Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again

ONE – GET TOUGH

I’ve written this book because the country I love is a total economic disaster right now.

For starters, we are in debt $15 trillion and soaring. Let me help you wrap your mind around that number. If by some miracle the so-called leaders in Washington could find a way to save one billion dollars of your tax dollars every single day, it would still take thirty-eight years to pay off the debt. And that’s not even taking into account the interest.

We don’t have thirty-eight years to turn this thing around. The way I see it, we have four, maybe eight years tops.

Every day in business I see America getting ripped off and abused. We have become a laughingstock, the world’s whipping boy, blamed for everything, credited for nothing, given no respect. You see and feel it all around you, and so do I.

To take one example, China is bilking us for hundreds of billions of dollars by manipulating and devaluing its currency. Despite all the happy talk in Washington, the Chinese leaders are not our friends. I’ve been criticized for calling them our enemy. But what else do you call the people who are destroying your children’s and grandchildren’s future? What name would you prefer me to use for the people who are hell bent on bankrupting our nation, stealing our jobs, who spy on us to steal our technology, who are undermining our currency, and who are ruining our way of life? To my mind, that’s an enemy. If we’re going to make America number one again, we’ve got to have a president who knows how to get tough with China, how to out-negotiate the Chinese, and how to keep them from screwing us at every turn.

Then there’s the oil crisis. The idea of $85 a barrel for oil used to be unthinkable. Now OPEC yawns at that figure and jacks the price higher, laughing all the way to the bank. The result: you and your family are paying $3 a gallon, $4 a gallon, $5 a gallon, and soaring. Excuse me, but OPEC-these twelve guys sitting around a table-wouldn’t even be in existence if it weren’t for the United States saving and protecting those Middle Eastern countries! Where is our president in all this? Where’s the accountability? What is the point of executive leadership if our executive is weak and doesn’t lead? What excuse is there for a president whose answer to the oil crisis is not to get tough with OPEC, not to free our own domestic oil companies to do their job and drill, but to release our strategic reserve? That’s not leadership, that’s an abdication of leadership.

Whether we like it or not, oil is the axis on which the world’s economies spin. It just is. When the price of oil goes up, so does the price of just about everything else. Think about it. You buy a loaf of bread. How did it get to the store? What powered the bread truck? What equipment did the farmer use to harvest the grain? Equipment and vehicles don’t fuel themselves. They need oil. And when a producer’s prices go up, they pass the cost along to you in the form of higher prices. I was privileged to be educated at the finest business school in the world, the Wharton School of Business. But it doesn’t take some prestigious business diploma to realize what’s going on here. It’s basic math.

And yet, with China beating us like a punching bag daily, OPEC vacuuming our wallets clean, and jobs nowhere in sight, what does President Obama do? He makes his NCAA basketball picks. He hosts lavish parties at the White House. Now look, I like basketball and lavish parties like the next person. But when you’re the president of the United States and your country is burning to the ground right before your eyes, your first instinct should not be to party. It’s no wonder America is flat broke.

Did you know that one in seven Americans is now on food stamps?¹ Think of it. In the United States, the most prosperous nation in the history of human civilization, our people are going hungry. In March 2011, we saw the steepest spike in food prices in almost four decades.² Combine that with skyrocketing energy costs, double-digit unemployment, Obama’s massively wasteful spending spree, the federal government’s annexation of the health-care system, and the outcome is painfully clear-we’re headed for economic disaster. If we keep on this path, if we reelect Barack Obama, the America we leave our kids and grandkids won’t look like the America we were blessed to grow up in. The American Dream will be in hock. The shining city on the hill will start to look like an inner-city wreck. It won’t be morning in America, as President Reagan put it. We’ll be mourning for America, an America that was lost on Obama’s watch. The dollar will fall as the world’s international currency. Our economy will collapse again (something I believe is a very real danger and risk: a double dip recession that could turn into a depression). And China will replace America as the world’s number one economic power.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If we get tough and make the hard choices, we can make America a rich nation-and respected-once again. The right president can actually make America money by brokering big deals. We don’t always think of our presidents as jobs and business negotiators, but they are. Presidents are our dealmakers in chief. But the outcome of a deal is only as effective as the person brokering it. Constitutionally, a president is the commander in chief, appoints judges, and can veto or sign bills. What’s his job the rest of the time? Well, I can tell you one important job: he serves as America’s chief negotiator and dealmaker. He is supposed to broker deals that protect and benefit us with other nations. The president’s duty is to create an environment where free and fair markets can flourish, private sector jobs can be created, and our economy can boom. If they are strong negotiators and make the right deals, America wins. If they wimp out and make the wrong deals, you and your children pay the price.

