Shock and Awe

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has come at a critical juncture for the US and the wider world. At a time when America’s relative decline appears to be accelerating, Trump is intent on revitalising its economic and military security, even if it entails significant shifts in global trade and US foreign policy, including ending American entanglement in distant wars—from Ukraine to the Middle East.

A succession of US presidents, instead of underpinning America’s global pre-eminence and working to ensure that no peer competitor emerged, largely did the exact opposite, including squandering trillions of dollars in wars (from the Middle East to Afghanistan) and aiding China’s rise, creating the greatest adversary the US has ever faced.

Today, widespread discontent in American society is more than apparent. According to a new poll from the New York Times and Ipsos, most Americans say the US political system is broken (just 9 per cent of US adults believe the system is not broken). And more than two-thirds of Americans say the US economic system unfairly favours the wealthy. In fact, 72 per cent believe that the US government mostly works to benefit itself and the elites.

Reflecting that foul mood, the second Trump presidency seems determined to shake up both international relations and US policies and government institutions.

To what extent Trump is able to change the status quo will depend, however, on several factors, including the contending pulls and pressures from the US deep state, which weighed down his first presidency, including through the ‘Russia collusion’ hoax. Democratic Party leaders, including the electoral opponent he defeated, Hillary Clinton, never accepted Trump’s 2016 election victory and, with the help of the deep state, set out to delegitimise his presidency by spinning a false tale of his campaign’s collusion with Russia.

It took a 22-month investigation by a special counsel to establish that there was no evidence to indicate that Trump’s campaign had conspired with the Russians. Yet the long shadow of the Russia ‘collusion’ narrative stayed over Trump’s entire first term in office—and made Russia (to China’s relief) the prime US focus.

Today, Trump’s return to the Oval Office remains anathema to the deep state, whose tentacles extend to the mainstream national media. But unlike in 2017 when he entered the White House with little political experience and a narrow electoral mandate, Trump is in a strong position now, having won the presidential election handsomely to implement his agenda, including reforming institutions and policies and imposing targeted tariffs on imports. He has returned to office after learning a lot of lessons.

After his election victory, Trump signalled his intent to not just end the status quo of Washington but execute a “seismic shift” in governance. The Republican Party majority in the US Congress is today more loyal to Trump than it was in 2017.

In this light, it will be more difficult for the deep state to hobble his presidency. But that does not preclude deep-state machinations against his moves or plans in an effort to crimp his political space for action disliked by entrenched interests.

The US remains bitterly polarised, with half the country having an aversion to Trump. And the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is so narrow that just a couple of GOP lawmakers can frustrate any Trump-backed move.

Against this backdrop, Trump will have to use his political capital judiciously to pursue initiatives that have popular support. And if “the golden age of America” is to truly begin, as he wants, the new president will have to devise forward-looking policies.

In his inaugural address, Trump declared, “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier.” He also said that he would “build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end—and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

Those are wise words given how the US in this century has sapped its strength and undercut its global pre-eminence through involvement in costly wars, including the raging proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.

If the US, to quote Trump, is to be “respected again and admired again” by the rest of the world, it will have to focus on bolstering its strength at home.

But even before Trump returned to the White House, his public remarks about buying Greenland from its colonial master Denmark, taking over the Panama Canal, and making Canada a US state created international ripple effects. The expansionist instinct was not absent from Trump’s inaugural speech, in which he said his administration was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and taking back the Panama Canal.

It is unclear how Trump intends to take back the Panama Canal, whose control the US ceded to Panama. In the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977, which ended the American control of the canal, there is no provision that can allow the US to reclaim that waterway.

The speech, to be sure, made no mention of Greenland. But the notion of purchasing Greenland has appealed to the real estate developer in Trump since his first term in office, when he abruptly cancelled a scheduled visit to Denmark after the Danish prime minister made clear that Greenland was not for sale. Buying Greenland would increase the size of the US by more than 20 per cent.

