This is Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality—my attempt to make myself, and all of you out there in SubStackLand, smarter by writing where I have Value Above Replacement and shutting up where I do not… Just What Do Trump's "Trade Deals" Consist of? NothingMalaysia deals with a chaos-monkey superpower: empty appeasement coupled with steps at derisking via exit from coupled arrangements that create vulnerabilities...
Malaysia deals with a chaos-monkey superpower: empty appeasement coupled with steps at derisking via exit from coupled arrangements that create vulnerabilities...A “consultation” clause beats nothing when you face a hegemon acting on chaotic impulse. As PR optics steer the Potemkin “policy” of Donald Trumps, savvy partners sell photo‑ops—not allegiance. And they take steps to derisk and decouple as the way to buy what insurance they can against capricious and unmotivated attempts to exert power. Hold tight to this: Trump’s trade “deals” aren’t deals—they’re stage directions for an impulse‑driven executive. Malaysia read the script and wrote itself a “call us first” clause.
But not really. First, it is not a binding “deal”:
Second, well:
But what are the consequences for Malaysia of signing? None:
So has Malaysia chosen to ally with the U.S. on trade issues vis-à-vis China? No:
The most you can say about the “deal” is that it is a recognition by Malaysia that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Except that, under Trump, “the strong do what they can” does not cut it, for the meaning in Thoukydides’s Thoukydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war… is that the Athenians will do whatever is to their advantage. But in the case of the Trump administration, the Trump Administration will instead do something completely random, but its actions can be somewhat shaped by giving it the PR bonus of an apparent “win” of some kind. Thus this looks to me like a marginal win for Malaysia: the U.S. has now committed itself to inform Malaysia before it does something random and destructive, and that gives Malaysia a chance to dredge up a way to offer Trump another PR-event boost in advance, rather than having to pay catch-up after some random action. And, of course, this is a marginal loss for the United States. Or perhaps it is part of a pattern that will turn out, in aggregate, to be not a marginal but a substantial loss?... Keep reading with a 7-day free trialSubscribe to DeLong's Grasping Reality: Economy in the 2000s & Before to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. A subscription gets you:
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Just What Do Trump's "Trade Deals" Consist of? Nothing
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
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