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Intellectuals of petty-bourgeois origin always stubbornly try in all sorts of ways, including literary and artistic ways, to project themselves and spread their views, and they want the Party and the world to be remoulded in their own image. In the circumstances it is our duty to jolt these "comrades" and tell them sharply, "That won't work! The proletariat cannot accommodate itself to you. . . The past epoch is gone, never to return. . . China is moving forward, not back, and it is the revolutionary base areas, not any of the backward, retrogressive areas, that are leading China forward. This is a fundamental issue that, above all, comrades must come to understand in the rectification movement. . . . I believe that in the course of the rectification movement and in the long period of study and work to come, you will surely be able to bring about a transformation in yourselves and in your works, to create many fine works which will be warmly welcomed by the masses of the people, and to advance the literature and art movement in the revolutionary base areas and throughout China to a glorious new stage. (Mao Zedong, "Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art" (2 and 23 May 1942); see also nice discussion in Bonnie McDougall, Mao Zedong's "Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art": A Translation of the 1943 Translation With Commentary (Universoty of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1980)).
Rectification [整风 (Zhěngfēng)] or better put from its original longer form--to correct a working style--has always been around the intersticies of societal relations. In a world in which religion no longer fashions the bars within which it is possible to judge the need and character of rectification, other ideological frameworks have come into their own. Especially in the context of the ordering of political/social relations 整风 (Zhěngfēng; rectification) has moved from its classical Marxist-Leninist roots to insinuate itself as a critical element of the work style of all of the great ideological cages within which express the current tastes of humanity for their self-organization and the objectification of their hopes, manners, customs, dreams, and behaviors.
In whatever form one finds it, in whatever era of historical development of a collective, in whatever form the cognitive cages of societal rationalizations appear, 整风 (Zhěngfēng; rectification) is also there. I insist on using the term as it has come to be known in the aftermath of the template setting Yan'an rectification of the late 1940s which shaped both the disciplinary working style of vanguards (where Leninist, intellectual, techno-expert, aristocratic or what not).
Once again President Trump has come to Davos to deliver a speech to the assembled high level cadres of the global order(ing) and make deals (for what else would the self-aware incarnation of a transactional cognitive archetype do other than make deals?). Last year, when he returned at the start of his 2nd Presidency I noted:
Mr. Trump has been no stranger to Davos--and Davos will have him even as they might fear and loathe him and what he may be thought to bring to the table. He may be a "bad" boy but in the end he is more one of them than not--just in need of socialization and disciplining. At least that was the idea in 2018 when Mr. Trump last addressed this collection of vanguard elements ("America First" Explained at the Davos World Economic Forum: Text of President Trump's Address And White House Background Briefing). Still, the fundamental wariness and the sentiments fashionable in 2018 do linger (In quotes: How leaders at Davos 2025 view Trump's comeback). It is just that this time it is clearer that Mr. Trump could care less, perhaps because he no longer needs to care, and Davos movers and shakers are far more cautious, especially when they are being quoted. . . This is a Mr. Trump who might still be mocked, and resisted, but now also a Mr. Trump who might have to be taken more seriously --a disruptive force that either benefits or threatens the vanguard ordering represented in this body. (Davos Discourse 1--Mr. Trump's Address to the World Economic Forum 2025 and the Evolving Characteristics of America First as an Alternative to European and Chinese Models)
Last year President Trump loomed over the assembly briefly and on screen--a virtual presence that signified both a projection into the meeting and a distance from it, and a reminder that in modernity, virtual projections and the simulacra of the material might convey as much power as the physical--perhaps more.
