Donald Trump and the Securitization of Trade

On May 31, when President Donald Trump levied tariffs on steels and aluminum imports from the European Union, Mexico, and Canada, most observers were less by his actions than by his justifications for the move. Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Trump asserted that he was issuing the tariffs on national security grounds – the first usage of this power since 1983. What does this move say about the Trump administration’s view of trade strategy? Does the president seriously view international trade as a security threat to the United States?

President Trump is waging war on free trade like no other American president has done in recent memory. As the 2016 campaign revealed, the president views the trade practices of key international commercial partners a threat to national security and is levying tariffs on their exports in response. Such a move fittingly reflects Trump’s zero sum understanding of international politics, but also risks altering the manner in which the United States conducts international trade, by making trade a security priority – a shift that could have significant consequences for the future of U.S. alliances and the American economy moving forward.

The term national security is inherently ambiguous and, as a result, no statutory definition exists in the United States, affording the president a significant degree of latitude in defining what constitutes a threat to the nation’s security. Since World War II, the principle of open international trade has been a key feature of American foreign policy – a vehicle through which the United States could enhance bi- and multi-lateral relations through cooperation and mutual interests and, as a result, create an international system of like-minded, trade-friendly states – but has not been seen as a threat. This framework has and continues to lay the foundation for an international order that strengthens national and international security through the cultivation of cooperative relationships that draw states closer economically, culturally, and defensively. Trump’s approach to international trade, rather, is a departure from this perspective, and has explicitly identified trade as a “threat” to national security, rather than a medium for advancing security interests through positive-sum commercial relationships.

In the mid-1990s, political scientist Ole Wæver and his colleagues at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute laid out a new theory of security that sought to challenge classical security studies thinking, they coined it “securitization theory.” They argued that the concept of “national security” is simply the construct of “securitizing actors”– those in positions of authority on security issues – who could shift a national security agenda and legitimize it through rhetoric and a captive intended audience. In essence, this theory is a version of hyper-politicization in the form of national security planning and agenda-setting. Securitization is not necessarily good or bad, but rather the exercising of power by influential actors to transform national security policy to their liking.

The theory, while subject to scholarly criticism, has previously been cited in analysis of real-world events, most notably during the Obama administration, in which climate change was “securitized.” Obama became the first sitting president to embrace climate change as a top priority – directing his Defense Department to regard the issue as a national security threat and plan accordingly. Within a relatively short period of time, climate change shifted from an issue of seemingly marginal importance during the Bush administration, who refused to implement the Kyoto Protocol, to an agenda-topping security concern, this despite nearly uniform denial from one of the two major American political parties, largely in part to the commitment of a single presidential administration.

So what does securitization tell us about President Trump’s trade agenda?

The United States, since 1945, has largely been the world’s foremost champion of free trade and open markets, a product of the post-war liberal international order of which it created. A Pew study published this year found that the U.S. imposes tariffs at one of the lowest rates in the world and that American duties have been trending downward for over eight decades. For decades, trade deals have been at the bedrock of American diplomacy, serving as the foundation for some of the America’s most valuable strategic partnerships. Since the end of the Cold War though, trade has generally been viewed as a strictly economic issue – insulated from security issues. Prior to this shift, trade was at the forefront of efforts to combat the Soviet Union, as the Cold War was as much a battle for economic supremacy as it was for military superiority. Trade deals have long been regarded as a crucial foreign policy tool, a valuable carrot that could be extended to potential allies, not a risk to the safety and security of the American people – but things have changed.

The 2016 Presidential election was a watershed moment for trade and security. Trade deals enjoyed the castigation of candidates of both major parties during the primary and general elections. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders all campaigned against the Trans-Pacific Partnership to some degree and harshly criticized existing trade frameworks like NAFTA. To their credit, these candidates were simply capitalizing on the deeply unfavorable sensibilities of the electorate – those who perceive international trade to be the root of a decimated U.S. manufacturing industry and heavy job losses in recent decades. Unsurprisingly, given his longstanding belief that trade was disadvantageous to the United States, Trump followed through on his campaign rhetoric. Once Trump entered the Oval Office, he continued to push his anti-trade sentiments on Twitter and in public remarks, while not shying away from utilizing his tariff powers in targeting allies and adversaries alike.

The ramifications of a securitization of trade could be massive. A vast majority of U.S. alliances around the world are built on mutually beneficial economic exchange, which continues to allow the United States to remain atop the global economy. A drastic shift in consideration of  trade as a means of multilateral cooperation to an American posture that is hostile towards international trade risks a degradation of these invaluable relationships and a long-term setback in the global fight for hegemony as China ramps up its international investment and trading partnerships worldwide. Unfortunately, the conditions for such a securitization process are ripe – Trump and his advisers are quick to condemn trade as a losing battle, as other nations “take advantage” of the United States. Furthermore, a large portion of Trump’s base is avowedly anti-trade and hale from parts of the country most damaged by losses in the manufacturing industry. These loyal supporters of the president could easily serve as the legitimizing force for such a shift towards a securitized trade policy – as Republicans in Congress may be unlikely to challenge the president and risk electoral retribution.

