Latest / Trumponomics / Trump Can Party On With This Blueprint From Europe

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Trump Can Party On With This Blueprint From Europe · Trumponomics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump may have won last year's U s presidential election,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: but how can he and the Republican Party stay in power? Well,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: one political party across the Atlantic could have the answer
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to that question. It's using a similar mix of nationalist rhetoric,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: social conservatism, and populist economic policies. But instead of already
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: being behind the eight ball, kind of like the Republicans
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: here in the United States, they actually seem poised to
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  Speaker 1: stay in power for a long time. So where is
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: this party and what's their secret sauce? We're about to
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  Speaker 1: find out on today's episode of Benchmark, a podcast about
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  Speaker 1: the global economy. I'm Scott landman and economics editor with
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg News in Washington, and I'm Daniel most executive that
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  Speaker 1: at a Global economics in New York. The countries Poland,
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  Speaker 1: the he is called Law and Justice, which swept to
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  Speaker 1: an election victory in twenty fifteen and has been winning,
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  Speaker 1: so you know how to win ever since. How Joining
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  Speaker 1: us are two colleagues with close connections to both Poland
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  Speaker 1: and the United States who will talk about what Law
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  Speaker 1: and Justice has done and what Trump can learn from them.
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  Speaker 1: Votech Mostva is our Warsaw Bureau chief. He was born
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  Speaker 1: in Poland, grew up in the US and has since
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  Speaker 1: returned to his native country. And here in d C
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  Speaker 1: we have Kasha Klymasinska, an editor on Bloomberg's First Word
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  Speaker 1: desk who grew up in Poland and has lived in
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  Speaker 1: the US for the last eight years. Thanks for being
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  Speaker 1: with us today, Voytek and Kasha. Thank you very nice
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  Speaker 1: to be here. Hi, great to be with you. Thanks so, Voytech.
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  Speaker 1: Can you just sum up what law and justice has
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  Speaker 1: done with the state media and the court system while
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  Speaker 1: at the same time providing economic hand doubts lowering the
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  Speaker 1: retirement age. What's been there? Policy cocktail Law injustice one
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  Speaker 1: power on a type of election platform that may be
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  Speaker 1: familiar to US listeners. UM. It preached about the evils
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  Speaker 1: of what it called a self serving establishment, UM, one
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  Speaker 1: that didn't care about the struggles of the working classes. UM.
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  Speaker 1: It's that that the government must regain control over the
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  Speaker 1: economy so that it served the country and its people
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  Speaker 1: and not multinational companies or foreign entities. UM. In foreign policy,
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  Speaker 1: law Injustice thought to reassert Poland's national interests, which it
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  Speaker 1: thinks are endangered by the European Unions. And what may
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  Speaker 1: no longer come as a surprise. Um It has largely
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  Speaker 1: fulfilled its promises. Over its first year in power. The
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  Speaker 1: party launched an unprecedented child benefit program, giving families bigger
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  Speaker 1: welfare handouts relative income levels than in Norway and other
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  Speaker 1: Scandina even countries. It lowered the retirement age, which was
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  Speaker 1: raised by the previous government as a way to show
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  Speaker 1: up the public finances. The state controlled companies bought back
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  Speaker 1: the country's second largest bank from a foreign investors, and
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  Speaker 1: the by laws of a number of companies listed on
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  Speaker 1: the worst of Stock exchange were changed, making their top
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  Speaker 1: priority national interests instead of company interests. Um It has
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  Speaker 1: also tried to drain the swamp or exchange the elites
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  Speaker 1: running the country um the boards of companies where the
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  Speaker 1: government has a stake where we arranged. Poland also changed
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  Speaker 1: media rules to make the government directly responsible for public broadcasters,
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  Speaker 1: and soon after that hundreds of journalists were either kicked
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  Speaker 1: out or forced to leave public television and radio. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: most alarmingly, it has also over called the Constitutional Tribunal
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  Speaker 1: no less than six times in the past year in
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  Speaker 1: an effort to gain control over the court, which is
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  Speaker 1: important because it can structs own laws, it sees us unconstitutional.
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  Speaker 1: So voech do you sound like the kinds of things
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  Speaker 1: that you know you could envision Trump and the Republicans
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  Speaker 1: wanting to do, or some of them at least in
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  Speaker 1: terms of the nationalist stance. Uh. But when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to the economic policies, is law in justice doing something like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we give you the people some money, some
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  Speaker 1: economic hand doubts, and you let us do what we
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  Speaker 1: want with the government. That's certainly the assumption. Um. The
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  Speaker 1: hand that's clearly helped law injustice stay popular, especially among
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  Speaker 1: those who live in smaller cities and rural areas where
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  Speaker 1: wages are lower, and law Injustice has no difficulty saying
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  Speaker 1: that it's political opponents really want to get rid of
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  Speaker 1: the family handouts. Let's take a step back, votech and Kasha.