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This year the President attended in person and delivered an address (Transcript: President Donald Trump Remarks @WEF Davos 2026). But this time, President Trump had 整风 (Zhěngfēng; rectification) on his mind. That was what appeared to be on his mind in the words of his own propaganda team:
President Donald J. Trump commanded the stage this morning at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, delivering a bold address that reaffirmed America’s leadership on the global stage and charted a decisive path forward for Western nations. Highlighting the imperatives of national sovereignty, cultural preservation, and proactive security, President Trump articulated a robust strategy to promote mutual prosperity and fortify alliances against global challenges. (In Davos, President Trump Outlines Bold Vision for American Prosperity, Transatlantic Strength )
While one might argue that the discursive style of President Trump's remarks might be distinguishable from that of Mao Zedong when, in addressing the intelligentsia in Yan'an in 1942 ("Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art"), it is hard (at least for me) to note much a a difference beyond discursive style and the primary (or at least initial) targets of a discourse in the form of a warning and ultimately sketching the boundaries of a new disciplinary framework.
It is from the perspective of rectification, then, that one might usefully approach the President's remarks.
1. Defeat the forces of reaction both at home and abroad! The President understood, and indeed, appeared to relish, his role as a measuring stick of rectification at the gathering if intellectuals and cadres at the global Yan'an. "It’s great to be back in beautiful Davos, Switzerland, and to address so many respected business leaders, so many friends, a few enemies." (Trump Remarks). That stick was fashioned from out of the discursive construction of the dialectic between the old regime and his. "Under the Biden administration, America was plagued by the nightmare of stagflation, meaning low growth and high inflation, a recipe for misery, failure, and decline. But now, after just one year of my policies, we are witnessing the exact opposite " (Ibid.). At the root of the decline were "radical-left Democrats" now taking up the role that in Yan'an had been occupied by right wing reactionaries, landlords and bourgeoisie elements. Within the liberated area that is the United States a new reality emerges and a need to appropriately lead the masses arises. The foundation of the authority for this political work is grounded in the victory of the current leadership against the reactionaries. "The USA is the economic engine on the planet. And when America booms, the entire world booms. It’s been the history. When it goes bad, it goes bad. And I hope we all — you all follow us down and you follow us up."
2. Adopting a correct working style is essential for unity around the core of leadership. President Trump here gets to the operational heart of the matter, the proper working style of ought to be American liberal democratic praxis! "This afternoon, I want to discuss how we have achieved this economic miracle, how we intend to raise living standards for our citizens to levels never seen before, and perhaps how you too and the places where you come from could do much better by following what we’re doing because certain places in Europe are not even recognizable, frankly, anymore." (Trump Remarks). The President, echoing the thrust of the National Security Strategy 2025 and the State Department elaboration of America First, starts with the failed praxis of the ancien regime:
In recent decades, it became conventional wisdom in Washington and European capitals that the only way to grow a modern Western economy was through ever-increasing government spending, unchecked mass migration, and endless foreign imports. The consensus was that so-called dirty jobs and heavy industries should be sent elsewhere, that affordable energy should be replaced by the “Green New Scam,” and that countries could be propped up by importing new and entirely different populations from faraway lands.
This was the path that sleepy Joe Biden administration and many other Western governments very foolishly followed, turning their backs on everything that makes nations rich and powerful and strong. And there’s so much potential in so many nations. The result was record budget and trade deficits and a growing sovereign deficit, driven by the largest wave of mass migration in human history. We’ve never seen anything like it.
Quite frankly, many parts of our world are being destroyed before our very eyes, and the leaders don’t even understand what’s happening. And the ones that do understand aren’t doing anything about it. Virtually all of the so-called experts predicted my plans to end this failed model would trigger a global recession and runaway inflation. But we have proven them wrong. It’s actually just the opposite. (Trump Remarks).
It doesn't really matter whether one believes this or not, or whether, in the blue collar style of oppositional trope one fact checks these assertions (against one's pne value measure). That is not the point here. The point is the trope, and the oppositional categories that are used to define the "defects among our comrades, such as idealism, dogmatism, empty illusions, empty talk, contempt for practice and aloofness from the masses, all of which call for an effective and serious campaign of rectification" (Mao Zedong "Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art" Section 5). The failures are magnified when set up against the dialectical successes of the current ruling ideology. These are described in a long passage of the Remarks that use as its markers (1) the rejection of "nation-wrecking energy policies", (2) the operationalization of an anti-bureaucratism campaign to reduce the size of the American nomenklatura and its regulatory footprint, (3) tax reduction, (4) tariffs and trade deficits; (5) "historic trade deals with partners covering 40 percent of all U.S. trade;" and (6) gasoline prices and nuclear energy. As the President would summarize it, "In one year, our agenda has produced a transformation like America has not seen in over 100 years." (Trump Remarks).
