Donald Trump may have thought that giving a 250th Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore would help his shameless effort to have his image added to those of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln.
Instead, what he earned is an eventual spot at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Appleton, Wisconsin, the final resting place of Sen. Joe McCarthy. That’s because Trump devoted a significant portion of his address to the kind of crude Communist scare rhetoric McCarthy employed to such harmful effect 70 years ago.
Trump’s Red Scare revival is his response to the growing political success of candidates identifying themselves as democratic socialists. Ignoring the policies these candidates actually endorse, Trump conflated socialism with communism and denounced both as threats to American liberty in the most simplistic terms.
It is unclear whether Trump is aware that the key characteristic of socialism is government control of the means of production, especially major industries. Someone should point out to him that his administration has moved the country further in that direction than any president since FDR.
Over the past year, Trump has pressured various corporations to give the federal government partial ownership or control of their operations, or a share of their profits.
After reversing the Biden Administration’s rejection of Nippon Steel’s purchase of U.S. Steel, Trump obtained a golden share that gave the federal government a substantial amount of influence over the company.
In exchange for permission to export certain AI chips to China, Nvidia and AMD had to agree to hand over 15 percent of their Chinese revenue to Uncle Sam.
The federal government took an equity stake of nearly 10 percent in Intel, which was financed in part by converting grants the company was supposed to receive under the Biden-era CHIPS and Science Act.
The Pentagon invested $400 million in MP Materials, a company created to reduce U.S. dependence on China for rare earth resources, positioning the government as the company’s largest shareholder with an effective 15 percent stake.
The Trump Administration signed an $80 billion strategic partnership with Westinghouse Electric to build nuclear power plants across the country. The arrangement could end up with a 20 percent stake in Westinghouse, whose current majority owner is Brookfield Asset Management.
The administration signed preliminary agreements to provide $2 billion in funding and take equity stakes in nine companies, including IBM, involved in quantum computing.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations’ U.S. Government Deal Tracker, the federal government has negotiated equity stakes and other forms of involvement in at least 30 companies.
Previous presidents took such actions reluctantly, usually as part of bailouts meant to address financial crises, and they arranged it so that federal investments were time-limited. Trump, by contrast, relishes his interventions and seems to be angling for many more.
While some of the investments may make economic sense, there is little indication that they are part of a coherent strategy or that they are providing real benefits to the public. Instead, the deals often seem to be motivated mainly by Trump’s desire to exercise control over as many things as possible. They are less a matter of industrial policy than they are additional fuel for a never-ending power trip.
It may also turn out that these deals, like so much of what the administration does, are somehow enriching Trump family interests.
Trump may think that rekindling old-style red-baiting will help Republicans in the mid-term election, but this tactic cannot hide the fact that his economic policies are failing to serve the needs of the vast majority of the population.
You must be logged in to post a comment.