Betty MacDonald, the real persons and the agony

   


Hello 'Pussy' it's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Pippi Longstocking: 



The agony of you — well, one of the many agonies — is that there are times when you will actually do the right thing, or at least a defensible thing, and we’ll be left wondering, even more than we did with other presidents, about what your motivations were, whether they fit into any truly considered plan or whether your actions amount to the newest episode of a continuing reality show.

Do you have any idea why we feel so ashamed? I do!  

 
  
Should I remain in bed, leave my country or fight against the dragon?

( see also the story by Wolfgang Hampel, 
' Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say ' )

 

Betty and Don MacDonald in Hollywood

Betty MacDonald's mother Sydney with grandchild Alison Beck

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

we know all the 'real' persons in Betty MacDonald's books especially very strange Dorita Hess.

Betty MacDonald Fan Club members in 40 countries admire Wolfgang Hampel's fascinating stories, satirical poems and very witty interviews but also his brilliant friends.

I contributed a letter written by Betty MacDonald's fabulous grandmother Gammy.

The Betty MacDonald Fan Club Memorial Letter Collection is very interesting and includes the most important letters written by Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard Jensen, Sydney Bard, Gammy and many other members of the family.

It's a great feeling to be part of Betty MacDonald Fan Club.


Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel  told us that Betty MacDonald fan club research team does an excellent job in supporting him with his several Betty MacDonald projects especially an updated Betty MacDonald biography.

Betty MacDonald fan club event team is very happy to hear from you and they got some really great ideas for the next International event. 

Thanks a lot! 

You can join Eurovision Song Contest Fan Club on Facebook.

Join us, please. We have lots of fun and joy and had several International ESC meetings in the past. 


Vita Magica with Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Letizia Maninco was outstanding.

The audience enjoyed it very much.
 
Wolfgang Hampel's Vita Magica is  fascinating because he includes Betty MacDonald, other members of the Bard family and Betty MacDonald fan club honor members.

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli  and our 'Italian Betty MacDonald' - Betty MacDonald fan club honor member author and artist Letizia Mancino belong to the most popular Betty MacDonald fan club teams in our history.

Their many devoted fans are waiting for a new Mr. Tigerli adventure.

Letizia Mancino's  magical Betty MacDonald Gallery  is a special gift for our Betty MacDonald fan club fans. 

We'll have several International Betty MacDonald fan club events  in 2017.

Join us in voting for your favourite city, please. 

Wolfgang Hampel's  Vita Magica guest was a very famous TV lady, author and singer and she is our new Betty MacDonald fan club honor member.

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is our beloved Betty MacDonald fan club honor member.

I guess our Casanova adores our Betty MacDonald fan club honor member very much because author and TV moderator Tatjana Geßler is a very beautiful, charming and intelligent lady. 

Tatjana Geßler's books are outstanding. I've read several of them. 

Enjoy Betty MacDonald's very beautiful Vashon Island, please.

Great Betty MacDonald fan club news!

 

You can join 

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald Society

Vita Magica

 

on Facebook.

 

Thank you so much in advance for your support and interest.

If you join Betty MacDonald fan club blog as a follower during March you'll receive a very special Betty MacDonald fan club Welcome gift.

Send your email-address to our contact address, please. 


Great news!

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is back and his fans are delighted.

We'll have several International Betty MacDonald fan club events  in 2017. 

Don't miss Wolfgang Hampel's Vita Magica March, please. 

You'll enjoy it very much. 

You can see brilliant Brad Craft. 

"This is Me," by Bad Kid Billy. [Official Music Video]

Seems I'm in this for a hot second.  I remember being asked to participate one day on the street in front of the bookstore where I work.  I didn't think to ask what it was for, or even so much as the name of the song or the band.  Didn't want to be late coming back from lunch.  Silly bugger.  The very nice young woman with the green hair also featured herein happens to work at Magus Books.  She mentioned she'd seen me.  Told me the name of the band, and here we are.

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Monica Sone and other Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's new project 'Vita Magica'. 
 




We got very interesting new info for updated Betty MacDonald biography.

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are going to include all these new details and info in updated Betty MacDonald biography.

If you'd like to join Betty MacDonald fan club you only have to press the join button on Betty MacDonald fan club blog.

New Betty MacDonald fan club fans will receive a special Betty MacDonald fan club Welcome gift during April.  

Send us your email address to our contact address, please.


Wolfgang Hampel's Vita Magica February was outstanding and so was Vita Magica Betty MacDonald event with Wolfgang Hampel, Thomas Bödigheimer and Friedrich von Hoheneichen

 

We are going to publish some new Betty MacDonald fan club interviews  by Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel.

 

Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are working on an updated Betty MacDonald biography.
 

This very new Betty MacDonald biography includes all the results we got during a very successful Betty MacDonald fan club research which started in 1983.

You'll be able to find unique Betty MacDonald treasures in our Betty MacDonald biography.

Betty MacDonald biography includes for example interviews with Betty MacDonald, her family and friends.

We got many letters by Betty MacDonald and other family members even very important original ones.


Our goal is to publish a Betty MacDonald biography that shows all the details of Betty MacDonald's life and work but also to present her fascinating siblings.

Dear Betty MacDonald fan club fans let us know please what you are interested most in a future Betty MacDonald biography.  

Do you prefer an e-book or a so called real book?
 

Vita Magica by Wolfgang Hampel is really fascinating and very interesting.



Wolfgang Hampel and Friends of Vita Magica visited Minister of Science of Baden-Württemberg, Theresia Bauer in Stuttgart.

They visited Landtag and had a great time there.
 

Do you have any books by Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard Jensen with funny or interesting dedications? 

If so would you be so kind to share them?

Our next Betty MacDonald fan club project is a collection of these unique dedications.

If you share your dedication from your Betty MacDonald - and Mary Bard Jensen collection you might be the winner of our new Betty MacDonald fan club items.

Thank you so much in advance for your support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for sending us your favourite Betty MacDonald quote.

We are so glad that our beloved Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is back.

New  Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many new interviews.

Alison Bard Burnett and other Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's fascinating project Vita Magica.

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel interviewed Betty MacDonald's daughter Joan MacDonald Keil and her husband Jerry Keil.

This interview will be published for the first time ever.



New Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many interviews never published before.


We adore Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli 


Thank you so much for sharing this witty memories with us.

Wolfgang Hampel's literary event Vita Magica is very fascinating because he is going to include Betty MacDonald, other members of the Bard family and Betty MacDonald fan club honor members.

It's simply great to read Wolfgang Hampel's  new very well researched  stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett,  Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others.
 


Linde Lund and many fans from all over the world  adore this funny sketch by Wolfgang Hampel very much although our German isn't the best.

I won't ever forget the way Wolfgang Hampel is shouting ' Brexit '.

Don't miss it, please.

It's simply great!

You can hear that Wolfgang Hampel got an outstandig voice.

He presented one of Linde Lund's favourite songs ' Try to remember ' like a professional singer.

Thanks a million!

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli  and our 'Italian Betty MacDonald' - Betty MacDonald fan club honor member author and artist Letizia Mancino belong to the most popular Betty MacDonald fan club teams in our history.

Their many devoted fans are waiting for a new Mr. Tigerli adventure.

Letizia Mancino's  magical Betty MacDonald Gallery  is a special gift for Betty MacDonald fan club fans from all over the world.

Don't miss Brad Craft's 'More friends', please. 

Betty MacDonald's very beautiful Vashon Island is one of my favourites.

I agree with Betty in this very witty Betty MacDonald story  Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say by Wolfgang Hampel.

I can't imagine to live in a country with him as so-called elected President although there are very good reasons to remain there to fight against these brainless politics.

The agony of Donald Trump — well, one of the many agonies — is that there are times when he will actually do the right thing, or at least a defensible thing, and we’ll be left wondering, even more than we did with other presidents, about what his motivations were, whether they fit into any truly considered plan or whether his actions amount to the newest episode of a continuing reality show.

Such is the case with the strike against Syria, which is too big a risk in too complicated a place to be used for distraction, for diversion, for the pose he needs in the narrative du jour.

