The Limits of a Pay to Play Foreign Policy

The Limits of a Pay to Play Foreign Policy

WASHINGTON — Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes. The third was a Republican donor with a controversial past in the Middle East as a private security contractor.

The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months — past the election and well into President Trump’s first year in office, according to several people with knowledge of their encounters.

Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump.

The company, which employed several Israeli former intelligence officers, specialized in collecting information and shaping opinion through social media.

Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election --- NY Times.

By J.M. Hamilton (5-28-2018)

Just when we thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, that our current administration is deep in bed w/ Russia, Russian oligarchs, and Putin... comes word from the NY Times, that Team Trump met w/ Gulf State emissaries on the eve of the 2016 election. 

Characters, such as the mercenary Erik Prince (aka Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos' brother), George Nader (representing the interests of Saudi and UAE princes), and Joe Zamel (a social media specialist, whose claim to fame appears to be manipulating voters & elections), met w/ Donald Trump Jr. w/in Trump Tower.  The story goes on to say that Donald Jr. responded "approvingly" of the plan put forth.  Moreover, Mr. Zamel was paid up to $2,000,000, post-election, by Mr. Nader (for what services are as of yet, unclear).

It goes w/out saying, it's against the law for foreign governments to involve themselves in US elections (hence the ongoing Mueller investigation).  But we would be naive - given the power of the US & how corrupt the domestic electoral process has become - to believe foreign governments aren't involved in this country's elections.  For that matter, US multinationals - many w/ balance sheets and income statements greater than that of some nation states, and w/ their own global foreign policies – have vested interests in election outcomes as well.  Needless to say, these foreign government & US multinational interests do not always align w/ the economic, fiscal, and foreign policy interests of the nation as a whole.  

The Saudis, and oil rich gulf monarchy states, profited immensely by Iraq & Iran oil sanctions, and the subsequent Iraq war... as oil production from the two sanctioned nations, for the most part, was taken off world markets.  Big Oil multinationals w/in the United States, along w/ defense contractors, and Wall Street banks also profited immensely from our continued martial involvement w/in the Middle East, the protection of Middle East oil assets, and the debt raised to support endless credit card wars.

There are limits to a "pay to play foreign policy", where US leadership (from both political parties) have allowed foreign governments to, arguably, utilize US military forces - as their proxy in the Middle East - to further their interests, as well as, enhance foreign & US multinationals’ bottom lines.

In a global economy... economic, foreign, and trade policy are inextricably linked.  Statecraft is a great deal like playing three-dimensional chess.  While the Trump Administration - which has recently shuffled its personnel, so that cabinet and staff members are more closely aligned w/ Trump’s thinking - appears to be playing a one-off game of checkers.  That is to say, everybody in this administration appears to be advancing their own private interests, at the expense of the nation, and thinking little about the consequences - intended or unintended – created by their actions.

Let's connect the dots.  Team Trump meets w/ the emissaries from some of the most horrific dictatorships on the planet on 2016 election eve (the usual suspects responsible for the spread of fundamentalist Islam & terrorism: Saudi Arabia and the UAE, w/ possible Qatar representation as well).  Shortly after the election, in his first foreign trip, Trump leads a US multinational junket to Saudi Arabia where deals & memorandums of understanding - worth hundreds of billions of dollars - are inked.  And we learn w/in the last week from Bloomberg that the President's son-in-law has an apparent conflict of interest, w/ indirect financing from Saudi Arabia/UAE, for one of Mr. Kushner's start up companies, Cadre.

And the quo for the quid…  POTUS Trump - who campaigned & promised to end Middle East involvement & failed nation building w/in the region - has kept the US military deeply imbedded in Middle East affairs (along w/ a continued role in Syria).  The administration continues to back the Saudis and their war crimes in Yemen with hardware & military support.  The President’s State Department has agreed to sell a billion in weapons systems to the Saudis.  And most recently, Mr. Trump tore up the Iranian nuclear agreement, which threatens to pull, daily, a million or more barrels of oil offline (at a time the global economy is humming and oil prices have been relatively subdued).

