China, Russia, or Even Israel Cannot Destroy Us—Only We Can Destroy Ourselves

The Solutions to Our Problems are Not What We Think They are

When Donald Trump started a trade war with China in 2018, his tariffs amounted to an 80 billion-dollar increase on 380 billion dollars’ worth of imports of Chinese products, and other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.  While he was feeding into the popular discontent around industries moving to countries with cheaper labor, this would actually cost Americans more than 230 billion dollars, half of it coming under the Biden administration.  More ominous than the economic blowback was the shift toward economic warfare over the idea of working toward mutual cooperation and prosperity.

According to the Tax Foundation, these tariffs would in the long-run reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.21 percent, wages by 0.14 percent, and employment by 166,000 full-time equivalent jobs.  Retaliatory tariffs would further reduce U.S. GDP by 0.04 percent and eliminate 29,000 full-time equivalent jobs.  Tariffs not only raise prices and reduce economic growth but create division and mistrust.

Now, the Biden administration is outdoing Trump: the White House has decided to raise tariffs on Chinese semiconductors and solar cells from 25 to 50 percent, syringes and needles from 0 to 50 percent, and China-made electric vehicles from 25 to 100 percent!  This will impact not only current trade flows, but future relations as well as, ultimately, American prominence.  Domestic producers will feel less incentive to develop cheap, high-quality goods, and Americans will ultimately not only pay higher prices for less but become increasingly sidelined in the global economy.

When Donald Trump shocked the world by elevating Vladimir Putin to a stature commensurate if not exceeding that of a U.S. president at the 2018 Helsinki Summit, he was doing more than show obsequiousness to a global gangster and brutal dictator.  He was expanding Putin’s ambitions and galvanizing him for greater aggression.  Like many Republican policies and attitudes that benefit their party in the moment but hurt the next (usually Democratic) administration and are deadly for the country, the surprising Russian attack of Ukraine occurred after Trump.

Yet, the Biden administration only encouraged his belligerence further when it discarded every opportunity for diplomacy—before, during, and even at highly strategic points in its aggression against Ukraine.  From my perspective as a social psychiatrist, this is perpetuation and not mitigation of Trump’s pugnacious world view, contributing further to our “Death Spiral.”

President John F. Kennedy was the one who pulled us out of the tensions of the Cuban Missile Crisis, placing our collective survival first: “nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.  To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy—or of a collective death-wish for the world.”

As different as the Biden administration may seem on the surface from that of Donald Trump’s, the current problem is that they are too similar: Joe Biden’s rationalization of refusing to engage in diplomacy is that we cannot trust the other side to negotiate, and therefore we will not even try.  However, in hospital and prison settings, we have learned that de-escalation works with even the “maddest” actors, and there are always ways of dealing with the situation that minimize injury.  At the global level, this would be acting in a manner that allows us all to survive.  So far, labeling, insulting, and instigating belligerent leaders (whether it is “crazy SOB” or “rocket man”) may buy political points but only confirms their bellicose world view.

The truth is, taunting—whether it is Donald Trump against Kim Jong-un or Biden against Putin—has only helped to bring us to the brink of nuclear war.  Instead of rising to a level where we can solve the problems of war, we have fully adopted the mindset of the violent prisoners I have witnessed, who view negotiation as being for “pussies” and “sissies”.

Finally, when Donald Trump handed his friend and global twin, Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, he was primarily providing him with international legitimacy, without giving Palestinians any say.  Just as Trump destroyed any semblance of the U.S. as being an effective arbiter for Israel and Palestine, so has Biden trapped himself in the Israel-Palestine war by siding immediately with Israel and remaining adamant, regardless of its actions.

On May 10, 2024, Israeli United Nations (UN) Ambassador Gilad Erdan gave a shocking display, just before the General Assembly approving the resolution endorsing the State of Palestine’s right to full membership.  He dramatically shredded the UN charter while speaking insulting, vulgar, and venomous absurdities, equating Palestine with Hamas and Hamas with the Nazi Third Reich.  He also added that anyone siding with Palestine was “Jew-hating”—echoing the same false interpretation that every anti-genocide and anti-war crimes student protestor is also anti-Jewish.  This unhinged rhetoric helped secure a lopsided vote of 143 to nine in favor of Palestine’s UN membership.  The U.S. and Israel were among the nine voting against it.

The unhinged behavior came out of an ethos of entitlement that is often seen when extreme abuses of power go unchecked, no matter the excuse.  By thrice vetoing a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and forever solidifying U.S. ties to Israeli aggression, Biden has helped Trump.

Psychiatric research shows that there is no greater cause of violence and aggression than paranoia, or the belief that one is being attacked.  It is therefore a mentality: one that Donald Trump brought to the White House and the world to pathological levels, setting in motion the mood of renewed World War.   That we did not reverse it but only gave it further legitimacy after his presidency—whether for political expediency or for military-industrial profit—will be one of the reasons why he is again so close to returning to the presidency.  I explain the psychological dynamics behind these events and potential solutions in my new book, The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Threat to American Democracy and All Humankind, which is currently being made available by paid subscription.  While I have spent over seven years warning against Trump’s immediate public health threats, such as the mental health pandemic that would worsen the Covid-19 pandemic and that sparked an epidemic of civil and global conflict, here I focus on long-term trends, of which Trump himself is a product. To “de-escalate” does not mean to condone dangerous acts or to submit to Machiavellian manipulations, but to make the rational decision to remove ourselves from conflict to support our own survival.  First, we must have an in-depth understanding of the nature of the problem.  Second, once we have a thorough understanding, solutions naturally follow—and they are usually more multiple than we initially know.  This is why education is vitally important for public health concerns, including and especially existential ones, and why every member of society has a part in it (and power to change it).