3. Social Revolution (社会革命) as Self-Revolution (自我革命) Must Guide the Appropriately Direct the Spirit of Rectification. If the United States has, through an intense if short period of self-revolution, attained a more advanced stage of social revolution, it can serve as template, guide and leading force for global social revolution. To those ends, President Trump considers a number of objectives and expressions of leadership that are meant to highlight the American basic or fundamental political line (a cognitively transactional America First Project) in action.
The President starts with Venezuela. His description, likely irritating to those still embedded in the cognitive premises of the ancien regime (likely including a large segment of his audience, Yan'an style) is discursively significant for its approach. In its choices of what "facts" are important and what facts disappear into the ether of irrelevance to the fundamental political line.
Venezuela has been an amazing place for so many years, but then they went bad with their policies. Ten years ago, it was a great country, and now it’s got problems. But we’re helping them. And those 50 million barrels, we’re going to be splitting up with them, and they’ll be making more money than they’ve made in a long time. Venezuela is going to do fantastically well. We appreciate all of the cooperation we’ve been giving. We’ve been giving great cooperation. Once the attack ended, the attack ended, and they said, “let’s make a deal.” More people should do that. (Trump Remarks)
The President moves on to artificial intelligence (AI). There AI exists in two contexts--the first is transactional--the competition with China for markets grounded in technological leadership. The second is AI as an impetus for energy consumption (one of the unintended ungreen consequences of the anti-fossil fuel green revolution). "And we’re leading the world in AI by a lot. We’re leading China by a lot. I think President Xi respects what we’ve done, in part because I’ve allowed these big companies building these massive buildings to build their own electric capacity." (Trump Remarks). And all originates within and from the core of leadership (领导核心). "And I came up with the idea, you know, you people are brilliant, you have a lot of money. Let’s see what you can do. You can build your own electric generating plant. And they looked at me. They didn’t believe me." (Ibid.).
The President then turns to (on) Europe. For the President Europe, perhaps more than the US "radical left" represents the core of reactionary elements ripe for rectification.
Because of my landslide election victory, the United States avoided the catastrophic energy collapse which befell every European nation that pursued the Green New Scam, perhaps the greatest hoax in history. The Green New Scam, windmills all over the place, destroy your land, destroy your land. Every time that goes around, you lose a thousand dollars. You’re supposed to make money with energy, not lose money. Here in Europe, we’ve seen the fate that the radical left tried to impose on America. They tried very hard. Germany now generates 22 percent less electricity than it did in 2017. And it’s not the current chancellor’s fault. He’s solving the problem. He’s going to do a great job. But what they did before he got there, I guess that’s why he got there. And electricity prices are 64 percent higher. (Trump Remarks).
The UK does not fare better, at least through the lens of energy policy.
The United Kingdom produces just one third of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999. Think of that, one third. And they’re sitting on top of the North Sea, one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world. But they don’t use it. And that’s one reason why their energy has reached catastrophically low levels with equally high prices. High prices, very low levels. Think of that, one third, and you’re sitting on top of the North Sea. And they like to say, “Well, you know, that’s depleted.” It’s not depleted. It’s got 500 years. They haven’t even found the oil. The North Sea is incredible. They don’t let anybody drill. Environmentally, they don’t let them drill. They make it impossible for the oil companies to go. They take 92 percent of the revenues. So the oil companies say, we can’t do it. (Ibid.).