There’s justification for it, absolutely. President Obama had advisers who wished he’d done something similar, and there were Democrats aplenty — Hillary Clinton apparently among them — who found his restraint when it came to Syria and the regime of Bashar al-Assad to be infuriating, a surrender of America’s role and moral authority in the world.

But Trump’s military action makes little sense in the context of most of what he said in the years before he was elected and much of what he has done as president so far. Let me get this straight: Obama wasn’t supposed to draw or be drawn across a red line, not even when the Assad regime used chemical weapons, but when the regime did that on Trump’s watch, it crossed “many, many lines,” in his words, and compelled an American response?

I think the future dinosaur flatulence will be the behaviour of 'Pussy' and his very strange government.

Poor World!    Poor America! 

Don't miss these very interesting articles below, please. 



The most difficult case in Mrs.Piggle-Wiggle's career 







Hello 'Pussy', this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. 

You took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consultung the State Department. We have to change your silly behaviour with a new Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle cure. I know you are the most difficult case in my career - but we have to try everything.......................

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel sent his brilliant thoughts. Thank you so much dear Wolfgang!     

 Hi Libi, nice to meet you. Can you feel it?





I'm the most powerful leader in the world.




Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say

Copyright 2016 by Wolfgang Hampel

All rights reserved 


Betty MacDonald was sitting on her egg-shaped cloud and listened to a rather strange guy.

He said to his friends: So sorry to keep you waiting. Very complicated business! Very complicated!

Betty said: Obviously much too complicated for you old toupee!

Besides him ( by the way the  First Lady's place ) his 10 year old son was bored to death and listened to this 'exciting' victory speech. 

The old man could be his great-grandfather.

The boy was very tired and thought: I don't know what this old guy is talking about. Come on and finish it, please. I'd like to go to bed.

Dear 'great-grandfather' continued  and praised the Democratic candidate.

He congratulated her and her family for a very strong campaign although he wanted to put her in jail.

He always called her the most corrupt person ever and repeated it over and over again in the fashion of a Tibetan prayer wheel.

She is so corrupt. She is so corrupt.  Do you know how corrupt she is? 

Betty MacDonald couldn't believe it when he said: She has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.

Afterwards old toupee praised his parents, wife, children, siblings and friends. 

He asked the same question like a parrot all the time:

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
I know you are here!

Betty MacDonald answered: No Pussy they are not! They left the country.

They immigrated to Canada because they are very much afraid of the future in the U.S.A. with you as their leader like the majority of all so-called more or less normal citizens. 

By the way keep your finger far away from the pussies and the Red Button, please.


I'm going to fly with my egg-shaped cloud to Canada within a minute too.

Away - away - there is nothing more to say! 

Real vs. Ersatz

Daniel Mount wrote a great article about Betty MacDonald and her garden.

We hope you'll enjoy it very much.

I adore Mount Rainier and Betty MacDonald's outstanding descriptions

Can you remember in which book you can find it?

If so let us know, please and you might be the next Betty MacDonald fan club contest winner. 

I hope we'll be able to read Wolfgang Hampel's  new very well researched  stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett,  Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others - very soon.

It' s such a pleasure to read them. 

Let's go to magical Betty MacDonald's  Vashon Island.


Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund  and Betty MacDonald fan club research team share their recent Betty MacDonald fan club research results.

Congratulations! They found the most interesting and important info for Wolfgang Hampel's oustanding  Betty MacDonald biography.

I enjoy Bradley Craft's story very much.  

Don't miss our Betty MacDonald fan club contests, please. 
 
You can win a never published before Alison Bard Burnett interview by Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel. 

Good luck!  

This CD is a golden treasure because Betty MacDonald's very witty sister Alison Bard Burnett shares unique stories about Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard Jensen, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Nancy and Plum. 

Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald interviews have fans in 40 countries. I'm one of their many devoted fans. 

Many Betty MacDonald  - and Wolfgang Hampel fans are very interested in a Wolfgang Hampel CD and DVD with his very funny poems and stories.

We are going to publish new Betty MacDonald essays on Betty MacDonald's gardens and nature in Washington State.
 

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli   is beloved all over the World.

We are so happy that our 'Casanova'  is back.

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are going to share very interesting info on ' Betty MacDonald and the movie The Egg and I '. 

Another rare episode (from March 21 1952) of the short-lived comedy soap opera, "The Egg and I," based on best selling book by Betty MacDonald which also became a popular film.

The series premiered on September 3, 1951, the same day as "Search for Tomorrow," and ended on August 1, 1952. 

Although it did well in the ratings, it had difficulty attracting a steady sponsor. This episode features Betty Lynn (later known for her work on "The Andy Griffith Show") as Betty MacDonald, John Craven as Bob MacDonald, Doris Rich as Ma Kettle, and Frank Twedell as Pa Kettle.


Betty MacDonald fan club exhibition will be fascinating with the international book editions and letters by Betty MacDonald.
 
I can't wait to see the new Betty MacDonald documentary.

Enjoy a great breakfast at the bookstore with Brad and Nick, please.

Take care,

Astrid 

Don't miss this very special book, please.

you can join 

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald Society  

Vita Magica  

Eurovision Song Contest Fan Club 

on Facebook

Vita Magica Betty MacDonald event with Wolfgang Hampel, Thomas Bödigheimer and Friedrich von Hoheneichen

Vita Magica 

Betty MacDonald 

Betty MacDonald fan club 

Betty MacDonald fan club on Facebook

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( Polski)   

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - LinkFang ( German ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Academic ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel -  cyclopaedia.net ( German ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - DBpedia  ( English / German )

Wolfgang Hampel - people check ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Memim ( English )

Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD

Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I  

Betty MacDonald fan club groups 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund  

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Greta Larson

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist

The Riddle of Trump’s Syria Attack

Frank Bruni  

APRIL 7, 2017

 

President Trump making a statement about the bombing in Syria at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fl Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

The agony of Donald Trump — well, one of the many agonies — is that there are times when he will actually do the right thing, or at least a defensible thing, and we’ll be left wondering, even more than we did with other presidents, about what his motivations were, whether they fit into any truly considered plan or whether his actions amount to the newest episode of a continuing reality show.

Such is the case with the strike against Syria, which is too big a risk in too complicated a place to be used for distraction, for diversion, for the pose he needs in the narrative du jour.

There’s justification for it, absolutely. President Obama had advisers who wished he’d done something similar, and there were Democrats aplenty — Hillary Clinton apparently among them — who found his restraint when it came to Syria and the regime of Bashar al-Assad to be infuriating, a surrender of America’s role and moral authority in the world.

But Trump’s military action makes little sense in the context of most of what he said in the years before he was elected and much of what he has done as president so far. Let me get this straight: Obama wasn’t supposed to draw or be drawn across a red line, not even when the Assad regime used chemical weapons, but when the regime did that on Trump’s watch, it crossed “many, many lines,” in his words, and compelled an American response?

That’s a “dizzying turnabout,” as Blake Hounshell wrote in Politico, under the headline “Trump’s Syria Whiplash.” And I can’t square Trump’s statements over the last two days that the United States can’t stand by idly in the face of such grotesque suffering with his determination to bar those who suffer from being accepted as refugees into America. The babies prompt outrage and heartache when they’re writhing in Syria, but God forbid they come here.

And so two questions, loud and urgent: Why did he do this now? And, beyond that, who exactly is he?

The readiest answers unsettle me. It’s impossible to ignore the degree to which the military strike pushes a slew of unflattering stories about the Trump administration — its failed attempt to undo Obamacare, the feuding within its ranks and, above all, the probes into possible collusion between Trump’s associates and the Russian government — to the side of the page. Nothing drowns out scandal like the fire and fury of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The notion that military action salvages a president on the defensive, boldly underscoring his role as commander in chief, is nothing new. But there’s a fresh wrinkle in this case, because those bombs put Trump at particular odds with Russia at a moment when there’s enormous advantage in that.

Listen to the television commentators right now. Read the news. It focuses on present and looming tensions with Vladimir Putin, not the Putin-Trump kissy-face that’s been so appalling and fascinating to watch. It’s a whole new story.

What’s more, the quickness with which those missiles followed the Assad regime’s latest atrocity cast Trump in an emphatically decisive light. It’s precisely the look that he needs right now.

On Friday morning Mike Allen of Axios quoted an unnamed official in the Trump administration saying that White House aides were viewing this particular juncture — these last few days — as “leadership week,” because Trump was not only meeting with the Chinese president at Mar-a-Lago but had also stood tall at a lectern there on Thursday night, just after the strike against Syria, to utter these sweeping words: “God bless America and the entire world.”

To read Allen’s succinct account is to get the haunting sense that the administration isn’t talking about — or, for that matter, evaluating — the substance of what Trump did in Syria. The official is talking about a script that Trump is reading and a role that he’s playing. I fear that Trump is relishing that role too much, and that his enjoyment explains the turnabout. How shocking, really, was Assad’s use of chemical weapons against its citizens? He’s done it before. What’s changed is that Trump, not Obama, is now the one in position to send America’s missiles, flex America’s muscle and feel the titanic power of that.

That brings me back to the second of the two questions I asked earlier: Who is this president? Is he guided by any fixed philosophies or is he moved by moods and operating on whim? This, too, isn’t a concern singular to Trump’s presidency, but it’s a concern that’s amplified in Trump’s presidency, because his background is so unusual: no government experience, no military service, a hodgepodge of political positions and associations over time. On top of which, his performance on the campaign trail, in debates and in the White House has made clear, time and again, how woefully uninformed he can be and how blissfully untroubled by that he is.

A positive interpretation of these latest developments is that Trump is someone who’s willing to adjust to a deeper, fresher understanding of events, to pivot in accordance with circumstances, to learn and to evolve. Consistency can definitely be overrated. At times it’s just a euphemism for stubbornness.

But another take is that Trump isn’t just uninformed but unformed. And that’s not reassuring at all. As the week went on, there were more and more reports not just of tension in the White House between Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner but of extreme acrimony and outright warfare. The intensity of that collision reflects competing ideologies and sensibilities, yes, but it also speaks to the stakes.

The winner’s spoils aren’t merely influence over Trump, who, according to a report in The Times on Friday morning, tilts “one way or the other depending on the day, or even the hour.” The spoils, it seems, are the opportunity to mold him utterly, because nearly 80 days into his administration, he remains a wet piece of clay.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@FrankBruni) and join me on Facebook.
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Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF  ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles 

perfect Partners

How Trump Can Improve the Messy U.S.-Chinese Economic Relationship

Neil Irwin @Neil_Irwin 

APRIL 6, 2017

 

China’s president, Xi Jinping, will meet with President Trump in Florida for two days starting Thursday. His last state visit in the U.S. was in September 2015 (above). Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The United States and China are locked in a mutually dependent, frequently dysfunctional economic partnership. The world’s biggest and second-biggest economies are like a married couple that complain about each other constantly yet can’t even contemplate a divorce.

The marriage enters a new phase Thursday, as President Xi Jinping of China visits for two days of meetings at the Florida estate of a president who made China a punching bag on the campaign trail.

The question is whether President Trump can turn his bellicose language into concrete gains for American companies and workers. A look at the economics of the relationship between the nations, and conversations with former officials with battle scars from past negotiations, shows a path for getting a better deal.

That path to success may not include the kind of flashy, headline-generating announcements that the Trump administration has tended to celebrate.

It’s not about the currency (for now)

In February, Mr. Trump called China the “grand champions at manipulation of currency.” During the campaign, too, he frequently assailed China for artificially reducing the value of the renminbi to favor its companies versus American and other competitors.

It is a view that is outdated. For years, China did intervene in financial markets to depress the value of its currency. But now it is intervening to keep the yuan from falling — actually doing the opposite of what Mr. Trump alleged. Economists generally think that the Chinese currency is close to the levels that would be set by purely market forces.

That doesn’t mean currencies shouldn’t come up at Mar-a-Lago. This moment of relative peace between the countries on currency policy could be the ideal time to develop an understanding for the future.

“I think currency is still an issue, but it doesn’t make sense to discuss it under the rubric of manipulation,” said Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “China is managing its currency; it’s just that it’s managing it right now in a way that is relatively advantageous to the United States. That understanding of how China intends to manage its currency in the future remains a top-order issue.”

In other words, Mr. Trump could use this moment not to beat China over the head about what happened in the past, or where things stand today, but to develop an agreement on what it will do in the future, if a day comes when market forces start pushing the yuan upward.

Focus on the causes of the trade deficit, not the number

Mr. Trump has similarly assailed the United States trade deficit with China and other countries, often characterizing it as a scorecard, evidence that China is winning at trade and the United States losing, to the tune of $310 billion a year.

The reality is more nuanced. The persistent trade deficit is indeed problematic, but that’s because of the factors that drive it and the imbalances they cause to build. Simply targeting a lower trade deficit could well leave both American and Chinese workers worse off, if carried out the wrong way. For example, a trade war that significantly reduces American imports from China while also reducing American exports to China would reduce the trade deficit but would mean lower incomes and fewer jobs in both countries.

The U.S.-China trade imbalance is indeed driven in part by trade barriers that China enacts against American companies, including a 25 percent tariff on imported automobiles and various quotas and restrictions that reduce agricultural imports. If Mr. Trump can persuade China to loosen those restrictions, it might close the trade deficit by increasing American exports — the healthy kind of trade rebalancing.

But the trade gap isn’t driven just by the details of trade arrangements. It is also driven by the flow of capital between countries. To oversimplify, when a company sells more abroad than it buys, it has to do something with that money.

The flip side of a current account deficit, as an economist might put it, is a capital account surplus. China’s trade imbalances are a function not only of its trade practices, but also of its very high levels of savings, which are in turn invested around the world.

For China to change that, it would have to change the very structure of its economy: away from savings and big-ticket infrastructure investments, and toward consumer demand — including for products made both domestically and abroad.

If the Trump administration really wants the trade deficit with China to come down over time, it’s not enough to look at only one side of the international economic ledger — flows of goods — while ignoring the flow of capital.

In practice, this would mean making demands on some issues that might seem like purely domestic concerns only tangentially related to trade. That might include pushing China to allow more troubled state-owned enterprises to fail, so that their accumulated profits might be spread through the Chinese economy instead of funneled toward the purchase of foreign assets. A more generous pension system might spur demand among older Chinese citizens.

If China allowed global financial companies more access to its market, it could both encourage more domestic spending and give a major American industry an opportunity it has long sought.

Use leverage carefully

President Trump prides himself on being a dealmaker, and his negotiating style is to lay out extreme requests in order to work back to agreement. But resetting economic relations with China will prove trickier than any real estate deal.

One of the fundamental realities of the relationship is that while neither side is wholly comfortable with how it works, these are big, powerful countries that can’t be easily swayed by what a country on the other side of the Pacific Ocean wants to happen. The leverage that each side has to deploy is limited — at least so long as neither country is willing to shoot itself in the foot.

So, for example, in trying to get more favorable Chinese treatment of American goods and services, the standard menu of carrots Mr. Trump has to offer for compliance is relatively modest. China wants things like United States membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that it started, and support for its “One Belt, One Road” program to build better transportation infrastructure stretching from Southeast Asia to Europe.

Bigger Chinese goals, like achieving “market economy” status in the World Trade Organization, are likely to be nonstarters unless the country makes major progress on allowing international companies better access to its market.

The United States could conceivably have more negotiating leverage by threatening punitive tariffs or other aggressive measures, as Mr. Trump did during his campaign, but those actions are just as likely to produce a painful blowback from China that damages the United States.

Then there are noneconomic issues, which invariably could shape the contours of economic relationships.

“In the Obama administration, China was a good citizen cooperating with us on Iran sanctions and on climate change, which I think made it hard for the U.S. to contemplate anything that harsh in the trade arena,” said David Dollar, a former Treasury Department official in Beijing and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “You could have something similar if the Trump administration wants China to cooperate more on North Korea. That could be hard to turn around and be harsh on them in the economic realm.”

Be patient, and don’t get distracted by baubles

Mr. Trump likes to announce big splashy deals, and given that the Chinese are looking for places to invest their capital in the United States, it would be easy enough to find something along those lines to announce.

But in the context of the two giant economies, that kind of thing is small bore. This flawed economic relationship has been building for a long time, and the fixes are unlikely to come overnight.

