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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.