Letter to Imran Khan.

Dear Imran,


In the next few days, even in the face of accusations of poll rigging, you will be installed as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. If your 22 years in politics thus far was a difficult journey, the years ahead as head of the government will test you in ways beyond one's imagination. Your character as a human being will be put to test, and your values and morality will be challenged and more importantly you will learn that some situations will need an out of box thinking and a resolve that makes the difference between leadership and failure.

You will be surrounded by sycophants, people who will feed your ego and while the small favor for someone may seem small it will be the mark of your government; will you bend the rules or break them? While we as families go back a generation or more, my few meetings with you left some impressions which need to be shared today. I admire your resolve and your honesty in financial matters, however, what I have always felt is that their is a self centered aura around you, which is not uncommon with famous people. This results in the use of the "I" more than the "We", the team then seems a means to the goals you have for yourself rather than the team. Successful leaders rarely use the world "I" and this might be a small but important change forward.

On the broader front I ask you to reader Qaid i Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah's speech of Aug 11, 1947. You will notice the whole speech not once mentions the world Islam, but it talks of the guiding principles of governance that our founder wanted for the country. I recall you once saying to me that "Pakistani Muslims have an identity crisis". Yes they do because we are Arabizing society, we are using the words Muslim and Islam more often than is necessary as if we have to remind ourselves who we are. The problem with our country is that we have misused our religion to the extent that we have created differences amongst ourselves and perhaps you are the only leader today who can fix this!

I would like to see a more tolerant Pakistan, a rule of law, a respect for freedom of the press, the upholding of the judicial process and most of all to bring all the stakeholders in the country, including the defeated opposition to a consensus that the politics of revenge must end. Your stubborn nature may stand in the way of negotiating the way forward but as much as politics is about compromise the trick is to know what you can compromise on?

I do feel the Jinnah speech of Aug 11,1947 should be something you embrace and set it as the key to governance. This will mean protecting the minorities, and to immediately put a stop to the politics of division and end to the intolerance that the Mullahs have imposed on our social structure forgetting we belong to a faith which preached tolerance.

Your biggest two challenges will be the economy and foreign policy.

The economy is crippled and even though ending corruption will slow the bleeding the patient can only return to health with a careful review of the economy and to expand the economic base with an export driven economy. Manufacturing and industry not only need power but also the rule of law and the creation of an economic environment where foreign companies will want to set up production in Pakistan. Imagine if Chinese industries set up their factories in Pakistan, nearer the ports, closer access to markets and a large work force that can be trained. This means investment in vocational skills colleges, we need more technical people in the work force and less political science degrees. Incentives over a tax breaks and ease of investment all will help. But underlying this the politics of violence will have to end for this the militants will have to find havens in other countries.

On foreign policy Pakistan's failures have resulted in Pakistan's foreign policy akin to a blind man walking in an empty corridor calling out if anyone is there to help him. Can you imagine we are a nuclear power and we are the ones asking for attention; surely it should be the other way around. It is vital that dialogue with both Afghanistan and India commence on a new footing. With Afghanistan the politics of interference by both sides has to stop and stakeholders within the military in Pakistan have to be convinced that we should not worry about the complexion of the government in Kabul and mind our own business just as Kabul must be told that influencing the militants within Pakistan is a no-go-zone. With India the history is more complex but both sides must accept that the issue of Kashmir cannot be rolled back to 1947 as too much water has flowed down the Ganges and the Indus. Kashmiri's perhaps want an independent country and it might be worth while considering that the status quo remain and Azad Kashmir be given a provincial status within Pakistan. After all India considers their part of Kashmir as one of the states of their federal structure.


Relations with the big powers will be more difficult and while cementing the already strong relationship with China should continue Pakistan must reset it relationship with the United States and Russia. Given the fractured landscape of international politics an effort to make the EU more pivotal in Pakistan's foreign policy should be considered. The most important element of foreign relations has to be improving the image of the country. This does not happen over night and will need you to ensure career diplomats re of a better calibre and the ambassadors you choose have an interest not only in just meeting their own kith and kin but also developing solid links within the countries they are posted to.


Imran, you have been considered as a candidate upon whom the hope of the people rests. This includes the women of the country who have been down trodden and marginalized for too long. In addition you have to take cognizance of the minorities and protect them more fiercely than just speeches on their status. Your slogan of a new Pakistan implies you have to redefine many aspects within society and this may mean breaking down the perceptions of the many intolerant souls within our society.

