Trump Bad Impacts

Causes Global War – 1nc

Trump causes global war – undercuts US ties globally and incentivizes Russian and North Korean aggressionZahkheim 3/5/16 (Dov, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) in the Administration of George W. Bush, and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense during the first and second Reagan Administrations, "Trump Must Be Stopped," http://nationalinterest.org/feature/trump-must-be-stopped-15408)I was among a group of Republican former national security officials who signed an open letter pointing out the danger of electing Donald Trump as president of the United States. Even before coming even close to obtaining sufficient delegates for the Republican nomination, he

has become anathema to American friends and allies throughout the world. His questioning of America’s alliances, and his acceptance of Vladimir Putin’s effusive endorsement has alienated America’s NATO partners, with the possible exception of the quasi-fascist Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, who himself is too close to Putin for the

comfort of many in the West. Trump’s proposal to block all Muslims from entering the United States not only smacks of racism—much like his hesitant disavowal of David Duke’s endorsement—but also has infuriated America’s Arab and Muslim friends in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. His remarks about Jews and Israel have caused that country to

wonder how it would fare in a Trump presidency. His opposition to free trade, and his Korea- and Japan-bashing have provided ammunition to those in both countries who would prefer to loosen the bonds that tie them to Washington. His statements about forcing trade concessions from China are only aggravating the tensions that have engulfed the South China Sea. And of course, his attitude toward Hispanic immigrants not only has alienated Mexico, but has infuriated all of our Latin American allies. Not everyone who opposes Trump, or who signed the national security letter, is a neocon. I am not the lone realist among the group who had reservations about the Iraq War. And if anyone is a warmonger, it is Trump himself. His policies could well lead to war , perhaps because Putin will conclude that he is

free to attack a NATO ally, or because Kim Jong-un of North Korea will choose to attack Seoul before it goes nuclear as a result of its ruptured relationship with the United States . But then perhaps Trump doesn’t care what

happens in Europe or Asia. He may be content to let NATO collapse, or let the south be destroyed by North Korea. His reaction is anyone’s guess. But it is precisely for this reason that this man should be stopped, before he does even more damage to American national security than he has already managed to do in the course of his all-too-frightening quest for the presidency of the United States.

Causes Global War – 2nc

Trump will deck US alliances and use energy as a weapon – sparks great power war Ford 15 (John, captain in the United States Army’s JAG Corps, "The Trump Doctrine," 12/30, http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/the-trump-doctrine/)Given that Donald Trump continues to lead in polls for the Republican presidential nomination, it’s worth asking what kind of foreign policy

he would implement if elected. Trump has set forth a surprisingly consistent view of foreign policy. If we treat his public statements

seriously as a reflection of what he would do if elected, what emerges is a foreign policy that would be so cataclysmic for the United States that it might be impossible to undo the damage done. Trump’s statements reflect a surprisingly consistent worldview — a Trump Doctrine. The current international system is held up by several key pillars, the most important of which are that states should be formally treated as equals; that all states should enjoy freedom of trade and navigation; that the distribution of resources should be driven by markets, and not by national governments; and that national sovereignty should generally be respected. This liberal order has proven durable because most countries think they get a fair deal under it and they tend to stand with the United States in upholding it against challengers. Trump’s foreign policy rejects these basic pillars

of the international system that have helped ensure global stability . If Trump were elected and acted on his

promises, the United States would go from the defender of the liberal order to its main challenger. Trump’s foreign policy is the policy of a revisionist power that seeks to fundamentally rewrite the rules of the international system . Trump has promised to demand enormous concessions from U.S. allies in exchange for defending them and has pledged to upend the global trading system. He has proposed tariffs that would dramatically alter global trade patterns. Most dangerously, he would reject the idea that

commodities like oil should be bought and sold freely on open markets. Instead, Trump would dramatically heighten the

chances of a war between major powers by making control of oil a battleground for national governments. Allies or Tributaries? At the core of Trump’s foreign policy is his demand that U.S. allies shoulder a greater share of the burden for their defense. He has said the European countries need to take the lead in dealing with Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and criticized the terms of the U.S.–Japan alliance as being too favorable to Japan. Trump has reserved his harshest criticisms for South Korea. In 2011, Trump complained in a television interview that South Korea was making “hundreds of billions” in profit from the U.S. presence there and paying nothing in exchange. In 2013, Trump complained, “How long will we go on defending South Korea from North Korea without payment? … When will they pay us?” Trump has reaffirmed during his campaign this year that he thinks South Korea needs to pay the United States more money to defend it. Trump thinks of America’s alliances with Japan and South Korea, and its membership in NATO, as acts of charity. It seems that Trump has never considered the idea that it might be in America’s interest to maintain security alliances with other countries that help the United States defend the liberal order. Our allies provide basing rights for U.S. forces, and many of them provide substantial military forces that work with U.S. forces in hot spots around the world. Nor does Trump seem to have considered that these countries have other options aside from an alliance with the United States. South Korea’s trade with China is now double its trade with the United States and there is a risk that over time, the gravitational pull of China’s economy will draw South Korea into China’s orbit. Similarly, much of Europe depends on Russia for energy supplies, making it difficult for them to oppose Russia’s actions in Ukraine. A policy of making more demands of U.S. allies might push America’s allies into the arms of rival powers and it may not be possible for Trump’s successor to put these alliances back together. The countries to which Trump wants to make more demands remain in the U.S. sphere of influence specifically because the United States carefully calibrates the demands it makes of them. The liberal order allows these countries to deal with the United States on formally equal terms and gives them security guarantees. In exchange, the United States ensures that its own security interests are protected and rival powers remain contained. By making more onerous demands on allies, Trump is changing the terms of the relationship and the rules of the international system. Trump doesn’t want allies. He wants tributaries. Upending Global Trade Markets Nothing Trump is proposing will do more to weaken America’s alliances than his stance on trade. Much of the benefit of having a strong relationship with the United States is having a trading relationship with the world’s largest economy and the world’s largest consumer market. Trump has made it abundantly clear that he is not a fan of free trade. Trump has accused China of cheating on trade and threatened to place retaliatory tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump has also made similar threats towards many American allies including promises of tariffs on goods from Mexico, Japan, and South Korea. In his 2011 book, Time to Get Tough, he proposed a 20-percent tariff on all imports. If Trump were actually elected and started making greater demands of America’s allies on security issues while offering less in return, and at the same time slapping tariffs on imported goods from those same allies, he would find that the United States wouldn’t have many allies left. Trump’s promise to start a trade war would violate America’s existing treaty commitments and wreak havoc on the world economy, but it would also be a disaster for America’s alliance system. Oil Conflicts As much damage as Trump would do to America’s alliances, similarly reckless is his promise to is seize Iraq’s oil by force. In 2011, Donald Trump gave an interview to Bill O’Reilly during which he said the United

States should not leave Iraq but should stay in order to “take the oil.” Trump now believes the United States should “take the wealth away” from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by re-introducing ground troops and taking control of Iraq’s oil fields. Trump doesn’t limit his oil-seizure policy to Iraq, either. He has also said that the United States should not have intervened in Libya unless it was going to take that country’s oil. If Trump’s proposals to restrict Muslim immigration are not enough to alienate America’s allies in the Muslim world, then surely his oil seizure policy will push them away. It is impossible to imagine the American-led coalition against ISIL remaining intact if Trump were to actually try to bring back 19th century-style colonialism. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, it placed control of Iraq’s oil in the hands of the new Iraqi government. It was never proposed that the U.S. seize Iraq’s resources for itself. What Trump is proposing would be a radical departure from past U.S. policy in the region. If a U.S. president were willing to seize Iraq’s oil, there is no reason for countries like Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States to believe the United States would serve as a guarantor of their security, a role it has played for decades. A president who could seize Iraq’s or Libya’s oil is one who could seize Saudi or Kuwaiti oil just as easily. Given that Trump has (falsely) accused Saudi Arabia of funding ISIL and implied other Gulf States were doing the same, these countries would have legitimate reason to fear Donald Trump. Even more threatened would be China. More than any other country, China has been the target of Trump’s threats on trade issues. If Trump were elected, they would find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having the Middle Eastern oil they depend on under the control of someone who has made clear he is willing to use any leverage he can to extract economic concessions from them. China would have every reason to fear that Trump would use oil as a political weapon against it and would have no choice but to find other ways of securing access to energy resources. This would open a wide range of dangerous possibilities that today would be unthinkable. China might feel it has no choice but to make special arrangements with other oil producers in order to guarantee access to the oil it needs. China could make arrangements with the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Venezuela to provide those countries with security guarantees against an American attempt to seize their oil in exchange for guarantees of Chinese access to oil, bringing these countries into the orbit of a rival power to the United States. A scramble would be on to secure access to resources, with oil producers terrified they might be Trump’s next target and oil importers terrified they no longer would be able to guarantee access to oil through world markets. This would dramatically increase the chances of military conflict between the United States

and other major oil-consuming countries, especially China . Trump’s policy of seizing the Middle East’s oil would not

defeat ISIL. Instead, it would shatter the anti-ISIL coalition and pose a major threat to oil producers and importers alike. The new energy order Trump would create would leave the world much less safe than it was before by significantly

increasing the chances of confrontation between great powers over natural resources . Such an outcome would be inconceivable under the current rules of the international system .

