Edward Lotterman

Starting his first day in office, Donald Trump initiated a blizzard of tariff announcements. New tariffs would hit imports from Columbia, Canada, Mexico and China. Americans would pay a 10% tax on imports from any nation. Additions, revisions, delays and special punitive actions have been added on a near daily basis. (For a comprehensive list through May 25, see “A timeline of Trump’s tariff actions so far” at pbs.org.)

April 2 was “Liberation Day,” with tariff rates announced on imports from nearly 90 nations following a formula that was nonsensical to economists. But these were soon paused for 90 days. We were told that hundreds of deals were in the making. Other nations said there were nearly none. The deadline was moved to July 9. No, now the end of August. Threats, revisions, new punitive measures and delays continue to fill the news. Treasury and Commerce secretaries backpedal, bob and weave to keep up.

At the end of April in an interview with the editor of the Atlantic, our president eclipsed French King Louis XIV’s “L’État, c’est moi,” or “I am the state,” with the flat declaration that “I run the country — and the world.” His actions bring that attitude to life.

They have continued in spades. On news of the 17th summit of BRICS nations in Rio de Janeiro, Trump threatened that U.S. importers would have to pay an additional 10% on goods from any nations he’s “aligning” with the largely symbolic and powerless group.  Days later, he decreed that U.S. families or businesses would have to pay an additional 50% tax on coffee, orange juice, steel, architectural tile and stone or other products from Brazil. Why? Because Jair Bolsonaro, an authoritarian-leaning former president of that country, is charged with organizing a tropical version of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on our capitol.

Friends, this is madness, economic as well as political. To use Nixon adviser Daniel Moynihan’s famous phase, we have “dumbed deviancy down” in facing an increasingly out-of-control president. The Big Beautiful Bill is supposed to revitalize our economy, but the president who asked for it is destroying that economy with his erratic, uninformed and ill-judged dictatorial outbursts.

Step back and review fundamentals in economics:

— Information has economic value to households, businesses and government.

— Ample, correct information boosts economic efficiency at all levels. Scanty or false information decreases it.

— Risk and uncertainty sap the usefulness of information even if correct when generated. The greater the levels of uncertainty, the harder it is for any decision-maker, whether individual, business or government, to use resources productively.

— Chaos — uncertainty raised to dominance — destroys value. Anything or anyone creating chaos reduces output of needed goods and services. They make society poorer, not richer. British historian Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Well, chaos cripples the creation of value. Absolute chaos destroys it all.

Step back to the early days of our country. The Declaration of Independence aimed to eliminate arbitrary actions by a king. The Constitution separated and limited powers of each branch. The provision that any changes in taxes must not only come from Congress but also must originate in the House protected families and businesses from hasty and unwise alterations of policy.

The establishment of the civil service system in 1881 reduced corruption and sudden zags in policy. The Federal Reserve reduced economic instability. Institutions created after the financial crisis starting in 1929 fostered transparency and made investments in new business ventures less risky. The 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act set us on a 60-year crusade to put international trade under transparent and enforceable rules.

Benefits were huge. The “most-favored-nation” principle slashed administrative costs for importers. No longer did they have to employ platoons of clerks to comb tariff schedules to find what tax they would have to pay on coffee from Kenya versus Brazil or Costa Rica or on tin from Malaysia rather than Bolivia. Different countries still had differing taxes on imports. These could be changed, but importers in any nation still could choose where to buy based on quality and cost rather than differing tariff rates charged by their own country.

Moreover, the fact that many nations “bound” their tariffs — contracting to not change them without prior negotiations with other countries — meant that an importer, whether Target Corp. or Angela’s Exotic Teas, could establish on-going business relationships with good suppliers with no danger that their costs suddenly be uprooted by some whim in the Oval Office.

Exporters, like U.S. farmers, could plan purchases of seed and fertilizer to plant crops secure in the knowledge that a presidential whim would not suddenly torpedo either input or product prices. Grain traders like Cargill or CHS could build loading and unloading terminals knowing that the rules of the game would be constant long enough to recoup these tens of millions in long-term investments. And a family-owned contractor bidding on five county road bridges in Cottonwood County would know the price of rebar would not suddenly jump between submission of a bid and having crews on site.

Yet that now is all being torn up and tossed aside.

The president claims his trade offensives will bring manufacturing back to our nation. But it can take five or seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new automobile plant. If this president can impose tariffs, the next one might abolish them. If Trump could destroy 70 years of integrating U.S. and Canadian auto industries, what whim might his successor decree?

Thinking of investing millions to manufacture brass valves here rather than in China? What if radio news driving home tells you of a new a 50% tax on imported copper plus God knows what on zinc?

