“WELCOME TO QATAR-A-LAGO.”

Thus read a sky banner dragged behind a small plane over US president Donald Trump’s Palm Beach resort/home on May 14 as Trump toured the Middle East and spent some media time defending his $3 billion golf resort deal with, and planned acceptance of a $400 million luxury 747 (to use as Air Force One for the remainder of his term, then deed to his presidential library) from, the Qatari regime.

Public furor (to the extent such exists) over Trump’s business ties with, and acceptance of constitutionally prohibited “emoluments” from, the Qataris centers around the notion that what we’re dealing here with is “corruption.”

I disagree.

To “corrupt” a person or thing (per the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary) is to “draw aside from the path of rectitude and duty … debase or render impure by alterations or innovations.”

In order for the Qataris to “corrupt” Trump, he’d necessarily have displayed some semblance of “rectitude” prior to their interactions.

Americans knew that was far from the case before they elected him to the presidency the first time in 2016, and gathered eight more years of demonstration proofs to the contrary before electing him a second time in 2024.

The golf resort deal and the 747 “donation” may be immoral and illegal, but that’s just the story of Trump’s entire adult life in business, entertainment, and politics. There’s nothing honest or dutiful there for the Qataris TO corrupt. They’re just cashing in on his best-known character trait.

Nor is Trump an outlier in American politics.

Mark Twain once noted in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, “it could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” He should have included the entire political class.

When members of Congress aren’t getting caught with  bribe cash  in their freezers (William Jefferson of Louisiana) or their boots (Robert Menendez of New Jersey), they’re getting suspiciously wealthy versus their government salaries by e.g. trading stocks affected by the legislation they consider.

When members of the Supreme Court get caught accepting bribes … er, gifts … from billionaires with business before the Court, it’s just a “paperwork error,” but we know better, don’t we?

If there’s a difference between Trump and other politicians, it’s that Trump just smirks his way through the “scandals” instead of denying what he’s up to with anything resembling seeming sincerity.

Are you trying to show contempt for this court?” a judge asked Mae West in her 1927 obscenity trial.

“On the contrary, your honor,” she replied. “I was doin’ my best to conceal it.”

Trump is a modern Mae West minus the entertainment value. We know when he’s lying. He knows we know when he’s lying. His superpower is just not caring.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

From early April to mid-May, US trade policy went from the bizarre “Liberation Day” tariff schedule — “reciprocal” tariffs that weren’t reciprocal and wouldn’t have made sense if they had been — to US president Donald Trump’s announcements of “major” trade agreements with the Chinese and British regimes.

“An incredible day for America as we deliver our first Fair, Open and Reciprocal Trade Deal,” Trump boasted of the UK agreement. “Something our past Presidents never cared about.” The White House called the China deal “a win for the United States, demonstrating President Trump’s unparalleled expertise in securing deals that benefit the American people.”

Really, the Chinese “deal” seems to consist merely of both sides temporarily freezing US “Liberation Day” tariff hikes and Chinese “retaliatory” measures, while the UK agreement doesn’t even do that, keeping the 10% “Liberation Day” tariff as a “floor” while reducing some other trade barriers in both directions.

The obvious question is whether Trump blinked after his tariff madness produced predictably damaging economic results for Americans and those Americans noticed, or whether this is another one of his head fakes and we can expect him to reverse himself yet again in the coming months, whining the whole time that everyone’s either just unfair, or doesn’t understand his deal-making genius, or both.

If past performance is indicative of future results, the latter seems more likely … and that continuing uncertainty, even more than the obvious and irrefutable stupidity of protective tariffs, is the problem.

To understand why, let’s get hypothetical.

You want to start a business — a grocery store, say — in a town. That involves building, buying, or leasing a building, equipping it with shelves, freezers, cash registers, etc., hiring staff, and shipping inventory.

Now imagine that the government of the town has some strange policies.

Zoning changes at random and retroactively. One month your store is in an area zoned “commercial” and you’re good. The next month it changes to “single-family residential” and you have to move.

The town’s sales taxes are also determined randomly — every week an official draws a number out of a hat. One week it’s 5% and most customers don’t complain too much. The next week it’s 50% and those customers drive to the next town to shop. Or maybe this week it’s 5% if the can of beans you’re selling comes from California, but 50% if it comes from Pennsylvania, and next week it’s 2% if the beans come from North Dakota but 27% if the beans come from Michigan.

You might still want to open a grocery store … but do you want to open a grocery store in that town, or just pick a town with stable, reliable policies that aren’t too different from the towns around it?

You know the answer, and so do those abroad thinking about whether it’s worth doing business in the US, or with US customers. Until Trump settles on a trade policy — hopefully a better one, but at least a stable one — Americans will continue to get the short end of the economic stick.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

The Trump administration, CNN reports, is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, depending on “whether the courts do the right thing or not.” Those quoted phrases are from Trump aide Stephen Miller, according to whom the “right thing” consists of letting Donald Trump do whatever Donald Trump wants to do, regardless of whether what he wants to do is, you know, legal.

The Latin phrase habeas corpus means “you shall have the body.” What it boils down to is that if you are arrested, a judge can require your captors to bring you (that’s the body part) to court where you can argue that your arrest is not legally justified (and your captors can argue that it is).

It’s a legal principle we inherited from England that dates to “time immemorial” — that is, before the beginning of of Richard I’s kingship in 1189 — originating in the 1166 Assize of Clarendon, and it or something very like it is a basic foundational element of any legal system that respects individual rights.

Without habeas corpus, government officials can just whisk you away to prison on any charge they care enough to make up and hold you for a long time whether there’s any justification at all or not.

A hypothetical:

You’re arrested for the murder of John Smith. As it happens, John Smith is alive, not missing, indeed has been seen and recorded on video eight hours after your arrest, tucking in to an Oklahoma onion burger at Sid’s Diner in El Reno.

Without habeas corpus, your captors can keep you in jail (per the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, which codifies a constitutional provision) for up to a month before even indicting you for the murder that didn’t happen, followed by 10 days until arraigning you the murder that didn’t happen, followed by 60 days before actually taking the case to trial.

But if you file a petition for habeas corpus, you can show a judge evidence that not only is there no probable cause to believe you murdered John Smith, but that John Smith is alive and well. The judge can call BS on your arrest and free you.

That’s a good thing, and the US Constitution provides, in Article I, Section 9, that “[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

Neither the US nor any portion of it is currently in rebellion.

Neither the US nor any portion of it is currently being invaded.

There’s no “emergency” imperiling the “public safety.”

There’s just Donald J. Trump throwing a tantrum over the courts following the law instead of letting him do whatever he wants to do.

Does Trump WANT a rebellion? Because suspending habeas corpus for stupid, selfish, and illegal reasons sounds like a great way to get a rebellion. He may not care about public opinion, but the ice he’s on that keeps it from drowning him is getting thinner by the moment.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY