Letters

Letters to the editor

On Trump, India, rhino horns and more

Trump and trade

As the former Canadian ambassador responsible for the original free-trade negotiations with the United States, I was dumbfounded to read the transcript of your interview with President Donald Trump (published online, May 11th). Mr Trump condemned NAFTA, “which was so one-sided”. Yet James Baker, the American Treasury secretary who personally led the critical talks with Canada over a free-trade agreement, and Ambassador Jules Katz, who headed the NAFTA negotiations, were two of the toughest negotiators I have ever known.

Mr Trump also claimed that America always loses legal trade disputes with Canada. It is true that the United States has almost always lost disputes in these panels, which determine whether it has applied its own trade laws correctly and fairly. But these panels are not a “court in Canada”, and America has been found guilty of misbehaviour in the panels by majorities of Americans or Canadians alike, often by unanimous decisions.

Furthermore, the $15bn trade deficit that President Trump says the United States has with Canada does not take account of services. According to the office of the US Trade Representative, America actually had a trade surplus in goods and services with Canada last year of $12.5bn. That is composed of a surplus of $25bn in services, offset by a deficit of $12bn in goods, the latter entirely explained by the American appetite for low-cost energy from Canada.

When Mr Trump maintains that “everything in NAFTA is bad”, does he mean the 14m American jobs that depend on NAFTA, according to the US Chamber of Commerce? We must all hope that when the time comes for actual negotiations, the players on the American side of the table will be better informed.

GORDON RITCHIE
Former Canadian ambassador for trade negotiations
Ottawa

Spending is investment

Logically, your concern for the bad shape of state government finances in India makes sense (“Pumping the country dry”, May 13th). No government can keep spending substantially in excess of revenues for ever, and the likelihood of a financial crisis increases as such behaviour remains unchecked. The problem is that for nearly two decades, from the mid-1990s on, you have been telling us that China’s borrowing binge would result in a hard landing for its economy. We are still waiting for this dark future to arrive.

It is possible that the splurge in borrowing by Indian states goes sufficiently into building roads, warehouses, irrigation infrastructure, schools, drinking water and meal programmes and, yes, even subsidising the consumption of the poor (albeit through loan waivers in the absence of effective agricultural insurance) to have a productive impact on the economy. All the measures you recommend are sensible, but perhaps the disaster you predict is not as near as you imply.

SANJAY SINHA
Managing director
Micro-Credit Ratings International
Gurgaon, India

Fake horns

Saving the rhino is neither a law-enforcement issue nor an economic issue (“On the horns”, May 6th). Rather, it is a marketing issue. Every purveyor of luxury goods knows that the one sure way to damage a brand is to flood the market with fake product. If high-fashion goods such as designer purses, shoes and sunglasses can be counterfeited to fool fastidious consumers, it should be a piece of cake to fake something as grotty as rhino horn. Instead of spending millions of dollars on protection, policing and prosecution, fund some research and overwhelm the marketplace with counterfeit rhino horn. Then widely publicise the fact that what the consumer is buying is most probably fake. The bottom will fall out of the market.

ANDREW WYNER
Dean of graduate studies
BAU International University
Washington, DC

A spectre is haunting Labour

Bagehot contends that Karl Marx is relevant to today’s politics (May 13th). Marx is relevant, but in the way that, say, Nicolaus Copernicus is to astrophysics. Marx was one of the first to recognise that institutions matter and are not immutable. But the rabble-rousing journalist, well-read in the philosophy of his day, thought about these things before the marginalist revolution and game theory expanded our knowledge of social systems. In the same way, if one were launching a satellite, it would be perverse to insist on using Copernicus’s “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium”.

L.M. CARVER
Southampton

Once ensconced, Trotskyist leaders soon suppress dissent. The moderates in the Labour Party should have acted rapidly after Ed Miliband’s disastrous new leadership election rules produced Jeremy Corbyn. They did not. Instead, Labour moderates have been frozen in indecision. Had they moved quickly, moderate Labour MPs could have created a new party, perhaps with the surviving rump of the Liberal Democrats. Delay has been disastrous. The moderates now appear weak and lacking in resolve.

