Time to Get Tough (2 page)

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.

 

 

 

 

W
hen you do someone a favor, they say thank you. When you give someone a loan, they pay you back. And when a nation like the United States sacrifices thousands of lives of its own young servicemen and women and more than a trillion dollars to bring freedom to the people of Iraq, the least—the absolute
least
—the Iraqis should do is pick up the tab for their own liberation.

How much is it worth to them to be rid of the bloodthirsty dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and to have gained a democracy in which they can vote and have a freely elected parliament? In reality, that's a priceless gift,
although after being blown to pieces, many people think that they were better offbefore. When I say they should pay us back, I'm not even talking about cash out of their pockets. All I'm asking is that they give us, temporarily, a few flows of oil—enough to help pay us back and help take care of the tens of thousands of families and children whose brave loved ones died or were injured while securing Iraqi freedom.

But does Iraq do that? No. In fact, they've made it clear they have no intention of doing so. Ever.

In June 2011, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California visited Iraq and told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he hoped Iraq would someday consider repaying America for all our sacrifices on Iraq's behalf. The Prime Minister's response was to have his press spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, call up the U.S. embassy and say that they wanted the congressman to get out of their country and that his remarks were “inappropriate.”

Excuse me? Inappropriate? What's “inappropriate” is the fact that America puts up with this garbage. We've spent blood and treasure defending the people of the Middle East, from Iraq to Kuwait to Saudi Arabia and the small Gulf states. And if any country in the Middle East won't sell us their oil at a fair market price—oil that we discovered, we pumped, and we made profitable for the countries of the Middle East in the first place—we have every right to take it.

The ingratitude of Iraq's leadership is breathtaking. This year, the Baghdad city government even had the audacity to demand that America
pay $1 billion for the aesthetic damage caused by blast walls we erected to protect the people of Baghdad from bombs. That's like a drowning man charging a lifeguard for having torn his swimsuit in the process of saving his life.

Granted, eight years ago when we were told that we would be greeted in the streets by the Iraqi people with flowers and welcomed as liberators, I didn't buy it. But as far as I'm concerned, Iraq can keep its flowers—the oil is a different matter. We should take the oil. And here's why: because the Iraqis won't be able to keep it themselves. Their military, even as we try to rebuild it, is incompetent, and the minute we leave, Iran will take over Iraq and its great oil reserves, the second largest after Saudi Arabia. If that happens, all of our brave men and women will have died in vain and $1.5 trillion will have been squandered.

So, if Iran is going to take over the oil, I say
we
take over the oil first by hammering out a cost-sharing plan with Iraq. If we protect and control the oil fields, Iraq will get to keep a good percentage of its oil—not to mention its independence from Iran—and we will recoup some of the cost of liberating the Iraqis and also pay back the nations that fought with us in the war. And I want to repay the families of the soldiers who died or were terribly wounded. Of course, nothing can ever replace a lost life or a lost limb, but we can send the children of dead or badly wounded veterans to college, provide compensation to the spouses of our service members killed in Iraq, and make sure that wounded veterans are properly looked after. It's common sense, and peanuts compared to what is lying under Iraq's land. Each American family who lost a loved one in Iraq should be given $5 million, and our wounded veterans should be given money, perhaps $2 million each plus medical costs.

Call me old school, but I believe in the old warrior's credo that “to the victor go the spoils.” In other words, we don't fight a war, hand over the keys to people who hate us, and leave. We win a war, take the oil to repay the financial costs we've incurred, and in so doing, treat Iraq and everybody else fairly. As General Douglas MacArthur said, “There is no substitute for victory.” From the very beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I believed we should have hammered out the repayment plan with the Iraqis—through exiled Iraqi dissidents—
before
we launched the war and rid the people of Iraq of their murderous dictator, Saddam Hussein. And back then, there were a few smart people who agreed with me and said the same thing. One of them was the director of the Defense Department's Office of Net Assessment, Andrew Marshall. He recommended that oil revenues should be used to reduce the sticker price for occupation.
¹
Of course, that hasn't happened. Still, there's no reason we can't or shouldn't implement a cost-sharing arrangement with Iraq. Do not take no for an answer.

