Related topics: politics, China, OPEC, bankruptcy, Michael Brush
Say what you will about Donald Trump's flirtation with running for president, he's certainly the challenger who has been getting the most attention lately.
He reinvigorated the birther issue, then took credit for President Barack Obama's release of his long-form birth certificate. Then The Donald was chided in person by comedian Seth Meyers and the president himself at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.
And on May 1, a night when the president deserved all the attention, commentators couldn't help but note that Obama's televised announcement of the killing of Osama bin Laden was competing with Trump's TV show, "The Apprentice."
Trump has gotten the sort of time in the spotlight that Republican presidential hopefuls like Tim Pawlenty and Gary Johnson can't buy. (Though it may not be helping; one poll released this week shows his support among Republicans falling.)
Of course, there's one hitch: The Manhattan real estate mogul may or may not be running. He's flirted with the idea before. Political watchers think he's more serious about it now, but his real intention is a mystery.
And Trump isn't in a hurry to clear it up.
More than an ego trip
The Donald has hinted that sometime around May 22, the date of this season's last episode of "The Apprentice," he'll announce whether he's running for president. Or maybe he'll announce a news conference, to come sometime before June, to tell us whether he's running.
Michael Brush
"I may surprise you," he has said about his intentions. (Trump declined to be interviewed for this column. A spokesman did answer some questions, and Trump's quotes are taken from media reports.)
My guess is that Trump will stay in the running a while longer because he enjoys razzing Obama and setting the tone in the political debate. A consummate showman, the billionaire relishes the spotlight.
But if you listen closely amid all the bluster, it seems that Trump's heart really is in it when he says America is in "serious trouble" and someone has to step in and fix it. If he's not convinced the GOP has a serious contender who's up for the job, he may stay in this for the long haul.
Could Trump really fix America? It's not as farfetched a question as it might seem. After all, another big ego Big Apple billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, has proved very popular as the mayor of New York.
But how Trump would do the job is a mystery. Despite all the time in the spotlight, he's surprisingly light on policy specifics. What he has said has policy experts scratching their heads.
The business axioms he has shared over the years are no more reassuring. Political insiders suggest that the brash skills it takes to succeed in Manhattan real estate won't transfer well to the world of politics.
And then there's his repeated use of bankruptcy for a business "do-over." The federal budget may be a mess, but the U.S. can't file Chapter 11.
Here's a quick look at what a Trump campaign might look like.
Lashing out at Beijing
A big part of The Donald's shtick is to play the New York tough guy -- not surprising for a Queens native who's penned a book called "Think Big and Kick Ass."
A favorite Trump target: China. The Donald complains that China is "taking all our jobs" through currency manipulation, deliberately keeping its currency weak to promote exports to the United States.
Trump's fix? "We should be fighting China," he has said. "You can't take nonsense from people. You have to go after them."
As president, he says, he would slap a 25% import tax on all goods from China -- an idea that economists and international trade experts see as completely unworkable. "Everything China sells us will be 25% more expensive," says Fariborz Ghadar, the director of Pennsylvania State University's Center for Global Business Studies. It's unlikely that Wal-Mart shoppers would tolerate a 25% price hike for long. And China would likely retaliate with a 25% tariff against our goods, possibly starting a global trade war. "It's just mind-boggling," says Ghadar.
Trump maintains that his talk of a 25% tariff is just a threat to get China to "behave nicely" and stop manipulating its currency. But even as a negotiating tactic, the tariff idea is an extremely naive proposal from someone whose main selling point is business experience, says another international trade expert.
"It is a completely non-credible threat because of the havoc it would create in the U.S. economy," says Bhaskar Chakravorti, a senior associate dean of International Business and Finance at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "The Chinese are not going to get bluffed by the U.S. simply saying we are going to levy 25% tariff. The last thing you want to do in negotiations is put up a non-credible threat, because after that your credibility is shot," says Chakravorti, who is an economist and a former partner at McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm. "Something like this shows an extreme degree of naiveté."
The large trade imbalance with China, along with the huge federal deficit and high oil prices are unsustainable and "a formula for economic disaster to this country," responds Michael Cohen, an executive vice president and special counsel to Donald Trump. "Trump may be the only potential candidate who can realistically resolve these problems."
Trump himself would no doubt scorn the criticism. And that's part of his allure. Trump's take on economists like Chakravorti: "Most of them are wrong most of the time."
An ultimatum to OPEC
Though it's improbable that gasoline will go to $8 a gallon any time soon, Trump likes to throw that number out in interviews. It's a good attention-grabbing tactic that resonates with Americans already paying more at the pump.
Trump's solutions here seem as rash and unworkable as his China policy. He's said that members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries collude on oil prices to "screw the United States." His fix: Simply tell OPEC that oil prices need to be lower, with the implicit threat of removing military support for countries like Saudi Arabia.
"You tell OPEC, 'Fellas, that price is going down,' and let me tell you it'll go down, if you say it properly," Trump says.
Energy experts like T. Boone Pickens, however, say it's unrealistic to think that you could simply tell OPEC what price to put on oil -- Trump suggests $40 a barrel, from around $100 right now -- and expect it to happen.
Next, Trump likes to dredge up the outdated doctrine of "to the victor go the spoils of war." He says the U.S. should just take over oil fields in Iraq to guarantee supply. "In the old days when you won a war, you won a war, and you kept the country," says Trump. "We shouldn't be outta there. What we should do is take the oil."