Trump will initiate colonial wars of conquest in order to seek national resourcesBeauchamp 5/27/16 (Zack, Foreign Policy Contributor @ Vox, "The Donald Trump dove myth: why he’s actually a bigger hawk than Hillary Clinton," http://www.vox.com/world/2016/5/27/11608580/donald-trump-foreign-policy-war-iraq-hillary-clinton)But the problem is that the way "we understand" Trump's national security position is bollocks. Trump isn't a leftist, nor is he a pacifist. In fact,

Trump is an ardent militarist , who has been proposing actual colonial wars of conquest for years. It's a kind of nationalist hawkishness that we haven't seen much of in the United States since the Cold War — but has supported some of the most

aggressive uses of force in American history. As surprising as it may seem, Clinton is actually the dove in this race. Trump

wants to start wars for oil — literally In the past five years, Trump has consistently pushed one big foreign policy idea: America

should steal other countries' oil. He first debuted this plan in an April 2011 television appearance, amid speculation that he might run for the GOP nomination. In the interview, Trump seemed to suggest the US should seize Iraqi oil fields and just operate them on its own. "In the old days when you won a war, you won a war. You kept the country," Trump said. "We go fight a war for 10 years, 12 years, lose thousands of people, spend $1.5 trillion, and then we hand the keys over to people that hate us on some council." He has repeated this idea for years, saying during one 2013 Fox News appearance, "I’ve said it a thousand times." Trump sees this as just compensation for invading Iraq in the first place. "I say we should take it [Iraq's oil] and pay ourselves back," he said in one 2013 speech. During the 2016 campaign, Trump has gotten more specific about how exactly he'd "take" Iraq's oil. In a March interview with the Washington Post, he said he would "circle" the areas of Iraq that contain oil and defend them with American ground troops: POST: How do you keep it without troops, how do you defend the oil? TRUMP: You would... You would, well for that— for that, I would circle it. I would defend those areas. POST: With U.S. troops? TRUMP: Yeah, I would defend the areas with the oil. After US troops seize the oil, Trump suggests, American companies would go in and rebuild the oil infrastructure damaged by bombing and then start pumping it on their own. "You’ll get

Exxon to come in there … they’ll rebuild that sucker brand new. And I’ll take the oil," Trump said in a December stump speech. Trump loves this idea so much that he'd apply it to Libya as well, telling Bill O'Reilly in April that he'd even send in US ground troops ("as

few as possible") to fight off ISIS and secure the country's oil deposits. To be clear: Trump's plan is to use American ground troops to forcibly seize the most valuable resource in two different sovereign countries . The word for

that is colonialism . Trump wants to wage war in the name of explicitly ransacking poorer countries for their natural resources — something that's far more militarily aggressive than anything Clinton has suggested. This doesn't really track

as "hawkishness" for most people, mostly because it's so outlandish. A policy of naked colonialism has been completely unacceptable in American public discourse for decades, so it seems hard to take Trump's proposals as seriously as, say,

Clinton's support for intervening more forcefully in Syria. Yet this is what Trump has been consistently advocating for

years . His position hasn't budged an inch, and he in fact appears to have doubled down on it during this campaign. This seems to be his

sincere belief, inasmuch as we can tell when a politician is being sincere.

Kills Trade – 1nc

Trump decks global trade via protectionism Ignatius 3/18/16 (David, Pultizer-prize winning columnist @ Wash Post, "The Mistaken Bipartisan Attack on Free Trade," http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/03/18/the_mistaken_bipartisan_attack_on_free_trade_130017.html)WASHINGTON -- Of the many dangerous trends in the 2016 election, the revolt against free trade that has captured both parties

could do the most long-term damage. That's because protectionism would undermine future growth of the U.S. economy and subvert America's role as global leader. Globalization has undeniably hurt some American workers and

cost some manufacturing jobs. But there's strong evidence that trade has benefited the U.S. economy and created whole new industries in which America is dominant. That's the essence of the "creative destruction" that makes a market economy so potent: It relentlessly pushes innovation and change. Rather than shooting at trade agreements with a blunderbuss, as both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have done (dragging their rivals along with them), candidates should be talking about how to protect the workers who are harmed by foreign competition. The debate should focus on trade-adjustment assistance, job training and better education at all levels. President Bill Clinton two decades ago spoke about "building a bridge to the 21st century" for all Americans. That's still the issue. The free trade argument feels like a rerun of what I covered in my first reporting job in Pittsburgh in the late 1970s, when foreign competition began to challenge the steel industry. Management and labor joined forces to plead for protection, arguing that lower-cost foreign steel was being "dumped" in the United States by the Japanese and others. But that argument wasn't true. Japanese mills had lower costs because they had innovated -- building new, super-efficient blast furnaces and rolling mills while the American industry slumbered. If the protectionists had won back then, they would, in effect, have imposed a tax on all American consumers to support bad management and high costs in the steel business. The protectionists failed, and the steel industry collapsed. People suffered in the transition: The population of Allegheny County got smaller, older and poorer from 1980 to 1995, as steel jobs vanished and workers moved or retired, according to the University of Pittsburgh's University Center for Social and Urban Research. The region's real median household incomes were also stagnant or declining. But over time, the disruptive whirlwind of change created new jobs and greater incomes, thanks to dynamic new businesses that spun up around the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Carnegie Mellon University. Census Bureau data show that in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, per-capita incomes roughly doubled from the beginning of steel's downturn in 1978 to 2014. In inflation-adjusted constant dollars, average personal income rose from $23,239 in 1978 to $45,231 in 2014. Over that time, average incomes in the Pittsburgh area grew faster than in Pennsylvania and the U.S. as a whole. The bipartisan protectionism of Trump and Sanders has focused its attacks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal the Obama administration negotiated with 11 other countries. Economists who have studied the TPP carefully argue that this assault is badly misplaced . In a

new paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Robert Z. Lawrence and Tyler Moran estimate that between 2017 and 2026, when TPP would have its major impact, the costs to displaced workers would be 6 percent of the benefits to the economy -- or an 18-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio. So focus protection on that 6 percent. Even economists who think free trade has harmed U.S. manufacturing see benefits in the TPP. David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson argued last year that although import competition helped produce a "momentous decline" in U.S. manufacturing, "We believe blocking the TPP on fears of globalization would be a mistake." They note that the pact would promote trade in knowledge industries where the U.S. has a big advantage, and that "killing the TPP would do little to bring factory work back to America." Trump, the businessman, seems weirdly out of touch with real economic trends . He speaks of Japan as if it were an economic powerhouse, when it has actually suffered a two-decades-long slump; he describes a surging China, when the numbers show its growth is sagging. Trump is a real estate guy and hotelkeeper. So maybe he doesn't realize that because of low energy costs and high productivity, the U.S. is "seeing ... evidence of an American manufacturing renaissance," according to the Boston Consulting Group. The number of U.S. executives who plan to add production capacity at home has increased by about 250 percent since 2012,

according to BCG. Trump and Sanders are swinging a wrecking ball on trade . The right answer is to help the workers

who are being hurt as the economy evolves, not to shut down the global trading system .

Global nuke warPanzner 8 (Michael J., faculty at the New York Institute of Finance, 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets who has worked in New York and London for HSBC, Soros Funds, ABN Amro, Dresdner Bank, and JPMorgan Chase, 2008, Financial Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse, Revised and Updated Edition, p. 136-138)Continuing calls for curbs on the flow of finance and trade will inspire the United States and other nations to spew forth protectionist legislation like

the notorious Smoot-Hawley bill. Introduced at the start of the Great Depression, it triggered a series of tit-for-tat economic responses, which many

commentators believe helped turn a serious economic downturn into a prolonged and devastating global disaster , But if history is any

guide, those lessons will have been long forgotten during the next collapse. Eventually, fed by a mood of desperation and growing public anger, restrictions on trade, finance, investment, and immigration will almost certainly intensify. ¶ Authorities and ordinary citizens will likely scrutinize the cross-border movement of Americans and outsiders alike, and lawmakers may even call for a general crackdown on nonessential travel. Meanwhile, many nations will make transporting or sending funds to other countries exceedingly difficult. As desperate officials try to limit the fallout from decades of ill-conceived, corrupt, and reckless policies, they will introduce controls on foreign exchange, foreign individuals and companies seeking to acquire certain American infrastructure assets, or trying to buy property

and other assets on the (heap thanks to a rapidly depreciating dollar, will be stymied by limits on investment by noncitizens. Those efforts will cause spasms to ripple across economies and markets, disrupting global payment, settlement, and clearing mechanisms. All of this will, of course, continue to undermine business confidence and consumer spending. In a world of lockouts and lockdowns, any link that transmits systemic financial pressures across markets through arbitrage or portfolio-based risk management, or that allows diseases to be easily spread from one country to the next by tourists

and wildlife, or that otherwise facilitates unwelcome exchanges of any kind will be viewed with suspicion and dealt with accordingly.¶ The rise in isolationism and protectionism will bring about ever more heated arguments and dangerous confrontations over shared sources of oil, gas, and other key commodities as well as factors of production that must, out of necessity, be acquired from less-than-friendly nations. Whether involving raw materials used in strategic industries or basic necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where demand seems constantly out of kilter with supply. Disputes over the misuse, overuse, and pollution of

the environment and natural resources will become more commonplace. Around the world, such tensions will give rise to full-scale

military encounters , often with minimal provocation.¶ In some instances, economic conditions will serve as a convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from cultural and religious differences. Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from domestic problems by channeling frustration and populist sentiment toward other countries and cultures. Enabled by cheap technology and the waning threat of American retribution, terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and scale of their horrifying attacks, bringing the threat of random violence to a whole new level.¶ Turbulent conditions will encourage aggressive saber rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running amok. Age-old clashes will also take on a new, more healed sense of

urgency. China will likely assume an increasingly belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while Iran may embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may look to draw a dwindling list of allies from around the world into a growing number of conflicts. Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, have even speculated that an "intense confrontation" between the United States and China is "inevitable" at some point.¶ More than a few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing cultural and religious differences will be transformed from wars of words to battles soaked in blood. Long-simmering resentments could

also degenerate quickly, spurring the basest of human instincts and triggering genocidal acts. Terrorists employing biological or nuclear weapons will vie with conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting bombs to cause widespread destruction. Many will

interpret stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western societies as the beginnings of a new world war.