I wish you the best and while my blog may be critical of you and your government at times, remember that this is the time not to seek praise only but to take criticism in the spirit that people like me do not want to see you fail, because your failure will be the death knell of our country.

DId Jinnah want a secular Pakistan?

We are the proverbial 'moments away' from the 2018 elections in Pakistan, an election charged with emotion, accusations, and bomb blasts. An election in a nuclear weapon state which picks up a mere footnote on the international newswires. Yet, believe it or not, its an election that will perhaps define the future for the country. Imran Khan's promise of a new Pakistan carries with it the loaded responsibility that should he fail to deliver if he wins the election, then the only definition we as a nation will edge towards is 'failed state'.

This election gave me a chance to examine the manifesto of each of the major political parties and it was in a sense sad to see that the protection of the rights of the minorities and the women of the country was mentioned almost as an after thought. While some may have looked at the Islamist parties posters and giggled at the erased faces of their women candidates it did make one wonder about how far we have steered away from the legacy of the founder of the nation, Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

General Zia Ul Haq systematically installed the tools of intolerance in a nation, after his predecessor, Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto embraced the Islamist demand to outlaw Ahmadi Muslims as declare them non muslims when he faced agitation by the right wing in response to election rigging. It was Gen Zia who had Mr Jinnah's August 11, 1947 speech to the Constituent Assembly expunged from the social history books and state media in the next publication of Jinnah's speeches excluded the entire speech.

Why is this speech important?

It was the definitive political and social guide that the founder of the nation laid before the lawmakers who were entrusted to frame the constitution of the State of Pakistan. He laid out some guiding principles for the lawmakers, and I would assume that they were in agreement with his vision. At the expense of making this a long winded blog, I shall quote some of these from this very special speech.

His first principle he enunciated was 'The first observation that I would like to make is this: You will no doubt agree with me that the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State. '

Today we cannot debate his second guiding principle 'The second thing that occurs to me is this: One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering - I do not say that other countries are free from it, but, I think our condition is much worse - is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand and I hope that you will take adequate measures as soon as it is possible for this Assembly to do so.'

His third principle was relevant to those times and even today; 'Black-marketing is another curse. Well, I know that blackmarketeers are frequently caught and punished. Judicial sentences are passed or sometimes fines only are imposed. Now you have to tackle this monster, which today is a colossal crime against society, in our distressed conditions, when we constantly face shortage of food and other essential commodities of life. A citizen who does black-marketing commits, I think, a greater crime than the biggest and most grievous of crimes. '

Surely even today many in Pakistan will recognize his fourth guiding principle; 'The next thing that strikes me is this: Here again it is a legacy which has been passed on to us. Along with many other things, good and bad, has arrived this great evil, the evil of nepotism and jobbery. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any any influence directly of indirectly brought to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it.'

His final point was about the minorities and the role of the state in defining the relationship between the different segments in society. I must quote the entire section for it to have a contextual sense. 

'I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division of India and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been said against it, but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of everyone of us to loyally abide by it and honourably act according to the agreement which is now final and binding on all. But you must remember, as I have said, that this mighty revolution that has taken place is unprecedented. One can quite understand the feeling that exists between the two communities wherever one community is in majority and the other is in minority. But the question is, whether it was possible or practicable to act otherwise than what has been done, A division had to take place. On both sides, in Hindustan and Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may not like it, but in my judgement there was no other solution and I am sure future history will record is verdict in favour of it. And what is more, it will be proved by actual experience as we go on that was the only solution of India's constitutional problem. Any idea of a united India could never have worked and in my judgement it would have led us to terrific disaster. Maybe that view is correct; maybe it is not; that remains to be seen. All the same, in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities being in one Dominion or the other. Now that was unavoidable. There is no other solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be on end to the progress you will make.

I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation.

Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.'

It is worth noting in the entire speech he never once used the word Islam. For him it was a homeland for the Muslims of India, but more than that it was also a homeland for the minorities and even all the sects of Muslims. Without using the word 'secular' Jinnah was defining a country that would in practice be secular. 

Today not one political leader contesting the elections has embraced these vital guiding principles of the founding father and instead fuel hatred and discord between not only the majority and the minorities but also between sects within the Muslims. In the United States over 200 years after the founding fathers framed the constitution even today reference is made to their guiding principles knowing they are the pillars of statehood. 