“Mr. Trump ought to pick the right fights rather than focus on issues that resonate with his political base but which are unlikely to help U.S. economic interest in either the short term or long run,” said Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell and author of “Gaining Currency,” a book about China’s role in global finance.

It’s unlikely that the first meeting between the new president and the Chinese leader will resolve issues that have been building for years or even decades. Rather, those who have worked in diplomacy advise looking beyond the current headlines to make progress on lowering Chinese trade barriers, increasing its domestic savings and committing not to return to the days of manipulating its currency lower.

When you’re talking about commerce between two superpowers, things don’t change overnight.

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A version of this article appears in print on April 6, 2017, on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: The Messy State of U.S.-China Ties: What Trump Can Do. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Trump Removes Stephen Bannon From National Security Council Post

By PETER BAKER, MAGGIE HABERMAN and GLENN THRUSH 

APRIL 5, 2017

 

Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's chief strategist, at the White House on Monday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — For the first 10 weeks of President Trump’s administration, no adviser loomed larger in the public imagination than Stephen K. Bannon, the raw and rumpled former chairman of Breitbart News who considers himself a “virulently anti-establishment” revolutionary out to destroy the “administrative state.”

But behind the scenes, White House officials said, the ideologist who enjoyed the president’s confidence became increasingly embattled as other advisers, including Mr. Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, complained about setbacks on health care and immigration. Lately, Mr. Bannon has been conspicuously absent from some meetings. And now he has lost his seat at the national security table.

In a move that was widely seen as a sign of changing fortunes, Mr. Trump removed Mr. Bannon, his chief strategist, from the National Security Council’s cabinet-level “principals committee” on Wednesday. The shift was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, who insisted on purging a political adviser from the Situation Room where decisions about war and peace are made.

Mr. Bannon resisted the move, even threatening at one point to quit if it went forward, according to a White House official who, like others, insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Mr. Bannon’s camp denied that he had threatened to resign and spent the day spreading the word that the shift was a natural evolution, not a signal of any diminution of his outsize influence.

His allies said privately that Mr. Bannon had been put on the principals committee to keep an eye on Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, a retired three-star general who lasted just 24 days before being forced out for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about what he had discussed with Russia’s ambassador. With Mr. Flynn gone, these allies said, there was no need for Mr. Bannon to remain, but they noted that he had kept his security clearance.

“Susan Rice operationalized the N.S.C. during the last administration,” Mr. Bannon said in a statement, referring to President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. “I was put on the N.S.C. with General Flynn to ensure that it was de-operationalized. General McMaster has returned the N.S.C. to its proper function.”

Document: Stephen Bannon Is Removed From Top National Security Council Post

Mr. Bannon did not explain what he meant by “operationalized” or how his presence on the committee had ensured it would not be.

It was one more drama in a White House consumed by palace intrigue, where officials jockey for the ear of the president, angle for authority and seek to place blame for political defeats. Even as Mr. Bannon lost a national security credential, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, seems to be acting as a shadow secretary of state, visiting Iraq and taking on China, Mexico and Middle East portfolios.

Mr. Bannon’s many enemies, inside and outside the White House, celebrated what they saw as a defeat for his brand of fiery, nationalist politics.

“He didn’t belong on the principals committee to begin with — doesn’t really belong in the White House at all,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I hope that this is a sign that McMaster is taking control of the National Security Council.”

Karl Rove — who, as senior adviser to President George W. Bush, was not allowed to join national security meetings — said it was a move back to a better process. “It was wrong for him to be added in the first place, and it was right to take him off,” he said.

Even if Mr. Bannon really was removed only because there was no longer a need for someone to mind Mr. Flynn, Mr. Rove added, the end result was a victory for General McMaster. “It’s either a sign of McMaster’s strength, or the result is it strengthens McMaster,” he said.

Still, Mr. Bannon, who has been under attack from outside the administration since the early days of the transition, is a crafty survivor, and insiders warned that it would be a mistake to underestimate him. When General McMaster wanted to fire a staff member, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Mr. Bannon intervened to save his job.

Mr. Cohen-Watnick had alerted colleagues that Mr. Trump’s associates had been caught up in surveillance of foreigners, information then shown by another White House official to Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian meddling in last year’s election.

James Jeffrey, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Bush, said General McMaster appeared to have “scored one on the presumably more powerful Bannon,” but cautioned against reading too much into what it meant for Mr. Bannon. “He seems to be very close to the president and, by most accounts, still wins many of his battles,” Mr. Jeffrey said.

From the start, General McMaster intended to revamp the National Security Council organization that he inherited from Mr. Flynn. The principals committee, which is led by the national security adviser and includes the vice president, secretary of state, defense secretary and others, is the primary policy-making body deciding questions that do not rise to the level of the president and framing those that do.

The initial structure approved by Mr. Trump not only gave Mr. Bannon formal membership on the committee, but also downgraded the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence to occasional participants as issues demanded.

In addition to removing Mr. Bannon, the new order issued by Mr. Trump, dated Tuesday and made public on Wednesday, restored the Joint Chiefs chairman and intelligence director and added the energy secretary, C.I.A. director and United Nations ambassador. It also put the Homeland Security Council under General McMaster rather than making it a separate entity, as Mr. Trump’s original order had done.

Mr. Trump was angry over the fallout from his first order, feeling that he had not been properly warned about its implications. He briefly considered reversing it the same weekend it was announced, according to a person with direct knowledge, but decided against it for fear of creating more of a public storm.

For the first two months of Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Bannon occupied an unassailable perch at the president’s side — ramming through key elements of his eclectic and hard-edge populist agenda, including two executive orders on freezing immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries. Mr. Trump viewed Mr. Bannon as a street-fighting kindred spirit who favored his own attack-when-attacked communications strategy.

But blunders by Mr. Bannon’s team — especially the first immigration order, which was rejected by multiple courts — have undermined his position. His take-no-prisoners style was not a winning strategy on Capitol Hill, and Mr. Bannon declined to take a significant part. Experienced politicians, including Mr. Pence and Mr. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, stepped into more expansive roles as negotiations over the failed health care overhaul dragged on.

Mr. Trump initially supported Mr. Bannon’s take-it-or-leave-it final message to holdouts in the House Freedom Caucus. But, needing a win, the president grew skeptical and authorized Mr. Pence to resume health care talks, with Mr. Bannon playing more of a supporting role, according to three people close to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Bannon has also been at odds with Gary Cohn, the president’s national economics adviser. Mr. Cohn is close with Mr. Kushner, who has said privately that he fears that Mr. Bannon plays to the president’s worst impulses, according to people with direct knowledge of such discussions.

Moreover, Mr. Bannon’s Svengali-style reputation has chafed on a president who sees himself as the West Wing’s only leading man. Several associates said the president had quietly expressed annoyance over the credit Mr. Bannon had received for setting the agenda — and Mr. Trump was not pleased by the “President Bannon” puppet-master theme promoted by magazines, late-night talk shows and Twitter.

Yet there is a risk for Mr. Trump in appearing to minimize Mr. Bannon, a hero to the nationalist, anti-immigration base that helped drive Mr. Trump to an Electoral College victory. With his approval ratings at historic lows for so early in a presidency, he is counting on the same people who see Mr. Bannon as their champion — just as Mr. Bannon is counting on Mr. Trump to retain his place in the White House inner circle.

Follow Peter Baker at @peterbakernyt and Maggie Haberman at @maggienyt
Jeremy W. Peters, Emmarie Huetteman and Mark Landler contributed reporting.

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A version of this article appears in print on April 6, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline:

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist

Trump’s Gifts to China

Roger Cohen 

APRIL 4, 2017

 

Magazines in Beijing on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, before President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, D.C. Credit Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press

SINGAPORE — The United States meets China this week in a position of weakness. Since taking office, Donald Trump has handed China a strategic gift by abandoning a trade pact designed to offset Chinese power in the region, been obliged to grovel after offending China over Taiwan, and turned President Xi Jinping of China into an unlikely poster boy for climate change concern and an open global trading system.

So much for the art of the deal; to Asian nations like Singapore worried about China’s aggressive territorial expansion in the South China Sea, American policy under Trump has looked more like a blink-first exercise.