The long-term consequences of continued hostility towards trade could spell disaster for the U.S., as its allies will have no choice but to look elsewhere for commercial relations – the massive EU-Japan trade agreement signed this year as just one example, with the potential of an American-less Trans-Pacific Partnership aligned more closely with China as another. Projections continue to suggest that the U.S. will cede its position atop the global share of GDP rankings to China in the decades ahead, and will see its share of the global economy stripped away by growth in developing nations around the world – and that’s with an amicable trade policy. The idea that trade represents a threat—and policies stemming from that view—will only exacerbate the decline.

It’s likely too early to conclude that trade has been securitized and it’s certainly too soon to see the potential long-term damage caused by Trump’s trade skepticism, but the outlook is bleak. As long as Trump continues to view trading relationships as a zero-sum game and a politically popular target, the United States is likely to become less secure as a result of a weaker network of global alliances.  

Trey Fields is an intern in Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Niskanen Center

Photo credit: This image or file is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the United States Marine Corps. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

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Why Every Startup Needs Office Space

There is and has always been the argument that not every startup needs an office space mostly because of remote work and the possibility of it being cheaper working without an office. This is quite true in a way since most startups do not have enough capital to run it over a long period especially without investors. But the advantages of having an office space to help expand and create a core team you can physically relate with and the infrastructure to add more people and resources to your startup is a big advantage to having an office space instead of going from café to café or laying around in your apartment trying to run a business. Explained below are some important reasons why every startup in Austin needs Austin office space.

• It helps you build a solid team

 

One of the most important aspects of any business including startups and even large multinational firms is the teams they have working for them. Without a solid team that will be there to work their hardest for the business, there is no business. Getting an Austin office space for lease to help you run your business at a reduced cost help you build great team relationships and an environment where you can support one another in a way that can help drive your business to the point you vision it to be.

• It improves productivity and accountability in the business

 

One of the biggest issues that startups face when the team does not work together in an office space is productivity and accountability. Sometimes when a team member says they were away because they had internet issues, it could mean they were on a vacation or doing something totally unrelated to the business when they should have been working. With an office space to work out of, all work done or not done is accounted for and productivity levels hardly drop for reason as the inefficiency of the team or teams involved.

• Attracting the best people to add to your team

 

There is a reason there is some sort of excitement when great talent from around the world are invited to offices of big brands like Google, Apple or Microsoft. Not only are they selling but they have office spaces that scream “Come and work here”! Office space Austin Texas, is important for the growth of startups and businesses generally. They help attract the best talent for your organization. Every potential worker wants to work in an environment they will feel comfortable and appealing to work in.

• There is an exposure to diversity

 

When you book an office space for rent Austin TX to work in, it means you become open to working with different kinds of people from different backgrounds and do not limit yourself. It also ensures that each individual in your team is exposed to different people from all walks of life and are should be able t work cordially with them with no problem. When workers themselves cannot tolerate themselves, it becomes a problem for them to tolerate others, especially customers.

 

If you think a office space can benefit your business feel free to contact us at https://www.austintenantadvisors.com/

Birthright Citizenship is Not a Legal Assumption; It’s the Law

Last week on Fox News, Tucker Carlson said, “It has long been assumed that anyone born here is automatically a citizen, and that the Constitution requires that. But in fact, that might not be the case.” Carlson was referring to a recent Washington Post piece written by a former Trump administration official, Michael Anton, who argued that President Trump could issue an executive order proclaiming that the children of illegal immigrants are not to be treated as citizens. Carlson closed his lead-in with the question, “And why wouldn’t he do that?” The answer is that the President — legally — cannot.

A majority of people in the United States and in the world do not earn their citizenship. There are two principal forms of citizenship transmission — jus sanguinis, a Latin term meaning “right of blood” (citizenship by descent) and jus soli, Latin for “right of the soil” (citizenship by territorial birth) — that ultimately confer citizenship based “on the accident of birth.”

Specific to the United States is the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified on July 28, 1868), which guarantees the universal right of birthright citizenship for persons born within the geographical boundary of the United States:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

In ratifying the amendment, Congress overruled the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision that denied birthright citizenship to the descendants of slaves. In 1957, Congress codified the conferral of citizenship to “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The Citizenship Clause was further enshrined in the Saenz v. Roe (1999) case, in which the Supreme Court held that new citizens must be treated the same as long-time citizens of a state and enjoy the same privileges and immunities, regardless of when they arrived in one state.

But it is the United States v. Wong Kim Ark case, decided by the Supreme Court in 1898, that offers the most food for thought about how inclusive or exclusive the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to be. In his piece, Anton hastily dismisses the long-established interpretation of the case and asserts that the Court ruled only that the children of legal residents are citizens, but not the children of illegal residents. The evidence for that claim is tenuous based on the facts of the case.