Kills Trade – 2nc

Trump destroys the global trading system via trade wars and tariffs – sparks great power warFord 15 (John, captain in the United States Army’s JAG Corps, "The Trump Doctrine," 12/30, http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/the-trump-doctrine/)If Trump were elected and acted on his promises, the United States would go from the defender of the liberal order to its main challenger.

Trump’s foreign policy is the policy of a revisionist power that seeks to fundamentally rewrite the rules of the international system. Trump

has promised to demand enormous concessions from U.S. allies in exchange for defending them and has pledged to upend the

global trading system . He has proposed tariffs that would dramatically alter global trade patterns . Most

dangerously, he would reject the idea that commodities like oil should be bought and sold freely on open markets. Instead, Trump would dramatically heighten the chances of a war between major powers by making control of oil a battleground for national governments. Allies or Tributaries? At the core of Trump’s foreign policy is his demand that U.S. allies shoulder a greater share of the burden for their defense. He has said the European countries need to take the lead in dealing with Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and criticized the terms of the U.S.–Japan alliance as being too favorable to Japan. Trump has reserved his harshest criticisms for South Korea. In 2011, Trump complained in a television interview that South Korea was making “hundreds of billions” in profit from the U.S. presence there and paying nothing in exchange. In 2013, Trump complained, “How long will we go on defending South Korea from North Korea without payment? … When will they pay us?” Trump has reaffirmed during his campaign this year that he thinks South Korea needs to pay the United States more money to defend it. Trump thinks of America’s alliances with Japan and South Korea, and its membership in NATO, as acts of charity. It seems that Trump has never considered the idea that it might be in America’s interest to maintain security alliances with other countries that help the United States defend the liberal order. Our allies provide basing rights for U.S. forces, and many of them provide substantial military forces that work with U.S. forces in hot spots around the world. Nor does Trump seem to have considered that these countries have other options aside from an alliance with the United States. South Korea’s trade with China is now double its trade with the United States and there is a risk that over time, the gravitational pull of China’s economy will draw South Korea into China’s orbit. Similarly, much of Europe depends on Russia for energy supplies, making it difficult for them to oppose Russia’s actions in Ukraine. A policy of making more demands of U.S. allies might push America’s allies into the arms of rival powers and it may not be possible for Trump’s successor to put these alliances back together. The countries to which Trump wants to make more demands remain in the U.S. sphere of influence specifically because the United States carefully calibrates the demands it makes of them. The liberal order allows these countries to deal with the United States on formally equal terms and gives them security guarantees. In exchange, the United States ensures that its own security interests are protected and rival powers remain contained. By making more onerous demands on allies, Trump is changing the terms of the relationship and the rules of the international system. Trump doesn’t want allies. He wants tributaries. Upending Global Trade Markets Nothing Trump is proposing will do more to weaken America’s alliances than his stance on trade. Much of the benefit of having a strong relationship with the United States is having a trading relationship with the world’s largest economy and the world’s largest consumer market. Trump has made it abundantly

clear that he is not a fan of free trade . Trump has accused China of cheating on trade and threatened to place retaliatory tariffs

on Chinese goods. Trump has also made similar threats towards many American allies including promises of tariffs on goods from Mexico, Japan, and South Korea. In his 2011 book, Time to Get Tough, he proposed a 20-percent tariff on all imports. If Trump were actually elected and started making greater demands of America’s allies on security issues while offering less in return, and at the same time slapping tariffs on imported goods from those same allies, he would find that the United States wouldn’t have many allies left. Trump’s promise to start a trade war would violate America’s existing treaty commitments and wreak havoc on the world

economy , but it would also be a disaster for America’s alliance system.

Trump shuts down the global trading system – his protectionist policies would be modeled globallyMoore and Kudlow 15 (Stephen and Larry, co-founders with Arthur Laffer and Steve Forbes of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, 8/27, "Is Donald Trump a 21st-Century Protectionist Herbert Hoover?" http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423141/donald-trumps-protectionism-is-worrisome-stephen-moore-larry-kudlow)Here’s a historical fact that Donald Trump, and many voters attracted to him, may not know: The last American president who was a trade protectionist was Republican Herbert Hoover. Obviously, Hoover’s economic strategy didn’t turn out so well — either for the nation or for the

GOP. Does Trump aspire to be a 21st-century Hoover, with a modernized platform of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff, which collapsed the banking system and helped send the U.S. and the world economy into a decade-long depression? We can’t help wondering whether the recent panic in world financial markets is in part a result of the Trump assault on free trade . Trump is also running full throttle on an anti-immigration platform that could hurt growth as well as alienate the GOP from the ethnic voters it needs to win in 2016. We call this the Trump Fortress America platform. He clearly sees international trade and immigration as negative-sum games for American workers. Trump recently announced that as president he would prohibit American companies such as Ford from building plants in Mexico. He moans pessimistically that “China is eating our lunch” and “sucking the blood out of the U.S.” But following the anti-business, rule-making assault from

Obama, strategic tax cuts and regulatory relief — not trade and immigration barriers — are the solution to America’s competitiveness deficit. A draft of Trump’s 14-point economic manifesto promises that, as president, he would “modify or cancel any business or trade agreement that hinders American business development, or is shown to create an unfair trading relationship with a foreign entity.” His immigration plan would not only deport illegal immigrants, it would lock the golden doors to those who come to this country lawfully for opportunity, freedom, and jobs. This could hardly be further from the Reagan vision of America as a “shining city on a hill.” In his latest policy manifesto, Trump writes, “Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class.” This “influx of foreign workers,” he continues, “holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working-class Americans — including immigrants themselves and their children — to earn a middle-class wage.” There’s some evidence that competition for jobs in very low-skilled occupations holds down wages, but for the most part immigrants fill niches in the labor market that natives can’t or won’t fill. Immigrants add to the overall productivity of the labor force while starting new businesses, and thus are net creators of jobs. Tech CEOs will tell you there might not be a Silicon Valley were it not for foreign talent and brainpower. In the 1980s and ’90s, the U.S. admitted nearly 20 million new legal immigrants — one of the largest waves of newcomers in our nation’s history. Over that time period, the U.S. created nearly 40 million new jobs, the unemployment rate plunged by half, and the middle class saw living standards rise by almost one-third (between 1983 and 2005). When Washington gets the macroeconomic policies right — on taxes, trade, regulation, and the dollar — economic opportunity flourishes. Free trade is also one of these prosperity building blocks, and Trump’s call for tariffs as high as 35 percent is worrisome in the extreme. We want Americans and workers all over the world to have access to the best-quality products at the lowest possible prices. This is the centuries-long economic law of comparative advantage first taught to us by David Ricardo. Take the Ford plant in Mexico. If it’s more profitable for Ford to produce trucks in Mexico, fine. As the supply of Mexican trucks rises, incomes for all Mexicans go up. These same Mexicans then go out and spend their new money — not just on domestic products, but on U.S. goods and services available on the market, thus building up the U.S. economy. It’s win-win. Trump is correct that there are unfair trading practices around the world. We know, for example, that China pirates U.S. technologies and patents.

They counterfeit our goods. But slapping Trump’s punitive tariff on imported Chinese goods would hurt America at least as much as Beijing. The same is true for rolling back Reagan’s NAFTA — a great success . Mexico is

now our second-largest export market. China is our third. And China is our number-one import market, with Canada second and Mexico third. Do we really want to pick an economic war with them? The U.S is the hub of

the global trading system, so any lurch toward protectionism in America would give other nations an

easy excuse to erect higher trade barriers. The ensuing domino effect could shut down the global

trading system . No wonder financial markets are so jittery.