Now Trump — having given the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, the full Mar-a-Lago - is obliged to give Xi the same at his Florida resort. (Angela Merkel, merely the German chancellor, need not apply.)

Top of the Florida menu is North Korea and how far China will help Trump in rolling back Kim Jong-un’s nuclear and missile program. The thousands of acres of new land built by China in the form of artificial islands or expanded reefs in the Spratly Islands off the coast of the Philippines — an extraordinary act of lawless territorial expansionism — will also be part of the discussions. Then of course there’s bilateral trade and Trump’s unhappiness with the $347 billion U.S. deficit last year — although with North Korea’s belligerent Kim now in a position to hit Japan, that feels like a manageable irritant in the symbiotic U.S.-Chinese economic entanglement.

China will not satisfy the United States on North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said “strategic patience” is over. But what does that mean? A pre-emptive American strike is nearly unthinkable given Kim’s ability to blow up Seoul. It sounds like what the Trump administration has specialized in: bluster. The Trump foreign policy doctrine: Shout loud and carry a little stick. When Trump tells The Financial Times that he can “totally” solve North Korea without China’s help, everyone shrugs at his saber-rattling.

China has leverage over Kim, but its “strategic patience” with him is infinite. Its priority is the survival of the totalitarian regime as a buffer. The dictator is China’s insurance against a nuclear-armed united Korea at its doorstep. Millions of North Koreans flooding over its border in the event of a regime collapse is the last thing China wants.

To Trump’s demands to deliver Kim, China is likely to shrug. Especially if the president (unlikely scenario) does what he should and tells Xi that China’s artificial-island push for regional dominance in the South China Sea is unacceptable.

In the long run any effective North Korea policy will probably have to begin with acceptance that denuclearization is no longer possible and stringent curtailment of Kim is the best bet. Diplomacy is a word that Trump might usefully add to his vocabulary.

For countries from Vietnam to Singapore, its absence has been alarming. Trump’s decision to rip up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious free-trade arrangement including many countries in the region but not China, was reckless. China’s pressure on Singapore to choose between the United States and Beijing — something Singapore rightly refuses to do — is typical of the increasingly heavy-handed Chinese regional approach. With the T.P.P. dead, China is emboldened.

Already last year it had impounded some Singaporean military vehicles to signal impatience with Singapore’s close relations with Taiwan. It has also been critical of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore when he raises concerns over China’s South China Sea aggrandizement. For the Chinese, “silence is golden” when it comes to all that new land for runways, radars and the like in waters far from its shore. But for Singapore, the sea is its lifeline. It cannot stay quiet; and it needs offsetting American power in Asia to keep those sea-lanes open.

Here we get to the nub of what should be on the Trump-Xi agenda. As Razeen Sally, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, told me: “In the end it’s about free people and open societies. Are we going to have more or less of that in this part of the world? That is why more Chinese domination in Asia would be so ominous.”

But of course the Trump foreign policy is an experiment in a valueless, transactional approach to the world from which the American idea has been stripped.

Anthony Miller, an American businessman in Japan, wrote to me recently about a meeting with a senior Japanese university official who had asked him why Japan should align itself with America if there is no longer “a mutual belief in democracy, free trade and liberal values.” Miller concluded of Trump: “The damage he is doing to the underpinnings of liberal democracy is tremendous.”

When Lee, the Singapore prime minister, called Trump in early December he mentioned the free trade agreement between the United States and Singapore. The then president-elect, I was told, had no idea of its existence. Nor did Trump know that the United States has a trade surplus with Singapore.

Unpreparedness is bad. It’s worse when combined with bluster and recklessness. That’s why China is winning.

You can follow me on Twitter (@NYTimesCohen) or join me on Facebook.
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Trump Tries to Deflect Russia Scrutiny, Citing ‘Crooked Scheme’ by Obama

By PETER BAKER and MATTHEW ROSENBERG 

APRIL 3, 2017

 

President Trump on Friday. He unleashed a series of Twitter posts on Monday, claiming once again that the Obama administration spied on him, and he attacked Hillary Clinton. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump sought to turn attention away from the Russia investigation on Monday, saying that “the real story” was what he called a “crooked scheme against us” by President Barack Obama’s team to mine American intelligence reports for information about him during last year’s presidential campaign.

The president’s broadside against his predecessor coincided with a string of reports in conservative news media outlets that Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, requested the identities of Americans who were cited in intelligence reports about surveillance of foreign officials, and who were connected with Mr. Trump’s campaign or transition.

Former national security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the requests as normal and said they were justified by the need for the president’s top security adviser to understand the context of reports sent to her by the nation’s intelligence agencies.

The process of “unmasking” Americans whose names are redacted in intelligence reports, they said, is not the same thing as leaking them publicly.

But Mr. Trump and his allies seized on the news media reports to bolster his case that he was targeted by the departing administration for political reasons. As the F.B.I. and congressional committees investigate contacts that associates of Mr. Trump had with Russian officials and business figures, the president argued that he was the victim of dirty tricks and that, if anything, it was associates of his defeated opponent, Hillary Clinton, who were doing the bidding of Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia.

“Such amazing reporting on unmasking and the crooked scheme against us by @foxandfriends,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter early Monday morning in the opening burst of four messages aimed at Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats. “‘Spied on before nomination.’ The real story.”

In another post on Twitter later in the morning, he added: “@FoxNews from multiple sources: ‘There was electronic surveillance of Trump, and people close to Trump. This is unprecedented.’ @FBI”

At his daily briefing later in the day, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said he would not discuss the reports about Ms. Rice specifically. “There’s a troubling direction that some of this is going in, but we’re going to let this review go on before we jump to it,” he said.

He chided reporters for showing more interest in the investigation into contacts between Mr. Trump’s team and Russia than in the conduct of Mr. Obama’s White House.

Mr. Trump first accused Mr. Obama a month ago of tapping his phones at Trump Tower during the campaign last year. He has refused to back down, even though Mr. Obama and his top aides have adamantly denied it. The F.B.I. director and the former director of national intelligence have said the phone tapping charge is not true, and congressional leaders of both parties have said they have seen no evidence of it.

In an interview broadcast on BBC on Monday evening, John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director under Mr. Obama, chided Mr. Trump for making an unsubstantiated allegation against the former president. Mr. Trump, he said, has “a solemn obligation” to provide information “that is accurate, that is measured and that is not just a spontaneous or impulsive number of words.”

While other officials have said there is no convincing evidence so far of collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russian officials who meddled in last year’s election, Mr. Brennan said that “it would be premature at this time to make any determination, or rule anything out.” At the same time, he agreed with Mr. Trump about the seriousness of leaks to the news media in recent weeks. “These leaks are appalling,” he said. “They need to stop.”

In trying to combat what Mr. Trump’s aides see as a concerted campaign of leaks to undermine his legitimacy, the White House last month provided intelligence to Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, showing that the president or his associates may have been “incidentally” swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies last year. Since Mr. Nunes made that public, Mr. Trump’s team has focused on whether Mr. Obama’s White House improperly used that information.

Republicans pointed to the reports about Ms. Rice on Monday. “Smoking gun found!” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, wrote on Twitter. “Obama pal and noted dissembler Susan Rice said to have been spying on Trump campaign.”

Intelligence officials are supposed to guard the privacy of Americans caught up in routine eavesdropping of foreign officials. In daily intelligence reports to officials like Ms. Rice, they typically refer to Americans who came up in recorded conversations as U.S. Person One or U.S. Person Two. But high-ranking officials, as Ms. Rice was, can ask intelligence briefers to provide names to better understand the meaning of the report.

It remains unclear how many names were unmasked by Ms. Rice. But several former officials said she did so for legitimate reasons: The Obama White House was concerned during the election about continuing attempts by the Russian government to hack Democratic email accounts and interfere in the campaign. Ms. Rice, they said, needed to understand if Americans were involved in that.

They also said Mr. Obama’s advisers worried during the transition — as he imposed sanctions on Russia for its election meddling — that the Trump transition team was trying to undermine American policy before coming to office.

The content of the intelligence reports at issue remains unclear. Some officials have said the reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle before his inauguration.

The former national security officials’ description of the intelligence is in line with Mr. Nunes’s characterization of the material, which he said was not related to the Russia investigations when he disclosed its existence.

The White House and Mr. Nunes have not made clear whether they are concerned that actual names had been unmasked in reports, or whether one could tell who the person being discussed was from their context.

But at least one name is known to have been unmasked: Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser. He was selected for that post during American surveillance of Russia’s ambassador in December, when the two talked about the sanctions Mr. Obama had just imposed on Moscow.

Mr. Flynn was forced out in February after it emerged that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of the calls. But Mr. Trump and other White House officials have suggested that the real problem in the Flynn case involved the leaks about his calls with the Russian envoy, not the content of the calls themselves — or what Mr. Flynn did or did not tell colleagues about his communications.

Intelligence agencies are permitted to record calls even if they involve Americans, and any American citizen who talks with, messages or emails a foreign official under surveillance would be picked up by intelligence agencies. During the transition, this would have included Trump associates and even Obama administration officials.

Follow Peter Baker on Twitter at @peterbakernyt.
Adam Goldman contributed reporting.

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A version of this article appears in print on April 4, 2017, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Tries to Deflect Russia Scrutiny, Citing a ‘Crooked Scheme’ by Obama. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist

Trump Is Wimping Out on Trade

Paul Krugman APRIL 3, 2017

 

President Trump before signing two executive orders in the Oval Office on Friday. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

During the campaign, Donald Trump talked loudly and often about how he was going to renegotiate America’s “horrible trade deals,” bringing back millions of good jobs. So far, however, nothing has happened. Not only is Trumpist trade policy — Trumptrade? — nowhere to be seen in practice; there isn’t even any indication of what it will involve.

So on Friday the White House scheduled a ceremony in which Mr. Trump would sign two new executive orders on trade. The goal, presumably, was to counteract the growing impression that his bombast on trade was sound and fury signifying nothing.

Unfortunately, the executive orders in question were, to use the technical term, nothingburgers. One called for a report on the causes of the trade deficit; wait, they’re just starting to study the issue? The other addressed some minor issues of tariff collection, and its content apparently duplicated an act President Obama already signed last year.

Not surprisingly, reporters at the event questioned the president, not about trade, but about Michael Flynn and the Russia connection. Mr. Trump then walked out of the room — without signing the orders. (Vice President Mike Pence gathered them up, and the White House claims that they were signed later.)

The fiasco perfectly encapsulated what’s looking more and more like a failed agenda.

Business seems to have decided that Mr. Trump is a paper tiger on trade: The flow of corporate relocations to Mexico, which slowed briefly while C.E.O.s tried to curry favor with the new president, has resumed. Trade policy by tweet, it appears, has run its course.

Investors seem to have reached the same conclusion: The Mexican peso plunged 16 percent after the election, but since Inauguration Day it has recovered almost all the lost ground.

Oh, and last week a draft proposal for revising the North American Free Trade Agreement circulated around Congress; instead of sweeping changes in what candidate Trump called the “worst trade deal” ever signed, the administration appears to be seeking only modest tweaks.

This surely isn’t what working-class Trump supporters thought they were voting for. So why can Trumpist trade policy be summarized — to quote The Times’s Binyamin Appelbaum — as “talk loudly and carry a small stick”? Let me give two reasons.

First, back when Mr. Trump was railing against trade deals, he had no idea what he was talking about. (I know, you’re shocked to hear that.)

For example, listening to the Tweeter-in-chief, you’d think that Nafta was a big giveaway by the United States, which got nothing in return. In fact, Mexico drastically cut its tariffs on goods imported from the U.S., in return for much smaller cuts on the U.S. side.

Or take Mr. Trump’s repeated claims that China gains a competitive advantage by manipulating its currency. That was true six years ago, but it’s not true now. These days China is actually intervening to keep its currency up, not down.

Talking nonsense about trade didn’t hurt Mr. Trump during the campaign. But now he’s finding out that those grossly unfair trade deals he promised to renegotiate aren’t all that unfair, after all, leaving him with no idea what to do next.

Which brings me to Trumptrade’s second big obstacle: Whatever you think of past trade agreements, trade is now deeply embedded in the economy.

Consider the case of automobiles. At this point it makes little sense to talk about a U.S. auto industry, a Canadian auto industry or a Mexican auto industry. What we have instead is a tightly integrated North American industry, in which vehicles and components crisscross the continent, with almost every finished car containing components from all three nations.

Does it have to be this way? No. Slap on 30 percent tariffs, and after a few years those national industries would separate again. But the transition would be chaotic and painful.

Economists talk, with considerable justification, about the “China shock”: the disruptive effect on jobs and communities of the rapid growth of Chinese exports from the 1990s through 2007. But reversing globalization now would produce an equally painful “Trump shock,” disrupting jobs and communities all over again — and would also be painful for some of the big corporate interests that, strange to say, have a lot of influence in this supposedly populist regime.

The point is that at a deep level Trumptrade is running into the same wall that caused Trumpcare to crash and burn. Mr. Trump came into office talking big, sure that his predecessors had messed everything up and he — he alone — could do far better. And millions of voters believed him.

But governing America isn’t like reality TV. A few weeks ago Mr. Trump whined, “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” Now, one suspects, he’s saying the same thing about trade policy.

Read my blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, and follow me on Twitter, @PaulKrugman.
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A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 3, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Is Wimping Out on Trade. Today's Paper|Subscribe

SundayReview | Op-Ed Columnist

Trump Needs a Brain

Ross Douthat APRIL 1, 2017

 

President Donald Trump at The White House on Friday. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

THE series of columns I’ve been writing lately, floating implausible proposals for an ideologically unstable age, has been a useful way of avoiding the depressing subject of the Trump administration’s first 100 days — because really, in the face of such incompetence and chaos, what is there to say?

But precisely because this administration seems so hopeless, any constructive advice for the Trump White House automatically falls into the category of implausible ideas. So I can continue my ongoing series while also talking about Donald Trump — by proposing, as this week’s unlikely-to-happen proposal, that our president should go out and get himself a brain.

I do not mean a vat-grown cerebral cortex cooked up in some underground anti-aging lab funded by Silicon Valley immortalists … though I gather those may be soon available as well. I mean a brain in the sense that people (unkindly, but not inaccurately) used the term to describe Bill Kristol when he was the aide-de-camp to Vice President Dan Quayle 25 years ago: a person, or better a group of persons, who can tell Trump what specific policies he ought to support.

Because a core weakness of this White House, more devastating (for now) than the pugilistic tweets and permanent swirl of scandal, is the absence of anyone who seems to have thought through how one might translate Trumpism, the populist nationalism on which the president campaigned, into substantive policy on any specific issue except a temporary visa freeze.

The dearth of Trumpists in official Washington was always going to be a major problem for this administration, both in staffing the White House and in negotiating with Congress. But it’s been worse than anticipated, because Trump himself doesn’t know what he wants to do on major issues and there’s nobody in his innermost circle who seems to have a compelling vision that might guide him.

A certain Steve Bannon — perhaps you’ve heard of him — was supposed to help Trump figure all this out, perhaps with an assist from Michael Anton, the once-pseudonymous pro-Trump essayist now ensconced in the National Security Council. But there’s little evidence that either man’s policy vision has advanced much beyond, “The conservative movement has failed, let’s try something else.” Bannon seems to have been particularly useless during the health care negotiations, encouraging Trump to work with the Freedom Caucus one day and trying to bully them the next, while throwing out various critiques of the Paul Ryan bill that didn’t point toward anything coherent.

It was probably unreasonable to expect a sixtysomething whose life experience is all in media and Hollywood to suddenly turn into a one-man think tank, no matter how many French far-right agitators he name-drops. But a think tank is basically what Trump needs: a small brain trust committed to figuring out what parts of the mainstream G.O.P. vision he should support and what heterodoxies it makes sense for him to champion, so that he isn’t stuck governing on the Heritage Foundation’s austerity budgets while his friends outside the administration urge him to expand Medicaid.