Wong Kim Ark was born in 1873 in San Francisco to a mother and father of Chinese descent who lived in California for a number of years before departing back to China in 1890. Aside from  two short trips to China (the exact length of time is unknown, but under a year each time), Wong Kim Ark lived and worked in San Francisco. He traveled to China as a U.S. citizen.

Upon returning from his second trip to China, Wong Kim Ark was denied entry into the United States. The government conceded that if he was determined to be a citizen, they could not exclude him pursuant to the then-in-full-force Chinese Exclusion Acts.

The facts of the case never state that Wong Kim Ark’s parents had a visa that allowed them to come and visit the United States, only that they were domiciled and worked in San Francisco, and were not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity by the Emperor of China. The question posed to the Court was whether a child, Wong Kim Ark, born to them in the United States was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Citizenship — specifically “citizen of the United States” and “natural-born citizen of the United States” — is undefined in U.S. law, so the Court looked to the English common law, finding that three centuries of law made clear that citizenship was conferred via jus soli:

[a]liens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction, of the English sovereign; and therefore, every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State, or of any alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

That rule, the Court further expounded, was in full force in the English colonies when the Declaration of Independence was passed, and continued to prevail under the original Constitution. In support of its conclusion, the Court mustered evidence of this interpretation being used throughout the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government . Ultimately, Wong Kim Ark was found to be a U.S. citizen by virtue of his birth in the United States.

Anton asserts that the rationale for birthright citizenship turns on a misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment. He links to a blog in his piece that cites the congressional record of debate in 1866. Based on one statement, he argues, the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction of” should be interpreted as not owing allegiance to anyone else, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment added “to distinguish between people to whom the United States owes citizenship and those to whom it does not.” That, Anton concludes, “definitely qualified” slaves for citizenship, but clearly not the children of illegal immigrants. (Note: There is some argument over the placement of an “or” which was inserted by Anton and arguably changes, rather than clarifies, the meaning of another statement he cites in support of his argument).

The Supreme Court, congressional, and common law understanding and support of birthright citizenship aside, there can still be a discussion about whether it is good policy, even if it actually concerns a relatively small population of people. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that about 7 percent of the 4 million births in the United States are children born to unauthorized immigrant parents (2014). That percentage has varied up or down by less than 2 points since 1996. Between 1980 and 1986, the proportion of births to unauthorized parents was 1 percent or less.

For many years now, those associated with right-wing populism in particular have asserted that children who are born to illegal immigrants should not receive citizenship via birth. The main criticism of the policy is that it attracts “birth tourism” by foreigners who want their children (“anchor babies”) to be U.S. citizens.

Flattery aside, the inauspicious reason some populists do not want the children of illegal immigrants to become citizens is because they are largely from a demographic that often does not vote for the Republican Party (despite often holding traditionally conservative religious and family values). Nonetheless, both Democrats and Republicans have introduced legislation aimed at narrowing the birthright citizenship clause.

Proponents of change often cite the number of European countries that don’t provide birthright citizenship, although it is a bit misleading. Only two countries, India and Malta, have abolished birthright citizenship, whereas the vast majority of countries restrict it in some way.

Generally, in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland, at least one parent must have citizenship or legal status for birthright citizenship. France allows for case-by-case review of children born to foreign parents, and weighs a number of factors like age and length of residence to decide whether a child ought to be a citizen. Children born in Greece to foreign parents acquire citizenship based on their attendance in school and the length of their parents’ residence in Greece. Unrestricted jus soli exists all over the world — in 33 countries — including Argentina, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan, and Uruguay.

There may be disagreement about the policy, but about whether the president can unilaterally change the law, there is none. Laws strengthened by the jurisprudence of the courts and cemented in our United States Code are not legally vulnerable to the whims of the executive. Congress can amend the Constitution, or (arguably) the statute alone, the Supreme Court can re-interpret the Fourteenth Amendment in a different light, but President Trump cannot — legally — use an executive order to undo more than a hundred years of legal precedent.

And, for what it’s worth, Republicans should not be encouraging an executive action of that breadth.

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How Campaign Money Has Changed Elections After Citizens United

Big money groups and donors have long played a role in our elections, but court decisions have opened the floodgates to more unlimited & anonymous contributions through new funding vehicles. How much is that changing our politics? Stan Oklobdzija finds that networks of dark money groups like those funded by the Koch brothers are helping move our political parties to the extremes in primary elections. But Anne Baker finds traditional Political Action Committees are responding to the flow of new money and holding up surprisingly well because candidates still need hard money to compete.

The Niskanen Center’s Political Research Digest features up-and-coming researchers delivering fresh insights on the big trends driving American politics today. Get beyond punditry to data-driven understanding of today’s Washington with host and political scientist Matt Grossmann. Each 20-minute episode covers two new cutting-edge studies and interviews two researchers.

You can subscribe to the Political Research Digest on iTunes here.

