The Thousand Days of Donald Trump

IT MAY COME as a minor surprise or indeed major relief to status-quoist readers to discover that on a bitterly cold Monday, 78-year-old Donald John Trump was sworn in as president of the United States of America and not president of the Disunited States of the World.

Every so often history throws up a leader whose personality becomes policy. When such dynamism propels a superpower, exceptionalism drives national policy and disruption becomes the means; or, in a more colourful phrase already in circulation, the impossible becomes the new normal. The strong live by their own law. When a giant is enraged, it becomes strategy; a pygmy’s anger is mere petulance.

Donald Trump is happy to use his persona to advance his perception of America’s interests. The impact has been immediate, particularly among the unlikely. Among the early knee-benders is Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani), the current caretaker of Syria in a fragile polity. Al-Sharaa’s alumni association includes Al Qaeda and his political party Hayat Tahrir al-Sham might still be on some Washington terrorist list, but he is anxious for reinvention as a placebo. Having seized Damascus from pro-Russian Bashar al-Assad he is now “confident that Trump is the leader to bring peace to the Middle East and restore stability to the region.” We must welcome penitence, not scoff at it.

American power does not need advertising. One gesture, a single domestic decision, can induce international ramifications below eye-level. Trump’s order to “drill, baby drill” will have more impact on American policy towards Russia than a dozen conferences, for any consequent energy glut will result in the fall of Russian oil prices, affecting Moscow’s financial resources needed for war and a buoyant internal economy.

Trump uses turbulence to create calm on Trump’s terms. He does not seek turmoil for bravado, since that will not help his primary goal of a better American economy. Trump is larger than life, but he is not larger than America. He is not walking away from the world or indeed the World Health Organization (WHO); he is asking for return on investment by his metric. Change the decision-makers of WHO and collect your cheque, which pays for 18 per cent of the organisation’s expenses. If you want the exact lines, here they are: “WHO ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore.” My way, or the cashless highway. Watch out for the big test: what happens at the World Bank, which became a Woke Bank under a Democrat acolyte.

Speechwriters like gilding the lily. Trump repeated a tired cliché in his inaugural address, which was uncharacteristic; if Trump uses a cliché, it is not tired. He said that America’s golden age had begun. But when since 1945 has America had a silver age? Even during its worst decades, during the instability after Vietnam, Henry Kissinger kept the key to the world’s battlefields in his office cupboard. The danger is obvious, for all power has a perimeter. Trump will have to hone his ability to harmonise with America’s capability.

His inclinations belong to a well-known philosophy of governance famously articulated by the first American president of the 20th century. An intellectually elegant publication like Open does not use a certain word unless discussing cricket or football, so we shall have to censor Teddy Roosevelt’s maxim: “When you’ve got them by the… their hearts and minds will follow.” ‘Them’ is deceptive, for the term includes friends.

The squeals in the first days are loudest in allied capitals. Just in case you have had amnesia, Trump has already declared a non-military war against America’s allies in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canada and Mexico, to absorb the first and push back the second. Europe’s leaders are providing daily evidence of a known fact, that they have forgotten how to mobilise. For two generations they have been growing affluent under America’s expensive security umbrella without paying any fee for protection. Trump wants the money so he can spend it on Americans. That is why he won the election. The spectacle must be amusing if you are watching from Moscow or Beijing or Tehran, although they know that the prologue could soon give way to drama.

Russia and China have established contact with Trump. China has been skilful. President Xi Jinping has already had a conversation with Trump even after declining to attend the inaugural ceremony, which is a plus for his diplomats. It is quite probable that they agreed upon the terms for saving TikTok; and Trump’s public threats to impose tariffs on China now hover around 10 per cent rather than 20 per cent. The date and structure of a meeting with Vladimir Putin are being negotiated. Trump has good memories of Putin, and no longer need worry about voicing an inappropriate sentiment: “I got along with him great, I would hope he wants to make a deal.” Putin hopes so, too, while Ukraine’s daily-statement president is now pleading for a deal along what he calls the 2022 borders. The more seasoned players in Moscow and Beijing are watching, waiting, and consulting each other through video conferences. They will not have to wait too long, for Trump is a president in a hurry.

The hurry is rational. Donald Trump has only a thousand days of power left in his bank.

There are about 1,200 days left before the next presidential election, after which the incumbent is left to sit, increasingly bereft of officials or companions, in the anteroom of history. More than 200 days are lost in the fog of democracy, which is darker and more acrimonious than the fog of war. The most powerful man in the world suddenly loses muscle not because he has been defeated by an opponent but because he has been incapacitated by time.

The Ukraine war, stability in West Asia, relations with China and draining the Washington swamp of Biden-Obama Democrats are clearly the three immediate priorities of Donald Trump. He is confrontationist, not a diplomat. He believes that the Biden government was the most “radical and corrupt establishment” in Washington, and has nudged Republicans into ordering an inquiry against Biden’s alleged corruption.

You can always photograph change. It sits on faces. Take another look at the photographs of political celebrities gathered to celebrate transition. Check the faces when the artificial bonhomie is over, when there is no need to smile for the cameras. Michelle Obama went away on a long holiday because she knew that the cameras would snap out her pain and anger.

How much has Barack Obama, virtual president during the Biden administration, aged in 11 weeks? How much younger has Trump become? Power is the mirror image you can barely recognise.

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