The Congress, per the usual, abdicates its responsibility to declare and govern war, and continues to allow Trump to conduct the aforementioned military operations under the auspices of the 9-11 AUMF.  Nearly two decades, post 9-11, the US is still running around the world fighting the same war, ostensibly a war on terror (with the terrorists, often, financed & funded by our so-called allies, the oil rich gulf monarchies). 

And, per the NY Times, a representative of the greatest sponsors of radical Islamic terror met in Trump Tower, with Donald Jr. - leading up to the 2016 election - to offer up their support. 

How very kind.

As for the intended consequences of POTUS' action - in tearing up the Iranian deal - well the price of oil predictably spiked.  This made Mr. Trump's oil monarchy benefactors, and US Big Oil concerns, very happy.  MIC stock too, received a boost on word of the announcement.  Wall St. banks had little to say, knowing that they would continue to cash-in on the prospects of additional debt issued to finance yet another possible war/regime change in the Middle East.

But someone appears to have forgotten to tell the POTUS of the unintended consequences of his actions. 

Namely:

Nearly every US recession - from the 70s forward - was proceeded by, or accompanied by, an oil price shock; many of these recessions were also accompanied by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates - after a period of accommodative monetary policy; the increase in the price of oil, per an economist writing in Project Syndicate, has already eliminated the paltry benefits of the Trump tax cuts for many Americans; the country's public and private sectors are up to their eyeballs in debt (as are many nations around the globe) – therefore, a recession would not be a good thing for the ability to service catastrophic debt loads; as reported in Bloomberg last week, derivative products - such as CLOs - are all the rage again (these derivative instruments were among the factors that set off the 2008 Financial crisis and the subsequent Great Recession); and finally, a recession before the 2018 midterms, or 2020 general election, would greatly diminish POTUS Trump's chances at reelection (not to mention possibly throw the House to the Dems, some of whom want to nail the President over the aforementioned election interference allegations).

Which might explain why the POTUS has told his friends at OPEC (the Saudis, et al.) to ramp up production.

  

Unfortunately, US foreign policy has been conducted with myopic thinking for many years, largely driven by powerful multinational commercial interests.  The results are credit card wars that have bankrupted the nation, failed nation building, global instability, and failed nation states.  Many Middle East citizens hate the United States, not due to religion, but because - hypocritically - we continue to back some of the nastiest dictatorships on the planet, who simply crush and oppress their citizenry.  These are the limits of a US foreign policy conducted on a pay to play basis, on a transactional basis.  A US foreign policy conducted w/out morals - or any historical perspective, or desire to clean up and address real problems - will continue to yield these results.

What did Saudi Arabia do in the face of Western condemnation over beheadings, jailing human rights protestors w/out due process, beatings, and treating women like chattel?  Despite the MBS world tour touting reforms, the Saudi regime didn't clean up its act, but instead - as reported by Amnesty International - they hired a public relations firm.  

A PR firm - plus assorted K Street lobbyist - and suddenly Washington leadership averts its eyes, and its business as usual.

On this Memorial Day weekend, perhaps the most repulsive thing of all - w/in the sea of sordidness we call US foreign policy - is the lip service US political leadership gives our fighting women & men.  Yet, despite campaign promises to bring our soldiers home, the wars continue unabated.  The US, and the West, continues to back and support terrorist states & dictatorships - whose hands are stained w/ the blood of our American heroes.  And the United States still continues to conduct pay to play foreign policy that places our fighting women and men in harms way for no good reason.  

Instead of real FP reforms, the US is treated to the spectacle of the NFL banning the First Amendment on the football field, as players take a knee to peacefully protest the killing of innocent blacks (NFL ownership action is at the instigation of a POTUS, who sadly, has manipulated silent black protest into a lack of support for US troops).  Arguably, the plight of minorities in this country, and the misuse of our fighting women & men, are the opposite sides of the same coin: a predatory elite abusing & dividing US citizenry for personal gain.

As a result of our pay to play foreign policy, some children will never know their mothers or fathers, who paid the ultimate price... so that Lockheed Martin can receive a bump in their stock price, or so that the Saudis can keep their terror kingdom afloat for another year (by selling an energy product that is both deadly and obsolete).

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2018