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  Speaker 1: Most of our listeners are probably thinking, well, hang on
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  Speaker 1: a second, this democracy thing, it's pretty recent in Poland,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, it's less than three decades since the
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  Speaker 1: transition to democracy. Put the success of this party in
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  Speaker 1: the context of a very young democracy. Um. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's a good question. Then it's an interesting way to
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  Speaker 1: look at it. But um, you know, you also have
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  Speaker 1: to remember that after Poland regained this democracy, it also
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  Speaker 1: fairly quickly joined the europe the European Union. So Polish
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  Speaker 1: people are sort of used to government telling them how
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  Speaker 1: things should be done, because, you know, once the negotiation
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  Speaker 1: process with that you started, you started imposing all those
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  Speaker 1: rules and directives. So Polish people are sort of used to,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the government either in Warsaw or somewhere in Brussels,
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  Speaker 1: telling them what to do. So people actually see parallels
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  Speaker 1: between communist rule that happened for decades and the e
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  Speaker 1: use heavy hand in bureaucracy in recent years. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: sure they exactly would describe it that way, but I
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  Speaker 1: think this is something that just has always happened, so they,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they are not like Americans, who very strongly
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  Speaker 1: believe that especially the federal government should not get in
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  Speaker 1: their ways. One of the big differences, of course, is
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  Speaker 1: that Poland stands benefits a lot from being a European Union.
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  Speaker 1: More than two billion dollars worth of aid comes in
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  Speaker 1: from from the European Union budget, which helps Poland build
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  Speaker 1: roads and infrastructure and catch up with the richer West.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you're saying that um Poland has benefited from
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  Speaker 1: EU membership, and that's true, but the US as a
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  Speaker 1: whole has also benefited from free trading goods, services in capital.
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  Speaker 1: That hasn't stopped at least a chunk of the electorate
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  Speaker 1: in pivotal states nominally turning against that. But then I
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  Speaker 1: think it's a little bit different. I mean, if you
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  Speaker 1: go to somebody who has lost their job in a
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  Speaker 1: Detroit factory, for example, you can't tell them, well, but
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  Speaker 1: you know, generally there's this trade surplus and we benefited
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  Speaker 1: from those free trade deals. I don't think they would
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  Speaker 1: understand it or appreciate it. Whereas in Poland there is
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people who literally got checks from the
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  Speaker 1: European Union. There are rows over which their signs saying
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  Speaker 1: this road has been paid for by the European Union.
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  Speaker 1: So I think people, you know, really appreciate that. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: we have seen um big chunk of the electorate not
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  Speaker 1: being happy with its prospect um. You know, Poland had
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  Speaker 1: a booming economy in the ninety nineties and last decade,
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  Speaker 1: and the growth have flowed. It is still the fastest
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  Speaker 1: growth in the European Union since the Lehman brother crisis
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  Speaker 1: erupted in two thousand and eight. But that doesn't resonate
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  Speaker 1: very well with Polly voter with is the same as
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  Speaker 1: in the Detroit factories. That the fact that the US
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  Speaker 1: has a trade for surplus. Now, when we talk about
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  Speaker 1: Polish voters, in some ways, the electorate there could be
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  Speaker 1: seen as polarized in a similar way to Democrats and
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  Speaker 1: Republicans here in the US, who are very divided over
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's presidency, uh and his election. Kasha, you actually
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  Speaker 1: have some good perspective on this. You grew up in
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  Speaker 1: the city of Krakow, which heavily supports the Law and
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  Speaker 1: Justice Party, and you also look for a number of
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  Speaker 1: years in Warsaw, where there's kind of a huge opposition.