Some Trump supporters — the folks behind the new journal American Affairs, most notably — are trying to play that role already. But they’re getting going slowly; Trump needs something sooner, faster, now. He needs, in effect, a think tank inside the White House: a small group, separate from the process-oriented Domestic Policy Council, whose only task is to brief the president regularly on how Trumpist premises should shape any given legislative deal.

The way things are going, there won’t be many such deals struck. But this brain trust would have a longer-term purpose, too: It would be assigned to build up an easy-to-explain agenda that Trumpish candidates could run on in 2018, that Trump could champion if he tries to triangulate between Ryan and the Democrats, and that the president could campaign on when he runs for re-election. (Aren’t you excited for 2020, dear reader?)

Who might staff it? The people involved with American Affairs would be candidates, but I would also look to other dissident-conservative publications like The American Conservative, junior (that is, not yet set in their views) staff at places like Heritage and the American Enterprise Institute, lesser known right-leaning outfits like the Institute for Family Studies, and the offices of creative populists like Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Possible brain trusters might include figures like F. H. Buckley, the George Mason law professor and Trump speechwriter who recently urged the president to come out for single-payer; Mickey Kaus, the once-liberal blogger turned Trumpista; and Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, author of a forthcoming book on Reagan’s populism.

All of this assumes that Trump cares about Trumpism as something more than a grift, and that he can accept advice and counsel in a sustained way, without changing his mind the instant someone makes a different case. As I said, it’s a deeply implausible idea.

But so is every solution to this White House’s struggles — and we’ve still got most of four years left to go.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 2, 2017, on Page SR9 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Needs a Brain. Today's Paper|Subscribe

 

In the Garden: A Welcome Sign of Spring

By Charles Kidder

 

Perhaps the first plant I could recognize and name as a child was the daffodil, a welcome sight and fragrance after a long New York winter. And although native to the Mediterranean, daffodils (Narcissus species) have been in Virginia since at least the middle of the seventeenth century.

Beginning in the 1890s, Gloucester County became a center of daffodil production for much of the eastern United States. Much of this revolved around “wild” or naturalized daffodils that were cut and shipped north. By the middle of the twentieth century, this industry was rapidly dying off for a variety of reasons. But Gloucester County still has one daffodil breeder of note and continues to celebrate its floral heritage with the Daffodil Festival on the last weekend of March. More on that later.

The various Narcissus species, hybrids and cultivars are commonly referred to as either daffodils, jonquils or even simply narcissus, the latter especially when referring to the paper whites commonly forced indoors. The term jonquil is commonly used in certain regions for any daffodil, but technically refers only to one group that has narrow reed-like foliage. The various daffodils are divided into 13 divisions—or 12, if you believe some sources—that are based on flower shape and heritage. For example, Division 1 daffodils are called Trumpets, since the central portion or trumpet is quite long. Regardless of division, colors range from yellow to white, perhaps with some pink or orange in the trumpets. If you seek out specialty nurseries, hundreds of cultivars are available.

All daffodils have similar cultural requirements. As for the amount of sun they want, the more the better. Part sun, or about six hours per day, is sufficient, but less sun than that will lead to reduced blooming, even though the plants may soldier on for a long time. And sunlight in a deciduous woodland does not really count as full sunlight. As for soil, good drainage is important to avoid bulb rot. If your soil is unusually sodden, either amend it with gravel or put daffodils in a raised bed.

Daffodil bulbs should be planted at a depth equal to about three times their diameter, so a two-inch bulb should be six inches deep. Six inches is also a good distance between bulbs. Farther apart and they lose visual impact; closer, and they will require division sooner. Bulbs will look funny planted like soldiers in a straight line, so if you have ten bulbs, better to either plant them in two groups of five, or in a staggered double row. If you are planting a very large number, you can avoid an overly orderly appearance by picking up a handful and tossing them to the general area in which you wish to plant.

There are any number of “new, improved, back-saving!!” bulb planters out there. Use whatever works best for you, which might just be an ordinary trowel or even a garden shovel. And remember: nothing says you have to plant one bulb at a time. You can take a spade and dig up a good-sized hole with one or two punches, and then throw in three to five bulbs. For even larger areas, a rototiller might be the quickest option. And do the bulbs have to be pointy-side up? That’s the ideal, but the shoot will always get turned around and pointed toward the sky anyway. If you’re in a hurry, ensuring that the bulbs are at least on their side would be a good compromise.

Amending your soil with compost will definitely give your daffodils a boost, but there’s no need to fertilize when planting—which of course is not now, but in mid-to-late fall. In very early spring, a balanced fertilizer—about 5-5-5 or 10-10-10 is best—should be sprinkled around the plants just as their foliage emerges. (You can also do this in the fall, but that assumes you’ll remember where your daffodils are!) And speaking of feeding your daffodils, we all know what to do with their foliage, which is there to provide nutrients for the bulb, right? Doing nothing is perfectly okay. Or when the foliage turns yellow and lies on the ground, you can throw some mulch on it if the sight offends you. Do not cut the foliage off while it’s still green or tie it up in cutesy knots! That prevents movement of nutrients down to the bulb; plus, it takes a lot of valuable gardening time.

But back to Gloucester County. The annual Daffodil Festival takes place on the last weekend of March and includes the usual attractions: a parade, a queen, entertainers, a race, a car show, and of course, daffodils. (A full schedule is available on the county’s website. There’s also a link to the history of daffodil farming in this corner of Virginia.) On Saturday they will be running frequent buses over to Brent and Becky’s Bulbs for tours and shopping. Brent and Becky Heath own a business that has been in the family for several generations, at one time operating as the Daffodil Mart. Although they now sell many other types of bulbs, daffodils are still a specialty, with over 200 varieties available.

Once planted, daffodils tend to naturalize, meaning they spread slowly, but never seem to become invasive. Part of their secret to longevity might be their poisonous nature: deer and other critters don’t bother them, so you can enjoy your host of daffodils for many years.

 

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

we share a very special gift by beloved and very popular Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor member Letizia Mancino.

We know you'll enjoy it as much as we do.

Thanks a Million, dear Letizia Mancino.

You are an outstanding writer and artist.

We are so proud and happy to have you with us.

Letizia writes: One should not underestimate Wolfgang Hampel’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty MacDonald’s friends.

We agree. Thank you so much dear Wolfgang Hampel for doing this. You founded Betty MacDonald Fan Club with four members.

Now we have members in 40 countries around the world. A dream came true.

Mary Holmes did an excellent job in translating this great story. 

Thank you so much dear Mary Holmes. 

We are really very grateful.

All the best to Letizia, Wolfgang and Mary and to all Betty MacDonald Fan Club fans from all over the world!

Lenard 





Following in Betty’s footsteps in Seattle:

or some small talk with Betty

Copyright 2011/2016 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
translated by Mary Holmes

We were going to Canada in the summer. “When we are in Edmonton”, I said to Christoph Cremer, “let’s make a quick trip to Seattle”. And that’s how it happened. At Edmonton Airport we climbed into a plane and two hours later we landed in the city where Betty had lived. I was so happy to be in Seattle at last and to be able to trace Betty’s tracks!

Wolfgang Hampel had told Betty’s friends about our arrival.
They were happy to plan a small marathon through the town and it’s surroundings with us. We only had a few days free. One should not underestimate Wolfgang’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty’s friends, even though it was holiday time. E-mails flew backwards and forwards between Heidelberg and Seattle, and soon a well prepared itinerary was ready for us. Shortly before my departure Wolfgang handed me several parcels, presents for Betty MacDonald's friends. I rushed to pack the heavy gifts in my luggage but because of the extra weight had to throw out a pair of pajamas!

After we had landed we took a taxi to the Hotel in downtown Seattle. I was so curious to see everything. I turned my head in all directions like one of the hungry hens from Betty’s farm searching for food! Fortunately it was quite a short journey otherwise I would have lost my head like a loose screw!
Our hotel room was on the 22nd floor and looked directly out onto the 16-lane highway. There might have been even more than 16 but it made me too giddy to count! It was like a glimpse of hell! “And is this Seattle?” I asked myself. I was horrified! The cars racing by were enough to drive one mad. The traffic roared by day and night.
We immediately contacted Betty MacDonald's friends and let them know we had arrived and they confirmed the times when we should see them.