Trade Solves War

Trade reduces the likelihood of all conflicts – best statistical studiesHillebrand 10 (Evan E. Hillebrand – Professor of Diplomacy @ University of Kentucky and a Senior Economist for the Central Intelligence Agency, “Deglobalization Scenarios: Who Wins? Who Loses?,” Global Economy Journal, Volume 10, Issue 2 2010)A long line of writers from Cruce (1623) to Kant (1797) to Angell (1907) to Gartzke (2003) have theorized that economic

interdependence can lower the likelihood of war . Cruce thought that free trade enriched a society in general and so made people

more peaceable; Kant though t that trade shifted political power away from the more warlike aristocracy, and Angell thought

that economic interdependence shifted cost/benefit calculations in a peace-promoting direction. Gartzke contends that trade relations enhance transparency among nations and thus help avoid bargaining miscalculations. There has also been a tremendous amount of empirical research that mostly supports the idea of an inverse relationship

between trade and war . Jack Levy said that, “While there are extensive debates over the proper research designs for investigating this question, and

while some empirical studies find that trade is associated with international conflict, most studies conclude that trade is associated with peace, both at the dyadic and systemic levels” (Levy, 2003, p. 127). There is another important line of theoretical and empirical work called Power Transition Theory that focuses on the relative power of states and warns that when rising powers approach the power level of their regional or global leader the chances of war increase (Tammen, Lemke, et al, 2000). Jacek Kugler (2006) warns that the rising power of Chin a relative to the United States greatly increases the chances of great power war some time in the next few decades. The IFs model combines the theoretical and empirical work of the peace- through-trade tradition with the work of the power transition scholars in an attempt to forecast the probability of interstate war. Hughes (2004) explains how he, after consulting with scholars in bot h camps, particularly Edward Mansfield and Douglas Lemke, estimated the starting probabilities for each dyad based on the historical record, and then forecast future probabilities for dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) and wars based on the calibrated relationships he derived from the empirical literature. The probability of a MID, much less a war, between any random dyad in any given year is very low, if not zero. Paraguay and Tanzania, for example, have never fought and are very unlikely to do s o. But there have been thousands of MIDs in the past and hundreds of wars and many of the 16,653 dyads have non- zero probabilities. In 2005 the mean probability of a country being involved in at least one war was estimated to be 0.8%, with 104 countries having a probability of at least 1 war approaching zero. A dozen countries 12 , however, have initial probabilities over 3%. The globalization scenario projects that the probability for war will gradually decrease through 2035 for ever y country—but not every dyad--that had a significant (greater than 0.5% chance of war) in 2005

(Table 6). The decline in prospects for war stems from the scenario’s projections of rising levels of democracy, rising

incomes, and rising trade interdependence —all of these factors figure in the algorithm that calculates the probabilities. Not all dyadic war

probabilities decrease, however, because of the power transition mechanism that is also included in the IFs model. The probability for war between China and the US, for example rises as China’s power 13 rises gradually toward the US level but in these calculations the probability of a China/US war never gets very high. 14

Deglobalization raises the risks of war substantially. In a world with much lower average incomes, less democracy, and less trade interdependence, the average probability of a country having at least one war in 2035 rises from 0.6% in the globalization scenario to 3.7% in the deglobalization scenario. Among the top-20 war-prone countries, the average probability rises from 3.9% in the globalization scenario to 7.1% in the deglobalization scenario. The model estimates that in the deglobalization scenario there will be about 10 wars in 2035, vs. only 2 in the gl obalization scenario 15 . Over the whole period, 2005-2035, the model predicts four great power wars in the deglobalization scenario vs. 2 in the globalization scenario.IV. Winners and Losers Deglobalization in the form of reduced trade interdependence, reduced capital flows, and reduced migration has few positive effects, based on this analysis with the International Futures Model. Economic growth is cut in all but a handful of countries, and is cut more in the non- OECD countries than in the OECD countries. Deglobalization has a mixed impact on equality. In many non-OECD countries, the cut in imports from the rest of the world increases the share of manufacturing and in 61 count ries raises the share of income going to the poor. But since average productivity goes down in almost all countri es, this gain in equality comes at the expense of reduced incomes and increased poverty in almost all countries. The only wi nners are a small number of countries that were small and poor and not well integrated in th e global economy to begin with—and the gains from deglobalization even for them are very small.

Politically , deglobalization makes for less stable domestic politics and a greater likelihood of war . The likelihood of state failure th rough internal war, projected to diminish through 2035 with increasing globalization, rises in the

deglobalization scenario particularly among the non-OECD democracies. Similarly, deglobalization makes for more fractious relations

among states and the probability for interstate war rises .

Kills Econ – 1nc

Trump decks the economy – trade, tax, and immigration proposals would cause collapseCovert 3/2/16 (Bryce, editor at ThinkProgress and a frequent contributor to The Nation, "The Biggest, Greatest, Most Terrific Recession," http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/03/donald_trump_s_presidency_would_create_a_deep_recession.html)A Donald Trump presidency would cause the U.S. economy to collapse . By Bryce Covert trump. Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Valdosta State University on Monday in Georgia. Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images Donald Trump has formidably strong support among working-class voters, who showed up for him in a big way on Super Tuesday. He’s cultivated that following by making grandiose promises not just about isolationism but also about the economy. Trump’s mantra about making America great again is, in large part, centered on economic growth, and specifically on jobs. Of the policy positions he spells out on his website, three of the five are tied to the economy. He wants drastic changes to our trade relations with China, which is part of his promise to restore all the manufacturing jobs lost to other countries. His tax plan will “create jobs and incentives of all kinds while simultaneously growing the economy.” His theory of immigration reform “puts the needs of working people first.” Beyond the appeals to racism and xenophobia, his message is all about restoring the economic prospects of Americans who have seen them decline. But if President Trump puts these plans into effect, there is no way they would make jobs great again. Instead, they would most likely throw us into a

recession . How does Trump want to reform relations with China? One big plank is imposing huge tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S., possibly as large as 45 percent. He would also somehow crack down on China’s lax labor regulations and declare the country a currency manipulator, thereby ensuring more fairness in a global playing field in which Americans have lost too many jobs overseas. “Jobs and factories will stop moving offshore and instead stay here at home,” he assures his followers. “The economy will boom.” One study found that the country lost somewhere around 2 million jobs between 1999 and 2011 to trade competition with China—about 10 percent of all manufacturing job losses during that time. But many of those jobs are likely gone for good and have moved on from China to even lower-wage countries like Vietnam and Indonesia. What tariffs are certain to do is hurt Americans’ wallets. When Trump says the U.S. loses $58 billion to Mexico in trade, he neglects to mention what we get in return for that money: cheap goods. Tariffs on those products would drive up their prices, forcing Americans who are not seeing much in the way of wage growth to spend more for the same things. There was a natural experiment with just this policy in 2009, when the U.S. levied a 35 percent tariff on Chinese tires. That move saved a maximum of 1,200 jobs while it raised costs for Americans buying those tires by $1.1 billion in one year alone. It would cost a lot of money to deport so many people—about $400 billion to $600 billion. Under Trump’s plan, China would also likely retaliate, as it did against the tire

tariff with its own on American chicken imports, costing our exporters about $1 billion. That would only hurt American companies, who would likely cut back on jobs. Next, Trump’s tax plan. The candidate declared that his plan would offer the poor and middle class relief while it went after the “hedge fund guys” by changing the capital gains tax rate on investment income. But the details didn’t bear out his big promises. According to the Tax Policy Center, under Trump’s scheme, the poorest fifth of the country would get less than 1 percent of the benefits of his plan over a decade while the top fifth would get more than two-thirds. Yet it would cost $9.5 trillion in revenue—a far larger bite than under Reagan or even George W. Bush. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation found that Trump’s claim that the plan will be revenue-neutral not to be true “under

any scenario.” There’s little reason to think that big tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy will lead to

a supercharged economy . There’s certainly no evidence that higher rates have a negative impact on economic growth, and in fact, growth has historically been faster under higher top marginal rates. What massive tax cuts for the wealthy

do accomplish, on the other hand, is faster growth in income inequality, which hurts economic growth. Third and last, we turn to Trump’s brand of immigration reform, which wouldn’t help the economy either. Economists have found little negative effect

on Americans’ wages from immigration. On the other hand, mass deportation and a blockade against immigrants trying to come into the country could have serious negative consequences, knocking $1.6 trillion off of our

gross domestic product . Immigrants are projected to provide nearly all growth in the labor force for the next 40 years, but deporting them would shrink it by 6.4 percent over 20 years. Of course, it would also cost a lot of money to deport so many people—about $400 billion to $600 billion. Overall, Trump’s prescriptions are pretty pricy: Added altogether, the conservative Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that his policies would add between $11.7 trillion and $15.1 trillion to the national debt, including interest payments. Deficits in and of themselves don’t necessarily harm growth, and can in fact simulate it, particularly when the country is climbing out of a recession. The outcomes depend on how the money is spent; Trump’s plans aren’t likely to involve productive expenditures. And if Trump wants to deliver on his promise to make his plans revenue-neutral, he’ll have to find huge cost savings elsewhere, cutting spending by trillions. Given that he’s said

he won’t touch Medicare and Social Security, he would have to slash current spending by more than three-quarters. Those cuts would all but decimate most government programs, including those that spur the economy such as infrastructure projects, job training, and a safety net that boosts economic productivity and mobility, to name only a few. There’s no telling what a President Trump could actually get passed if he were to enter the White House. But if he got even part of what he wanted, we’d all be in

for a very rocky economic ride .

Impact is global nuclear war AND accesses every global impactLieberthal and O'Hanlon 12 (Kenneth and Michael, Senior Fellows in Foreign Policy @ Brookings, "The Real National Security Threat: America's Debt," http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/07/10-economy-foreign-policy-lieberthal-ohanlon)Lastly, American economic weakness undercuts U.S. leadership abroad. Other countries sense our weakness and wonder about our purported decline. If this perception becomes more widespread, and the case that we are

in decline becomes more persuasive, countries will begin to take actions that reflect their skepticism about America's future. Allies and

friends will doubt our commitment and may pursue nuclear weapons for their own security, for example;

adversaries will sense opportunity and be less restrained in throwing around their weight in their own

neighborhoods. The crucial Persian Gulf and Western Pacific regions will likely become less stable . Major

war will become more likely . When running for president last time, Obama eloquently articulated big foreign policy visions:

healing America's breach with the Muslim world, controlling global climate change, dramatically curbing global poverty through development aid, moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. These were, and remain, worthy if

elusive goals. However, for Obama or his successor, there is now a much more urgent big-picture issue: restoring U.S. economic

strength . Nothing else is really possible if that fundamental prerequisite to effective foreign policy is

not reestablished .

