Trump is Back

The US presidential election is over. What is not over is post-election speculation about the course of events to be unfolded in the coming days. The Americans have finally chosen and they are returning Trump to the White House, no matter how controversial a candidate he was, no matter what he has said and done. In reality it doesn’t matter much in foreign policy orientation in the change of guard in America’s bipartisan political culture. Experts worldwide are busy defining Trump’s second innings as a shift that has already been signalled, towards a global order in which America exercises its power differently, more as a superpower to establish its hegemony. But the world has changed a lot in recent years. Trump or no Trump, the decline of American authority is irreversible as multi-polarity seems to be replacing unipolarity slowly but steadily.

Government heads, including Russia’s Putin and Ukraine’s Zelensky, lost no time to send congratulatory messages to Trump for his emphatic victory. They are preparing for what they perceive to be coming down the pipeline: tariffs, trade wars, shifts on environment and a somewhat unorthodox approach to diplomacy.

The pro-establishment media in India is reading too much between the lines to see ‘India better positioned than many powerful countries to deal with the new administration because of Modi’s personal bond with Trump’. But prolonged hand-shaking is unlikely to work when it is the question of American business interests. In his campaign trail, he didn’t forget to single out India’s high tariffs on American goods, saying in no uncertain terms, ‘he would reciprocate’. Trump in his first term restricted the visas used by many Indians in the United States, who also make up the third largest population of undocumented US immigrants and Trump’s threatened deportations could have a major impact on India-US relations, no matter how the cheerleaders of Modi-Trump bonhomie glorify his second comeback. For one thing, what Modi and Trump have in common is disdain for democratic space and voice of dissent.

Progressives around the world are visibly upset with Trump’s return as they see in his anti-science rhetoric and actions in his first term, a danger they will have to face shortly. Many scientists say they are bracing for negative impacts on science now that he has been elected for a second term. “In my long life of 82 years... there has hardly been a day when I felt more sad”, says Nobel prize-winning chemist Fraser Stoddart, who left the United States last year and now works in Hong Kong. But all are not unhappy with the return of Trump. Europe’s far-right leaders see a key ally, someone who shares their mix of authoritarianism, populism and extreme hostility to immigrants.

The moot question is whether peace will return in the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine conflict zone. As for Ukraine, his formula to end war looks a non-starter as even Russians don’t think it will work. He cannot stop the war abruptly by withholding military aid to Kyiv. After all, billionaires are going to decorate his team. Then not for nothing the merchants of death who benefit enormously from the almost 3-year-old Ukraine war, reportedly financed the US elections in a big way. And it is unlikely for the Trump administration to desist the Jewish entity called Israel from bombing Gaza and Lebanon to the Stone Age.

 Once Fidel Castro was asked about the 1960 US elections: “Who do you prefer, Nixon or Kennedy?” He gave a very wonderful answer, saying, ‘It is not possible to compare two shoes worn by the same person. America is governed by only one party which is the Zionist Party and it has two wings. The Republican wing represents the hard-line Zionist power, and the democratic wing represents the soft Zionist power.

There is no difference in the goals and strategies, but the means and tools differ slightly to give each president a kind of privacy and room for movement.”

Castro’s description of the American presidency still stands today.

09-11-2024

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 22, Nov 24 - 30, 2024