It is too late for retailers to change orders for holiday season merchandise. But what if an additional 20% U.S. tariff is imposed when their containers are being loaded on ships in Dalian, China, or Haiphong, Vietnam?  And should your farm cooperative-owned soybean plant contract today to buy beans at $9.89 next July if sudden retaliation by an angry China drops the market price to $7.09 by then? You know prices of your products, soy oil and soybean meal, will fall in tandem.

Every day, some presidential impulse generates more uncertainty. Every day, Congress and the media stand by in complaisant silence that tells the rest of the world we U.S. citizens cannot be trusted to elect prudent leaders. We are poisoning our own economy with a speed and severity not seen in any democracy in a century.

St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

A novel about three teens and a Norse woman’s journey, plus memoirs about political activism in the Black community, and life in all its big and small experiences, are being launched by Minnesota authors this week.

(Courtesy of Soho Press)

“Ashes to Ashes”: by Thomas Maltman (Soho Press, $29)

Even if the stone lies, carved in a previous century by an enterprising shyster, what is true is that winter calls the stones from under the earth, and some of them rise bearing a strange magic. — from “Ashes to Ashes”

Thomas Maltman (Courtesy of the author)

Thomas Maltman blends contemporary teen life with a Norse saga in this inventive novel, one of the best of this literary season.

Set in a small Minnesota prairie town, it begins after Ash Wednesday services when the ashes on a congregations’ foreheads do not wash off. Is this a curse or a blessing?

Among them is Basil, a “gentle giant” who’s thought to be mentally slow, prodded by a coach who painfully pinches him to make him angry enough to hurt another player. Basil’s father was injured when he rescued Basil from being “drowned” in a corn bin, and the teen’s mother has been in a mental facility for years. Basil is not mentally impaired, and he wants to change, to be taken seriously and not hurt people. So he decides to fast and pray but keeps his vow secret from his best friends Lukas and Morgan. The trio call themselves “a gay, a goth, and a giant.” Luke is the gay one, but he’s afraid to come out in such a small town, and goth Morgan is a writer.

When a windstorm blows over a big tree, the teens discover under the roots the remains of an explorer whom they call The Lady in the Hill. And this is where the magic grows strong as they read from pages of a diary that describe her journey into inland North America in the 14th century. Her chapters are written in a cadence that begs to be read out loud:

“I knew the sea even before I was born, adrift

within my mother’s womb waters,

hearing the dull drum-thumping of her heart

washing over me in waves…”

Maltman drew inspiration from the real-life Kensington Runestone in a museum in Alexandria. The inscription (which he quotes on the first page) tells of “eight goths and 22 Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland to the West” in the 14th century. The runestone, discovered  in 1898 in a Swedish farmer’s field, is controversial — whether it is a hoax is still debated.

The three teens decide to honor The Lady by staging a historical pageant just before the COVID lockdown, from the early centuries to contemporary times, subtly working Luke’s sexual preference into the script.

Both stories — contemporary and Norse — end tenderly. “Ashes to Ashes” has everything you want in a novel — interesting plot(s), family problems, an old saga involving magical dreams of humans in fish form.

Maltman has an MFA from Minnesota State University at Mankato and teaches at Normandale Community College in Bloomington. His previous novels are “The Night Birds,” about the 1862 Dakota Conflict; “The Land,” which explores a white supremacist enclave deep in the Minnesota North Woods; and “Little Wolves,” in which a teen shoots the town’s sheriff. There is a hint of magic in some of these plots, but nothing like the aura that surrounds “Ashes to Ashes.”

Maltman will launch his novel with a conversation with award-winning Minnesota author William Kent Krueger at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Bryant Lake Bowl and Theater, 810 W. Lake St., Mpls., presented by Valley Bookseller of Stillwater and Literature Lover’s Night Out. Music by Nate Boots. $10. Information at bryantlakebowl.com/theater/ashes-to-ashes.

(Courtesy of the University of Nebraska Press)

“At the Corner of Past and Present”: by Pamela Carter Joern (University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books, $17.95)

These days I am overly tender about the clumsiness of our efforts to get by. I cry over Hallmark card commercials. The wafting of a memory, the rustle of a rabbit through a snowbank, the unfolding of a rose. I am scraped raw by precious things on the brink of being lost. — from “At the Corner of Past and Present”

Pamela Carter Joern (Courtesy of the author)

In this wide-ranging memoir in essay form, the author writes a love letter to her native Nebraska, where she worked on the farm. She explores her experiences raising children, surviving cancer and becoming a writer.

Author of four novels and six plays that have been produced in the Twin Cities, Joern shares on her publisher’s blog that the personal essays in this book “are chock-full of disparate pieces brought together: my father’s life and the experiments of Isaac Newton; the Shaker colonies and butchering chickens; Salvador Dali and considerations of time to a cancer patient; even the ancient art of alchemy and writing processes… I do like shining an observation from one aspect of life on something seemingly unrelated to see what I might learn.”

