As transcripts of Donald Trump’s conversations and interviews continue to roll out [authorized or not], we are getting a behind-the-scenes look at how he really operates. For instance, he has repeatedly bragged that he is the world’s best deal-maker and negotiator. But when a transcript emerged of a phone call he had with Mexico’s president, it revealed a Trump who was inept at getting what he wanted, and who essentially pleaded with Pena Nieto to help him out.

The New York times has posted the transcript, with annotations indicating where Trump  threatened, exaggerated, got his facts wrong, privately backtracked on his big campaign pledge to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, and tried to instruct Pena Nieto on how to talk about the wall in public. The annotated version makes it clear that—as usual—Trump often has no idea of what he is talking about, throws around numbers that don’t add up, and has not done his homework before making this call.

For me, though, there’s another significant revelation in this transcript: Trump’s negotiating “style” is mostly about creating a continuous, overpowering wave of words, whether they add up to anything meaningful or not. He’s not at all artful. He’s just trying to out-talk the other guy, to wear him down in order to get him to say yes. So, this is how Trump negotiates: under-informed and over-talked. He doesn’t sound very masterful here. Maybe he should change the name of his book from The Art of the Deal to The Art of the Desperate Appeal. 

In this case, “yes” would mean that Pena Nieto agrees—not to pay for the border wall that Trump has been touting for two years—but to stop saying publicly that he won’t pay for it. Reading the transcript of this section of the conversation, I get the impression that Trump is just trying to drown Pena Nieto in verbiage.

But as he attempts to get Pena Nieto to give him political cover for a situation Trump has created for himself, he starts sounding pretty desperate. Some people have described it as “begging.” Clearly, what is important to him is not maintaining goodwill with our closest neighbors, nor is it understanding the nature of our economic interactions with Mexico. As you read this section of the transcript, Trump’s own words bear out what can no longer be called speculation about his priorities: his main concern is himself and how he is perceived by his base. Everything else is secondary to that. To borrow an interjection that Trump himself often uses in his tweets: “Sad!”

Call it what you will. If this is how our president talks with the leaders of other countries, he deserves to be the subject of international derision that he is rumored to be.

Pena Nieto:

You have a very big mark on our back, Mr. President, regarding who pays for the wall. This is what I suggest, Mr. President – let us stop talking about the wall. I have recognized the right of any government to protect its borders as it deems necessary and convenient. But my position has been and will continue to be very firm saying that Mexico cannot pay for that wall.

Trump

The only thing I will ask you though is on the wall, you and I both have a political problem. My people stand up and say, “Mexico will pay for the wall” and your people probably say something in a similar but slightly different language. But the fact is we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall – I have to. I have been talking about it for a two year period, and the reason I say they are going to pay for the wall is because Mexico has made a fortune out of the stupidity of U.S. trade representatives. They are beating us at trade and they are beating us at the border, and they are killing us with drugs. Now I know you are not involved with that, but regardless of who is making all the money, billions and billions and billions – some people say more – is being made on drug trafficking that is coming through Mexico. Some people say that the business of drug trafficking is bigger than the business of taking our factory jobs. So what I would like to recommend is – if we are going to have continued dialogue – we will work out the wall. They are going to say, “who is going to pay for the wall, Mr. President?” to both of us, and we should both say, “we will work it out.” It will work out in the formula somehow. As opposed to you saying, “we will not pay” and me saying, “we will not pay.”

Because you and I are both at a point now where we are both saying we are not to pay for the wall. From a political standpoint, that is what we will say. We cannot say that anymore because if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that. I am willing to say that we will work it out, but that means it will come out in the wash and that is okay. But you cannot say anymore that the United States is going to pay for the wall. I am just going to say that we are working it out. Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about. But in terms of dollars – or pesos – it is the least important thing. I know how to build very inexpensively, so it will be much lower than these numbers I am being presented with, and it will be a better wall and it will look nice. And it will do the job.

The post Trump’s Mexico call: The Art of the Desperate Appeal appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Donald Trump’s sneers about Latino rapists, criminals, and druggies coming-to-harm-your-property-and-your-kids have real-life consequences. His all-too-familiar ethnic scapegoating intentionally obscures the truth about a community that’s made up for the most part of hard-working, well-intentioned, and law-abiding people just trying to support their families by working jobs that would otherwise go unfilled.

For some, Trump is validating their prejudices. For others, he’s fueling their hatred.

Let’s be honest. Trump world isn’t new. American history is stained with prejudice. Think about the Native Americans, the African slaves and the black community, the immigrant Italians, Irish, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, and Jews. Painting a community or ethnic group with a broad brushstroke has been the modus operandi of demagogues and opportunists throughout history. And Trump is no exception.

So who are the people Trump has scooped up in his trash bag of hate?

I, for one, don’t recognize them. They’re certainly not the legal farm workers I see lining up at the service desk at my local supermarket on Friday evenings. Visibly exhausted and obviously relieved that it’s the weekend, they hand their paychecks to the teenagers that work the desk and then fill out money orders to send a portion of their hard-earned cash back to their families back home. Home is mostly Mexico and Jamaica. Most are fresh-faced, young men but some have the furrowed facial skin and roughened hands that come with years of labor out in the fields. These are the laborers who travel seasonally to the upstate New York farming community where I live to fill the jobs that find no takers from the pool of American workers.

The real story—not the trumped up one—is that these workers come across the borders to do the essential work of planting, pruning, weeding, and picking the affordably priced food we take for granted. They arrive here only after an extensive and rigorous screening process that’s getting ever more difficult both for them and for their employers. The process involves a pile of documentation that includes written proof of work experience, passport and immigration screening, and appointments for on-site interviews at the American Consulate in Mexico.

The real story is that, without migrant farm labor, New York State’s agricultural industry—which accounts for $5.7 billion annually—would come to a standstill. This was evident at the beginning of this season when a technical issue delayed consulates from issuing temporary H2A agricultural visas. In my locality, the strawberry crop and a variety of berries went unpicked. The necessary work on the apple, broccoli, cauliflower, and cucumber crops was delayed. The labor shortage was so serious that local farms pooled their labor force and shared workers with neighboring farms in need so that crops could be picked on time and losses minimized.

And the family farmers in the Hudson Valley were not alone. The early-summer labor shortage due to the visa-program backlog created problems that stretched across the U.S. In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, Congressman Dan Newhouse (R-Washington State) explained the devastating economic fallout and reiterated the critical need in his state for Mexican farm laborers:

Farmers have no choice but to use the H2A process because there is a critical shortage of farm workers. The state of Washington alone has documented a 15 percent labor shortage and grows a range of labor-intensive specialty crops that need to be picked to contribute to the state’s economy. Each day that workers sit at the border, waiting on their final documents, Washington farmers are losing a valuable cherry crop that is wasting away in their fields because there are insufficient workers.

Let’s not forget that these are people and not just workers. Why do they leave their villages and their families to do the work in our fields? They come to the U.S. because the $10.75 to $12.25 per hour wages (depending on experience) that the federal government requires farms to pay cannot compare to the $10 per day they would receive working the fields in Mexico. They come because they are doing the best they can for their families. They come because their fathers, their grandfathers, their siblings, their cousins, or their friends have worked on the farms before them, and they know they’ll be treated fairly and according to strict labor standards set by the U.S. government. They come because, over the years, they and the other workers before them have formed personal connections with their employers.

That’s the human face behind the trash talk. And Trump and others like him need to see it. So here’s my invitation to Mr. Trump.

Dear Donald,
Why not take time out from your bloviating and hop aboard your private $7 million Sikorsky helicopter next weekend? Tell the pilot to set a course due north up the Hudson River. When you set down here in Columbia County you’ll get a reality check. Take some time to sit down with our local farm employers who will set you straight. You’ll discover that any applicant caught for illegal border crossing or any other illegal activity is denied an H2A. You’ll find out that illegal labor won’t be picking the crops up here any time soon.