The President foregrounds windmills for special evocative treatment. From a semiotic perspective windmills represent or embody, they manifest, the left error of the current techno-bureaucratic institutionalist system that is, for the President, the primary object of rectification.
Instead of closing down energy plants, we’re opening them up. Instead of building ineffective, money-losing windmills, we’re taking them down and not approving any.* * * The Green New Scam, windmills all over the place, destroy your land, destroy your land. Every time that goes around, you lose a thousand dollars. You’re supposed to make money with energy, not lose money. * * * There are windmills all over the place. And they are losers. One thing I’ve noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses and the worse that country is doing. China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China. * * * They put up a couple of big wind farms, but they don’t use them. They just put them up to show people what they could look like. They don’t spin. They don’t do anything. They use the thing called coal mostly. China goes with the coal. . . They killed the birds. They ruin your landscapes. Other than that, I think they’re fabulous, by the way. Stupid people buy them.(Trump Remarks)
Pix Credit China Daily (China Takes the Lead in Wind Energy Revolution
And then the shaping of the European rectification under the guidance of the American vanguard:
The consequences of such destructive policies have been stark, including lower economic growth, lower standards of living, lower birth rates, more socially disruptive migration, more vulnerability to hostile foreign adversaries, and much, much smaller militaries. * * * They have to get out of the culture that they’ve created over the last 10 years. It’s horrible what they’re doing to themselves. They’re destroying themselves. These are beautiful, beautiful places. We want strong allies, not seriously weakened ones. We want Europe to be strong. Ultimately, these are matters of national security, and perhaps no current issue makes the situation more clear than what’s currently going on with Greenland. (Trump Remarks)
To those ends, of course, the blueprint is set out in the U.S. State Department "Agency Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2026-2030.
And that gets the President to the transaction of the moment--Greenland. And of course, nothing here is ever particularly clean cut. First, there is nothing historically odd about the idea of territorial cession as a transaction, especially, it seems, involving Greenland.
The United States has tried to acquire Greenland several times. In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward commissioned a survey of Greenland. Impressed with the abundance of natural resources on the island, he pushed to acquire Greenland and Iceland for US$5.5 million – roughly $125 million today. But Congress was still concerned about the purchase of Alaska that year, which Seward had engineered. It had seen Alaska as too cold and too distant from the rest of the U.S. to justify spending $7.2 million – roughly $164 million today – although Congress ultimately agreed to do it. There was not enough national support for another frozen land. In 1910, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark proposed a complex trade involving Germany, Denmark and the United States. Denmark would give the U.S. Greenland, and the U.S. would give Denmark islands in the Philippines. Denmark would then give those islands to Germany, and Germany would return Schleswig-Holstein – Germany’s northernmost state – to Denmark. (Fortune; a history that President Trump alluded to in his Remarks)
That is quite different from the willingness to engage in a transaction for territory. And, indeed, Denmark rejected an offer from the Truman Administration to purchase Greenland in 1946 ("Ultimately, the U.S. and Danish governments agreed on other ways to incorporate Greenland into America's defenses." Here including the 1951 Defense Treaty). Second, there is a disconnect between the rhetoric of acquisition and the objectives. The Americans have no real taste for additional burdens of governance spaces; they do have a taste for freedom to use and exploit territories as they please (even if "as they please" is defined and constrained by contract). And currently they appear to have a particular taste for national security borderlands with respect to which some have thought Greenland spaces ought to play a role. These transactional, exploitation, and use objectives then get translated and ground up within the more ancient rituals of acquisitions--"you use it [territory] you own it" rules. These confusions appear all over the place and might be considered in the context of the President's remarks.
