July 4th was America’s Independence Day. It was also the day that Trump signed his Big Beautiful Bill. And it was the day that flash floods in Texas left At least 100 dead and more than 160 still missing.
As the flood waters started to recede the blame game began, and it is clear that Trump’s cuts are playing a major part in the disaster.
At first it was thought that cuts in the National Weather Service were responsible. But it turns out that the meteorologists did accurately predict the storm and sent out the necessary warnings.
The problem was the police did not receive the warnings in time to react. This was because the weather service employee in charge of coordinating communications between police and the NWS was gone. He had been forced into early retirement by Elon Musk’s Department for Government Efficiency and had not been replaced.
On top of that, the search and rescue teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency could not respond to the disaster because Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (who is in charge of FEMA) had decreed that any expenditure over $100,000 required her personal approval. Noem didn’t sign off on the deployment of FEMA teams until 72 hours after the floods.
Both Trump and Noem have said they want to completely scrap the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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Japan is having a difficult time understanding Donald Trump. They thought that the purpose of tariffs was to increase investment in American industry.
So, when Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met Trump at the White House in February he pledged to increase Japanese investment in the US from $783 billion to a staggering $1 trillion. This would, Ishiba believed, encourage Trump to go easy on Japan when it came to tariffs.
It didn’t work. Trump this week imposed a new 25 percent tariff on most Japanese goods. He announced a similar tariff on South Korea and a host of other countries are reeling from the impact of tariffs ranging from 25 to 50 percent. The worst affected was Brazil.
But the Japanese really did think they were a special case. After all, when Ishiba and Trump met they expressed their “unwavering commitment” to the Japanese-American relationship. Japan is the biggest foreign investor in the US and the key building block in America’s Pivot to Asia. Surely Trump would not jeopardise that.
No, Trump announced on Truth Social that Japan was guilty of “unfair trading practices” In particular, the Japanese were unwilling to buy American cars and rice. The US president said that the Japanese were “spoiled” and added that despite seven rounds of talks a trade deal was “unlikely”
Trump’s tariffs are a major blow to the world’s third largest economy which shrunk by 0.2 percent in the last quarter.
Japan has already been hit hard by Trump’s first round of “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. The value of Japanese exports to the US has dropped by 11.2 percent in April, May and June. Their biggest export—cars—fell by 8.2 percent in April alone.
Trump’s new tariffs could not have come at worst time domestically for the government. A general election is scheduled for July 20 and all the polls indicate strong opposition to compromise on tariff negotiations. In fact, they show a strong anti-American bias.
Windmills and solar panels v. black gold. Green technology v. fossil fuels. China v. The United States.
Yes, China is now the leader in the development of green technology. Its coal-fired power stations are still polluting the atmosphere. But the Chinese are leading the pack when it comes to electric cars, battery technology and solar panels.
President Biden hoped to don the green mantle. But Donald Trump is a petrol head. America is now the world’s largest producer of oil and gas and Trump wants to exploit that by denouncing climate change and pushing for countries to continue their dependence on fossil fuels.
Japan and South Korea, for instance, are being pressed by Trump to invest trillions in a project to ship American natural gas to Asia. And General Motors just killed plans to build a new plant in Buffalo devoted to the production of electric cars. Instead GM is sinking $888 million into the Buffalo factpry to build V8 engines.
According to Trump, America’s position as the world’s number one fossil fuel producer will lead to an “Era of American energy dominance.” China has limited oil and gas resources. So it is investing heavily in renewables and believes that this will lead to an era of Chinese energy dominance.
China already dominates production of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and batteries. It has nearly 700,000 clean energy patents, more than half of the world’s total.
Beijing is also taking steps that could make it hard for other countries, particularly the United States, to catch up. In April the Chinese restricted the export of rare earth minerals unless they are already inside fully assembled products.
The US used to lead the world in green technology. America created the first practical silicon photovoltaic cells in the 1950s and the first rechargeable lithium batteries in the 1970s. The world’s first wind farm was built in New Hampshire half a century ago.
The Chinese two decades ago realised that their heavy use of coal was creating unsustainable pollution problems and that if they switched to oil and gas they would become dependent on the US and Middle East. Hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies was provided by the government for the development of green technology industries.
The result is a domestic economy which is becoming daily less dependent on fossil fuels and at the same leading the world in the export of renewable energy products. China’s green tech customers include oil-producing giant Saudi Arabia, which has bought the solar panels for the world’s largest solar energy farm. Alongside the farm will be built the world’s largest battery-storage project.
The US and China both see energy independence as essential for national security. But they also understand that supplying other countries with energy is a vital way to project power.
At the moment, the US is clearly in the lead as 80 percent of the world’s energy is still based on fossil fuels. But that proportion is expected to decline. The International Energy Agency forecasts that by 2050 fossil fuels will fall below 60 percent of global energy needs. China is positioned to take that new business.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”
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7 Comments
Might it be that the power groups in the U. S. A., internally and externally, are unreliable?
Might it be that a bi-polar, China and the U. S. A. (alphabetical order) world will present the rest of the world with relationships choices?
Might non-military competition between the U.S..A and China (reverse alphabetical order) encourage both to me more reliable and more efficient?
Sadly, nothing will persuade Trump to be more reliable and efficient. The only way forward for the rest of the world is to stop trading with the USA altogether until such time as it has a sane president who believes climate change is real.
@ Mick Taylor “The only way forward for the rest of the world is to stop trading with the USA altogether until such time as it has a sane president who believes climate change is real”.
Sorry, Mick, I know its early on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night, but if you were the Lib Dem candidate in, say, Solihull, over the next three years, would you really like to justify that oratorical flourish to the electorate……. especially given the Liberal Party used to be the party of Free Trade ?
Office for National Statistics
https://www.ons.gov.uk › balance of payments › articles
UK trade with the United States: 2023
17 Jan 2025 — There were £60.4 billion of goods exports to the United States, making it our largest export partner, accounting for 15.3% of all goods exports.
@Michael : “ The only way forward for the rest of the world is to stop trading with the USA altogether until such time as it has a sane president who believes climate change is real.l
The US is our largest trading partner,£59bn goods and services £113bn services. You suggestion would collapse our economy.
Might reducing trading and other forms of pro-social distancing from an apparently World dominating/exploiting purposed U. S. A be worth considering and discussing ?
Might the (apparent) current World dominating policies affect the U. S. A so that such policies are changed?
Dear me Mr Mcgrath. No-one is expecting to stop trading with the USA at one fell swoop. We will need to build trade links with many other countries to replace those we currently have with the USA and that will take time. The fact that we rely so much on trade with one country is dangerous in itself. Even if Trump was not such a clear and present danger we would be wise as a country not to put so many eggs in one basket.
Tariffs can be a very flexible tool as shown by Trump’s use of them. In America they can be installed and cancelled at a stroke of a pen. Thus, they can be used for a variety of measures. Increased tariffs reduce world trade and encourage home manufacturing. When they are used as a tool of global diplomacy the results are hard to predict though their overall effect must be to counter globalisation that is not all bad.