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6 CapitalPress.com Editorials are written by or approved by members of the Capital Press Editorial Board. May 12, 2017 All other commentary pieces are the opinions of the authors but not necessarily this newspaper. Opinion Editorial Board Editor & Publisher Managing Editor Joe Beach Carl Sampson opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion O UR V IEW O UR V IEW Caution advised on North Cascades grizzly bear plans T President Trump’s 100-day Rorschach test F or Americans, President Donald Trump represents a Rorschach test, the psychological exercise in which people are asked to identify what they see in an ink blot. Supporters and detractors alike see in Trump what they want to see. Supporters see him as a man of action who is “draining the swamp” in Washington, D.C. He is tossing out oppressive regulations such as the Waters of the U.S. and appointing Cabinet members who will take their departments in new directions. They are willing to look beyond the missteps he has made to see the good he has done. Detractors see a president who is quixotic and out of touch with many of the challenges facing the nation. They imprint on Trump shortcomings they fear will hurt immigrants and others and see his mistakes as evidence that bolsters their opposition to his presidency. As we review the fi rst 100 days of President Trump, we are reminded of the fact that all new presidents do good, but they also make mistakes. The presidency of George H.W. Bush is a perfect example of both. The vice president for eight years under Ronald Reagan, Bush rode the Reagan bandwagon into the White House. All he had to do was continue the previous administration’s policies and he would have enjoyed two terms as president. But he made a huge mistake. During the campaign, he said these words: “Read my lips: no new taxes.” Then, as president, he signed a bill raising taxes, and his fate was sealed. That lesson has not been lost on Trump, who during his campaign made many promises. Among them: • He would withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacifi c Partnership, a 12-nation trade agreement. • He would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. • He would enforce and toughen U.S. immigration laws. Since his election, Trump has followed through on many of his promises. Ironically, this has surprised both his supporters and detractors. As is often the case in politics, it’s not what you do but how you do it. The Trump style is to get people’s attention with an outrageous demand — “Mexico will pay for the wall” — and then start negotiating. Unfortunately, this is not negotiating to buy an apartment building in Manhattan. This is international diplomacy at its highest level. What the president of the United States says matters. A lot. For Trump to blurt out unvetted policy decisions is in itself a mistake. Most recently, he said he would renege on a U.S. promise to pay for installing a $1 billion missile defense system in South Korea, which sent that nation’s leaders into a swirl of confusion. His comment was later “walked back.” The message to the world: Under Trump, a deal is no longer a deal. But he is learning, in slow, faltering steps. His most urgent need is for knowledgeable, experienced advisers, who share the president’s vision but also know how to get things done in Washington, D.C., and overseas. A look around the White House shows precious few advisers who appear to know what they are doing. Few of his close advisers have any experience in key areas of big league politics or diplomacy, and it shows. History has repeatedly shown that just because someone supports a candidate during a campaign doesn’t mean he, or she, is up to advising the president. As president, Jimmy Carter surrounded himself with political neophytes and sycophants and became a one-term, ineffective footnote. The same fate could await Trump if he doesn’t make needed changes in his staff. He has already made some, but not enough. For U.S. agriculture, Trump’s actions on trade will make or break his presidency. Tossing out the TPP was one thing, but without a replacement U.S. farmers will be victims of his capriciousness. TPP included major agricultural competitors and trade partners, including Japan, Mexico and Canada. To unilaterally toss it into the trash bin is less than wise and leaves in place large tariffs on U.S. commodities in some countries. Trump then threatened to bail out of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, two of U.S. agriculture’s most important trade partners. No doubt this was a negotiating tactic on Trump’s part, but it is a lousy way to run trade policy. America’s farmers and ranchers need more trade, not less. They need fair trade, not random protective tariffs. And they need a president who doesn’t put their livelihoods at risk with an early morning tweet. We understand Trump intends to “do better” at negotiating a replacement for TPP and updating NAFTA, but in the meantime, farmers will continue to suffer through rock-bottom prices on many of the commodities they produce, and he’s not helping. Immigration reform is also desperately needed. An easier-to-use H-2A guestworker visa for year-round agricultural employees should be at the top of Trump’s to-do list. This will help farmers, nursery operators, orchardists, dairymen, processors and others who face crippling labor shortages stay in business while the administration and Congress revise the immigration laws and create a system that is equitable and workable. Providing a pathway to legal residence — but not citizenship — over a period of years is also doable. If an illegal immigrant violates no other laws, pays a fi ne and learns English, he or she should be allowed to become a legal resident. Whether a border wall will resolve immigration problems, we can’t say. In a nod to Bush’s mistake, Trump will have to insist on building a wall because he repeatedly promised it during his campaign. An Associated Press story we published online last week found that immigration offi cials have a nearly unworkable computer system for tracking immigrants who overstay their visas, the main way illegal immigrants stay in the U.S. Our take: Money for a wall might be better spent on giving adequate tools to those responsible for enforcing immigration law. Having said that, Trump has made some excellent Cabinet appointments. Sonny Perdue, his USDA secretary, is as good a choice as Trump could have made. Though inexperienced, his Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, also seems to be pointed in the right direction. The Environmental Protection Agency was in dire need of a complete remake. Under former President Barack Obama, it had become a loose cannon, holding secret meetings on regulations, funding a smear campaign against farmers in Washington state, authoring the Waters of the U.S. plan to take over much of rural America, and rationalizing dumping mine waste into a river. The agency lost its credibility. Our hope is Trump’s selection of Scott Pruitt, former Oklahoma attorney general, as EPA administrator will right the ship. We are optimists. We understand that Trump is in a learning phase. While he’s made mistakes, we also see reason for hope that he will install more experienced advisers, fi nd his footing, and get on with it. he National Park Service has received 120,000 comments on its plan to reintroduce grizzly bears to North Cascades National Park. Grizzlies were listed as a threatened species in the contiguous U.S. in 1975. They were listed as endangered in Washington state in 1980. Now the federal government is considering establishing a population of 200 bears in the North Cascades. Ranchers in Northern Washington whose herds would come within the bears’ range are less than thrilled with the idea. It’s easy to see why. Of all the apex predators found in the wilds of North America, nothing beats the grizzly bear. It is not for nothing that it is classifi ed as Ursus horribilis — terrifying bear. Large males can grow to nearly 800 pounds and stand almost 10 feet tall on their hind legs. They have big paws with sharp claws and a crushing bite. The relationship between grizzlies and Europeans was nettlesome from the beginning. Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery, familiar with the black bear of the East, didn’t believe the stories of the great bear they heard from the Indians on the upper Missouri River until they encountered the grizzly themselves. In their fi rst encounter, along the Big Muddy Creek in Montana, William Clark reported that it took 10 shots to kill a great bear, estimated to weigh 600 pounds. In another incident, Meriwether Lewis was caught between a river and a grizzly. The bear charged, and Lewis, who had failed to reload his rifl e after killing a buffalo, ran into the water. The bear followed, but for some reason turned and ran the other way. Corps member Hugh McNeal was treed by a grizzly, which waited below for several hours before leaving. None of his men had been killed by the bears, Lewis said, because “the hand of providence has been most wonderfully in our favor.” But as settlers populated the West, the bears lost out. Most of the grizzlies in the continental United States are in Wyoming and Montana. Government wildlife experts say the restoration of a viable population in the North Cascades is an important step in ensuring the bears’ survival. We believe all of God’s creatures deserve a place in the wild. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t leery of the government’s plan. The government is studying a number of options. In one scenario it would take as long as 100 years to get 200 bears in the restoration. But under its most aggressive plan, the government would have 200 bears in the park within 25 years. The experts say grizzlies tend to shy away from contact with humans, and predict the interactions would be minimal even under most aggressive plan. But, these are the same folks who said it would take decades for wolves reintroduced in Yellowstone and Idaho to spread throughout the West. And while wolf advocates are always quick to point out that there have been no recorded accounts of wolves killing humans in modern times, at least 14 humans have been killed by grizzlies in the last 10 years. Some of them were eaten, which makes it an entirely different proposition. The National Park Service needs to listen to ranchers in the Okanogan who object to the introduction of another apex predator into the region. The more bears introduced into the park, the sooner they will wander out of the park and into confl ict with livestock herds grazing on public lands surrounding the North Cascades. It is perhaps inevitable that the government will fi nd support to proceed with its plan. In that event, the National Park Service should move with extreme caution. Chris Morgan/Grizzly Bear Outreach Project The grizzly bear, which the National Park Service proposes to reintroduce in Washington state, is known to be dangerous to humans.