When President-elect Trump talks about making America great again, he frequently means protectionist policies that make me cringe. Below the surface, however, his America-first attitude should always be the prevailing one when we sit down at the negotiation table with other countries.
Trump may elicit eye rolls and scoffs from many when he talks about putting America first, but for a CEO, isn’t putting your employer first part of the job description? How many CEOs start their jobs by saying they’re more interested in helping other companies?
Other countries have their own interests and they pursue them. It isn’t wrong for us to pursue ours. It should be a diplomatic mandate.
That doesn’t mean we should pursue bad, reactionary policies, like raising tariffs against everyone Trump slams on Twitter (regardless of his spelling). But negotiations are never black and white. For instance, my general reaction to the Trans-Pacific Partnership was positive because I support free trade, but TPP also would have weakened patent protections that our companies need to stay in business, which I can’t support.
We may criticize China for the macro-economic implications of intentionally undervaluing their currency, but we also have to acknowledge the better deal this gives many consumers in the United States. In other words, the issues involved in international negotiations are almost always complex and they can all benefit from an America-first perspective— so long as it is applied methodically.
Another example of a foreign policy gray area is something that Congress has to debate over the next four years: data privacy. We currently operate under the Reagan-era Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The Internet was around in 1986 when the bill was passed, but it was the Stone Age of digital connectivity. The only people who had access to it already all knew each other. There were no banner ads. No Amazon. No eBay. No streaming video. No real life.
Now the Internet is everywhere, which means our data are too.
The question now is, when and where are data private? Sometimes data are encrypted, sometimes they’re domestic, sometimes they’re merely a bad cat-themed meme. The Internet is so fast now that most of us will never notice if our data are being stored domestically or abroad, encrypted or unencrypted, but the law is forced to navigate these murky waters.
As a supporter of limited government policies, my answer to the data question is that data should always be private, but we are a long ways from realizing my goals. For now, the fight is just in attempting to keep the fingers of the government out of some places. Government surveillance makes me cringe, but the bad long-run effects of forced government surveillance of servers in foreign countries terrify me.
What is the retort when a foreign power wants data that are stored on a server in the U.S.? What if that information is about a U.S. citizen? What if Russia is seeking data that are being stored on a U.S. server?
At the same time, we are debating an alleged Russian hacking effort to meddle with our election. The Department of Justice is concurrently seeking data on a Microsoft server in Ireland. Microsoft told the government “no,” so the DOJ simply took it to court. The latest court action was from the Second Circuit in July, basically telling the DOJ to back off. The DOJ isn’t giving up, though, and are continuing to pursue these data. If the DOJ prevails it will be harder for the U.S. to fight against other countries enforcing their laws on U.S. soil.
There is at least a short-run answer to both the DOJ’s issue and rational data privacy concerns: The International Communications Privacy Act, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev. It isn’t perfect, since it doesn’t define all data as private, but it’s the best we’re going to get right now. It gives the DOJ some circumstances in which they can get data from foreign servers and defines the rules so DOJ can’t act like lawless thugs in the future.
I would not normally call myself a protectionist, but if Trump’s administration focuses on protecting American companies from the government, protecting our individual data from the government, and protecting our freedom, then I might start accepting the title.
Charles Sauer is a contributer to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor and for an academic think tank. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