Lets hope the likes of Imran Khan, Shahbaz Shareef, Bilawal Bhutto, and the Mullahs of the other parties can dig out this speech of the founding father, read it, reflect on it, and measure themselves against its advice. More importantly lets hope they can be brave enough to espouse this message in a progressively intolerant Pakistan that they have allowed to be created.

Pakistan Elections: Is it the turning point for Imran Khan?

In a few days time a nation of 193 million people will go to the polls, and if predictions are to be believed we could see a major shift in the direction of Pakistani politics. Between military governments, failed democratic processes, and managed democracy the losers have always been the people of Pakistan. Almost five decades ago, in a highly charged election they were promised a 'new Pakistan'. A year later, and after a bloody civil war, they got a cut up Pakistan and the beginning of a process of elected oligarchies, which having failed ushered in military rule. Another round of return to civilian rule and then the military stepped in again. The third time we expected something better and while still promised a new Pakistan we got an elected government ousted from power by the Supreme Court, its leaders in jail for corruption and yet again another election.

This election promises to be different because of a younger voter base and perhaps a more charged political process. Imran Khan, if the pundits are to be believed, might just be the man to win enough seats for his PTI to form a government. Imran Khan too promises a 'Naia' (new) Pakistan, where he believes democratic process, inclusive policies, rule of law and a crack down on corruption will be the hallmarks of his government. Some believe he holds the inside track because the military see in him a better option than the others.

Yet Imran Khan has patched together alliances with some political figures of other parties and welcomed them into his ranks which makes one wonder how much horse trading will be needed by him to secure victory and if so will it erode his populist agenda for a new Pakistan. To the liberal forward thinking Muslims his flirtations with the ultra conservative and even militant elements of the right wing Muslim groups is troublesome; something the military might not also take much favor with. To the nationalist amongst us his stance of not allowing drone strikes by foreign powers will ring positive to our ears. To the pragmatist the single most important thought will be if he can walk the talk.

I believe what Imran Khan has going for him in large measure is the fact that in financial matters he is considered basically honest. This is singularly the most important thing for many in Pakistan where they hear of the billions that has been stolen from the country. Whether Imran Khan can fight corruption and maintain the rule of law and courts side by side is to be seen. Some of his statements regarding opponents gives one the uneasy feeling that some old scores might be picked at the cost of a judicial process.


At  the end of the day if Imran Khan wins his ability to deliver will depend on the quality of the team he puts together. While at times he has shown, at least with his hospital project, that he can do that, one has to wonder if at the national stage he can find the right people. With a tendency to put himself in the limelight more as a focal point he will have to learn to be humble and bring to the front the depth of the leadership within his party and act more as the watchful eye to keep the focus on his promise for a new Pakistan.

His challenge will be an economy that is riddled with inefficiencies and corruption and to nourish the key drivers for economic performance. Over hauling a government machine which served its own ends rather than the people and to find a balance with the military that ensures it from keeping away from the political process will be an enormous challenge for the Khan. On the foreign relations side the task of not only improving the image of the country but also to find a cohesive direction to a foreign policy which for the past few decades has done nothing other than to be reactive.

At a societal level perhaps Imran Khan could be the only leader who can bring about a national consensus on the question of minorities within the country. A country where the divisions along religious and sectarian lines have reached dangerous proportions. We need someone to stop the rifts between the Sunni and the Shia, between the Muslims and the non Muslims and we need to emphasize and speak out against the wanton violence that some of the extremist elements within the country have brought to the streets of Pakistan.

If this is the Naia (new) Pakistan that can emerge from these elections and Imran Khan feels he has the best chance to deliver it then there cannot be a mincing of words on this matter. Not only a respect for the institutions of democracy has to be nourished but in many cases the rebuilding of these institutions has to take place. An investment into education and the eradication of intolerant views through education has to start. The role of women and their protection has to be at the forefront of this New Pakistan. The list is exhaustive as indeed is the task. But we must also realize that if like the promise of almost 50 years ago this descends into an oligarchy of political favoritism and misguided politics then the country will descend into a state of disrepair from which many decades of pain will emerge.

Trump: Why is he weak with the Russians?

For the ardent students of history, especially in my age bracket, we have seen since the Cold War meetings between former Soviet and now Russian leaders with regular frequency. From the  spirit of detente to establishing a new World Order, the mood of these meetings ranged from the icy cold to the cordial and warm; yet the language of the dialogue and the public exposition of the content of the meetings was carefully picked. Each word, each gesture was carefully put in place to ensure that each side, especially the US was asserting its position.

President Donald Trump always has asserted that he has been more 'hard' on Russia than any of the recent Presidents before him. Talking the talk has been easy for this President, but when it came to walking the talk this week in Helsinki, President Trump not only stumbled but fell flat on his face at the feet of a gloating President Putin. One must assume that the diplomats and national security staff around this President would have briefed him in detail. Then we have to remember President Trump fancies himself as the most intelligent human on the planet and without a sense of history he failed miserably.

One has to then wonder why a President who has been tough on his allies, ripped up agreements, ridiculed opponents and anyone who has had the gall to criticize him suddenly is played by the Russians in plain view of millions of viewers. If he had come back from Helsinki after a bout of being tongue tied one could have asked why he didn't say this or that. On the contrary in one sweeping stroke he said he speaks for Russia, implied he believed in the Russian President more than his own intelligence experts and asked about the DNC servers, almost forgetting that he was in Helsinki and not on some right wing Trumpette political rally. So what is it that makes Trumps knees go shaky and his temperament become so submissive when it comes to a man called Putin?

Speculation is that the Russians have some smut on the man who sits in the Oval office from his raunchy (alleged) nights when he was in Moscow years ago. Personally I think this is not something that would bother Trump enough to sell out his country over; after all his loyal supporters, including the evangelists, forgave him for grabbing women by their........So what is the Russian Achilles heel that prompts this out of character submissiveness.

Here is my theory, and I insist it is a theory but it merits a thought.

Perhaps prior to 2015 Trump had borrowed money from Russian banks and oligarchs to build his golf course in Scotland. This could well be around $400 million. We know that a Chinese bank leant Trump companies $500m related to an Indonesian project. So it is likely that with US banks unwilling to lend to him given his past defaults, he often did turn to foreign banks. It is possible that before he announced his bid for the Presidency he could have transferred these loans to either his sons names or his daughter's in laws companies. However it is possible that the underlying assets did not change hands and the loans were simply taken over. 

Now imagine that these loans are in default or chronic delays in payments! Given that Trump never disclosed his tax returns for this period because doing so would show the changes on the liability side of the balance sheet. This puts the Trump Presidency at huge risk because it violates election laws and thus keeping all this silent is what the Russians have on him. 

To me the leverage on Trump has to be more than sex, and this can only be a money connection hence my theory.

Trump: Visited again.

My friends joke that I seem to have a vendetta against a certain Donald J Trump, even though I admit I am at times infuriated by his words, and actions and the persona of the man who has debased the office of the President of United States and conned millions of people into believing he is the real deal. Yes he has done a few good things, the initiative with North Korea (still a long way to go) and reduced taxes but most of all the only good he has done is made us realize how gullible we can all be.

D J Trump, the ultimate opportunist, was clever to notice the cracks in American society and in the American mind set and no matter how ugly the consequences of prying open that crack he felt it was the one ace he could play that might just work. This crack revealed the fears of the disfranchised Americans, the blue collar,mostly white workers, the ultra conservatives who in their hearts never liked the 'others', the many who privately felt their jobs had been stolen by not only the immigrants, both legal and illegal, but also the worker in China, Indonesia or where ever he may be. Opening this crack wider would be flirting with the likes of the KKK and their many cousins, calling a ban on 'all Muslims' from entering the United States of America, and even picking an ugly fight with a gold star parent.

Politicians bend the truth rather habitually, Mr Trump, as candidate Trump, went one step further, he habitually told lies, even privately gloated about how he told a lie to the Canadian Prime Minister. Till last count he had crossed 2,149 misleading statements, and he is by no stretch of the imagination finished this ploy. He talked of a wall that Mexico would pay for, and then when that was not going to happen he brought the immigration issue including the DACA regulations to the forefront and deflected from his promise of Mexico paying by suddenly asking Congress to approve the cost.