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The Tough Economics of Fuel Economy Standards

The EPA has released a proposed rule that would freeze corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards at 37 miles per gallon, rather than allowing them to rise to the Obama administration’s target of 54 MPG, as currently scheduled. The administration’s  proposal has the cute name of Safer and Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule, or “SAFE Vehicle Rule,” for short.

The proposed rule has been widely panned by environmentalists, and rightly so. However, the critics of the rule are wrong simply to defend the existing CAFE standards. The EPA’s analysis of the flaws of those standards is justified. But neither the EPA nor its critics are reaching the right conclusion, which is that we should repeal CAFE standards and replace them with a carbon tax — one tough enough to reduce carbon emissions by as much, or more, without the unintended consequences.

Let’s go straight to the heart of the EPA’s argument. Brad Plumer summarizes the issues in a recent article for the New York Times. Here are the key points he raises.

The rebound effect

The biggest problem with CAFE standards as a tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is that they encourage fuel saving only at the dealership, not at the pump. Once a consumer buys a low-mileage vehicle, the cost of driving an extra mile goes down, thereby reducing the incentive for fuel-saving measures like moving closer to work, working at home, riding the bus to work, or consolidating errands. The tendency of more fuel-efficient vehicles to induce additional driving is known as the rebound effect. More vehicles on the road, in turn, means an increase in accidents – one of the safety issues raised by the EPA in defense of the SAFE Vehicle Rule.

The variable that is most critical to the size of the rebound effect is the how much more people will drive when it costs them less to do so – what economists call the elasticity of demand. For example, if a 10 percent improvement in fuel efficiency (assuming no change in the price of fuel) would cause a 3 percent increase in driving, the elasticity would be -0.3. The increased miles driven would partly offset the improvement in miles per gallon, so that total fuel consumption would decrease by only about 7 percent. If the elasticity were only -0.1, then fuel consumption would fall by 9 percent in response to a 10 percent improvement in fuel efficiency.

The fact is, we don’t really know what that critical elasticity is — only that averaged over all drivers, it is negative. Numerical estimates differ widely. Plumer draws our attention to some small estimates, while the EPA cherry-picks the largest ones (I have covered this debate more extensively at Economonitor). But both sides miss the point: We know for sure that the number of miles driven goes up when the cost per mile goes down, and vice versa. That means that the number of miles driven goes up when CAFE standards are tightened.

Elasticity also matters when  the cost of fuel rises, as it would with a carbon tax. However, using a tax to raise fuel prices at the pump has a different set of impacts on vehicle choice and driving behavior. If we take -0.3 as our estimate of elasticity, a tax that raised the price of fuel by 10 percent would still reduce total fuel use by 3 percent. But now consumers would respond to the tax partly by buying moderately more efficient vehicles and partly by driving them less, rather than by buying super-efficient vehicles and then driving them more, as would happens with a 54 MPG CAFE standard. We don’t know with certainty how large a tax would be needed to save the same amount of fuel as the Obama-era CAFE standards, but economist Noah Kaufman makes a rough estimate of $50 per ton, or about 50 cents per gallon of gasoline.

Vehicle turnover

The EPA’s second safety-related objection to CAFE standards is that by raising the price of new vehicles, they encourage people to hold on to their old vehicles longer. If so, that means it would take longer for innovations like automatic braking and electronic stability control to work their way into the national vehicle fleet.

Superficially, that seems consistent with the fact that both the average age of vehicles on the road and the average cost of new cars have risen in recent years. But wait a minute — is there really a causal relationship there?

The global information firm IHS Markit reports that the average age of vehicles on the road has, in fact, risen by a full two years since 2002, but the trend in price is another matter, Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and AxelGeeks (reported here from WGNTV.com) show that the inflation-adjusted price of new cars actually fell by some 13 percent over the same period. Why, then, are original owners hanging on to their cars longer and why are used cars being kept in service longer before they are junked? IHS Markit points to improvements in vehicle quality, not price, as the main reason.

Lighter vehicles

The EPA argues that strict CAFE standards further hurt safety by encouraging manufacturers to make lighter vehicles, even though, it claims, heavier vehicles are safer. It is true that in a head-to-head between a Ford Expedition Max (5,700 pounds) and a Ford Fiesta (2,500 pounds), you definitely want to be driving the Max. But, as Plumer points out, the Max makes driving safer only for its own occupants, while reducing the safety of those in the Fiesta. If the administration really cared about safety, it seems that the best way would be to reduce the total range in vehicle size.

Higher fuel prices induced by a carbon tax ought to do just that, since they would discourage the purchase of gas-hungry SUVs. A study from Resources for the Future found that between 2003 and 2007, gasoline prices accounted for about half of changes in market share between SUVs and smaller cars. However, that study also found that over time, CAFE standards have blunted the effect of fuel prices, so that SUVs have remained popular no matter what.

