Steve Bannon Admits There is No Military Solution with North Korea; Wants Economic War with China
|It is pretty amazing to me that someone from the White House would just call up a random reporter and be this open about their views, but as we have seen there is nothing conventional about Steve Bannon:
“We’re at economic war with China,” he added. “It’s in all their literature. They’re not shy about saying what they’re doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it’s gonna be them if we go down this path. On Korea, they’re just tapping us along. It’s just a sideshow.”
Bannon said he might consider a deal in which China got North Korea to freeze its nuclear buildup with verifiable inspections and the United States removed its troops from the peninsula, but such a deal seemed remote. Given that China is not likely to do much more on North Korea, and that the logic of mutually assured destruction was its own source of restraint, Bannon saw no reason not to proceed with tough trade sanctions against China.
Contrary to Trump’s threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.” Bannon went on to describe his battle inside the administration to take a harder line on China trade, and not to fall into a trap of wishful thinking in which complaints against China’s trade practices now had to take a backseat to the hope that China, as honest broker, would help restrain Kim.
“To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we’re five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we’ll never be able to recover.” [The American Prospect via a reader tip]
You can read much more at the link, but in regards to threat to Seoul Mr. Bannon is correct that it continues to restrain US actions against North Korea. The fact that Bannon is willing to consider a freeze deal with North Korea in exchange for the removal of US troops I find very interesting. I think everyone pushing for the freeze deal are now going to push it even harder if they see an opening that the White House might accept it.
Bannon in the article also talks about trying to get more hawks into the administration that don’t want to play nice with China. He feels there are too many people in the government that think playing nice on trade with China will encourage them to help us with North Korea.
As far economic war with China it seems to me that a lot of the economic problems are self inflicted with the exporting of manufacturing jobs to China. I don’t know if someone can even live a modern life any more if they made a conscious decision to not buy anything made in China.
Trump’s own son in law, Jared Kushner, offers US citizenship to ChiComs for $500,000.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/20/politics/draft-kushner-visas/index.html
“I don’t know if someone can even live a modern life any more if they made a conscious decision to not buy anything made in China.”
There’s no option not to buy from China.
I buy a product made in Germany and it has parts from China. I buy a product made in the UK, USA, et al and it has components made from China. I have no choice to avoid buying from China, the components are in everything.
He’s right though. The US has to end trade with China as we know it.
For the 12 years I worked in China I made it a fetish to never wear clothing or footwear made in China. It was tough and expensive, and I looked at times like Elmer Fudd.
Gannon’s comments were intriguing. He did not mention any of the things we have as leverage but are not using. Hint: it’s got nothing to do with a trade war.
One take from a site I frequent:
It seems the first round of NAFTA negotiations is focusing on country of origin restrictions. Many products are manufactured in China, shipped to Canada or Mexico, (mostly Mexico) assembled, and then shipped to the US. This helps Chinese manufacturers skip out on paying import tariffs they would be subject to if they shipped directly to the US.
If more goods are manufactured in the US, I look for prices to go up for at least a couple of years. The factory infrastructure is there, but it may take a while to get it up and running at its most efficient. In the end, I wonder just how much the prices will fluctuate up or down.
I just hope the potential job gains will be worth it.
Johnny boy, would you mind sharing the name of that site? Sounds interesting.
Trump fires chief strategist Steve Bannon
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/politics/steve-bannon-white-house/index.html
Liz,
the conservative treehouse dot com
It’s a pretty good site, but I do take things with a grain of salt. The owner/admin does investigative pieces and from time to time has made some errors. His analysis pieces are often good reads.
One last word of caution: the guy is unabashedly and unashamedly a Trump supporter 100% of the time. I support Trump as well but I recognize that no one is perfect. This site rarely if ever acknowledges Trump gaffes.
Thank you. 🙂
@Denny, I think after an interview like the one he just gave to a random reporter he forced President Trump’s hand to fire him. This leads me to believe that he is frustrated with General Kelly trying to bring some order to the White House.
Bannon looking for revenge on the Trump administration is one take on the issue.
Another take might be that Bannon accomplished what he came to accomplish while in the White House and may be more effective at kneecapping the president’s opponents from outside the administration.
Perhaps a mix of the two is true. What if Bannon has been sent into the wild to destroy Trump’s opponents inside the administration as well as those within the Democrat and Republican establishments and corporate media empire.
The Trump White House could be as dysfunctional as it seems, or the President’s inner circle could be playing the long game. It may be a while before we can determine which, if either.
In other news, GDP seems to be ticking up at a decent clip. I’m not a huge economics guy, but it looks like many sectors of the economy are improving nicely.
Perhaps the few adults in the administration agree with Bannon’s assessment, and that’s why they have not made good on Trump’s threat (devastation if NK makes another threat).
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/20/asia/north-korea-south-korea-us-military-drills/index.html
Bob,
I read your link. I saw tough talk from the NorKs, but no threats as to any specific action. Not to say a threat won’t come, but as of yet it appears the rhetoric is lighter than the usual fare before US-ROK exercises.