The Democrats, led by Hilary Clinton and her clan, played into the game, running a reactive campaign, over confident that Trumps gaffs, including his boast of grabbing women by their private parts would sink him. So much so Hilary and Co lost sight of the fact that their vote bank of blue collared workers was slipping away and she did not even bother to go and bolster support amongst the very people who normally would have voted Democrat, but Trump somehow spoke to their fears better than she ever could. Tinged with over confidence Hilary Clinton faded, even though one may argue that the email scandal so near the election eroded her vote bank even more drastically in the key states. While the popular vote remained in her camp she just did not have a strategy for the electoral college.

I assumed after the election Donald J Trump would somehow become Presidential in his demeanor, somehow the Oval Office does that, we saw that with Bush Jr, and others before. The resonance of the oath taking ceremony had not yet left our ears and the first of the many lies came from the White House over the size of the crowd at the inauguration ceremony. This time it was not President Trump but his press secretary lying for him. But the undertone was even more sinister, it was like President Trump and his cronies want the world to somehow accept that he is more popular, more smarter and better loved than his predecessor, Barrack Obama. In the months that followed everything that President Obama did had to be unscrambled and attacked. It was almost like some White Supremacist had drawn up a list of things that need to be attacked that were done by the first black President of the United States.

On a global level President Trump has embarked on an even more bizarre journey. Hugging the adversaries of the US, ridiculing its allies, and in the midst of it all launching a trade war which no one, not even the mighty United States can win on its own. The Russian President Putin could not have asked for a more likable ally in the world than Donald J Trump; after all he is dismantling or at least undermining NATO, imposing tariffs on the best trading partners of the US, and in a sinister sense working to Kremlin's agenda and perhaps the slogan of Making America Great Again is working to Making Kremlin Great Again.


I then stop to think of this is a more societal context. Perhaps Donald J Trump is right that the soul of America does not want immigrants, that the average American does not want a Muslim living in his neighborhood, that the US farmer wants America Great Again even if he has to burn his crops because the trade war means he cannot sell his grain to China! Perhaps in the past two decades the average American I met in my many visits to that lovely land has changed from the curious, warm hearted welcoming American, to a NRA sticker branding white supremacist who this time around would not welcome me for the BBQ in his back yard. Perhaps the US is going to become isolationist leaving the world for the Chinese and Russians to carve up between them, and withdraw itself into closed borders (as opposed to controlled borders), nagging problems with neighbors and torn up alliances and abandoned allies.

The impact of this is far reaching as social media exaggerates the platform of debate. Indeed people do not discuss issues they argue them now and even blatantly fight over them, throwing in the good measure of fake news to skew the battle lines in their favor. Political tolerance has been washed aside to the extent that even social tolerance is now not visible on the edges of this divided society. Discussion even with facts does not work because of perception of facts have been bent out of shape on both sides of the divide. One has to now define our friendships with those of differing political views with the adage 'lets remain friends but not discuss politics!'

Whether Trump caused this societal paradigm shift or merely saw it as a useful tool to exploit is debatable. The fact he fueled the fires of hate was enough and when he had that one historical moment to change the tempo and tenor of his message to one of tolerance he let it go after his inauguration.  Instead he embraced the division, fed the fire with more lies and hate, creating a sense of the victim remedying the flaws of many Presidencies before him. The appeal of the evangelists who see him as some Christian savior resonated in his sense of self importance and perhaps he truly sees himself in the only possible way he can; as the greatest of all times!

If this is a societal shift then the politics of hate and division that President Trump started as an election ploy have now seeped into the grain of the US national psyche; something that cannot be washed away with soap and water. Yes poison does leave the body of the victim, before it kills him, but this will not go away on its own. His base, as he calls it, will forgive him for his fornication, for his hatred, for his lies and hell even if he steals, but then is his base larger than the values that have always held the United States of America as the land to which the hopeful aspire for freedom and liberty?

Trump's Trade War.

President Trump, as candidate Trump, touted the unfairness of US trade relations with the rest of world. His attacks, principally on China and later on NAFTA, were then seen as media ploy to make the US disfranchised voter to feel they had an ally heading for the White House. Trump the businessman was seen by his largely myopic US centric base as the apostle of business acumen and if he said that China was 'raping America' then he must know what he is talking about. For those who live and breathe international trade his rants were seen as something that will mellow when he sees the facts.

