New War Scares Before the End of Summer

It's all coming unraveled for Trump. When it comes apart, it will disintegrate quickly. Eventually all the braggadocio and brinkmanship he learned as a developer and a star of the New York City tabloids are going to have to be backed up with an actual war, whether a trade war or an armed conflict.

Team Trump is on the ropes with China. According to Mark Landler and Ana Swanson in "Chances of China Trade Win Undercut by Trump Team Infighting":

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that the United States would hold off on imposing tariffs on China, putting the trade war “on hold,” but hours later, the United States trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, warned the Chinese that the Trump administration might yet impose tariffs.

On Friday, Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, told reporters that China had offered to reduce its trade surplus with the United States by $200 billion. Two days later, he said that the number was merely a “rough ballpark estimate,” and that the two countries never expected to reach an agreement and merely planned to issue a statement laying out next steps.

It was a muddled end to a chaotic process — one that revealed an American team riven by conflicts over tactics and policy, working for a president eager for a victory but torn by his desire to have a smooth summit meeting next month with North Korea, over which China wields enormous influence. 

Now the future of the negotiations falls to Wilbur Ross, the 80-year-old commerce secretary, who will travel to China in the coming days to try to nail down the commitments that proved so elusive in last week’s negotiations.

Trump is on the ropes with North Korea. There is a good chance that the ballyhooed Trump-Kim summit in Singapore won't happen.

It is obvious that complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a Trump fantasy. Trump has made a huge blunder though, similar to Obama's chemical weapons red line blunder, by proclaiming that no Northern Korean deal equals decimation of the country.

Yesterday Pompeo promised the same thing for Iran. Bill Van Auken has a masterful write-up in "US Secretary of State Pompeo presents war ultimatum to Iran." What caught my eye was his detailed summary of the steps being considered to counter the resumption of U.S. sanctions:

The French energy giant Total has already announced that it will withdraw from a $5 billion deal to develop the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf unless it is granted a sanctions waiver by US authorities. The Danish shipping giant Maersk Tankers said Thursday it would cease its activities in Iran, while German insurer Allianz and the Siemens corporation, which has sold gas turbines to Iran, have also announced that they are closing down their operations there. Airbus, which has already provided jets to Iran under a multibillion-dollar contract, has indicated it is considering compliance with US sanctions.

Meanwhile, China’s state-owned oil company CNPC announced that it is prepared to take over the contract for the Iranian gas field if Total withdraws. China is Iran’s top trade partner. The Russian government has signaled that it is prepared to incorporate Iran into a free trade zone.

While the unilateral US action has brought relations between Europe and America to their lowest point in the post-World War II era, with calls from European officials for an independent policy and a defense of “economic sovereignty,” the EU and its member states have yet to agree on any concrete policy for defying Washington.

Proposals coming out of Brussels reportedly include the continuation of Iranian oil imports by making direct euro-denominated payments to Iran’s central bank, bypassing the US financial system; paying damages to companies affected by US sanctions; and the retooling of a 1996 “blocking statute” drafted in response to US sanctions against Iran, Libya and Cuba, which makes it illegal for European firms to comply with extra-territorial sanctions. At the time, the Clinton administration provided relief for European corporations doing business in those countries, rendering the statute moot.

There is no indication that the Trump administration intends to provide any such exemptions. This means that, whatever the divisions among the European powers, trade war and political tensions will continue to intensify as the threat of a major new war in the Middle East looms.

Then there is the regime change operation underway in Venezuela.

Before the summer is over the U.S. will be at the center of several new war scares.