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New York correspondent
When Donald Trump’s fortune took a slowdown in the 90s and needed to raise cash quickly, he sailed to his 282 feet (85m), Trump’s princess, Asia with the hope of being able to attract the rich of Japan.
It was not the first time that the businessman was looking for Japanese buyers or lenders for his projects.
In the world of real estate in the world of New York, Trump had a front row seat of his skyscraper of the kiosk of Tokyo’s shopping wave in the 80s of the iconic American brands and properties, including Rockefeller Center.
It was then that his vision of the world was formed on trade and relations of the United States with his allies, and began his fixation on tariffs, an import tax.
“He had a tremendous resentment for Japan,” says Barbara Res, former executive vice president of the Trump organization.
He watched with jealousy how Japanese entrepreneurs were seen as geniuses, she says. He felt that the United States was not getting enough in exchange for helping its ally Japan with military defense.
Trump often complained that he had difficulties to do treatment with large groups of Japanese entrepreneurs.
“I am tired of seeing other countries scaming the United States.”
That Trump event could have been withdrawn from 2016, but in reality it is since the end of the 80s when it appeared in Larry King Live of CNN, around the moment he had his name for the first time as a possible presidential candidate.
Just out of sharing his commercial philosophy in his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, Trump made a diatribe against US business policies in national interviews.
In an animated interview with Oprah Winfrey before a live study audience in the Oprah program, he said he would handle foreign policy differently when making the country’s allies “pay their fair part.”
He added that there was no free trade when Japan was “throwing” products to the United States market, but it was “impossible to do business” there.
Jennifer Miller, associated history of history at Dartmouth College, said that others shared their concerns about the economy at that time.
Japan provided competence for the manufacture of the United States, particularly in consumer electronics and cars. As the US factories were closing and the new Japanese brands entered the market, experts were talking about Japan exceeded the United States as the world leader.
“Trump is a bit symbolic of many people who questioned American leadership in the international order led by Americans, and if it really served the United States,” says Professor Miller.
Before his appearance in Oprah, Trump had spent almost $ 100,000 to launch an “open letter” in full page ads in three main US newspapers.
The headline said: “There is nothing wrong with the United States foreign defense policy that a small column cannot cure.”
In it, he said that Japan and other nations had been taking advantage of the United States for decades. He said that “the Japanese, without obstacles because of the enormous costs of defending themselves (provided that the United States does it for free), have built a strong and vibrant economy with unprecedented surpluses.”
Trump believed that the obvious solution was to “tax” these rich nations.
“The world laughs at the politicians of the United States while protecting the ships we do not possess, carrying oil that we do not need, destined for allies that do not help,” he wrote.
The announcement served as a powerful introduction to Trump’s foreign policy vision, according to Professor Miller. One was based on the zero sum belief that the allies are free and that the liberal internationalist approach that had dominated since World War II was weak and silly in a competitive world. The solution, he argued, was a more aggressive and protectionist commercial policy.
“I think that is one of the reasons why he likes tariffs so much, is that they fit not only with their transactional ideology but with their sense of himself, which is very deeply rooted as this successful offer,” he said. “And the fact that tariffs can be threatened; they can be hung on another country.”
Clyde Prestowitz headed negotiations with Japan during the Reagan Administration as advisor to the Secretary of Commerce. A critic for a long time of free trade policies, said that no one who was intellectually serious was affiliated with Trump or his simplistic approach at that time. He argues that the president has not offered a real solution to the problems he has raised.
“The tariffs are somewhat striking that you can say, look what I did, I hit those guys … so that you can be a hard guy. Whether they are effective or not in some way is really open to the discussion.”
Prestowitz believes that the real problem at that time and now is that the United States does not have a strategic manufacturing policy, despite complaining of unfair trade.
Of course, the fear of Japan’s rise calmed over time and is now an ally. Instead, it is China who is the fiercest corporate competitor in the United States. This week, Trump welcomed Japan’s prime minister to the Oval office as one of his first foreign visitors.
But Donald Trump’s government philosophy remains the same as when he was a young real estate developer. He still believes with the same force in tariffs as a tool to press other countries to open their markets and reduce commercial deficits.
“He only tells this all the time to anyone who listens every time someone asks, and that has been true for 40 years. And to be fair to him, you know it is a very natural way to see international trade,” he said Michael Strain, an economist from the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
He says that students often share Trump’s intuitive thinking about the economy, and one of the great challenges faced by teachers is to convince them that their understanding is incorrect.
Straen says that despite Trump’s control over the party, with a position that has overturned decades of republican hug of free trade, he does not believe he has convinced skeptical legislators, business leaders and economists.
The conflict points remain their views that foreign imports are bad, that the size of the commercial deficit is a useful measure of the success of the policy or that the ideal state for the economy of the United States is only to import goods that They cannot be physically done in the United States.
Strain believes that the threats of increasing tariffs for the allies of the United States could reduce business investment and weaken international alliances.
Joseph Lavorgna, an economist chief of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first mandate, believes that there has been a close focus on tariffs and an attempt to understand the general landscape of what Trump is trying to achieve is not enough.
He says that the president wants to galvanize the national industry, in particular the manufacture of high technology.
The administration, he explains, feels that they can encourage more corporations to come to the US. Using tariffs, combined with deregulation, cheaper energy and lower corporate taxes, if Congress enacts it.
“I think President Trump understands something that is very important, being a businessman and being transactional, and that is that free trade is excellent in theory, but in the real world you need to have a fair trade and that is a field of level game “.
He is betting on Donald Trump is right. Few Republicans have publicly opposed the president, since he demands loyalty to his agenda.
Even so, some who have remained silent understand that their constituents could be affected by the increase in prices, and hope they can convince Trump not to move forward with their beloved tariffs.