Now consider the embarrassing and anemic deals Obama has pulled off. I’m for free and fair trade. After all, I do business all over the world. But look at the deal Obama cut with South Korea. It was so bad, so embarrassing, that you can hardly believe anyone would sign such a thing. In theory, the agreement was supposed to boost American exports to South Korea. In reality, the agreement Obama signed will do next to nothing to even out the trade imbalance, will further erode American manufacturing and kill more American jobs, and will wipe away the tariffs South Korea presently pays us to sell their stuff in our country. Why would Obama agree to these terms, especially when we hold all the cards? The South Koreans like our military defending them against North Korea. But they don’t need us to do their dirty work-South Korea’s armed forces number between 600,000 and 700,000. And yet we still have 28,500 American troops in South Korea.³ Why?

Even if you think it’s a good idea for us to keep troops in South Korea, why isn’t South Korea footing the whole bill for our defending them? (Currently they only cover a portion of the costs.) Better still, why is our president signing the trade bill that the South Koreans want him to sign instead of the one that gives us maximum advantage? He may have been a good “community organizer,” but the man is a lousy international dealmaker. This is hardly a surprise-he’s never built or run a business in his life. His entire career of dealmaking, such as it is, has been finding ways for government to shakedown taxpayers to reward his special interest groups. That’s not the kind of dealmaker we need.

Then look at China. There are four Chinese people for every American. China’s population is massive, and its economic power is huge and growing. China is now the second-largest economy in the world. We are building China’s wealth by buying all their products, even though we make better products in America. I know. I buy a lot of products. Windows, sheet rock, you name it, I buy it by the truckload. I buy American whenever I can. Unfortunately, a lot of times American businesses can’t buy American products because, with the Chinese screwing around with their currency rates, American manufacturers can’t be competitive on price. If China didn’t play games with its currency and we played on a level economic playing field, we could easily out-compete China. But the Chinese cheat with currency manipulation and with industrial espionage-and our alleged commander in chief lets them cheat. The whole thing is a scandal and unfair to our workers and businesses. There’s no way America can become rich again if we continue down the path we’re on.

Yet with all this, in January 2011, Barack Obama kowtowed to China’s president Hu Jintao and welcomed him to the White House. He even gave the Communist leader the high honor of an official State Dinner. China’s economy enjoys double-digit growth at our expense, while China screws us with every turn of its currency, is the biggest commercial espionage threat we face, continues its deplorable human rights abuses, and Obama’s response is to roll out the red carpet? It’s incompetence that borders on betrayal.

Obama legitimized China on the world stage. So what did he get in return? Export deals amounting to a measly $45 billion. Obama’s team immediately declared him a master negotiator. In 2009, our trade deficit with China was nearly $230 billion. A pathetic $45 billion in trade contracts is an insulting joke. But when Hu Jintao looks across the negotiating table, he sees the kind of spinelessness and amateurism that lets him know he can buy us off by whisking a few crumbs our way. I believe America’s honor shouldn’t be for sale. We shouldn’t entertain Communists and beg for a few tiny contracts. Instead, a true commander in chief would sit down with the Chinese and demand a real deal, a far better deal. Either China plays by the rules or we slap tariffs on Chinese goods. End of story. This year, by the way, our deficit with China will be more that $350 billion-they are laughing at us.

I love America. And when you love something, you protect it passionately-fiercely, even. We are the greatest country the world has ever known. I make no apologies for this country, my pride in it, or my desire to see us become strong and rich again. After all, wealth funds our freedom. But for too long we’ve been pushed around, used by other countries, and ill-served by politicians in Washington who measure their success by how rapidly they can expand the federal debt, and your tax burden, with their favorite government programs.

America can do better. I think we deserve the best. That’s why I decided to write this book. The decisions we face are too monumental, too consequential, to just let slide. I have answers for the problems that confront us. I know how to make America rich again. I’ve built businesses across the globe. I’ve dealt with foreign leaders. I’ve created tens of thousands of American jobs. My whole life has been about executing deals and making real money-massive money. That’s what I do for a living: make big things happen, and now I am worth more than $7 billion.

Restoring American wealth will require that we get tough. The next president must understand that America’s business is business. We need a president who knows how to get things done, who can keep America strong, safe, and free, and who can negotiate deals that benefit America, not the countries on the other side of the table. A president doesn’t “create” jobs, only businesses can do that. But he can help create an environment that allows the rest of us-entrepreneurs, small businessmen, big businessmen-to make America rich.

The damage that Democrats, weak Republicans, and this disaster of a president have inflicted on America has put us in a mess like we’ve never seen before in our lifetimes. To fix the problem we’ve got to be smart and get tough. There’s no time to waste.