Kills Econ – 2nc

Trump presidency decks the US and global economies – injects tremendous uncertainty into financial marketsSummers 3/1/16 (Larry, the Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard, is a former treasury secretary and director of the National Economic Council in the White House, "Larry Summers: Donald Trump is a serious threat to American democracy," https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/01/larry-summers-donald-trump-is-a-serious-threat-to-american-democracy/?tid=sm_fb)The possible election of Donald Trump as president is the greatest present threat to the prosperity and security of the United States. I have had a strong point of view on each of the last ten presidential elections, but never before had I feared that what I regarded as the wrong outcome would in the long sweep of history risk grave damage to the American project. The problem is not with Trump’s policies, though they are wacky in the few areas where they are not indecipherable. It is that he is running as modern day man on a horseback—demagogically offering the power of his personality as a magic solution to all problems—and making clear that he is prepared to run roughshod over anything or anyone who stands in his way. Trump has already flirted with the Ku Klux Klan and disparaged and demeaned the female half of our population. He vowed to kill the families of terrorists, use extreme forms of torture, and forbid Muslims from coming into our country. Time and again, he has claimed he will crush those who stand in his way; his promised rewrite of libel laws, permitting the punishment of the New York Times and The Washington Post for articles he does not like, will allow him to make good on this threat. Lyndon Johnson’s celebrated biographer, Robert Caro, has written that while “power doesn’t always corrupt…[it] always reveals.” What will a demagogue with a platform like Trump’s who ascends to the presidency do with control over the NSA, FBI and IRS? What commitment will he manifest to the rule of law? Already Trump has proposed that protesters at his rallies “should have been roughed up.” Nothing in the way he campaigned gave Richard Nixon a mandate for keeping an enemies list or engaging in dirty tricks. If he is elected, Donald Trump may think he has such a mandate. What is the basis for doubting that it will be used? To be sure there are precedents in American politics for Trump. Precedents like Joe McCarthy, George Wallace, and Huey Long. Just as Trump does, each mined the all too rich veins of prejudice, paranoia and excess populism that lie beneath American soil. Yet even at their highest points of popularity, none of these figures looked like plausible future presidents. One shudders to think what President Huey Long would have done during the Depression, what President Joe McCarthy would have done at the height of the Cold War, or what President George Wallace would have done at the end of the turbulent 1960s. My Harvard colleague, Niall Ferguson, suggests that William Jennings Bryan is the right precursor for Trump. This comparison seems unfair to Bryan who was a progressive populist but not a thug, as evidenced by the fact that he ended up as secretary of state in the Wilson Administration. Trump’s election would threaten our democracy. I doubt that democracy would have been threatened if Bryan had beaten McKinley. Robert Kagan and others have suggested that Trump is the culmination of trends under way for decades in the Republican Party. I am no friend of the Tea Party or of the way in which Congress has obstructed President Obama. But the suggestion that Trump is on the same continuum as George W. Bush or

even the Republican congressional leadership seems to me to be quite unfair. Even the possibility of Trump becoming president is

dangerous . The economy is already growing at a sub-two percent rate in substantial part because of a lack of confidence in a weak world economy. A growing sense that a protectionist demagogue could soon become president of the United States would surely introduce great uncertainty at home and

abroad . The resulting increase in risk premiums might well be enough to tip a fragile U.S. economy into recession. And a concern that the U.S. was becoming protectionists and isolationist could easily undermine confidence in many emerging markets and set off a financial crisis . The geopolitical consequences of Donald Trump’s rise may be even more serious. The rest of the world is incredulous and appalled by the possibility of a Trump presidency and has started quietly rethinking its approach to the United States accordingly. The U.S. and China are struggling over influence in Asia. It is hard to imagine something better for China

than the U.S moving to adopt a policy of "truculent isolationism." The Trans-Pacific Partnership , a central element in our

rebalancing toward Asia, could collapse . Japan would have to take self-defense, rather than reliance on American security guarantees, more seriously. And others in Asia would inevitably tilt from a more erratic America towards a relatively steady China. Donald Trump’s rise goes beyond his demagogic appeal. It is a reflection of the political psychology of frustration – people see him as responding to their fears about the modern world order, an outsider fighting for those who have been left behind. If we are to move past Trumpism, it will be essential to develop convincing responses to economic slowdown. The United States has always been governed by the authority of ideas, rather than the idea of authority. Nothing is more important than to be clear to all Americans that the tradition of vigorous political debate and compromise will continue. The sooner Donald Trump is relegated to the margins of our national life, the better off we and the world will be.

Econ Decline = War

Economic decline causes global war – statistics and diversionary theory proveRoyal 10 (Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction – U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises”, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, Ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215)Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline ma y increase the likelihood of external conflict . Political science

literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often

bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next . As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances,

increasing the risk of miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that

'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic

view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such

as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases , as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources . C rises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or

because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a s trong correlat ion between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting

government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline,

sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has

provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the U nited States, and thus weak Presidential

popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force . In summary, recent economic scholarship positively

correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.

Trump Good Impact Turns

Key to US/Russia Relations – 2ac

Trump key to improved US-Russia relations – even Putin concedes Beauchamp 5/4/16 (Zach, Foreign Policy Contributor @ Vox, "It's time to take Donald Trump's scary foreign policy views seriously," http://www.vox.com/2016/2/10/10960124/donald-trump-foreign-policy-isis)For all of Trump's tough talk about terrorism, Mexico, and China, he's surprisingly dovish on another American enemy: Russia. Trump sees its president, Vladimir Putin, as an admirable strongman who shares America's interest in destroying ISIS and could be a partner. "I would talk to [Putin]," Trump said in a September GOP debate. "I would get along with him." He expanded on his thinking in a recent interview with conservative radio host Michael Savage: What’s wrong with having a good relationship with Russia? What’s wrong with Russia bombing the hell out of ISIS and these other crazies so we don’t have to spend a million dollars a bomb? Let them buy some of the bombs, ’cause that’s what’s happening. Once again, you see Trump's peculiar instincts at play. He's worried about the economic cost of the ISIS war to the United States, not whether Russia actually shares America's priorities in destroying ISIS. Indeed, Russia's bombing campaign in Syria mostly targeted non-ISIS rebels, as its goal in Syria is propping up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. But Trump — author of The Art of the Deal — believes that through the power of personal charisma and dealmaking, he and Putin should be able to come to terms on Syria, Ukraine, and other issues of mutual concern. Putin, for his part, has said that US-Russia relations would improve in a Trump

presidency . As he put it in a December interview: Trump is the absolute leader in the presidential race. He is a very outstanding

person, talented, without any doubt. … He wants to move to another level of relations, a closer, deeper level of relations with Russia. How can we not welcome this? Of course we welcome this .

Relations solve nuclear war and turn every impactCohen 12 (Stephen A., Professor of Russian Studies @ New York University, “America's Failed (Bi-Partisan) Russia Policy”, Huffington Post, 2-28, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-f-cohen/us-russia-policy_b_1307727.htm l?ref=politics&ir=Politics)First: Today, as before, the road to America's national security runs through Moscow. No other U.S. bilateral relationship is more vital . The reasons should be known to every policymaker, though they seem not to be: - Russia's enormous stockpiles of

nuclear and other w eapons of m ass d estruction make it the only country capable of destroying the U nited

S tates as well as the only other government, along with our own, essential for preventing the proliferation of such

weapons. - There is also Russia's disproportionate share of the world's essential resources, not only oil and natural gas but metals,

fertile land, timber, fresh water and more, which give Moscow critical importance in the global economy . - In

addition, Russia remains the world's largest territorial country. In particular, the geopolitical significance of its location on the

Eurasian frontier of today's mounting conflicts between Western and Eastern civilizations, as well as its own millions of

Islamic people, can hardly be overstated. - Not to be forgotten are Russia's talented and nationalistic people, even in bad times, and their state's traditions in international affairs. This too means that Russia will play a major role in the world. - And, largely as a result of these circumstances, there is Moscow's special capacity to abet or to thwart U.S. interests in many regions of the world, from Afghanistan , Iran , North Korea and China to Europe , the entire Middle East and

Latin America . In short, these inescapable realities mean that partnership with Russia is an American national security imperative.