Shakespeare understood such situations well: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which when taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

GREGORY SHENKMAN
London


Turkey and NATO
* Your online article published on May 27th (“Turkey’s president had a bad NATO summit, too”) prejudges Turkey’s relations with key allies, not to mention our foreign policy priorities. Starting with the latest NATO summit, let me first remind you of the central role NATO has played in our security and defence over many decades. Ever since our membership in 1952, we assumed countless and continued responsibilities in defending both the borders as well as the common values of our Alliance, while also making substantial contributions to NATO missions and operations. Today, Turkey is a “security producer” for NATO.

Against this backdrop, we expect our Allies to act in solidarity with the spirit of 28-for-28, and to take into account Turkey’s growing security concerns, especially regarding the fight against terrorism. We are pleased with the latest decision by NATO to step up its efforts and become a full member of the Global Coalition against Daesh. As the leading member of the Global Coalition, we have been an ardent defender of the principle of burden-sharing and we will continue to support the coalition in its endeavours.

Yet, as the only country fighting against various terrorist groups concurrently, we expect the same determination to be displayed against all terrorist organisations including the PKK, PYD/YPG and Fetullah Gulen Terrorist Organization (FETO). Turkey is at the forefront of the threats emanating from these groups, and we believe that using and/or supporting one terrorist organisation against another is wrong, both principally and tactically. Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield has simply invalidated this flawed understanding by demonstrating what the legitimate opposition is capable of when properly supported. Numerically speaking, the operation has cleared more than 2.000 square kilometres from Daesh, eliminated over 3,000 terrorists, and neutralised its logistics and infrastructure.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our Embassy in Washington, DC, have already made statements regarding the lapses of security during President Recip Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the US, caused by insufficient local precautions during the official programme. While doing so, we also made it clear that these shortcomings would not overshadow an otherwise very successful and important visit, during which President Erdogan shared our concerns and expectations at the highest possible level regarding all issues on the bilateral agenda.

Notwithstanding the unnecessary damage caused by the highly political decision of the German Bundestag in June 2016 on events of 1915 disregarding historical facts and European case-law, German deputies were allowed, in the past, to visit their soldiers serving at Turkey’s sovereign base in Yncirlik (latest in October 2016). Any future visits to Yncirlik will continue to be subject, as would be the case in any country, to the permission of national authorities, and the composition of visiting delegations would naturally be taken into account.

ABDURRAHMAN BILGIC
Ambassador of Turkey
London

A new age of shopping

The glamour and excitement of shopping has been lost (“Sorry, we’re closed”, May 13th). We make fun of the girls who lunch, but shopping was a social event in the day when smartphones and Facebook didn’t exist. It can be, again. Westfield turned Century City in west Los Angeles into a destination. So is the Grove near West Hollywood. There’s flash, sizzle and entertainment. These are places to meet friends, look at hot merchandise, see a movie in a reserved seat and have a great meal in a gorgeous restaurant. Maybe wait for a friend in a comfy seat by a fire pit or fountain.

Life is hectic. Making the shopping mall its own island refuge will attract the customers businesses are losing. And late hours will encourage the new generation of shoppers who get off work at 9pm. Online and 24-hour businesses prosper. We are a late-night crowd these days. Pamper us!

JUDITH DEUTSCH
Los Angeles

There's life in the old car yet
* Cuba is far from being “the only country where the value of ordinary cars rises over time” (“Cash for clunkers”, May 13th). Up until 1990 in the countries of communist eastern Europe, from East Germany to Bulgaria, the used car market was the source of huge profits even for sellers of ten-year-old Wartburgs, Skodas and the ultimate clunkers, the Soviet Zyguli and the Romanian Dacia.

LESLIE COLITT
Berlin

Scooby snacks

Regarding the perils that our canine friends pose to postal workers (“Leash the hounds”, April 22nd) when I was a young postman I bought biscuits to hand out as I made my deliveries. I was never bitten, but I found myself followed by a growing pack of mongrels and mutts. The more you fed them, the more arrived. Their doggedness at sniffing out free food had to be admired.

MIKE PAVASOVIC
Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester


* Letters appear online only

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