Of course, some people would always want an SUV to tow the family boat to the lake or a pickup to haul lumber to the construction site. Even so, a carbon tax would help. For one thing, it would increase the incentive for manufacturers to make such large vehicles lighter to save on fuel, for example, by replacing steel components with aluminum. In addition, for families that have both a Max and a Fiesta in their driveways, higher fuel prices would increase the incentive to leave the Max parked when there is no need to tow a boat or haul a whole soccer team to a game.

But, wouldn’t a carbon tax also encourage people to buy more of the smallest vehicles? Wouldn’t that offset any benefits from a reduction in the chance of being T-boned by a monster SUV? Not necessarily, since, CAFE standards already encourage the purchase of the smallest vehicles, despite low gas prices. Wards Auto, another leading source of industry information, asks why car companies keep making small cars at all, when all the glamor is with larger vehicles. Number one on their list of explanations: Selling small cars, even at a slim profit margin, or none, lets carmakers comply with the CAFE system and sell more Maxes.

On balance, then, the best way to improve safety would be to eliminate CAFE standards and replace them with a carbon tax. Doing so would make for fewer ultra-heavy vehicles while eliminating the incentive to manufacture ultra-light vehicles and sell them at a loss. Meanwhile, all vehicles, especially the largest ones, would be driven fewer miles, for a net gain in highway safety.

Electric vehicles

Although it is not strictly a safety issue, Trump administration officials also object to the way CAFE standards favor electric cars. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler argue that “to meet the previous administration’s fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas standards, manufacturers would have to produce vehicle lineups that are 30 percent electric or more over the next seven years — far more vehicles than buyers are likely to want.”

It may very well be that people don’t want that many electric vehicles given today’s low gasoline prices, although they would probably want more if a carbon tax raised the price of gasoline. However, that is only part of the story. Replacing CAFE standards with a carbon tax would not only have an impact on how many electric vehicles were sold, but also on who buys those vehicles and where.

The problem with electric vehicles, as even their fans point out, is that they are only as efficient as the power you use to charge them. As the Sierra Club notes in a consumer guide to buying electric vehicles, “When coal plants supply the majority of the power in a given area, electric vehicles may emit more CO2 and SO2 pollution than hybrid electric vehicles. Learn where your electricity comes from” before you buy, they warn.

Electric vehicles are a case where a carbon tax would make a triple play. First, it would encourage people to buy efficient vehicles in general, electric vehicles included. Second, it would establish incentives that would concentrate electric vehicle purchases in the areas where renewable power is abundant, since where the electric supply relies heavily on coal, electric vehicle buyers would have to pay for the carbon emissions at charge-up. Third, over time, a carbon tax would put pressure on utilities to switch away from carbon-intensive electricity, at which point electric cars would make sense everywhere.

The bottom line

Where does all this leave us with regard to the coyly named SAFE Vehicle Rule? On the one hand, CAFE standards arguably do have unintended consequences for vehicle safety. But critics of the SAFE Vehicle Rule are also right.

There is no reason why we can’t have safe highways and a clean environment. The solution is obvious: Get rid of CAFE standards and replace them with a carbon tax of equivalent rigor. That would give us less pollution, fewer miles driven, and a selection of safe vehicles driven by economic realities and consumer choice rather than by bureaucratic whim.

Repeal and replace — but don’t do the repeal until you have the replacement firmly locked in.

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Asylum Fraud Isn’t What You Think It Is

By nature, I am a skeptic. When I read the statistics on the numbers of individuals being denied asylum every year, my first thought was how frustrating and difficult it must be for asylum officers to encounter so many people whose stories were untrue, and to weed out those who were honest.

At the same time, as a new parent myself, I could understand why a desperate mother might tell a story borrowed from a friend or relative who secured asylum in America. Even though this is—in part— what I expected when I left to help mothers and children seeking asylum, it could not have been further from the truth. Without exception, every woman I met was genuinely terrified to return home. Unfortunately, that fear—albeit credible—is not reason enough for the U.S. to protect them because the law does not provide protection for everyone seeking safety.

To illustrate the intricacies of this nuanced difference, I’ll use a story I heard during the week I spent working with asylum applicants at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Being one of a handful of family-friendly detention facilities, it was a place where a child could remain with their mom; a blessing for many families crossing the border and facing months of potential separation.

One scorching morning in Texas, I met Maria (named changed) and her six-year-old daughter who both received a negative determination following their initial interview with the asylum officer, and were facing removal proceedings.

In her initial credible fear interview, Maria told the asylum officer about her neighbor and close friend, the wife of a high-ranking official in the MS-13 gang. The wife, Sarah (name changed), became increasingly frustrated with the extreme physical and sexual violence inflicted on her by her husband, and she began to drink heavily and provoke him and the gang. She even had an affair.

MS-13 began stalking her; they would not let Sarah leave her home except to visit Maria. The controlled what she ate, what she wore, and who she spoke to. The watchful gang members regularly let themselves into Maria’s home to make sure Sarah was obeying their rules.