It's hardly a radical idea. In September 2010, our own Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others studied the issue in depth and concluded that a cost-sharing plan is feasible and wise. All the know-nothings in the White House need to do is read the cover of the report: “Iraqi-U.S. Cost-Sharing: Iraq Has a Cumulative Budget Surplus, Offering the Potential for Further Cost-Sharing.” That's literally the title. And if they actually read the first line of the report, they would know the GAO found that the Iraqi government is running a budget
surplus
of $52.1 billion.
²
Iraq just came through a lengthy war and they're already back in
business and flush with cash. Why are we footing the bill and getting nothing in return?

I'll give you the answer. It's because our so-called “leaders” in Washington know absolutely nothing about negotiation and dealmaking. Look, I do deals—big deals—all the time. I know and work with all the toughest operators in the world of high-stakes global finance. These are hard-driving, vicious, cutthroat financial killers, the kind of people who leave blood all over the boardroom table and fight to the bitter end to gain maximum advantage. And guess what? Those are
exactly
the kind of negotiators the United States needs, not these cream puff “diplomats” Obama sends around the globe to play patty cake with foreign governments. No, we need smart people with titanium spines and big brains who love America enough to fight fiercely for our interests. Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State George Shultz used to ask diplomats into his office and, standing before a map, ask them what country they represented. When they pointed to their assigned country, he'd correct them and say, “No, that's not your country, you represent the United States.” Leadership starts with the person at the top. The president sets the tone. Ronald Reagan put America first, and he knew how to negotiate. Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan—not even close. And that's why we're in the mess we're in and why our nation is on the wrong track and doing so badly.

Until we get a new president, our congressmen will continue to be treated with contempt by the Iraqi government, that government will continue to run a surplus at our expense, and we will continue to suffer economically because the Iraqi government, and everyone else, knows
Obama is weak and won't stand up for America's interests. The man's natural instinct is to bow before every foreign leader he can find.

We don't owe the Middle East any apologies. America is
not
what's wrong with the world. We're an example of freedom to the world. No one can match America. We have big hearts—and the courage to do what's right. But we're not the world's policemen. And if we have to take on that role, we need to send a clear message that protection comes at a price. If other countries benefit from our armed forces protecting them, those countries should cover the costs. Period.

Beyond simple justice, and beyond reducing our national debt, another advantage of taking the oil is that it will significantly bring down the price of gas. Gas prices are crippling our economy. In the first two years of the Obama administration, gas prices leapt a shocking 104 percent. That's hardly the “hope and change” Americans voted for. That said, there are many environmentalists who are cheering and applauding higher prices. Their logic, if you can call it that, is that if we drive less we will emit less carbon, which will allegedly help alleviate the make-believe problem of global warming. Don't forget, when he was a United States senator, Obama himself suggested that higher gas prices would be a good thing, but that he would prefer a “gradual adjustment.”
³

Then look at the person Obama appoints as his Energy Secretary—Steven Chu, a guy who actually told the
Wall Street Journal
, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
⁴
So the fact that we've seen a 104 percent jump in the price of a
gallon of gas since Obama was elected president should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who was paying attention. He and his supporters telegraphed as much all along. As crazy as it sounds, these folks want higher energy prices because they believe that will force Americans to drive less and businesses to slow down on production and transportation, which they think is a good thing, but which in fact will only cost us more jobs and put us at a greater economic disadvantage against China. Whose side are they on, anyway?

Here's another one: Cap and Tax (or as they called it, Cap and Trade). Remember that? When he was campaigning to become president, Obama outright admitted that his plan to tax businesses on carbon emissions that exceeded his arbitrary cap would drive energy prices sky high. Here's exactly what he said:

Most of us shake our heads in disbelief at this stuff. But you really have to understand the fringe Left's radical mindset and just how extreme and out of touch with reality this president and his dwindling group of supporters are with the rest of the country. They
want
us to have higher energy prices,
they
want
to deprive our economy of the fuel it needs to grow, they
intentionally
put the pseudo-science of global warming and socialist management of our economy—the two go together—ahead of making our economy competitive and creating real private sector jobs for the American people.