However, as we have learned the facts for Donald J Trump as simply as he wants to see them. With a panache for off the cuff policy making, usually encompassed in the 140 word limitation of Twitter, President Trump has launched a trade war the consequences of which, while damaging to the demons as he sees them, will also severely impact the very base who believed that Trump the businessman knows what he is doing. Raising tariffs, even in the absence of any retaliation fromUS trading partners, will raise the cost of goods for the end user within the US. The aluminum and steel tariff alone would raise the price of finished products and considering a large percentage of the aluminum imported by the US is the high grade aluminum which they do not produce themselves, the protection the tariff seeks is just not there.

Now to expect that levying tariffs on foreign goods will have no repercussions is naive. China, the European Union and others will impose their own set of tariffs on US goods. China,Mexico, Canada and the EU together import about $140 billion of US agricultural products, all of which will be hit by the trade war. While in the scheme of a trillion dollar business this may seem a drop in the ocean, but importantly it affects the rural base of the US economy and a farming crisis, however small with a large economy, cannot look good for the politics. Yes it is true the effects of a trade war are never immediate but more like a slow motion melt down, it is also correct that once a trade war begins to take root into the economic cycle it takes that much longer to stop the trade war and then to reverse its impact.

On broader note, the trade imbalance is a misnomer to be seen in isolation to the over all cash surplus or deficit (as the case may be) when considering that nations not only trade in goods but also provide services and more importantly have their companies in each others economies operating as 'domestic' companies. Take a US cereal manufacturer with operations in Europe; it has production and marketing facilities in Europe which may not be important grains from the US but their profits end up going back to the US economy. In addition there is a plethora of service industry activity overseas, from banking to engineering and consulting which all provide revenue that goes into the US economy. When we account for these we notice that the US does not run a deficit with many of the countries that President Trump alleges there is a 'trade imbalance'. Yes in terms of goods alone he would be correct, in terms of the over all economic activity between the nations he is wrong.

In very simplistic sense the average American wants to walk into Wallmart and get the best deal on say the training shoes. Now telling him you have raised the tariffs to 'make America great again' will not explain why those shoes are 25% more expensive. Telling him that you have reduced the trade deficit is fine but its not money that has gone into his pocket, and in the case of the soy bean farmer or the bourbon whiskey producer your trade battle has cost him his job so the idea of even buying a training show is now out of the question.

It is likely that a large measure of the trade imbalances were unfair to the US, and in isolation to the overall economic balance between nations you may well want to negotiate and fine tune the agreements. Launching nuclear trade war with the idea to get a better deal is really akin to lighting up the forest and then using a hose pipe to drench the fire out. Trade wars never work and unless Trump feels he can rewrite history and somehow his business acumen far exceeds the logic of years of economic theory, we should be bracing ourselves for a recession the like of which has not been seen.

Trump's Grand Military Parade.

I am often blamed for being too 'anti Trump', well when I heard the news that 'The Donald' wants a grand military parade I immediately said YES give it to him. The man deserves it, he is all that a grand military parade stands for. I can see him all splendidly attired, perhaps in a military uniform, reviewing the 'mother of all parades'. The benefits to America may be uncertain but to President Trump there are a few clear benefits. If done with adequate pomp and ceremony it will appeal to his right wing militarist Bannon bandwagon, it will distract the media and the detractors from the Russia investigation, will show the North Koreans that indeed the Donald has a bigger nuclear button, and most of all will massage an ego which has privately taken some battering of late.

Avid students of history will note that many a leader loved parades; Hitler for one, Saddam was not far behind, and the Kim clan of North Korea. When President Trump mentioned that the Democrats did not applaud his speech it reminded me of when the Gestapo reviewed photos of the audience at Hitlers rallies and those who did not applaud were questioned! Perhaps the Russians will offer a page from their book of military parades which have a fine tradition in the Red Square from Stalin to Putin; in better circumstances and without Mueller looking over the White House's shoulder it is within the realm of possibilities that Trump and co may even have asked Kremlin to lend their 'Handbook on Grand Military Parades'.

Trump has a panache for the impossible to be offered as a matter of fact daily event. While the parade may not be a daily event, it will absorb the state machinery to a state of readiness for one day like never before. Indeed having spent five years in a military college I can say nothing like some spit shined boots and the sound of marching to drums to bring back the sense of greatness back. Mr Trump I do applaud your genius in suggesting the Grand Parade, even though a visit to France may have incubated the idea but nothing like telling the French President that you can do it better.


I earnestly ask my Democrat friends to support this idea, I ask CNN to back of criticizing this amazing suggestion and for once to do everything possible to make it happen. It is the only way to Make Donald Great.