At 16:00 on Saturday, the US president offered the Democrats a compromise that could put an end to the shatdown (the technical shutdown of the government) that lasted for almost a month. A few hours earlier, the Democrats rejected his proposal.
There is no mistake here. Democratic leaders really refused the president before he could voice his proposals. Which, of course, did not prevent them from doing it again - after Trump approached them from the White House, saying that he was ready to support a three-year extension of the DACA program and the provision of protection for 300,000 Latin Americans who have a residence permit US (TPS) in exchange for the $ 5.7 billion needed to build the Great Mexican Wall.
“The walls are not immoral,” Trump assured them. On the contrary, the wall on the southern border of the United States will prevent the expansion of crime, block the traffic from Latin America and save many lives. In addition, Trump reassured opponents of the wall, this is "not a concrete structure from sea to sea, but steel barriers in priority areas."
For Trump, wall construction is of particular importance. Starting his election campaign in 2015, he promised to “build a great, great wall on the southern border.” He added: “I will make Mexico pay for this wall. Remember my words. ”
Many have remembered Trump's words, and when, on the twentieth day of the shutdown, the US president told reporters that he had never said that Mexico would pay for the construction of the wall directly, his opponents broke off the chain. “Deception, deception again!” They exulted. Although, in all fairness, Trump didn’t mean that the Mexican government would sign a check for $ 24 billion (approximately the cost of building protective structures all along the border) - he planned to offset the costs by revising the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. Indeed, this agreement, unfavorable to the United States in a number of parameters, was replaced in November last year by a new agreement, called the USMCA (The United States - Mexico - Canada Agreement). Under the new agreement, the United States received a number of preferences, and Canada and especially Mexico made serious concessions, including in the automotive industry. However, whatever the benefits of Washington from the new agreement, they will become tangible at best in a year, but rather in a few years, and the wall must be erected now. And the $ 5.7 billion that Trump requires for its construction from the congress will not be needed in 2020, but today.
By proposing to the Democrats to extend the DACA program for three years, Trump made a seemingly safe move. Adopted under the strong pressure of the former White House owner B.Kh. Obama's DACA program (delayed adjudication for minors) ensured that 700,000 migrant children who were illegally brought to the United States before their 16th birthday and students in colleges and universities received protection from deportation from the country. Since Obama used this program before the 2012 re-election to increase his rating among Latin Americans, the program mostly included children of illegal immigrants from Latin America who illegally crossed the Mexican border, on which there is no wall. The Democrats gave them the romantic name dreamers - "dreamers".
Trump wages a war with “dreamers”, or more precisely with the DACA program, from September 2017. He repeatedly tried to close this program, but district and federal courts in liberal states (primarily in California) suspended the presidential decrees over and over again.
Congress Democrats fought for the DACA program as lions, and it seemed that the task was more important than preserving Obama's legacy for them. However, now, when Trump declared that he was ready to leave the “dreamers” alone for three years, it turned out that there was still such a task.
Republicans warmly welcomed the president’s “bold decision”. Trump's former opponent and friend of the late John McCain Lindsay Graham called the proposal “fantastic” and called for a quicker implementation. Supported the president and leader of the majority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, and many other prominent senators and congressmen. But those who were the first to contact the president, those who bear the main responsibility for the shatdown paralyzed the country, the leaders of the Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate of Congress, rejected Trump’s proposal, which is called, from the doorway. Even before the president delivered his televised address, the speaker of the democratic majority in the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, having demonstrated an amazing ability to penetrate thought into the future, though not so distant, called Trump's proposal “a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable” , and Dick Durbin, the so-called whip (organizer of voting) of the Democrats in the Senate, categorically stated: "First, President Trump and the leader of the majority in the Senate McConnell should eopen government today. Secondly, I cannot support the proposal of the President and do not believe that it can pass the Senate. Thirdly, I am ready to sit down (at the negotiating table. - K. B. ) at any time after the opening of the government and work on solving all the unresolved issues. ”
Following this, a new wave of a well-coordinated information attack hit the unfortunate president. It was conducted according to already worked out schemes: first, a prominent politician throws a vivid antitamp wording into the media space, and then the liberal media begin to suck it up in every way.
Immediately after Trump’s speech, one of his most irreconcilable opponents, the leader of the democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, accused the president of having “taken hostage” 800,000 federal employees sent on unpaid leave and engaged in blackmailing the congress. On Sunday, the vicious column Jennifer Rubin appeared in The Washington Post, in which she developed this image, making her play with new colors:
“President Trump has been taking hostages for two years. He ordered to stop the protection of the "printers" under the DACA program, ordered to suspend the residence permit for hundreds of thousands of people, and then forced the government to close, leaving 800 thousand people without a salary ... And now he wants to make a deal - and what a deal! He will give partial relief to the “dreamers” and the owners of TPS and will receive $ 5.8 billion to build the wall - then he will open the government ... The robber broke into your house, took the silver and now offers to rent it to you for three years, but first give it $ 5.7 billion! ”
The second wording, which Democrats and their loyal pen and keyboard sharks from liberal publications are now using against Trump, “Trump is a poor negotiator.” According to Rubin, "Trump is the worst negotiator who occupies the Oval Office, largely because he is completely unreliable." “First of all, Trump proved to be a completely unreliable negotiator, he constantly changes positions and moves the goalposts,” the Los Angeles Times editorialized.
"Trump's weak ability to negotiate became the cause of the current record breakdown," says Marty Lutz readers in the USA Today pages. Maybe once, at the dawn of his career, Trump turned a couple of successful deals, Lutz condescendingly admits, but since then he has become arrogant and remains in error regarding his ability to negotiate - in fact, the negotiator is so-so.
However, if Trump has already become accustomed to the information attacks by the Democrats, the negative reaction to his proposal from those whom he considered allies was an unpleasant surprise for him.
“Trump offers amnesty. We voted for Trump, and got Jeb (Bush. - K. B. ), ”famous social activist and journalist Anne Coulter wrote on her Twitter, who first in 2015 said that Trump might win the presidential election ( causing a friendly audience laughter).
I didn’t like Trump’s concession and some other hardliners inside the Republican Party - and this, apparently, seriously alarmed the administration. Anyway, on Sunday, the loyal Vice President Pens had to be specially explained on FoxNews: “This is not an amnesty! Here we are not talking about any permanent status that implies amnesty. ”
But this is exactly what the Democrats do not like. “The delay to“ dreamers ”is granted for three years, and the wall will stand forever!” They reasonably note. Moreover, the “dreamers” are still not touched, since the liberal courts block the presidential decrees. So what does Trump want to sell us? Another Brooklyn Bridge?
“The compromise that President Trump offered on Saturday to put an end to the country's longest-lasting closure did not please either the leaders of the democratic congress, whose support he needed to make a deal (i.e. agree on a budget. - K. B. ) or his nuclear electorate, on whose support he has always relied in his persistent desire to build a wall, ”says The New York Times.
And yet, after Trump proposed a way out of the impasse, and the Democrats rejected him indignantly, it was they who were losing positions. “POTUS proposes to support two bills introduced by democrats (TPS and DACA) in exchange for border security ... and the immediate reaction of the leaders of the Democratic Party -“ no ”? - Trump's rival for the GOP primaries Marco Rubio writes on his Twitter. “I hope that ordinary members of the Democratic Party will not agree with this strategy of unreasonable obstacles.”
The baranier stubbornness of the democrats who are willing to sacrifice the stability of the country, just to not let the hated Trump fulfill his main electoral promise - to build a wall - leads America to a full-scale political crisis. Trump still has a joker up his sleeve - he can declare a national emergency.
Contrary to common misconception, we are not talking about some kind of general emergency regime in the country. According to the National Emergencies Act of 1976, the president has the right to declare his emergency powers in specific areas and confirm them with a corresponding declaration. In this case, Trump just needs to sign a declaration on emergency powers in the field of border security - this will give him the opportunity to use funds from the Pentagon’s budget to build the wall.
On January 10, Trump told reporters that he had every right to declare a state of emergency in the country, but stressed that he was “not ready” for such a step yet.
Over the past ten days, the situation has not improved. And if the Democrats resist and do not compromise, as they have done so far, Trump will have no choice but to declare an emergency. But this will not mean the end of the conflict: the liberal judges will most likely suspend his decree, as they have done before, and the flywheel of opposition between the president and his opponents will begin to unwind with a new force.
In the meantime, 800 thousand federal employees will “rest” without receiving a salary and being unable to pay the mortgage, loans and education of their children. The longest shatdaun in US history will continue until the spit breaks or a stone flies to the side.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.