Would you like me to say a few words of Greenland? I was going to leave it out of the speech, but I thought – I think I would have been reviewed very negatively. I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark. Tremendous respect. But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory. And the fact is, no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States. We’re a great power, much greater than people even understand. I think they found that out two weeks ago in Venezuela. * ** We literally set up bases on Greenland for Denmark. . . .We were fighting to save it. For Denmark, big, beautiful piece of ice – it’s hard to call it land, it’s a big piece of ice – but we saved Greenland and successfully prevented our enemies from gaining a foothold in our hemisphere. So we did it for ourselves also. . . . After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that? But we did it. But we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now? . .. So now our country and the world face much greater risks than it did ever before because of missiles, because of nuclear, because of weapons of warfare that I can’t even talk about. * * *
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Greenland is a vast, almost entirely uninhabited and undeveloped territory. The sitting undefended in a key strategic location between the United States, Russia and China, that’s exactly where it is right smack in the middle, wasn’t important nearly when we gave it back. You know, when we gave it back, it wasn’t the same as it is now. It’s not important for any other reason. You know, that one talks about the minerals. There’s so many. There’s no rare earth. No such thing as rare earth. There’s rare processing. But there’s so much rare earth. And this to get to this rare earth, you had to go through hundreds of feet of ice. That’s not the reason we need it. We need it for strategic national security and international security. This enormous, unsecured island is actually part of North America on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere. That’s our territory.
It is all here. Jumbled up of course, but for a transactional mind perfectly logically bricolaged. And that is precisely how a merchant type would want it. The Remarks are a concoction of imprecise language (I don't dare say sloppy because the imprecision is clearly deliberate cloaked in what a transactional opponent might be lulled into thinking is sloppy). It is not exactly clear what the Americans want--Greenland is worthless and it is essential for security; it is an object in commerce and held by a State incapable of exploiting it to comply with its obligations; and so on. That is a transactional not an institutional stance--and thus the rectification--the working style of transaction rather than of institutional solidarity. In the end one does not quite know what the "acquisition of Greenland" actually means other than that the Americans want to be able to do whatever it is they want to do for the protection of their interests and consequentially those of their allies within the inner core of the American territorial peripheries. That does not make it any less galling for the Danish. But it does reveal the praxis of rectification in the new era of the historical development of the United States. And indeed, almost immediately after the speech negotiations appeared to have kicked into high gear (see, e.g. here). And here it is the American version of social revolution through self-revolution .
Nonetheless, social and self-revolution, and its modalities of rectification start at home. The President is as clear on that point as the Democratic Party and its supporters were in seeking then Mr. Trump's rectification between 2020 and 2024. The President declared: "the 2020 U.S. presidential election . . . was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. It’s probably breaking news, but it should be. It was a rigged election. You can’t have rigged elections." (Trump Remarks). And, like Mao Zedong in the 1940s (and Fidel Castro in the 1960s) rectification starts with the appropriate disciplining of the intelligentsia and their organs.
You need strong borders, strong elections, and, ideally, a good press. I always say it. Strong borders, strong elections, free, fair elections, and a fair media. The media is terrible. It’s very crooked. It’s very biased, terrible. But someday it’ll straighten out because it’s losing all credibility. Think of it. When I went in a landslide, a giant landslide, won all seven swing states, won the popular vote, won everything. And they only get negative press. That means that it has no credibility. And if they’re going to get credibility, they’re going to have to be fair. So you need a fair press. But you also need those other elements. (Trump Remarks).
The issue isn't about "truth" but ideological stance, and from ideological stance the rationalization of approaches to vesting actions and objects with appropriate signification. That as visible now as it was in 1942 in Yan'an as it has been in the Europe of the Brussels effect and in the America of the rules based multilateral order.
4. For transactions there must be peace! Like that other hegemon, but from a quite different starting (and perhaps ending) point. The new fundamental political line is focused on peace. It is not focused on the normative values around which conflict is considered and ends negotiated. It is focused on peace as an object, a state of being, a space within which it is possible to undertake the sort of translations that might enhance states of substantial non-conflict.