Then Sarah disappeared. In Maria’s neighborhood, that means the gang murdered her. Days later, when Maria was on her way to work in the dark early morning hours, an MS-13 member with an assault rifle stood in the middle of the road with his gun pointed at her car, forcing her to stop. He told her in no uncertain terms that she had fifteen days to leave any area controlled by the gang, or they would kill her, her mother, and her two children. Maria swore that Sarah never talked to her about the gang, but the members who stalked their homes believed the were conspirators. She insisted she knew nothing, but the man did not listen.

Terrified, Maria sped home. She could not sleep or eat for days. She finally decided she could afford to flee to the United States with just one child—her daughter.  She prayed that she could hide her young son with his father in another city. She was forced to leave her mother, who she had not spoken with in over a month; she hoped she was not dead.

Maria’s tale is hair-raising. Having to choose a child and leave your mother in imminent danger is unthinkable for most Americans. Few rational people would question Maria for fleeing her home in the night with nothing but the clothes on her back and a spare set for her daughter. She was—is—terrified to go home.

Even though Maria’s fear was palpable, and the threats against her life and that of her family credible,  Maria’s life was not threatened because of one of five protected grounds, and she did not qualify for asylum based on that story.

Asylum is a legal status that the U.S. (and many other countries) grant to a person based on evidence of past harm or credible evidence of future harm (like a death threat) because of  that person’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Generally, someone claiming asylum must also credibly demonstrate that the police cannot help them—or are the aggressors—and that relocation within their home country is not a viable option.

As an attorney well-versed in immigration law, I understand the mechanics of asylum, but the women I met did not. Many told me stories about years of traumatic abuse, violence, threats of death, inaction by their government and their police, and the moment that finally forced them to flee hundreds of dangerous miles to the U.S. Unfortunately, these harrowing tales do not qualify them for protection.

In fact, given our tight asylum definition, nearly half of all applicants do not meet the legal requirements for asylum; on average, we granted just 26,000 asylum requests each year.

The Trump administration wants the public to believe that because claims for asylum are up and the rate of denial of asylum claims are also up, and that there is rampant fraud in the asylum process. Namely, the administration wants Americans to believe that people claiming asylum are making up or exaggerating their stories. These fraudulent seekers, claims the administration, “game the system” because asylum status allows them immediate legal entry, access to certain benefits and assistance programs, and a path to becoming U.S. citizens.

He is not entirely wrong. There’s been nearly an 1,700% increase in asylum claims over the past decade. But the increase in the number of asylum applicants is due to a number of  a number of reasons; the most obvious reason is that there is unprecedented violence and gang activity in Northern Triangle countries just south of the border. Asylum requests by citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras made up 72.9 percent of total claims in fiscal year 2016. In my experience, all but one woman I worked with in the Dilley facility was from a Northern Triangle country.

Despite the influx of asylum seekers, the rate of denial of asylum claims has remained relatively steady, hovering around 50 percent over the past decade. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), an immigration data analysis arm of Syracuse University, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) reported the following rates of denial per a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. As of the end of September 2016, overall asylum denial rates for FY 2016 rose to about 57 percent.

Looking at the rate of denials alone is superficial because it ignores a lot of procedural inefficiencies. The data here refers to the denials issued by an immigration court, not the to the initial screenings conducted by an asylum officer at detention facilities. In Dilley, positive credible fear determinations neared 90 percent in May.  

One of those procedural inefficiencies is time. Immigration court hearings often occur years after a person or family is granted initial status at the border. In that time, witnesses and paperwork are often lost or destroyed, making it more difficult for a judge to assess the validity of an asylum seeker’s complaint.

Contrary to popular belief, it is extraordinarily difficult for someone to qualify for asylum in the United States. But a denial does not mean their claim was fraudulent. For Maria, the story she recounted to the asylum officer was her most terrifying encounter, but not the one that could potentially qualify her for asylum.

This is a big problem. Even if asylum officers—many of whom are empathetic individuals—spend extra time with an applicant trying to tease out more information, they are not successful. It takes time for anyone to open to a stranger, let alone to relive a traumatic experience. Using a translator—which officers are required to do—can also stunt the interview. Maria told me she did not want to tell her asylum officer more because the translator was a man, and she was scared and embarrassed. Another woman mentioned that while she spoke Spanish, it wasn’t her native language, and she did not know what questions were being asked. She did not know how to tell the asylum officer that she spoke an indigenous language, and was embarrassed because of the stigma of some indigenous people face at home.

The presence of a child in the interview also silences many mothers. During my interview with Maria, we hustled her daughter into a nearby playroom with tv and toys. Maria wanted to spare her daughter from knowing about threats made to the child’s life. Within minutes, her daughter—like so many other anxious children—panicked when she could not see her mom. Inevitably, a helpful guard paraded the child around the room, door to door, holding her up to the small glass windows until she found Maria. Although comforting in the moment, the presence of a child in the interview is a detriment to open and honest preparation and disclosure.

More than anything else though, having a lawyer makes a difference.

Success Often Turns on Having a Lawyer

Asylum applicants who are represented in any immigration proceeding have significantly higher chances of getting a positive determination. According to TRAC, the evidence shows that have an attorney is almost a necessity to winning asylum in court.