Key to US/Russia Relations – 1ar

Trump key to US-Russia relations – reverses Obama anti-Russia policy, strikes deals with Putin that spark mutual cooperationVogt 15 (Jay, 2/21, Contributor @ Russia Insider, "Would a Donald Trump Presidency Be Good for Russia?," http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/why-donald-trump-presidency-would-be-good-russia/ri8642)Another distinguishing characteristic about the Donald is that he harbors none of the ridiculous and hysterical Russophobia, which of course is a hallmark of every other Republican candidate. Trump has never spoken harshly about Putin; and there is good reason for this: He likes him. Or if he doesn't like him outright, at minimum, he admires and/or respects him. If this is suprising, it shouldn't be. For a man who wrote a book entitled Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life, the big-thinking, ass-kicking Vladimir Putin is an obvious source of admiration. No national leader makes world-changing mega deals with greater frequency than Mr. Putin, and he would seem to be a natural partner for a coldly-pragmatic global dealmaker like Trump. One need look no further than the Donald's first post-announcement interview with Bill O'Reilly to see how he

views a potential relationship with the Russian president. O'Reilly: Putin. What do you do to Putin? Trump: Well, Putin has no respect for our president whatsoever. He's got a tremendous popularity in Russia. They love what he's doing; they love what he represents. So we have a president who is absolutely...you look at him, the chemistry is so bad between those two people. I was over in Moscow two years ago, and I will tell you, you can get along with those people, and get along with them well. You can make deals with those people. Obama can't. He's not... O'reilly: So you could make a deal with Putin to stop his expansion? Trump: I would, I would be willing to bet I would have a great relationship with Putin. It's about leadership. O'Reilly: Based on what?? You're two macho guys? I mean, you know, come on. Trump: Based on - no, no, no. Based on - a feel. Ok? You know, deals are people. I make a lot of... O'Reilly: You sound like George W. Bush. He, he looked into his soul and said he was a good guy. Come on. Trump: Bush, Bush didn't have the IQ. Look, let me just tell you... O'Reilly: You know what I'm picking up from this? You'd buy Putin. You'd buy him off. Trump: I wouldn't buy him. I wouldn't buy him at all. I would be able to get along, in my opinion, with Putin. Now it's possible not; I'm not saying 100%, but I think I would have a very good relationship with Putin. And I tell you what: it's actually important for this country to do that. You can't have everybody hating you. The whole world hates us. And one of the things that I heard for years and years: Never drive Russia and China together; and Obama has done that. If Donald Trump - who despite his current lead in the polls, is still a longshot - manages to win the

presidency, it would almost certainly spell an end to the absurd sanctioning and 'isolation' of Russia by the West. The reason? They're bad for business. First, foremost, and above all, Donald Trump is a businessman - an entirely practical negotiator

and dealmaker. As president , it is entirely likely that he would scrap the insane anti-Russia policies pursued by

the incompetent Obama administration and usher in a new era of mutual cooperation . Could we expect anything less

from the man behind The Art of the Deal?

US-Russia Relations Impact

Strong US/Russia cooperation accesses EVERY impact Allison and Blackwill 11 (Graham and Robert, Director @ Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School/Former Assistant Secretary of Defense + Senior Fellow @ Council on Foreign Relations, “10 Reasons Why Russia Still Matters”, http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=161EF282-72F9-4D48-8B9C-C5B3396CA0E6)That central point is that Russia matters a great deal to a U.S. government seeking to defend and advance its national interests. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s decision to return next year as president makes it all the more critical for Washington to manage its relationship with Russia through coherent, realistic policies. No one denies that Russia is a dangerous, difficult, often disappointing state to do business with. We should not overlook its many human rights and legal failures. Nonetheless, Russia is a player whose choices affect our vital interests in nuclear security and energy. It is key to supplying 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Ten realities require U.S. policymakers to advance our nation’s interests by engaging and working

with Moscow. First, Russia remains the only nation that can erase the United States from the map in 30 minutes. As every president since John F. Kennedy has recognized, Russia’s cooperation is critical to averting nuclear war. Second, Russia is our most consequential partner in preventing nuclear terrorism. Through a combination of more than $11 billion in U.S. aid, provided through the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, and impressive Russian professionalism, two decades after the collapse of the “evil empire,” not one nuclear weapon has been found loose. Third, Russia plays an essential role in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile-delivery systems. As Washington seeks to stop Iran’s drive toward nuclear weapons, Russian choices to sell or withhold sensitive technologies are the difference between failure and the possibility of success. Fourth, Russian support in sharing intelligence and cooperating in operations remains essential to the U.S. war to destroy Al Qaeda and combat other transnational terrorist groups. Fifth, Russia provides a vital supply line to 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan. As U.S. relations with Pakistan have deteriorated, the Russian lifeline has grown ever more important and now accounts for half all daily deliveries. Sixth, Russia is the world’s largest oil producer and second largest gas producer. Over the past decade, Russia has added more oil and gas exports to world energy markets than any other nation. Most major energy transport routes from Eurasia start in Russia or cross its nine time zones. As citizens of a country that imports two of every three of the 20 million barrels of oil that fuel U.S. cars daily, Americans feel Russia’s impact at our gas pumps. Seventh, Moscow is an important player in today’s international system. It is no accident that Russia is one of the five veto-wielding, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, as well as a member of the G-8 and G-20. A Moscow more closely aligned with U.S. goals would be significant in the balance of power to shape an environment in which China can emerge as a global power without overturning the existing order. Eighth, Russia is the largest country on Earth by land area, abutting China on the East, Poland in the West and the United States across

the Arctic. This territory provides transit corridors for supplies to global markets whose stability is vital to the U.S. economy. Ninth, Russia’s brainpower is reflected in the fact that it has won more Nobel Prizes for science than all of Asia, places first

in most math competitions and dominates the world chess masters list. The only way U.S. astronauts can now travel to and from the International Space Station is to hitch a ride on Russian rockets . The co-founder of the most advanced

digital company in the world, Google, is Russian-born Sergei Brin. Tenth, Russia’s potential as a spoiler is difficult to

exaggerate . Consider what a Russian president intent on frustrating U.S. international objectives

could do — from stopping the supply flow to Afghanistan to selling S-300 air defense missiles to Tehran to joining China in preventing U.N. Security Council resolutions. So next time you hear a policymaker dismissing Russia with rhetoric about “who cares?” ask them to identify nations that matter more to U.S. success, or failure, in advancing our national interests.

Solves War – 2ac

Trump victory key to solving war with Russia and Korea – perceived “craziness” induces caution from Kim and PutinNavarro 1/27/16 (Peter, professor at the University of California-Irvine, "Trump, Putin and Kim Jong-un Walk Into a Deterrence Bar," http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/trump-putin-kim-jong-un-walk-deterrence-bar-15036)The failure of Nixon’s madman ruse notwithstanding, the importance of madness versus rationality in deterring ruthless

and “crazy” guys like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un can be highlighted by taking a page out of the book of game theorist Thomas Schelling [13]. Here’s how Schelling might put the current North Korean conundrum: “If North Korea’s Kim Jong-un does not act according to America’s conventional assumptions and international norms of behavior, America will consider Kim’s behavior “irrational,” and Kim’s perceived irrationality might result in him winning the competition. However, if Kim is not really irrational but simply but simply using his madman behavior as part of a conscious bargaining or competitive strategy to get more food and fuel from the West while holding on to his nukes, then this so-called irrationality is effectively rational in relation to the game’s ‘payoffs.’” In other words, the feigning of “madness” can be “wickedly rational.” As to how this applies to any American president dealing with the likes of Putin and Kim,

here’s the obvious deterrence problem: Both Putin and especially Kim Jong-un project a willingness to start a nuclear war to get their way. Since that would mean the end of the world as we know it, many political leaders in the West perceive this

behavior as irrational. So far the “rational” response [14] of the Obama White House to Putin’s particular brand of

brinkmanship and “craziness” has been to use economic sanctions as a means of forcing Russia to cease its revanchist aggression. With Putin not fearing any military intervention—because he believes President Obama fears any such intervention might lead to nuclear war—Putin continues to have his ruthless, revanchist and really quite rational way with Ukraine and parts of Eastern Europe. And that is exactly what Donald Trump is seeing in “Vladimir the Great” and why he admires Putin [15]—certainly not for his aggression but at least for his rational madman cunning. So what if Trump were elected president instead of ratiocinators like Hillary Clinton or

Bernie Sanders [4] or Marco Rubio? In this scenario, Putin would know Trump is as rationally “mad” as he is and that Trump won’t never back down should Russian push come to American shove. Understanding he has met his

madman match, Putin should therefore be far less likely to press the revanchist envelope in the same cavalier

way he now does with the ultimate ratiocinator, President Obama. Score one for a “crazy” Trump. In fact, a hawkishly uncertain demeanor was the ultimate power of Ronald Reagan in dealing with the Soviet Union . Soviet

leaders could never really be sure what “the cowboy” would do, and in this way Reagan quite rationally

kept the peace [16]. In the case of Kim Jong-un, the Obama White House likewise is pursuing a rational “carrot and stick” path. The carrot has been the prospect of aid to North Korea if it disarms while the stick as been the same kind of economic sanctions

strategy Obama is (mis)using with Russia. Thus far, of course, this has been an utterly failed policy [17] as a “crazy” Kim continues

to test his bombs, refine his missile technology, and advance his nuclear proliferation agenda. As for what steps the next American president might take to rein in a “crazy” North Korea, the most obvious is to put the clamps down on China—a country that is not just North Korea’s primary benefactor but also America’s largest trading partner. At this juncture, a President

Trump appears to be far more likely to take such a dramatic step without regard for the economic consequences than

any of the other candidates on either side of the aisle. Knowing this, China should therefore be more likely to crack down on North Korea and thereby avert a confrontation under a Trump presidency . Score another one for a “crazy” Trump. The second, more draconian, option to deal with North Korea is to simply drop a precision bomb on Kim Jong-un and eliminate him [18]. And here’s the Trumpian rub: If Trump were elected president, Kim might actually begin to fear that Trump might indeed hunt him down with a swarm of F-22s, a drone or a long-range missile. In this scenario, the United States

wouldn’t even have to assassinate Kim. All Kim would have to believe is that a President Trump would be “crazy” enough to do it; and that

would be enough to restrain Kim’s behavior. And so the dance of deterrence goes—and so goes the argument that a

“crazy” Donald Trump is actually smart like a fox and more likely to bring about peace in Eastern Europe

and Asia than a “rational” President Obama who relies on the tools of conventional western diplomacy. It’s risky business of course, but so far ratiocinator diplomacy is striking out from Moscow and Beijing to Pyongyang.