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We now understand that “President Trump is the President of Peace." (President Trump Brokers Another Historic Peace Deal). It ought to follow that the Republic is now, collectively, a Republic of Peace--self-revolution ushers in a state of social revolution. That, one might be excused for thinking, is the thrust of President Trump's message to the Republic. This is a message that has been underscored and elaborated by Secretary of State Rubio, whose discussion of the notion of peace, and states of peace brokered by a strong Republic reflects the more fundamental self-revolution of "transactional-merchant phenomenology and its understanding of peace as an essential element of something larger: "As they say in some movies--peace, like death, is not an end but a doorway. That acquires a quite interesting aspect in transactional spaces." What, then, is peace? Perhaps Secretary Marco Rubio describes it best under conditions of transaction framing merchant realities--peace is the absence of war. War is understood as violent conflict, one that either destroys valuable objects (infrastructure, productive capacity and the like), or human the consumption of whom is the essential element of the process of production (workers, family units, consumers, and operators of economic, social, religious, and cultural productivity) and the object (collectively) of productivity (at its extreme here) and curated. Societal self-pleasuring is the ultimate aim--however that is defined and made suitable for the times; and self-pleasuring consists of the proper interaction of objects and people agreeably arranged and ordered in ways that permit a movement toward the maximization of their own self-and social value and that of the collective. This comes in many flavors of course (and ideology provides one of several languages for constituting these "flavors" in form suitable for both consumption and framing the human condition). But at its heart is the fundamental postulate--that without the end of destruction there can be no movement toward. Nonetheless, peace is not its own object. It is a state of (dis)engagement that permits the fundamental logic of the operation of self and social systems toward the realization of its apex goal and purpose--the regularization of spaces in which transactions may be undertaken for the further fulfillment of self and social revolution. It might be understood as movement toward development (or modernization, however these terms are understood) that improves (or in some systems perfects) things and conditions of life for individuals and collectives. In other words, the object is not peace; the object is the achievement of a state of stable transactions--iterative, perhaps even purposeful beyond the value of the transaction--that then manifest desired states of being. (The Phenomenology of Peace and the Price of the Deal--Text of and Reflections on the Interview: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Brian Kilmeade of Fox Radio). ("President Trump is the President of Peace" Reflections on the Power of Presidential Self-Revolution (自我革命), the Republic's Social Revolution (社会革命) and the Presidential Message: "President Trump Brokers Another Historic Peace Deal").
It is in this context that one can approach the language of peace in the President's remarks on Ukraine.
"The war with Ukraine is an example. We are thousands of miles away, separated by a giant ocean. It’s a war that should have never started, and it wouldn’t have started if the 2020 U.S. presidential election weren’t rigged." (Trump Remarks). These remarks evidence the same sort of strategic ambiguity as the Greenland remarks. The President starts with an assessment of his power of persuasion over Mr. Putin, so that the 2022 invasion would not have occurred. "It was terrible what happened. I could see it happening, too. After I left, I could see it happening." (Ibid.). This was a transaction the financial ramifications of which drove approaches, one conflated with border control and inflation.
Biden had given Ukraine and NATO $350 billion of staggering sums, $350 billion. I came in, and just like the southern border, just like inflation, just like our economy, I said, wow, this place is in trouble, meaning our country. All of these things were out of control. But the border was out of control. We fixed it with the strongest border anywhere in the world. (Ibid.).And thus the obectification f peace as a core element of the new fundamental political line. Peace, not at any price, but for peace's sake in which price is negotiable and norms are price points.
And I’ve now been working on this war for one year, during which time I settled eight other wars, India, Pakistan. I settled other wars that were Vladimir Putin called me. Armenian, Azerbaijan, he said, “I can’t believe you settled that one.” They were going on for 35 years. I settled it in one day. And President Putin called me. He said, “You know, I can’t believe I worked on that war for 10 years trying to settle it. I couldn’t do it.” I said, “Do me a favor. Focus on settling your war. Don’t worry about that.” What does the United States get out of all of this work? All of this money other than death, destruction and massive amounts of cash going to people who don’t appreciate what we do? They don’t appreciate what we do.(Ibid.).