And let me cut you off at the pass—it is not because attorneys are telling clients what to say—it is because attorneys are telling clients what not to say.

Maria had unintentionally used her time with the asylum officer—over an hour—telling a story that does not matter. By parsing through the rest of Maria’s life—which was punctuated by violence due to her sexual orientation—it was much easier to highlight other details that provided for a more succinct, likely successful case.

For the unrepresented, there has been a steady upward march in denial rates, from 73 percent in FY 2001, to 90 percent in FY 2011. In 2016, more than five out of every ten represented asylum seekers were successful, as compared to only one out of ten who were unrepresented.

Highlighting the absurdity of the interview process of pro se clients are the questions that are occasionally posed to the children of asylum seekers in order to establish credibility for particularly difficult cases.  In Maria’s case, the asylum officer asked her six-year-old who her mom was afraid of at home. Pausing to consider the question, the child responded, “the police.” The asylum officer presumably found the child’s response undercut her mother’s stories about threats from the gang.

When I asked the girl and her mother what the child meant when she said that her mom was afraid of the police, her mom told me that many children confuse the police with gang members because they both carry large guns and wear uniforms.

When I asked her daughter if she understood the interview questions, she said in no uncertain terms  that she had no idea what the asylum officer was asking, and just answered “yes” to her questions because the officer smiled when the child said yes.

And, of course, this is magnified when a child faces an immigration judge or asylum officer alone. In the now infamous clip of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, John Oliver highlighted cases of pro se clients as young at two years of age, including one where a child asked to be returned to the country of “Pizza.”

Fixing the mess…

…is easier said than done, but a fix is urgent.  All of the changes imposed by the administration in recent months—separating children from their families, instituting the zero tolerance policy, and changing who qualifies as members of a particular social group—must be countered (at the very least) by increasing the procedural safeguards available to individuals seeking a legal immigration pathway. Chief among them is providing counsel. 

For Maria and her daughter, earlier counsel might have saved her and her daughter from removal to a home where they may be killed by one of the same enemies we condemn in the U.S.

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The U.S. Military is a Tool, but the President Thinks it’s a Trophy

President Trump likes to brag about the size of the military. He did so in May of this year in a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, crowing about presiding over the largest defense budget in American history (it’s not, but let’s leave that aside for a second). He even bragged about the defense budget increases his administration has secured to a group of children at the White House Easter Egg Roll (with the Easter Bunny standing behind him). Yet, the president routinely complains that the United States can’t afford to maintain its alliance commitments and suggests military exercises on the Korean Peninsula are so costly that they can be traded for vague promises of North Korean denuclearization. At the same time, the president will preside over a military parade in Washington, D.C., later this year that will cost nearly as much as the exercises.

What explains this apparent contradiction?

It seems evident that the president sees the U.S. military not as an instrument of national power but rather as a symbol of it — which, by extension, makes it a symbol of his own power. This is a dangerous way to conceive of military power for a number of reasons.

Trump’s contradictory ideas about military power have been evident for a while. On the one hand, upon taking office, Trump promised a “great rebuilding” of the military — signing an executive order to that effect at the Pentagon. On the other hand, he complained that the United States could no longer afford to defend allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. According to Trump, those allies should go their own way — even to the point of pursuing nuclear arsenals of their own. President Trump has refused to go as far as rescinding American security guarantees, but he has routinely chided America’s allies for insufficient defense spending — most recently at last month’s NATO summit in Brussels — and has questioned the purpose of the alliance.

Yet, if the United States no longer has allies to defend, then it has little reason to spend the vast amounts of money it does on defense. While the United States has frequently undertaken costly “optional interventions,” to borrow a phrase from political scientists Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, the bulk of its force structure requirements are a product of the security guarantees it provides. As political scientist Barry Posen notes, the reason America’s national defense is so costly is because American wars are, by necessity, “away games.” Projecting military power over transoceanic distances to defend allies is an expensive affair.  So if the president is concerned with the cost of America’s national defense, he should be calling not just for policy retrenchment but also a defense spending drawdown. If military exercises on the Korean Peninsula are so costly, he should also be canceling the military parade.

But the military parade and high levels of defense spending fit perfectly with President Trump’s symbolic conception of military power. Even before his presidency, Trump routinely demonstrated that the perception of strength is what matters most to him. In a 1990 interview in Playboy, Trump articulated how a then-hypothetical President Trump would view military power, and it had little to do with mission requirements: “He would believe very strongly in extreme military strength … He’d have a huge military arsenal, perfect it, understand it.” In the same breath — but also throughout the interview — he claimed America’s allies were ripping it off, suggesting the “huge” arsenal he would oversee had little to do with upholding the security guarantees that are the main reason for America’s high levels of defense spending relative to the rest of the world.