Joern, who has taught at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, will discuss her book with Minnesota author Sheila O’Connor at 7 p.m. Thursday at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.

(Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society Press)

“Rewind: Lessons from Fifty Years of Activism”: by T Williams with David Lawrence Grant (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $24.95)

We also understood something else that our white allies did not: Even if all racially prejudiced Americans lost that prejudice overnight, there was still a long road ahead in targeting and dismantling the systems of institutional racism that had long been oppressing Black access to capital, decent housing, equitable employment opportunities, a quality education, and equality under the law. — from “Rewind”

Theatrice (“T”) Willliams and his family moved to Minneapolis in 1965. After military service and earning a master’s degree in social work, Williams became a leader in the Minneapolis Black community beginning in 1975 when he was named executive director of the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center, a Minneapolis institution.

Williams’ new memoir is a mini-history of the successes and struggles he participated in through the murder of George Floyd and beyond.

One of his biggest accomplishments was helping form the Minneapolis Urban Coalition after the Plymouth Avenue violence in 1967. The coalition was a rare political collaboration among community, corporate and political leaders to address issues of race and poverty. After the 1971 rebellion at Attica prison in New York, Minnesota Gov. Wendell Anderson appointed him the first corrections ombudsman in the country. Williams was also a teacher and school board member, always working for his community’s betterment.  Now he is an independent consultant specializing in questions of social and distributive justice with emphasis on issues affecting minority populations.

Williams will discuss his book with co-author David Lawrence Grant at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.

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Nearly six months into Donald Trump’s presidency, a Trump Doctrine is coming into view. Contrary to the fears of his critics, and the hopes of some admirers, Trump is no isolationist. And contrary to those who claim Trump is simply a marvel of ac hoc-ery and inconsistency, there is a distinctive pattern to the policies he has pursued.

This Trump Doctrine emphasizes using American power aggressively — more aggressively than Trump’s immediate predecessors — to reshape key relationships and accrue U.S. advantage in a rivalrous world.

In doing so, Trump has blown up any talk about a post-American era. Yet he has also raised troubling questions about whether his administration can wield America’s outsized influence effectively and keep it strong.

The isolationist label has long followed Trump, but it’s never accurately described an idiosyncratic man. Yes, Trump disdains core elements of U.S. globalism, from the international trade system America established to its promotion of democratic values and its defense commitments around the world.

Yet Trump has also argued that America should assert itself more forcefully in a cutthroat world. And today, as Trump pursues a capacious view of presidential power at home, he is offering an equally ambitious conception of American power abroad.

Trump rails against long, costly nation-building efforts. But he has nonetheless waged two short, sharp Middle Eastern conflicts: one to deter Yemen’s Houthis from attacking U.S. forces and Red Sea shipping, the other to roll back the Iranian nuclear program. Several U.S. presidents pledged to use force to keep Tehran from crossing the nuclear threshold; Trump really did it. That’s not the policy of a man in thrall to the Republican Party’s Tucker Carlson wing.

Meanwhile, Trump started trade wars against dozens of countries, in hopes of reshaping the international economy. He deployed diplomatic leverage, and explicit threats of abandonment, to remake the transatlantic bargain by getting European allies to spend much more on defense. Trump also wielded America’s innovation power — its role in designing high-end semiconductors — to bring Saudi Arabia and the UAE into Washington’s tech bloc and make them partners in his push for “AI dominance.”

Closer to home, Trump used veiled threats to pry Panama out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. He has demanded territorial concessions from Panama, Denmark and Canada. At the same time, Trump touts his Golden Dome missile shield, meant to protect the homeland and give America greater freedom of action against its foes.

This isn’t standard-issue, post-1945 American internationalism: It’s hard to imagine prior presidents telling allies to yield their land. But neither is it a retreat into Fortress America. And by applying American power in such energetic, omnidirectional fashion, Trump has revealed much about the true state of world affairs.

Policy journals brim with articles about American decline and the advent of multipolarity. But Trump, in his inimitable way, has reminded so many countries where power really lies. For example: The strike on Iran demonstrated America’s unique global military reach and its ability, together with Israel, to reshape the Middle East while relegating Russia and China — nominally Iran’s allies — to the sidelines.

Trump’s key insight is that the world’s sole superpower has more muscle than commonly understood. Yet the Trump Doctrine nonetheless suffers from three big problems.

First, its exercise of power is weakened by its dearth of strategy.

Trump’s trade war got off to a farcical start because he failed to consider how sky-high tariffs might wreck the U.S. economy — a real-time discovery that forced a rapid, humiliating climb-down. A president who privileges the art of the deal over intellectual consistency sometimes pursues contradictory policies: Trump’s tariffs against Indo-Pacific allies erode their prosperity and make it harder for them to spend more on defense.