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  Speaker 1: Are these divisions really apparent in Polish society the way
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  Speaker 1: they are in America these days? Yeah? Indeed, indeed they are. Well,
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  Speaker 1: So if you go to Krakof then I think it's
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  Speaker 1: a really good lesson and it's a really good experience
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  Speaker 1: to help understand why law injustice is waning. Most of
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  Speaker 1: Polish people are Catholic, and especially in Krakoff, where John
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  Speaker 1: Paul the second was studying and where he was later
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  Speaker 1: a bishop. This thing it is, you know, really strong
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  Speaker 1: and people. People leave by their Catholic rules. They follow
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  Speaker 1: what the church is preaching. And these people tend to
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  Speaker 1: support law and justice because they think, you know, getting
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  Speaker 1: five hundreds a lot as a child is just the
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  Speaker 1: right thing for the government to do, because people should
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  Speaker 1: have as manage children as possible, or at least a
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  Speaker 1: lot of children. They don't really worry that, oh, this
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  Speaker 1: will decrease increase the deficit and the dead and maybe
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  Speaker 1: lead to higher taxes in the future. They just don't
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  Speaker 1: think in those terms. Whereas in war So, of course,
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  Speaker 1: there is much more population focused more on economic conditions.
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  Speaker 1: People obviously moved to wars so to pursue careers, to
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  Speaker 1: to make more money basically, and so the economic higher
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  Speaker 1: taxes are high on their radar. And they do understand
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  Speaker 1: that the subsidies and the handouts that law injustice is
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  Speaker 1: now offering, that this will have to somehow be paid for. Nakashi,
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  Speaker 1: your point about crack of it is an interesting one
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  Speaker 1: and whole Krugman gets at this a bit occasionally his columns.
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  Speaker 1: When the comparison is drawn between Trump and the populist
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  Speaker 1: parties of Central and Eastern Europe. The populist parties of
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  Speaker 1: Central and Eastern Europe, at least as far as the
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  Speaker 1: Polish example is concerned, have actually done some things to
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  Speaker 1: um aggressively expand the social safety net. That hasn't happened here?
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  Speaker 1: Is that the is that? Is that a correct way
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  Speaker 1: of looking at things? Right? Exactly? I mean, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think it will ever happen that the President
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  Speaker 1: Trump or any other president will start offering if I
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  Speaker 1: founded dollars a child. But you know, let's just talk
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  Speaker 1: about President Trump's speech from last night, where he actually
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  Speaker 1: did talk about several proposals that could help people, such as, uh,
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  Speaker 1: providing paid family leave. Uh. You know, he's trying to
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  Speaker 1: do things that he says will help the average work
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  Speaker 1: in person. He's promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare.
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  Speaker 1: He's he's promised he said that any changes to Obamacare
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  Speaker 1: should include people with pre existing conditions. These are things
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  Speaker 1: that you know, a large part of the population could
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  Speaker 1: potentially get behind. Is that what we really need to
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  Speaker 1: see these kinds of things if if you know, Trump
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  Speaker 1: and the Republicans were to continue, were to retain their
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  Speaker 1: popularity maybe across the nation, that's an interesting question. And indeed,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of those promises were made yesterday, and you
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  Speaker 1: have already heard Democrats response that they have to see
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  Speaker 1: the details. They would of course, of course they would
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  Speaker 1: buy better healthcare or um, you know, better care for
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  Speaker 1: working family families. They just have to see the details.
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  Speaker 1: So we'll see how many of those details will actually
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  Speaker 1: be presented and when. But I mean, I can't I
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  Speaker 1: can't see American voting more eagerly for for for people
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  Speaker 1: who will just make their lives easier in the near term.
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  Speaker 1: You mentioned that membership of the EU came relatively shortly
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  Speaker 1: after the transition to democracy, and I guess you could
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  Speaker 1: say the same about NATO membership. These two things which
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  Speaker 1: you say people have turned against or become skeptical about,
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  Speaker 1: they're all bundled up together. I mean, have people stopped
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  Speaker 1: to think, we'll wait, were we better off? Yeah under
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  Speaker 1: the Russian Thum? I not not at all. I think
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  Speaker 1: there is no way back to to what was before
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  Speaker 1: and the collapse of communism. Um. I think generally Poles
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  Speaker 1: are still concerned about the Russian influence and in the region,
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  Speaker 1: especially in if you weaken the EU and NATO, isn't
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  Speaker 1: that the same thing? That's a That's a very good question,
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  Speaker 1: and that is something that that this government is trying
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  Speaker 1: to have both ways. Perhaps it's trying to lash out
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  Speaker 1: at national interests, but it doesn't want to leave the
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  Speaker 1: EU because it knows that collective security given by the
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  Speaker 1: EU and the security given by NATO, which is backed
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  Speaker 1: up by a strong US military presence in the region,
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  Speaker 1: UM is it's best chance of not again falling under
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  Speaker 1: the Kremlin umbrella like it did for fifty years after
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  Speaker 1: World War Two. So where does this leave both of you? Voitech?