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5. The Post-Global Mass Line; people are the rulers of rectification. Like the Socialist Path, the Liberal Democratic transactional Path requires discipline, dedication. . . .and results. To those ends resident Trump brings his global vision home in several key respects: (1) home ownership by individuals; (2) caps on credit card interest rates; (3) American crypto-currency hegemony; and (4) mortgage bonds, mortgage rates and a public criticism of the apex American central banker.
But an appropriate working style s also necessary for the American core of leadership; and there is no better example than the way in which he deals with the Davos host country. The language is critically important. And that produces probably the most important part of the speech, the part of the speech that ought to be reviewed, considered, analyzed, and internalized more than anything else that passed from or thorough the lips of the President:
I mean, I had a case with Switzerland. We happened to be in Switzerland. Maybe I’ll give you a quick story. But they were paying nothing. They make beautiful watches, great watches, Rolex, all of them. They were paying nothing to the United States when they sent their product in. And we had a forty one billion dollar deficit, 41 billion with this beautiful place flew over it, isn’t it nice?
So I said, let’s put a 30 percent tariff on them so that we get back some of it, not all of it at all. We still have a deficit, big deficit, 40, 41 million. That’s a big deficit. And I said, let’s put a tariff on. Different tariffs, different places, you’re all party to some cases, victims to them. But in the end, it’s a fair thing. And most of you realize that.
But we put a 30 percent tariff on Switzerland and all hell broke loose. They were calling. I mean, like you wouldn’t believe. And I know so many people from Switzerland. Incredible place. Incredible, brilliant place. * * *
The prime minister, I don’t think president, I think prime minister called, a woman, and she was very repetitive. She said, “No, no, no, you cannot do that. 30 percent. You cannot do that. We are a small, small country.” I said, “Yeah, but you have a big, big deficit. You may be small, but you have a bigger deficit than big countries.” She said, “No, no, no, please. You cannot do it.” Kept saying the same thing over and over. “We are a small country.” I said, “But you’re a big country in terms of…” And she just rubbed me the wrong way, I’ll be honest with you. And I said, “All right, thank you, ma’am. Appreciate it. Do not do this. Thank you very much, ma’am.” And I made it 39 percent.
And then all hell really broke out. And I was paid visits by everybody. Rolex came to see me. They all came to see me. But I realized, and I reduced it. Because I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to hurt them. And we brought it down to a lower level. Doesn’t mean it’s not going up, but we brought it down to a lower level. But they pay now, the tariff. (Trump Remarks).
That is the essence of the speech, of the discursive framework of the second Trump Administration and of its democratic centralism and mass line practice in the service of its fundamental political line. It is a story that plays over and over again in the remarks. It is not about the remarks bit its cadence its organization, its Herodotus style logoi structures (on Herodotus and his literary and cognitive style here).
The main theme of the work is the struggles between Greeks and Barbarians, as is explicitly stressed in the prooemium. After a short introduction to legendary times, the Histories start with the conflict between Lydians and Greeks. When the Lydian king Croesus is defeated by Cyrus the Great, the expansion of the Persian Empire becomes the backbone of the work. Herodotus develops a high literary technique of references back and forward, presenting many digressions—the so-called logoi. (Herodotus: i Introduction to the Histpories)
One is back, in a way, to a different sort of golden age of discourse; it is one that belies the structures of Pathos, Logos, and Ethos (Πάθος, Λόγος και Ήθος) in favor of sequential and non-sequential looping that represents not just discourse but policy. It is one that is transactionally conversational, one that is inductive and built on aggregations of iterative discursive performances ("Logos is the word Herodotus uses for his own long narrative. It is also his word for the discrete pieces of narrative told to him by informants; thirdly, it signifies a variety of ideas or communications that take place within the narrative, among the people whose words and deeds are described. Logoi wield a dangerous power of their own; people’s distinctive speech acts, as they often talk past and attempt to manipulate one another in the Histories, help drive forward the causal connections creating the logôn hodos that is Herodotus’ own massive nine-book work." here). For moderns this is excruciating, yet its semiotics points to a way of layering meaning in ways that manage perception that unconsciously point to the mimetic discourse of coding generative intelligence.