Solves War – 1ar

Trump presidency means peace through deterrence Mann 3/2/16 (Jonathan, CNN, "What would a President Trump mean for the world?," http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/politics/donald-trump-world-implications/)"Under a Trump presidency, foreign policy will be firm and proactive and similar to that of the Reagan's

years -- a classic peace-through-economic-and-military strength , rather than the vacillating and dangerous weakness of the current White House," said economist Peter Navarro of the University of California.

Trump avoids multiple scenarios for global war – Russia, China, Korea, Iran – his foreign policy is prudent and sensibleBandow 15 (Doug, Senior Fellow @ CATO Institute, 8/30, "WHEN IT COMES TO FOREIGN POLICY, TRUMP IS BEST OF A BAD BUNCH," http://www.newsweek.com/when-it-comes-foreign-policy-trumps-best-bad-bunch-366806)Donald Trump has wrecked the best plans of nearly a score of “serious” Republican presidential candidates. Yet, what may be most

extraordinary about his campaign is that, on foreign policy at least, he may be the most sensible Republican in the race. It is the “mainstream” and “acceptable” Republicans who are most extreme, dangerous and unrealistic. First, the Republicans scream that the world has never been so dangerous. Yet when in history has a country been as secure as America from existential and even substantial threats? Hyperbole is Trump’s stock in trade, but he has used it only sparingly on foreign policy. Referring to North Korea, for instance, he claimed: “this world is just blowing up around us.” But he used that as a justification for talking to North Korea, not going to war. Second, the Republicans generally refuse to criticize George W. Bush’s misadventure in Iraq. In contrast, Trump said, “I was not a fan of going to Iraq.” Third, the Republican candidates blame the rise of the Islamic State on President Barack Obama. This claim is false at every level. The Islamic State grew out of the Iraq invasion and succeeded with the aid of former Baathists and Sunni tribes who came to prefer an Islamist Dark Age to murderous Shia rule. There were no U.S. troops in Iraq because George W. Bush had planned their withdrawal. Trump understands that the basic mistake was invading Iraq. He said: “They went into Iraq. They destabilized the Middle East. It was a big mistake. Okay, now we’re there. And you have ISIS.” Fourth, Republicans see other waiting enemies,

such as China. But Trump apparently doesn’t view war as an option against Beijing . Rather, he sees China

primarily as an economic competitor : He declared that he would “get tough with” and “out-negotiate”

the Chinese, not bomb them . Fifth, all the other Republicans apparently view Iran as an unspeakable enemy. All would block the

Obama nuclear deal and most appear ready to tear it up. Trump criticized the agreement, but announced: “ I will

police that deal,” a far more realistic response . Sixth, the GOP candidates almost uniformly treat handing out security

guarantees as similar to accumulating Facebook friends: the more the merrier. Yet as I point out on Forbes online: “most of America’s major allies could defend themselves. The Europeans, for instance, have a combined population and GDP greater than America and much greater than Russia. South Korea has twice the population and around 40 times the GDP of the North.” Some potential allies are security black holes, such as Ukraine. The latter would set the United States against nuclear-armed Russia . America

has nothing at stake warranting that kind of risky confrontation .

A2 Trump = Endless War

Your ev is all hype – Trump fopo will be one of restraint, not endless warsLuttwak 3/10/16 (Edward, professor @ Georgetown, fellow @ CSIS, + military strategist, political scientist, and historian who has published works on military strategy, history, and international relations, "Suffering From Trumphobia? Get Over It," p. factiva)Unlike the fear of Islam, which is a rational response to Islamist violence across the world, the fear of Donald Trump really is a phobia. There is a precedent for this: the panicked Reaganphobia that preceded the 1980 election. We heard that Ronald Reagan was a member of the John Birch Society -- whose essential creed was "Better Dead Than Red." He therefore rejected "mutual assured destruction," the bedrock strategy of the liberal consensus to guarantee coexistence by nuclear deterrence. Reagan, it was said, believed in "counterforce," that is in a disarming first strike to win a nuclear war. Mr. Trump irritates many with his vulgarities but Reagan was insistently depicted as a threat to human survival, so that most of the columnists and editorial writers of the quality press reluctantly called for Jimmy Carter's re-election, despite the clamorous failures of his hopelessly irresolute administration. In Europe there was no reluctance. In London, Paris and Bonn, then the capital of West Germany, the re-election of Jimmy Carter was seen as a necessity to keep the bomb-thrower Reagan out of the White House, and well away from the nuclear button. So many eminent people, including W. Averell Harriman, adviser to five U.S. presidents and chief negotiator of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, asserted that Reagan wanted to start a nuclear war that the KGB went on maximum alert from inauguration day for more than two years, forcing its officers around the world to take shifts on 24-hour watches of all U.S. strategic air bases to detect the telltale simultaneous launchings of a nuclear first strike. In 1983, two years into his first term, Reagan did send U.S. troops into action to fight a war . . . in tiny Grenada, whose 133 square miles was the only territory that Reagan invaded in eight years. As for nuclear weapons, Reagan horrified his advisers at the 1986 Reykjavik Summit with Mikhail Gorbachev with his eagerness for nuclear disarmament, thereby disclosing that he didn't even believe in strike-back, let alone in attacking first. He wanted ballistic-missile defenses, not ballistic missiles. Mr. Trump's lack of good manners may be disconcerting, but as president his foreign policies are unlikely to deviate from standard conservative

norms . He would only disappoint those who believe that the U.S. should send troops to Syria to somehow

end a barbaric civil war, or send troops to Libya to miraculously disarm militias, or send troops back to Iraq to preserve its

Iran-dominated government, or send more troops back to Afghanistan where the Taliban are winning because of the

government's incapacity and corruption. President Trump would do none of the above . He will send troops home from

Afghanistan and Iraq, while refusing to intervene in Libya or Syria, or anywhere else in the Muslim world, where U.S. troops are invariably attacked by those they are seeking to protect. Real conservatives want to conserve blood and treasure, not expend them lavishly to pursue ambitious political schemes.

A2 Trump Kills Econ

Trump won’t kill the economy – zero data in support, structural factors trump possible policy positionsHulbert 3/23/16 (Mark, founder of the Hulbert Financial Digest and a market observer for more than 30 years, "The stock market, the candidates: Who has bigger influence?," http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/03/23/stocks-election-whos-leader/82130846/)Does the stock market’s rough start this year portend a victory for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election? Or is Trump’s surprising success causing the stock market’s gyrations? Investors want to know. The historical data do show a strong correlation between the stock market’s performance in election years and whether the political party in power retains the White House. Consider the 18 presidential elections since 1900 in which the incumbent political party retained the White House: The Dow Jones industrial average’s year-to-date performance going into those elections was a gain of 10.8%. That contrasts with an average loss of 3.7% going into the 11 elections since 1900 in which the incumbent party lost. This pattern held up regardless of whether the incumbent party was Democrat or Republican. This tendency for the stock market to perform worse during years when incumbents lose was very much on display the last two election cycles. The Dow was sporting a 29.7% year-to-date loss on Election Day in 2008, and the incumbent political party lost. On 2012’s Election Day, in contrast, the Dow was sitting on a 7.3% gain, and — sure enough — the incumbent party retained

the White House. Strong as this pattern is, however, it’s surprisingly difficult to determine what to do with it .

That’s because no one knows whether it’s the stock market that is causing the incumbent political party’s chances to be better or worse, or vice

versa. As statisticians constantly remind us, correlation is not causation . And until we have a good idea what is causing what, the correlation between the stock market’s election-year performance and the incumbent party’s fortunes doesn’t help us forecast either one. On the one hand, for example, it’s entirely plausible that changes in the parties’ political fortunes lead to changes in the stock market. The stock market hates uncertainty, for example, so as it becomes more likely that the incumbent party will lose the White House the stock market will tend to lose ground. Hedge-fund manager Doug Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners Management, is advancing a variant of this argument today. In an interview, Kass argued that Donald Trump’s rapidly improving odds of winning have contributed to Wall Street’s volatility . Trump is a “political blank slate,” Kass said, with positions that are “unpredictable and somewhat unformed.” So long as that continues, he concluded, we should expect volatility

to persist. Yet the cause and effect also run in the opposite direction . Voters are more likely to want a change of political party in the White House when the economy and the stock market are in awful shape. As James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist in 1992, famously put it: “It’s the economy, stupid!” Notice, however, that even if you were convinced that the stock market is what causes changes in the parties’ political fortunes, you’d still not have much to go on today. The stock market is basically flat for the first quarter of 2016, having recovered from the big hole it dug in January and early February. If the stock

market is a political handicapper, right now it’s essentially throwing up its hands. The bottom line? Both political junkies and

investors should focus on other factors that have a more obvious and direct impact . In the stock market,

that means focusing on things like the economy in general and corporate earnings in particular . Both

are far more likely to cause the stock market to be higher or lower at the end of this year than the shifting

political fortunes of the various presidential candidates .