Second, a president who sometimes struggles to distinguish friends from enemies sometimes fails to point U.S. power in the right direction.

Trump delights in taking aim at U.S. allies. He has been more reluctant to confront Russia, even as Vladimir Putin makes a mockery of Trump’s desire for peace in Ukraine — and even though Putin’s war economy is increasingly vulnerable to the commercial and financial coercion that Trump so often threatens to employ.

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Third, the best presidents build U.S. power for the future, but Trump risks depleting it instead.

Maybe the One Big Beautiful Bill will juice the economy — or maybe it will lock in structural deficits that constrain defense spending and growth. Slashing foreign aid saves little money but squanders U.S. global influence; the war on universities threatens the research ecosystem that underpins America’s economic and military might. Moreover, a policy of tough love toward allies could turn into mutually destructive hostility, and a superpower that regularly coerces its friends could wreck the soft power that lubricates key relationships.

Trump revels in using U.S. power, but he doesn’t quite understand where it comes from. That’s the central irony, and fundamental weakness, of the doctrine guiding his administration today.

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

DROPMORE, Manitoba – I’ve heard it said there are two kinds of boaters.

Those who have hit a rock. And those who will.

I was reminded of that adage last month, when three of us visited friends who have a cottage on Lake of the Prairies in far western Manitoba.

Arriving about an hour later than planned on a recent Friday afternoon after some poor navigation by yours truly – I knew I’d screwed up when we hit the Saskatchewan border – we still were able to spend a few hours in our host’s boat for an enjoyable evening on the water.

The walleyes weren’t snapping like they did during my previous two visits in 2023 and 2024, but we still managed to catch enough for an evening fish fry. Regulations on Lake of the Prairies require releasing all walleyes longer than 45 centimeters – about 17 inches – so finding fish small enough to keep can be a challenge, at times.

The plan for the rest of the weekend was to spend a full day fishing Saturday and a few hours Sunday morning before heading home.

Sometimes, though, things go off-script.

Created in the mid-1960s by a dam on the Assiniboine River, Lake of the Prairies – also known as Shellmouth Reservoir – generally follows a north-to-south course, with a slight southeasterly jog closer to the Saskatchewan border. Even though Lake of the Prairies is situated in a deep – and very scenic – valley, north winds or south winds can be a pain.

Such was the case on this Saturday; no matter what shoreline we fished, we couldn’t escape the wind. We spent the morning fishing the sheltered confines of the Shellmouth River, catching just enough walleyes to keep things interesting and begin replenishing a key ingredient for that evening’s “surf and turf” dinner.

We headed a few miles north after a midday break, finding a spot behind a woody point that provided just enough protection from the wind to keep the fishing manageable.

The trolling motor battery ran out of juice just before we planned to head in for dinner. Combined with the walleyes we’d kept that morning, we were just short of our four-person limit.

At this point, it should be noted that our host has years of experience fishing Lake of the Prairies. There are treacherous spots along the west shoreline, he said, and it’s best to avoid boating too close to shore in those places.

Because of the wind and the waves, he took it slow and easy on the way back to the dock, following a course perhaps 100 yards from shore in 15 to 20 feet of water.

He was pointing out a spot on the west shoreline, where we’d seen a beautiful cinnamon-colored bear two years ago, when it happened.

Bam! Crunch!

Ugh.

The sound of an outboard motor – in this case, a 150-horse Yamaha four-stroke – hitting a rock is absolutely horrible.

It’s the sound of a good day on the water grinding to an abrupt halt.

Raising the motor, we saw the stainless steel prop was folded like foil in a couple of spots, and the skeg – the fin-like structure on the lower unit – was broken off.

On the positive side, the boat itself hadn’t hit the rock and wasn’t damaged.

Through it all, I don’t think our host uttered a single colorful word. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have been the case if it had been me who hit the rock.

And yes, I’m already in the camp of boaters who have hit rocks.

The motor vibrated violently any faster than trolling speed, but we were able to limp back to the dock, which was maybe a mile or so from where the prop-crunching catastrophe had occurred.

Had we been able to go full speed, which wasn’t an option because of the waves, our host figured he wouldn’t have hit the rock because the boat and the motor would have been riding high enough to miss it.

Dang the luck.

Despite the unfortunate end to any further fishing plans, I received an update a few days later with the good news that the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Miraculously, there was no damage to the lower-unit shaft, the skeg was repaired a couple of days later, and a shop in Brandon, Manitoba, was able to fix the propeller, which at first glance looked like it might be damaged beyond repair.

As for the two kinds of boaters – those who have hit rocks and those who will – the first camp now has a new member.

With a rebuilt skeg and prop to prove it.

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