6. The Democratic Centralism of the Post-Global. The America First project promises democracy and engagement for American First Adherents (the patriots) and dictatorship for the forces of opposition and reaction. This is democratic dictatorship with liberal democratic characteristics in the new era of its historical development. (For the original Chinese Leninist conception, see Mao Zedong, On the Peoples Democratic Dictatorship (1949). But more importantly, in the global context, the essence of America First is a public facing and inter-governmental form of democratic centralism with the United States as its core (on its Chinese early essence, Mao Zedong, Talk At An Enlarged Working Conference Convened By The Central Committee Of The Communist Party Of China (30 January 1962), a concept closely tied to rectification ("Without democracy there cannot be any correct centralism because people’s ideas differ, and if their understanding of things lacks unity then centralism cannot be established. What is centralism? First of all it is a centralization of correct ideas, on the basis of which unity of understanding, policy, planning, command and action are achieved. This is called centralized unification.").
President Trump says:
Many places, I could give you six, seven places just in the people in this little area. I know every one of them. They’re sort of, they’re looking down. They don’t want to see me and they don’t want to stare me in the eyes. But they’re taking advantage of, everybody took advantage of the United States. But I’ve been very fair and I gave them a tariff and it was fine. But I realized that without us, it’s not Switzerland anymore. Without us, it’s not any of the countries that are represented here. And we want to work with the countries. We want to work with them. We’re not looking to destroy them. I could have said 39%, 40%. I could have said I want a 70% tariff, then we make money with Switzerland. But Switzerland would have been probably destroyed, financially destroyed. I don’t want to do that. (Trump Remarks)
Mao Zedong reminds us: " We must conscientiously bring questions out into the open, and let the masses speak out. Even at the risk of being cursed we should still let them speak out." (Talk At An Enlarged Working Conference). President Trump says:
But we should be paying the lowest interest rate of everybody. I hope Scott’s listening to this because we should be paying the lowest interest rate of everybody. Without us, without us, most of the countries don’t even work. And then you have the protection factor. Without our military, which is the greatest in the world by far, without our military, you have threats that you would never, you wouldn’t believe. You wouldn’t believe. You don’t have threats because of us. And that’s because of NATO. (Trump Remarks).
Mao Zedong reminds us:
We should always uphold the principle of the unity of proletarian internationalism. We always advocate that the socialist countries and the world communist movement must unite firmly on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. The international revisionists are ceaselessly cursing us. Our attitude is, let them go on cursing us. When it becomes necessary we can give them some appropriate answers. Our Party has become accustomed to being cursed. Leaving aside those who attacked us in the past, what about the present? Abroad, the imperialists curse us, the reactionary nationalists curse us, the revisionists curse us; in our country Chiang Kai-shek curses us, the landlords, rich peasants, reactionaries, bad elements and rightists curse us. They had always done so in the past . . . Are we isolated? " (Talk At An Enlarged Working Conference).
And so on. And how does one move along the liberal democratic transactional path? President Trump sends time describing its components: (1) reindustriaization; (2) migration and crime enforcement (against bandits and reactionary elements); (3) safety in the national capital city; (4) rectification of left and right error within institutions of lower level cadres (elected and appointed officials in sanctuary cities for example); (5) destroying transnational criminal gangs (the Somalis are mentioned); (6) eradicating piracy; and (7) dealing with undigested migrant groups and their anti-social 'assabiyah ("Situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own").
What is left?
So together, with confidence, boldness, and persistence, let us lift up our people, grow our economies, defend our shared destiny, and build a future for our citizens that is more ambitious, more exciting, more inspiring, and greater than the world has ever seen.(Trump Remarks)
The full text of President Trump's remarks follows and may also be accessed here in transcript form with thanks to the Singju Post.
