion polls than he did in his first term. And I suspect that if he continues to make good trade deals, if he has any success in rolling back deficits, and if we continue to have a strong economy, then he may have a chance of doing better in the midterms than a president has done in a long time. We'll see.

MAST: Hunter Baker is Provost of North Greenville University and writes on politics and culture for World Opinions. Hunter, thanks so much for your time!

BAKER: Thank you.

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