We vote and the rest of the world pays attention.
This year’s presidential election will determine the fate of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russian forces. The Yale School of Public Health and other organizations have confirmed that Russian troops have taken Ukrainian children from their homes, sent them to brutal re-education camps, and then placed them in Russian homes, often thousands of miles from Ukraine.
Under international law, this attempt to erase the national identities of people living in an invaded nation is genocide. The few children who have managed to return to Ukraine testify to the remorseless violence of their Russian captors.
Donald Trump refuses to to say if he wants democratic Ukraine to defeat its Russian invaders. He has boasted, as is his tiresome habit, that he will have the war in Ukraine settled in 24 hours. Trump has frequently expressed his admiration for murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Trump says little about the great man of our time, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the defiant president of Ukraine.
Trump confirmed his contempt for Ukraine’s war to repel Putin’s invasion by choosing U.S. Sen. JD Vance as his running mate. Not long after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vance said, “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
Appeasement is the discredited policy of attempting to placate an enemy that preceded the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. It would be wrong to accuse Trump and Vance of being credulous appeasers of Putin. Instead, they would let him cast 40 million free Ukrainians into servitude while gaining control of one of the world’s largest producers of food exports. Trump said earlier this year he would tell Putin to “do whatever the hell you want” to our NATO allies if they did not meet defense spending agreements.
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The defeat of Ukraine would put Russian troops and all the horrors that accompany them at Poland’s border. A crisis will have arrived. The pleasures of freedom come with responsibilities, especially for the United States. We need leaders with the energy and instincts to defend freedom and resist the terror and tyranny of despots.
The plight of brave Ukraine may make no impression on some voters with narrow, short-term interests.
Those voters should pay attention to Trump’s misbegotten infatuation with tariffs. The Republican nominee for president for the third time has been talking about tariffs on the national stage for nine exhausting years. The Wharton graduate still does not understand them. Lately, Trump has been raging about Chinese companies building cars in Mexico and exporting them to the United States. Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady explained on Monday that our trade agreement with Mexico and Canada says “that 40% to 45% of the content of an auto must be produced by workers paid at least $16 an hour—in other words, in the U.S. They also stipulate that 75% of vehicle content and 70% of the steel used has to be made in North America.”
Trump does not understand an agreement his administration negotiated and approved. He remains willfully ignorant. O’Grady describes Trump’s claim against our largest trading partner as “nonsense.”
No amount of evidence will dampen Trump’s enchantment with broad, high, and ruinous tariffs. He promises to impose 100%, 200%, even 500% tariffs on products from other nations, mostly our allies. Not every advancement in medicine and technology is developed in the United States. Germany, for example, produces some of the most sophisticated medical imaging machines in the world. Many are used here to save lives. Double, triple, or quadruple the cost of them with Trump tariffs and Americans will face a ruinous choice: pay more than we can afford or do without the advances we share with our friends and allies.
Tariffs imposed by the United States will be met with equal or higher ones by our trading partners. Workers in Connecticut produce sophisticated goods, like jet engines and helicopters. Retaliatory tariffs will make it impossible for customers in other nations to purchase good manufactured here.
Herbert Hoover’s misbegotten belief in 1930 that tariffs could end the Great Depression caused the world cataclysm to last another decade, inflicting decline and unrest on our friends. It was the worst economic policy decision of the 20th century. Trump’s tariffs would be worse. To impose misery on ourselves on the scale Trump proposes would be a historic blunder not easily remedied.
Lately, Trump emphasizes his lawless instincts. His critics are “the enemy from within” and “enemies of the people.” Expect “human scum” to make a return before November 5. Believe him when he threatens to use the National Guard and the military to silence his detractors. It isn’t Russia, China or North Korea who pose a threat to Trump’s America, the loathsome demagogue claims, it’s Nancy Pelosi.
A political figure who revels in ceaselessly denigrating our nation, attacking democratic institutions, and turning its people against one another possesses the basest motives. This is our peaceful moment to reject him again.
Reach Kevin F. Rennie at [email protected]