On the next morning I planned my first excursion tracing Betty’s tracks. I spread out the map of Seattle. “Oh dear” I realized “the Olympic Peninsula is much too far away for me to get there.”
Betty nodded to me! “Very difficult, Letizia, without a car.”

“But I so much wanted to see your chicken farm”

“My chickens are no longer there and you can admire the mountains from a distance”

But I wanted to go there. I left the hotel and walked to the waterfront where the State Ferry terminal is. Mamma mia, the streets in Seattle are so steep! I couldn’t prevent my feet from running down the hill. Why hadn’t I asked for brakes to be fixed on my shoes? I looked at the drivers. How incredibly good they must be to accelerate away from the red traffic lights. The people were walking uphill towards me as briskly as agile salmon. Good heavens, these Americans! I tried to keep my balance. The force of gravity is relentless. I grasped hold of objects where I could and staggered down.
In Canada a friend had warned me that in Seattle I would see a lot of people with crutches.

Betty laughed. “ It’s not surprising, Letizia, walking salmon don’t fall directly into the soft mouth of a bear!”
“ Betty, stop making these gruesome remarks. We are not in Firlands!”

I went further. Like a small deranged ant at the foot of a palace monster I came to a tunnel. The noise was unbearable. On the motorway, “The Alaskan Way Viaduct”, cars, busses and trucks were driving at the speed of light right over my head. They puffed out their poisonous gas into the open balconies and cultivated terraces of the luxurious sky- scrapers without a thought in the world. America! You are crazy!
“Betty, are all people in Seattle deaf? Or is it perhaps a privilege for wealthy people to be able to enjoy having cars so near to their eyes and noses to save them from boredom?”

“When the fog democratically allows everything to disappear into nothing, it makes a bit of a change, Letizia”

“ Your irony is incorrigible, Betty, but tell me, Seattle is meant to be a beautiful city, But where?”
I had at last reached the State Ferry terminal.

“No Madam, the ferry for Vashon Island doesn’t start from here,” one of the men in the ticket office tells me. ”Take a buss and go to the ferry terminal in West Seattle.”
Betty explained to me “The island lies in Puget Sound and not in Elliott Bay! It is opposite the airport. You must have seen it when you were landing!”
“Betty, when I am landing I shut my eyes and pray!”

It’s time for lunch. The weather is beautiful and warm. Who said to me that it always rains here?
“Sure to be some envious man who wanted to frighten you away from coming to Seattle. The city is really beautiful, you’ll see. Stay by the waterfront, choose the best restaurant with a view of Elliott Bay and enjoy it.”
“Thank you Betty!”
I find a table on the terrace of “Elliott’s Oyster House”. The view of the island is wonderful. It lies quietly in the sun like a green fleecy cushion on the blue water.
Betty plays with my words:
“Vashon Island is a big cushion, even bigger than Bainbridge which you see in front of your eyes, Letizia. The islands look similar. They have well kept houses and beautiful gardens”.

I relax during this introduction, “Bainbridge” you are Vashon Island, and order a mineral water.

“At one time the hotel belonging to the parents of Monica Sone stood on the waterfront.”
“Oh, of your friend Kimi!” Unfortunately I forget to ask Betty exactly where it was.

My mind wanders and I think of my mountain hike back to the hotel! “Why is there no donkey for tourists?” Betty laughs:

“I’m sure you can walk back to the hotel. “Letizia can do everything.””

“Yes, Betty, I am my own donkey!”
But I don’t remember that San Francisco is so steep. It doesn’t matter, I sit and wait. The waiter comes and brings me the menu. I almost fall off my chair!
“ What, you have geoduck on the menu! I have to try it” (I confess I hate the look of geoduck meat. Betty’s recipe with the pieces made me feel quite sick – I must try Betty’s favourite dish!)
“Proof that you love me!” said Betty enthusiastically “ Isn’t the way to the heart through the stomach?”

I order the geoduck. The waiter looks at me. He would have liked to recommend oysters.
“Geoduck no good for you!”
Had he perhaps read my deepest thoughts? Fate! Then no geoduck. “No good for me.”
“Neither geoduck nor tuberculosis in Seattle” whispered Betty in my ear!
“Oh Betty, my best friend, you take such good care of me!”

I order salmon with salad.

“Which salmon? Those that swim in water or those that run through Seattle?”

“Betty, I believe you want me to have a taste of your black humour.”

“Enjoy it then, Letizia.”
During lunch we talked about tuberculosis, and that quite spoilt our appetite.
“Have you read my book “The Plague and I”?”

“Oh Betty, I’ve started to read it twice but both times I felt so sad I had to stop again!”

“But why?” asked Betty “Nearly everybody has tuberculosis! I recovered very quickly and put on 20 pounds! There was no talk of me wasting away! What did you think of my jokes in the book?”

“Those would have been a good reason for choosing another sanitorium. I would have been afraid of becoming a victim of your humour! You would have certainly given me a nickname! You always thought up such amusing names!” Betty laughed.

“You’re right. I would have called you “Roman nose”. I would have said to Urbi and Orbi “ Early this morning “Roman nose” was brought here. She speaks broken English, doesn’t eat geoduck but she does love cats.”

“Oh Betty, I would have felt so ashamed to cough. To cough in your presence, how embarrassing! You would have talked about how I coughed, how many coughs!”

“It depends on that “how”, Letizia!”

“Please, leave Goethe quotations out of it. You have certainly learnt from the Indians how to differentiate between noises. It’s incredible how you can distinguish between so many sorts of cough! At least 10!”

“So few?”

”And also your descriptions of the patients and the nurses were pitiless. An artistic revenge! The smallest pimple on their face didn’t escape your notice! Amazing.”

“ I was also pitiless to myself. Don’t forget my irony against myself!”

Betty was silent. She was thinking about Kimi, the “Princess” from Japan! No, she had only written good things about her best friend, Monica Sone, in her book “The Plague and I”. A deep friendship had started in the hospital. The pearl that developed from the illness.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Betty, that an unknown seed can make its way into a mollusk in the sea and develop into a beautiful jewel?” Betty is paying attention.

“Betty, the friendship between you and Monica reminds me of Goethe’s poem “Gingo-Biloba”. You must know it?” Betty nods and I begin to recite it:


The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.

Is it one living thing.
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?

The friendship with Monica is like the wonderful gingo-biloba leaf, the tree from the east. Betty was touched. There was a deep feeling of trust between us.
“Our friendship never broke up, partly because she was in distress, endangered by the deadly illness. We understood and supplemented each other. We were like one lung with two lobes, one from the east and one from the west!”
“A beautiful picture, Betty. You were like two red gingo-biloba leaves!”

Betty was sad and said ” Monica, although Japanese, before she really knew me felt she was also an American. But she was interned in America, Letizia, during the second world war. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Betty, I never knew her personally. I have only seen her on a video, but what dignity in her face, and she speaks and moves so gracefully!”

“Fate could not change her”

“Yes, Betty, like the gingo-biloba tree in Hiroshima. It was the only tree that blossomed again after the atom bomb!”

The bill came and I paid at once. In America one is urged away from the table when one has finished eating. If one wants to go on chatting one has to order something else.
“That’s why all those people gossiping at the tables are so fat!” Betty remarks. “Haven’t you seen how many massively obese people walk around in the streets of America. Like dustbins that have never been emptied!” With this typically unsentimental remark Betty ended our conversation.

Ciao! I so enjoyed the talk; the humour, the irony and the empathy. I waved to her and now I too felt like moving! I take a lovely walk along the waterfront.

Now I am back in Heidelberg and when I think about how Betty’s “Princessin” left this world on September 5th and that in August I was speaking about her with Betty in Seattle I feel very sad. The readers who knew her well (we feel that every author and hero of a book is nearer to us than our fleeting neighbours next door) yes we, who thought of her as immortal, cannot believe that even she would die after 92 years. How unforeseen and unexpected that her death should come four days after her birthday on September 1th. On September 5th I was on my way to Turkey, once again in seventh heaven, looking back on the unforgettable days in Seattle. I was flying from west to east towards the rising sun.

 



 

Is this Mr. Tigerli?