By P.K.Balachandran
Colombo, November 09 : US President-elect Donal Trump is feared by some and extolled by others. On the one hand, those who fear him say he will make the US aggressive, impulsive and selfish, driven by the battle cry AAmerica First” and “Make America Great” (MAG). On the other hand, those who laud him say he will make the US concentrate on pressing domestic issues and not waste resources on saving other countries from authoritarian hegemons in a pretentious colonial-era “civilizing mission”.
While there is a grain of truth in both assessments, overall, Trump has shown through his performance in his previous stint in the White House between 2017 and 2021, that he could be both tough and benign, waging war to assert America’s rights on the one hand, and bringing peace if that was the way forward, on the other.
Trump is a pragmatic politician but not an unprincipled one. He has no “Trump Doctrine” to expound, as he has no fixed notions. He goes mostly by his instinct and assessment of the ground reality. His decisions are “his” in the true sense of the word.
According to Patrick C.O’ Brien, US National Security Adviser from 2019 to 2021, Trump may replicate President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) who used US power with panache, but judiciously, to achieve a number of diplomatic triumphs. Like Trump, Jackson believed in give and take. He showed the fist when necessary, and struck a compromise when called for, as he did in the case of disputes with France, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain.
Jackson signed trade agreements with Russia, Spain, Turkey, Britain, and Siam. The treaty with Britain reopened American trade with the British West Indies. Overall, US trade boomed in Jackson’s time- exports increased by more than 75% and imports by 250%.
By the time Jackson retired from the White House in 1837, he had significantly altered the office of the President, expanding its veto power, basing its authority on the will of the people. He dramatically enhanced the chief executive’s political and legislative powers, O’Brien recalled.
But Jackson was not foolhardy. He would leave some issues to the Congress even if he had strong views on them as he did in the case of the integration of Texas State into the USA. Likewise, Trump would be an aggressive President but would leave some sensitive issues to the legislature. Presently, he has now left the decision on critical issue of abortion to the States.
Indeed, Trump is an aggressive “Make America Great” proponent. But he was also a peacemaker when he was in office from 2017 to 2021. Listing his achievements, O’Brien says that he facilitated the Abraham Accords, bringing peace to Israel and three of its neighbours and Sudan. He brought about economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo; pushed Egypt and the Gulf states to settle their rift with Qatar and end their blockade of Qatar.
More importantly, the US entered into an agreement with the Taliban to being about an American withdrawal. This prevented any American combat deaths there for nearly the entire final year of the Trump administration. Trump ended one war- against the ISIS as an organized military force. He eliminated its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Trump was determined to avoid new wars and endless counterinsurgency operations. According to O’Brien the Trump Presidency was the first since that of Jimmy Carter in which the US did not enter a new war or expand an existing one.
O’Brien notes that when Trump was in office, Russia did not press further forward after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and Iran did not attack Israel, and North Korea stopped testing nuclear weapons after a combination of diplomatic outreach and a U.S. military show of force. But Trump ordered a limited but effective air attack on Syria in 2017, after Bashar al-Assad’s regime used chemical weapons against its own people.
Trump’s critics say that his “America first” is “America alone”. But this is debunked by O’Brien. Yes, Trump is critical of NATO and thinks expenditure on it is unwarranted but this is because the European members are not contributing enough for its upkeep. He says that Ukraine’s Zelensky is a “salesman” because every time he came to the US he successfully made a case for billions of dollars. Trump would insist the Taiwan which spends only 3% of its GDP on defence should spend more and not burden the US so much.
Trump is all for free international trade but not when some countries raise tariffs and erect other protective barriers, and expect the US not to respond. There is a message here for China and also India.
Trump e is strongly against making a song and dance about climate change but his views deserve a careful examination and not outright rejection. Perhaps climate change programs could be reassessed taking all views into consideration. For example, the developing countries feel that the developed countries are the major polluters and should do more and also contribute more to the climate change mitigation kitty.
Trump was shown to be a man of the White ruling class or the White majority, but the election result has shown that his support base spans various ethnicities. Even the Latinos (Mexicans and South Americans) he is trying to bar from entering the US illegally, supported him because everybody wanted America to be free from illegal migration as it was affecting the prospects of locals in the shrinking job markets.
Talking of employment, by raising tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump hopes to encourage local American industries that will give Americans job and not Chinese thousands of miles away. All in all, Trump’s supporters at home and others abroad can expect the US under Trump to veer from the existing policies of Left –Liberal America to be a more traditional inward looking America with a calibrated approach to the world to maintain its position as the numero uno.
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