The new order

Donald Trump is the new president of the US. The predictions have all gone wrong; all estimates have been stumped – no, trumped. The angry American has spoken and the political order in the US has been shaken to its roots. Even the Republican establishment may not have expected this to happen.

The forces of turmoil and tremors will manifest. New orders will begin to form. The predictable will end and the age of the unpredictable will arrive. Such is the force that Donald Trump brings along.

What will it mean internally to the US and to the world? Far more than we ever wagered. The price of status quo will begin to manifest in due course. If not, then Trump it will not be who will be heading the biggest economy and the strongest military on the face of this earth. Get ready, world; we are up for a stormy ride.

It is obvious that anger has redrawn the electoral map of the US. Donald Trump became the voice during the campaign that represented that anger. The anger of the large swathes of the population left behind as the US evolved as a society and a state and focused instead on those on the fringes. It left the white, blue collar, working class mainstream behind. This class owned the US, which they found ceding away to the new wave of immigrants and the minorities. Trump promised them to return their US to them and it resonated widely.

The last 24 years have seen the Democrats keep control of the country for two-thirds of the time. The George W Bush era in between was wasted away by the Republicans in initiating and fighting unnecessary wars. Any correction to how society was shaping was lost to the neo-cons urge to conquer the world instead. So, the white mainstream remained unattended and gradually disenfranchised even during the Republican years. The sense of the white majority of being outpaced thus had entrenched, finally erupting into an expressive frustration.

It is interesting that despite how Trump was framed during the campaign by the mainstream media and denigrated for lack of stability in his thought and person, and closeted in the corner of the white, rural American only, he was rewarded for his fortitude in the face of such diminutiveness by an exemplary turn-out by those who supported him in the belief that he will win back their US for them. If that tells you what is likely to happen within the US, you are right to being highly circumspect of your own future if you did not belong in that class. Remember, Trump promised to keep the Mexicans and the Muslims out even if it meant building walls.

What would have been Barack Obama’s legacy too is under threat. Obama had four major policy areas of attention and initiation that he hoped will become his lasting memory. Every American president will have ‘international peace and security’ as his top concern. Obama had to deal with the flashpoints of his era. He may not have wanted to, and that got exhibited in how he engaged with the issues of Iraq and Syria – cautious, careful and defensive – but he had to fight the wars that had been initiated by his predecessor.

The reluctance was obvious, and he did not make significant gains in bringing those to an early closure. Trump, for sure, will aim to bring the foreign diversions to an end. For this his focus will be on doubling the effort in Syria and Iraq to achieve the aim. So yes, greater intensity, more bloodshed and greater US involvement than what has let these wars fester for so long. It just might work well for world peace.

International trade accompanies international peace; that is why peace is sought. Obama used trade to forge alliances in pursuit of geopolitical interests. The Trans Pacific Trade Agreement during his time was meant to broaden and reinforce a security alliance against China. Otherwise, he mostly stuck to what had already been signed, like Nafta. Most of Obama’s time went in tending to wars while recovering from a debilitating economic recession. He could not forge major initiatives on the economic front. Yet his single most achievement was recovering a recessed economy in 2008 and moving it forward. Bedevilled by such existential challenges, he rarely had the time or the opportunity to bring rapid improvements to the lives of the people across the board.

Obama’s policies tended to be inclusive. Obamacare is likely the first to be axed by Trump to cut down on social security expense by the government. Trump will either cancel or renegotiate most trade agreements that have been in vogue over the decades. That should instil a sure wariness among most of America’s trading partners and the larger corporate world. China should be rightly worried about what the future holds. The World Trade Order may be in for some serious jolts. Most stock exchanges will need time to adjust.

The two other global initiatives that President Obama enforced dealt with ‘climate change’ and ‘nuclear proliferation’. He got awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his initiative to bring the world nuclear order under some regulation to mitigate the possibility of proliferation. On both counts, these run contrary to Trump’s world view. Though Trump will hardly be cavalier on the nuclear issue as he deals with it in earnest, climate change to him is a typically liberalist undertaking overblown to keep the US lagging in economic growth.

Trump is likely to flaunt his military strength in consonance with the US’ nuclear power to lever its uncontested status as world’s sole superpower. Trump’s America will thus be more assertive and less defensive. He will use such influence to forge a different order rewriting the rules of global business in America’s favour. Re-industrialisation of the American economy may be on the cards. That will bring jobs back to rural America, but the world instead of moving forward will have moved backward.

This is the moment of Brexit Plus Plus, as Trump calls it. The Right nationalist movements in Europe are overjoyed at Trump’s victory. They all plan to win their countries back from those originally not from there. The larger global village may not be so anymore. But there will be one imperative: the imperative of markets which will test the limits of Trump’s cavalierism.

What he might make in the US while producing growth will need to be marketed. That will bind him to the international market and subdue his instinct to shun others. That may be the only saving grace in protecting this world’s internationalism and free trade. Any wall that he might build will necessarily have to have very large windows. That doesn’t promise a smooth ride, but a ride it can still be.

Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com