So relax, Donald. After your visit upstate you’ll be able to fly back to Manhattan and enjoy your meals guilt free. You’ll know from firsthand experience that the ingredients that make it onto your five-star dinner plate were never touched by a rapist, a drug dealer, or a criminal.

The post What Donald Trump doesn’t know about the Mexican farm workers who make his 5-star dinner possible appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In Brazil, Bolsa Familia, or “family grants,” have caused economic inequality to drop faster than in any other country, according to Tina Rosenberg in her recent article in the New York Times.

. . . between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians.  Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.
Contrast this with the United States, where from 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of earners.

How does Bolsa Familia work?

On a regular basis, payments are given to poor families in the form of electronic cash transfers directly to their bank accounts, on the condition that they meet certain requirements. The requirements are that families must keep their children in school and go for regular medical checkups, and that mothers must attend workshops on nutrition and disease prevention.  The payments are given to women, as they are most responsible for the care of children and family health decisions.  The idea behind conditional cash transfers is to not only reduce poverty but to break the cycle of poverty in the future.

Bolsa Familia was the centerpiece of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva‘s social policy, and is currently the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world, though the Mexican program Oportunidades, started in 2002, was the first nation-wide program of this kind. Conditional cash transfer programs are now in use in 40 countries, (14 countries in Latin America and 26 other countries.) and, according to Rosenberg, they are the most important and effective anti-poverty program the world has ever seen.

In Mexico, Oportunidades today covers 5.8 million families, about 30 percent of the population.  An Oportunidades family with a child in primary school and a child in middle school that meets all its responsibilities can get a total of about $123 a month in grants.  Students can also get money for school supplies, and children who finish high school in a timely fashion get a one-time payment of $330.

Bolsa Familia, which has similar requirements, is even bigger.  Brazil’s conditional cash transfer programs were begun before the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but he consolidated various programs and expanded it. It now covers about 50 million Brazilians, about a quarter of the country.   It pays a monthly stipend of about $13 to poor families for each child 15 or younger who is attending school, up to three children.  Families can get additional payments of $19 a month for each child of 16 or 17 still in school, up to two children.  Families that live in extreme poverty get a basic benefit of about $40, with no conditions.

What do these figures mean?

A family living in extreme poverty in Brazil literally doubles its income when it gets the basic benefit. Not only has Bolsa Familia reduced poverty in Brazil, but it has also reduced economic inequality, which, makes for a healthier, more stable society. The program fights poverty by giving money directly to the poor to decrease overhead and to prevent corruption, and it provides children with better education and better health care.

In Mexico, malnutrition, anemia and stunting have dropped, as have incidences of childhood and adult illnesses.  Maternal and infant deaths have been reduced.  Contraceptive use in rural areas has risen and teen pregnancy has declined.  But the most dramatic effects are visible in education.  Children in Oportunidades repeat fewer grades and stay in school longer.  Child labor has dropped.  In rural areas, the percentage of children entering middle school has risen 42 percent.  High school inscription in rural areas has risen by a whopping 85 percent. The strongest effects on education are found in families where the mothers have the lowest schooling levels.  Indigenous Mexicans have particularly benefited, staying in school longer.

Bolsa Familia is having a similar impact in Brazil.  One recent study found that it increases school attendance and advancement — particularly in the northeast, the region of Brazil where school attendance is lowest, and particularly for older girls, who are at greatest risk of dropping out. The study also found that Bolsa has improved child weight, vaccination rates and use of pre-natal care.

According to Rosenberg, skeptics who believe that social programs never work in poor countries and very little money actually gets to the poor, “conditional cash transfer programs offer a convincing rebuttal.”

World Bank debunks criticism of family grant programs by Brazil’s elite

Unfortunately, The Bolsa Família Program is not universally accepted by Brazilian society. Criticisms are that it discourages the search for employment, and encourages laziness. (Interesting that this same criticism came from Republicans here at home about extending unemployment insurance.) The Catholic Church in Brazil maintains that the program is addictive and leads to moral decline. However, the World Bank came to the conclusion that the program does not discourage work, or the desire to get ahead. On the contrary, it finds that the program often encourages harder work because the safety net provides a basis on which to build.

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