DONALD TRUMP

Washington Times -  The battle over the border wall is heating up as the Biden administration sells off materials, seemingly defying the plans of President-elect Donald Trump, who has asked a federal court for an “immediate stop” to the sales to ensure he can restart building the wall next year. Mr. Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, said Biden officials may even be engaged in “a criminal act” if they are selling the materials at cut-rate prices in order to thwart Mr. Trump’s plans. Republicans on Capitol Hill have also weighed in, demanding the current administration explain the current sales and come clean about past auctions that have dumped wall materials at incredible discounts.

Daily Beast - President-elect Donald Trump apparently wants to make another play to take control of Greenland—an autonomous region of Denmark that by all accounts isn’t for sale—even after a disastrous attempt during his first term created a diplomatic firestorm.[Trump said]  “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

The statement comes more than five years after Trump first floated the idea of buying Greenland in what he bizarrely described at the time as “essentially a real-estate deal.” In fact, the Danish constitution protects Greenland’s autonomy and would need to be amended if Denmark wanted to sell, which so far hasn’t been the case.

 

MSNBC - Trump’s attack on the so-called Canada subsidy appears to be a reference to the U.S. trade deficit with its northern neighbor. A trade deficit means that the U.S. has purchased more goods and services from Canada than Canada has purchased from the U.S.; the U.S.-Canadian deficit was over $50 billion in 2022.

There is nothing innately wrong with having a trade deficit with a trading partner. But Trump thinks of every interaction as a zero-sum game and believes that you’re either ripping someone off, or you’re the one getting ripped off. His view is at odds with the perspective of most economists that trade is mutually beneficial and mostly a positive-sum game. That isn’t to say that massive international trade flows don’t have costs for society — they can disrupt labor markets — but to look at differences in exports and imports with one country as a sign of “winning” or “losing”  is simply the wrong way to look at the entire enterprise of trade.