Donald Trump’s surprise election as president has generated unprecedented controversy and contestation across the US. The protests against Trump can be explained on two counts. First, the people had chosen, though by a small margin, Hillary Clinton as their president. But in line with a peculiarity of the US electoral system, it is the candidate with the majority of the electoral college of 578 who becomes the winner. The second reason is more profound. Too many people are scared of Trump’s anti-people agenda for his first hundred days as president.
Trump had persistently claimed that the system was rigged and the establishment as well as the media were heavily tilted against him. In view thereof, his supporters had threatened to reject the outcome and launch a protest movement if Trump was not elected. It turned out that in spite of the media, the establishment and a majority of the people being against him, he won the poll as in this instance the system was ‘rigged’ in his favour. The protests against him started spontaneously because he is opposed to the core values of the US constitution, above all the equality of people irrespective of their colour, gender or religion.
Trump was not the only one making claims which proved to be untrue. Barack Obama had to eat his words since he had repeatedly described Donald Trump as being unfit to be the US president and commander-in-chief. He had to invite Trump to work out the modalities of the world’s biggest political transition. Having served two terms as head of the world’s leading power, Obama had failed to recognise that almost anything is possible in this world.
There was really no need for the 44th president to be so dismissive of his potential successor. He too was taken in by the opinion polls showing Hillary in a comfortable lead, and appears to have missed the point that the country’s election laws make it possible to lose in terms of popular vote and yet win the presidency on the strength of electoral votes.
In hindsight, it can be said that the more Obama fustigated about Trump’s inadequacies, the more determined the latter’s supporters became to ensure that Obama’s favourite candidate did not receive the mandate to stretch the Democrats’ hold on the White House for four more years. A more balanced approach by the sitting president would have saved him from the embarrassment he faces today. Obama has tried to rectify his miscalculation by offering all cooperation to bring about a smooth transition.
Obama’s bravado still pales in comparison to Trump’s outrageous pronouncements against so many groups and communities and his rhetoric about making America great ‘again’. If Obama underestimated Trump’s potential, the latter overestimates his capacity to rebuild systems in a country of 320 million with a global reach. Economists are better qualified to tell us if Trump will quietly give up his unrealistic plans or go headlong to sink the US under mountains of debt.
Trump will be far more powerful than his Democrat predecessor by virtue of the Republican Party’s control of the US Congress. He may not need to spend most of his time in cajoling members of Congress to push his legislative agenda. His problems lie elsewhere.
Trump released a plan for his first hundred days in office last month, one which can potentially lead to dramatic consequences. He pledged to cancel all ‘unconstitutional’ executive orders Obama had to issue in the face of an obstructionist Congress. These include creation of the Syrian refugee programme, regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, and halting the deportations of illegal immigrant children. He also vowed to repeal Obamacare which would strip over 20 million Americans of their health insurance. Chinese and Mexican imports would be slapped with tariffs of 45 and 35 percent respectively. Trump pledged to deport two million illegal immigrants, build a wall on the Mexican border and cut payments to UN climate change programmes.
Reacting to Trump’s victory, Senator Bernie Sanders said that Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages and not being able to afford a college education for their kids – while the very rich become much richer.
Sanders stated that “to the degree that Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
Sanders and his supporters believe that Trump could have been beaten with their progressive agenda as the people are frustrated with the establishment’s economic policies to serve interests of the rich and the corporate sector. Hillary was the typical establishment politician that has ruled the US over the decades.
Trump promised to follow a tougher posture in foreign relations. If he were to follow his campaign declarations, economic considerations would override geopolitics. Obama’s ‘Pivot Asia’ led to a comprehensive plan of containment against China with India as a counterweight. Trump’s agenda includes getting tough on China in trade and industry to make imports from China more costly and efforts to bring back jobs lost in globalisation.
China countered the containment plan by pursuing a new ‘One Belt, One Road’ project with a remarkable economic corridor through Pakistan thus creating a new opening towards the Arabian Sea and beyond.
Trump had made some strident remarks against Pakistan in the early stages of his election campaign. He later modified those by sounding more positive about Pakistan. A high-ranking Pakistani diplomat says that the US has to work with Pakistan regardless of who occupies the White House. This compulsion has more to do with Pakistan’s geographical position next to Afghanistan which has been in the throes of war for almost 40 years.
Traditionally, Pakistan has had a better understanding with the Republican administrations in dealing with a perennially complex situation in Afghanistan. The eight years of the outgoing Democratic administration were perhaps the toughest period in Pak-US relations. It is to be hoped that, despite Trump’s fascination with things Indian, he will follow a realistic policy with Pakistan as an important country in the region and an active player in global multilateral forums.
Email: saeed.saeedk@gmail.com
