Trump on his website

 I cannot believe I actually did this. But I did. I went to his website and looked at his policy proposals.

On immigration, well, there is less than I would have expected. Nothing about mass deportation, only a bit about deporting more criminals. (Right now, ICE does not have the budgetary authority to deport all criminals after their sentences.) Some blather about repealing the 14th Amendment. Surprisingly, neither DACA nor DAPA appear. But there is a call for a wall ... and a clear statement that a Trump administration will wreck relations with Mexico all the way down to pulling out of NAFTA in order to pay for it. Expect a President Trump to destroy our southern relations. Which would be a shame, because right now Mexican governments of all stripe pretty much do whatever the United States needs them to do. 

On trade, he seems to be calling for a trade war with China. Except ... uh ... can he start one? He can declare China a currency manipulator. After which, well, lets go to the relevant part of the Omnibus Trade Act of 1988:

“If the Secretary considers that such manipulation is occurring with respect to countries that (1) have material global current account surpluses; and (2) have significant bilateral trade surpluses with the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury shall take action to initiate negotiations with such foreign countries on an expedited basis, in the International Monetary Fund or bilaterally, for the purpose of ensuring that such countries regularly and promptly adjust the rate of exchange between their currencies and the United States dollar to permit effective balance of payments adjustments and to eliminate the unfair advantage. The Secretary shall not be required to initiate negotiations in cases where such negotiations would have a serious detrimental impact on vital national economic and security interests; in such cases, the Secretary shall inform the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate and of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of the House of Representatives of his determination.”

Got that? The law will allow the Trump administration to ... start negotiations. Which is, to be fair, all he calls for on the website. 

There is also a fun bit where Trump contradicts himself within two sentences: “The U.S. Trade Representative recently filed yet another complaint with the WTO accusing China of cheating on our trade agreements by subsidizing its exports. The Trump administration will not wait for an international body to tell us what we already know. To gain negotiating leverage, we will pursue the WTO case and aggressively highlight and expose these subsidies.”

In other words, the Trump administration will not wait for an international body. Rather, it will pursue a case against China in an international body. Yes, tough indeed.

On taxes, it is all crazy. But that’s the GOP for you these days.

The whole thing is a little crazy, but I was expecting more. In other words, Trump has got a lot of room to walk back a lot of things once he gets the nomination ... with one exception: blowing up our relations with Mexico.

I concur with Carlos in comments.

Anyway, none of this is relevant for the Democrats, because the way to go after Trump is mockery. Pure, unending mockery.