Trump key to US economic growth – lower corporate tax rates, greater business confidence, targeted programs towards low-income areas McCaughey 5/4/16 (Betsy, senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, "Donald Trump’s policy plans are real, detailed — and great," http://nypost.com/2016/05/04/donald-trumps-policy-plans-are-real-detailed-and-great/)Check out Trump’s economic plan, for starters. Unlike Hillary Clinton’s anti-business agenda, Trump’s plan would

actually help unemployed Americans get back to work . Trump slashes the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, down from the current 40 percent, the highest rate in the industrialized world. Not all American companies pay that staggering

rate, but even after deductions and accounting maneuvers, companies in the United States end up clobbered by taxes

nearly twice the global average (24 percent). In Ireland, a magnet for tax-weary companies, the rate is only 12.5 percent and their economy is growing about three times as fast as ours. Conversely, Japan and Argentina are stuck in the doldrums along with America, partly because of their high rates. Trump also proposes a one-time 10 percent repatriation tax on profits US companies made overseas and kept there to avoid the 40 percent rate. That bargain could lure back as much as $2.5 trillion in capital urgently needed here. To promote investing in plants and equipment, Trump would allow companies to write off the purchases the year they’re made, rather than over several years, as current law requires . Economist Larry Kudlow predicts that if Trump’s corporate tax plan becomes law, you’ll see “a tremendous movement of capital and labor

back to the United States .” Trump’s lower 15 percent business rate would also apply to small businesses that usually get taxed at individual income tax rates. That would give a break to mom-and-pop operations, startups and other small businesses that are the source of most jobs. Compare Trump’s blueprint with Clinton’s nightmare scenario: Higher taxes, more tax complexity and an avalanche of new regulations .

Over-regulation has depressed economic growth for the last 15 years. The Obama administration suffocated business with 81,000 pages of new regulations in 2015 alone. Hillary is pushing for even more — with controls on hiring, pay, bonuses and overtime to promote “fairer growth.” Translation: gender and racial preferences, plus meddling in how much you get paid. Remember Obama’s statement, “You didn’t build that.” Hillary assumes “You don’t own that.” Government will run your business. Hillary wants companies to stop maximizing quarterly earnings for shareholders — what she derides as “quarterly capitalism.” She wants “farsighted

investments” (whatever that means). Companies that can get out of the United States will rush for the exits . She’s even

promising an end to “the boom-and-bust cycles on Wall Street.” As plausible as ending rainy days. Trump’s “make America rich” plan targets impoverished cities like Baltimore with incentives for companies to move there . For African-Americans, whose unemployment rate is twice as high as the nation’s overall, Trump’s has a four-letter remedy: J-O-B-S. For young blacks with no job experience, he’s got plans. One is borrowed from the left-leaning Century Foundation. Every summer, the State Department brings about 100,000 young foreigners into the United States to work in restaurants, camps and seaside resorts under J-1 visas. Trump says convert the program into a jobs bank for our own inner-city youth. Meanwhile, Hillary is stoking racial hatred, telling black voters they’re victims of “systemic racism” and meeting with Al Sharpton. Hillary says public schools should stop disciplining and suspending black teenagers who misbehave. But self-discipline is precisely what’s needed to succeed at school and on the job. While Hillary panders, Trump offers specifics to get these young people on the job ladder. Clinton’s reputed to be the

policy wonk, but she’s just a cynical politician. Trump , who’s rolling out serious policies to get Americans working, is the real deal.

A2 Trump Kills Global Trade

Trump key to coercing FAIR trade practices from our competitors – solves the deficit, stops dollar collapse, and no risk of trade warFletcher 11 (Ian, Economics Advisor @ Coalition for a Prosperous America, 4/19, "Why Donald Trump Is Right on Trade," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/why-donald-trump-is-right_b_851305.html)I have expressed reservations about getting obsessed with just China before. But broadly speaking, Trump is right on the money here. Nothing less than an actual tariff or the equivalent is ever going to get Beijing to stop gaming the international trading system to America’s disadvantage. This matters, big-time. Because until we sort out

America’s trade mess — which must start by zeroing out, or close to it, our $600 billion-a-year trade deficit — our economy

will never truly be healthy again . Jobs are the aspect of this everyone understands. But what a lot of people miss is that the current budget fight, and the angst over our mounting national debt, are also intimately connected to trade. So Trump is onto something even bigger than people realize. The budget fight ultimately comes down to the fact that we don’t have an economy large enough to generate tax revenue commensurate with the spending we have voted for. But why isn’t our economy big enough? Start with the fact that, as economist William Bahr has estimated, America’s accumulated trade deficits since 1991 alone have caused our economy to be 13 percent smaller than it otherwise would be. The trade deficit costs us about one percent in GDP growth every year, and that compounds over time. As for our national debt, or, more properly, our bloating public and private indebtedness? As I explained at length in another article, borrowing money (and selling off existing wealth, which has the same net effect) is a mathematically inevitable result of running trade deficits. The only way this can not happen is if a) the aforementioned $600 billion isn’t real money, or b) America is trading with Santa’s elves. So, Mr. Trump... How do we rebalance America’s trade, starting with China? Forget about doing it by playing nice. China will only give up one-way free trade (free for America, protectionist for them) when

they are coerced into doing so. They are making far too much money to ever give up this sweet racket voluntarily. We are constantly warned that imposing a tariff on China would trigger a trade war . But the curious thing about the concept of trade war is that, unlike actual shooting war, it has no actual historical precedent . In fact,

the reality is that there has never been a significant trade war . Anyone who knows otherwise, please name one. The usual

example free traders give is America’s Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which supposedly either caused the Great Depression or caused it to

spread around the world. But this canard does not survive serious examination, and has actually been denied by almost every economist who has actually researched the question in depth — including many free traders and ranging from Paul Krugman on the left to Milton Friedman on the right. (I debunked this myth at length in this article.) There is, in fact, a basic unresolved paradox at the bottom of the very concept of trade war. If, as free traders insist, free trade is beneficial whether or not one’s trading partners reciprocate, then why would any rational nation start one, no matter how provoked? Wouldn’t they just keep lapping up the benefits of one-way free trade, if it’s so good for them? Furthermore, if the moneymen in Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin, and the other nations currently running trade surpluses against the U.S. start to ponder exaggerated retaliation against the U.S., they will soon discover the advantage is with us, not them. Because they are the ones with the trade surpluses to lose, not us. What exactly does the U.S. have to lose in a trade war? The only way a deficit nation can “lose” a trade war is by having its trade balance get even worse. Given that the U.S. trade balance is already outlandish, it is hard to see how this could happen. Supposedly, China could suddenly stop buying our Treasury Debt. Indeed they could, but this would immediately reduce the value of the $1.15 trillion or so they already hold. Furthermore, this would depress the value of the dollar — exactly the opposite of their currency manipulation strategy. Then there is the awkward problem of what China would do with all the money it would get by selling off its dollars. There just aren’t that many good alternatives for parking that much money. Japan doesn’t want its currency used as an international reserve currency, and the Euro has huge problems. Assets like gold and minor currencies are volatile or in limited supply. Others, like real estate or corporate stocks, are still denominated in those pesky dollars and euros. We are still a nuclear power, so at the end of the day, China cannot force us to do anything that we don’t want to. We could — a grossly irresponsible but not impossible hypothetical — repudiate our debt to them (or stop paying the interest) as the ultimate counter-move. More plausibly, we might simply restore the tax on the interest on foreign-held bonds that was repealed in 1984 thanks to Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. We have lots of little cards like that up our sleeve. So an understanding will, most likely, be reached. A deal (one of Mr. Trump’s favorite words!) will be struck. I think Mr. Trump understands this better than anyone else. That’s one of the things I like about him. The reality is that the United States

is already in a trade war with China. Kowtowing to China today is economic appeasement, with the same result as political

appeasement in the 1930s: a few more years of relative quiet with a bigger explosion at the end. At some point, America’s ability to run gigantic deficits must end, due to a prolonged slide or sudden crash in the value of the dollar. The

longer we wait, the greater the likelihood that it will come as a sudden and destabilizing shock , rather

than a managed, more gradual adjustment. This issue is bigger than China alone. How America deals with China

will set the precedent , and establish or destroy America’s credibility, for dealing with a long list of other nations .

Believe me, they’re watching Trump now in Tokyo, Berlin, and Brussels.

A2 Trump = Warming

Trump won't reverse Obama-led environmental actionsMurray 5/17/16 (Bill, Energy policy contributor @ RealClearPolitics, "Would Trump Undo Obama's Environmental Legacy?," http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/05/17/would_trump_undo_obamas_environmental_legacy_130583.html)Other analysts express doubt about Trump’s ability or desire to upend current environmental trends, believing the long-standing administrative rules regarding public comment and judicial review may make any rollback of Obama’s actions not worth Trump’s time or energy. “He can’t undo it all. He can reinterpret a lot, but reinterpreting doesn’t necessarily make it gone forever, or even reverse the trend,” said Kevin Book, a principal at ClearView Energy Partners. If elected, “he has the administrative power, but if you’re going to reverse findings, after all that has happened, you’re going to need a lot of ink, a lot of time and a lot of lawyers.” A Trump administration would need support from Congress, and given the possibility that Democrats may regain control of the Senate, Trump’s deal-making tendencies scare any number of Republican energy purists. Trump’s complete lack of ideological obligations considering environmental policy, and his desire to negotiate big changes in U.S. policy, mean it is possible he could offer Democrats a national tax on carbon in return for comprehensive tax reform or immigration reform, according to some analysts.