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  Speaker 1: You run a news bureau for a large international media
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  Speaker 1: company headquartered in New York. You grew up in Pennsylvania, Kasha,
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  Speaker 1: You've been in the United States for the better part
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  Speaker 1: of a decade. You're married to an American. I'm guessing
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  Speaker 1: that your kids are American. So are YouTube basically strangers
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  Speaker 1: in your own land or your own culture. Now. I
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: think people are asking themselves a lot of questions about
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  Speaker 1: what is Poland right now? Is it still the same
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  Speaker 1: country where left while its in um lead to democracy
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  Speaker 1: in nine or is it something different, a country that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: seeks to find its own way within the European Union,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: perhaps on the outskirts of it. And perhaps being a
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: bit more combative towards foreign investors. I just I think,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I just want to say that that I think we
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: fit right in. As you probably know very well, there
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: are Polish people everywhere. There's so many of them in
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: New York that apparently it's very easy to get a
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: vous beer. So, you know, Polish people are just curious minds.
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  Speaker 1: We want, we like to travel, we like to try
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: different things. You know, some of us come back, some
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of us, for various reasons, stay stay overseas. But you know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: we are still Polish people. Okay, so you go home
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and there's not the sneering. Yeah you left, you're part
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of the globalist conspiracy. No. I mean, there's just so
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: many people in London and so many in the US.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It's just what happens to some people. The Polish diaspora
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: is very it's very far and wide. Yeah. On the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, we also have to consider that this type
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of interest that we've seen in Poland over the last
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  Speaker 1: year and a half, this is an international media interest,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is quite amazing. It's something that as a journalist for
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the last twenty years, I've I've never seen such a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: sustained period of time where where, Um, you know, the
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: things that are happening in Poland are finding residents in
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: in in other countries and are sometimes seen as perhaps
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the precursor of what could happen there in the US,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: or or or in other European countries. So that leads
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: me to the last question, which is voytech. Who is
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the Donald Trump of Poland? There is only one Donald Trump. Um.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Poland doesn't have its own, but it does have a
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: very enigmatic leader. Who is His name is Yarosky. He
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: is the leader of the ruling party. He is a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: bit of an enigma. He's not in any position of power.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: He's not in the government, he's not the president. He
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: has chosen other people for those roles. Um. Yet he
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: is the person that controls um, the strategy and the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: path on which this country is is going. So again,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: just to come back to your footprints in both countries,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I understand you grew up in what's called the Alabama
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: pot of Pensylvania. Yes, that's right. I grew up in
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: western Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh, where there was a lot
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of rough belt industries when I was growing up there
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, and as well as a pretty
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: healthy pool and die um industry in in in my area,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: which was Meadville, Pennsylvania. And did your parents or grandparents
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: or members of your family work in that industry? No, no, no,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: we didn't, But my friends from high school did um
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: end up going and working for that industry. And and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I think perhaps being a bit concerned about some of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the changes that have happened since I left Pennsylvania and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of the changes that that globalization is bringing to to
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to all of us, and and and that concern is
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: perhaps feeding what, you know, the way that that my
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: friends from high school are voting. And do your parents
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: still live there? My parents have moved to Florida, warmer weather,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: they've retired. And what do they think of the law
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Injustice party? My parents are it's a sort of a
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: reversal for them for what Trump, which they have every
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: day of a lot of news and a lot of
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: attention on what's happening in in in the United States.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And I think is they're trying to digest all of
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that and and and and and see what is happening
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: um there. They they look at Poland and and are
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: quite concerned about about what is happening here and and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: whether the democratic model that emerged after communism collapsed um
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: is going to to stay firm, and it wasn't for
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the globalist, corporatist media, they might not be able to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: stay in touch with what's going on in Poland. That
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: is certainly true. All right, Voytech and Kasha, We're definitely
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: going to continue to watch what happens in Poland, and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: we'll continue to watch whether Trump and the Republicans try
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: to emulate what the Law in Justice Party has done.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today, Thank you,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Benchmark will be back next week
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and until then, you can find us in a lot
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: of places, the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg dot com, or Bloomberg app,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: as well as on iTunes, pocket casts, and Stitcher. While
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: you're there, take a minute to rate and review the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: show so more listeners can find us and let us
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: know what you thought of the show. You can follow
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: me on Twitter at at Scott Landman, Dan is at
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: at moss Underscore Eco, Voytech, do you have a Twitter handle?
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Anything that you wanted to give? Yes at econ first
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and Kasha, you are at Okay Kaska. Benchmark is produced
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: by Sarah Patterson. The head of Bloomberg Podcast is Alec McCabe.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, See you next time.