Since his inauguration, little has changed about the way Trump sees military power. In addition to his boasting about the size of the defense budget, the president appointed retired and active-duty generals to important positions in his administration because they were “straight out of central casting”— that is, they projected strength. He regularly referred to Secretary of Defense — and retired U.S. Marine Corps general— James Mattis as “Mad Dog” (a nickname Mattis reportedly despises). In addition to his routine crowing about the size of the defense budget, Trump even bragged in a tweet early in his presidency about the U.S. nuclear arsenal being more powerful than ever, despite not a single substantive change having been made to it.

It is easy to dismiss such rhetoric as just Trumpian showmanship, but regardless, it is a dangerous way to view the military for at least four reasons.

First, it is needlessly provocative. The president’s desire to speak loudly and carry a big stick will necessarily worry potential adversaries and American allies alike about how he intends to use that stick. His talk of “fire and fury” in response to North Korean nuclear and missile tests unnecessarily exacerbated an already tense standoff over the Hermit Kingdom’s nuclear program. The fact that he has the military power (including more or less unilateral authority over America’s nuclear arsenal) at his disposal to back up such rhetoric, coupled with President Trump’s tendency to hurl personal insults at his adversaries, increases the possibility that a crisis will spiral out of control.

Second, and related, to see the military as a symbol disconnects military power from its instrumental purpose. The United States needs a large military budget today because it defends allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. There is a debate to be had about the value of these commitments. But without them, the need to maintain a large military capable of projecting power around the globe — and the high levels of defense spending it demands — disappears.

Military power, as Clausewitz argued, is supposed to be an instrument of state policy. The political aim in war places limits on the use of military force and imposes rationality on it. Disconnecting military power from its rational purpose suggests there are potentially no limits on its use. Military forces do not exist for their own sake. They are a means to fulfilling political ends. While these ends can and do vary in their necessity and feasibility — mostly with regard to the frequency of the “optional interventions” mentioned above — the core political ends of American grand strategy since 1945 have been deterring aggression and assuring allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Third, the increases in defense spending that underpin Trump’s boasting are fiscally problematic and potentially economically dangerous. The United States is already carrying large amounts of debt, which the Congressional Budget Office projects will rise to one hundred percent of GDP by the end of the next decade — and, assuming recently passed tax cuts are allowed to expire in 2026, to 152 percent of GDP by 2048. Moreover, research by political scientist Thomas Oatley suggests that debt-financed increases in military spending can lead to boom-bust cycles because they serve as a form of procyclical stimulus.

Finally, Trump’s symbolic understanding of military power is damaging to American civil-military relations. That the president seems to see the military symbolically leads him to regularly politicize it. He routinely uses the first-person possessive —“my generals” and “my military”—when referring to it, and he even used the commissioning of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier to encourage the assembled sailors to support a partisan agenda.

A military that is apolitical from the perspective of partisan politics is essential for a number of reasons. As Alice Hunt Friend of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has explained, a military loyal to a partisan agenda might raise questions about the peaceful transfer of power and the ability of an opposition party to assert control over it once in power. According to Friend, partisan concerns over a politicized military can also lead to variation in how the military is treated, in terms of funding and use, depending on who is in power. Moreover, there is a danger to societal values in a liberal democracy, given the popularity of the military as an institution, when it is linked to a particular political leader or party — rather than to the Constitution and elected civilian officials in general — and can be used to delegitimize the opposition.

Yet there is little incentive for either military leaders or members of Congress to push back against the president on this issue. Both strategic and parochial reasons play a role in their acquiescence. For the former, the increased defense budgets that underpin Trump’s boasts about the military serve a strategy both civilian defense officials and military leaders remain committed to — which includes preparations to defend American allies, as well as continuing ongoing operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Moreover, the leaders of bureaucracies generally favor budget increases —particularly when the activity is as costly and uncertain as military preparedness. For the latter, defense hawks, too, remain committed to America’s traditional strategy — while even less hawkish legislators can benefit from increased defense spending if defense production provides jobs in their home states and districts. And were that not enough, the president’s party controls both houses of Congress. Even if Republicans had not built their reputation over the past several decades on being defenders of America’s military, it is unlikely they would seek to actively undermine a commander-in-chief from their own party.

To this point, President Trump has shown a tendency to bluster but back down on the world stage. However, his continued desire to demonstrate the appearance of strength through bragging makes it likely the type of provocations discussed above will continue. And given potential flashpoints in Syria, Eastern Europe, and the Western Pacific, the odds of Trump’s rhetoric leading to the misperception of his intentions and the escalation of a crisis — where an adversary decides to take action rather than leave themselves vulnerable to an attack — are increased. Moreover, defense budget increases divorced from strategic considerations pose fiscal and economic challenges, while continued politicization of the military is a dangerous proposition for American politics.

There are reasonable — and essential — debates to be had over the political purpose of America’s military instrument. That the American military should be understood as an instrument, rather than a symbol, should not be up for debate. To treat it symbolically is to invite dangers both abroad and at home.

Photo credit: White House photo by Stephanie Chasez. This image is in the public domain. 

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