Trump has a habit of musing aloud about various foreign policy issues. Such public ponderings can discomfit even US allies and strategic partners. Indeed, by cultivating an image of an unpredictable leader who likes to send conflicting signals, Trump can only encourage US allies and partners to hedge their strategic bets.

 

HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING

Trump’s new presidency has begun with a bang with a plethora of presidential orders—from announcing America’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) to declaring a national emergency along the southern border with Mexico on grounds that “America’s sovereignty is under attack.”

Trump quickly unveiled a series of policy reversals. And more sweeping actions are to follow. Indeed, his first 100 days in office promise to be “shock and awe” as he seeks to remake the government so that, as he put it, “the curtain closes on four long years of American decline.”

Unlike in January 2017, Trump this time was well prepared to hit the ground running after the inauguration ceremony.

After his November 2016 election win, Trump spent weeks interviewing prospective candidates for cabinet jobs and then appointing rank outsiders like Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis to key positions. This time Trump wasted little time in assembling his national security team, made up largely of Washington insiders like Marco Rubio, Michael Waltz and John Ratcliffe. And he assembled an economic policy team that would please Wall Street, with US stocks hitting one new high after another.

Former President Joe Biden’s national security team largely comprised “liberal interventionists”—essentially, hawks on the left. By contrast, many on the right, especially those that hew to Trump’s “America First” vision, can be considered non-interventionists (or, as their critics call them, “isolationists”).

Trump’s non-interventionism, however, has not excluded occasional use of force, such as his order that killed General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, in Baghdad in January 2020.

In the Republican Party, there has been increasing marginalisation of the “neocons” who were once dominant in President George W Bush’s administration. After the backlash over Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq and the subsequent rise of the “America First” movement, the neocons have largely gravitated to the Democratic Party, which is more hawkish on foreign policy.

Some in Trump’s national security team (like Rubio and Waltz) may have in the past espoused foreign military interventions to bring about regime change but, in more recent years, they have aligned their positions with Trump’s “America First” doctrine, including that there is no free lunch.

Waltz, for example, has espoused a national security vision in recent years that increasingly has been in sync with Trump’s. As a member of the House committees on the armed services, intelligence and foreign affairs, he castigated NATO allies for failing to meet their military spending commitments. He was a vocal critic of Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which made the Taliban great again.

Rubio and Waltz are both tough on China, including supporting a more hardline economic approach towards Beijing. However, the treasury secretary, commerce secretary and trade representative are likely to be more influential in shaping Trump’s tariff and trade policy towards China.

Of late, though, Trump has sent conflicting signals on his approach to China. Trump reportedly would like to travel to China before any other country or invite Chinese President Xi Jinping to the US. Trump had invited Xi to his inauguration but the Chinese leader sent Vice President Han Zheng instead. On the eve of his inauguration, Trump spoke by phone with Xi, saying “the call was a very good one for both China and the USA,” adding that Xi and he would “do everything possible to make the world more peaceful and safe.”

Trump’s courtship of China’s dictator in search of a diplomatic deal will be closely watched, as it will have a bearing on America’s Asia policy, including relations with Tokyo and New Delhi. There has long been talk of a US-China diarchy (a G-2) ruling the world. It was striking that Trump came to the rescue of TikTok after its ban took effect.

Trump’s moves may constitute an initial gambit as part of a process to firm up his second-term China policy.

It should not be forgotten that since his first term, Trump has been popular in large parts of the Indo-Pacific region for standing up to China. His political incorrectness has been seen as both refreshing and principled in places as diverse as Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Australia. Even within China, Trump has drawn respect from those concerned about Xi’s increasingly arbitrary rule. Many Asians have believed that a swaggering bully in the White House could help tame Xi’s aggressive expansionism.

Biden, meanwhile, has bequeathed several foreign policy challenges to Trump, from the Ukraine war to the new strains in ties with India. Trump may be able to restore the momentum in ties with India but his search for diplomatic deals with America’s adversaries will not be easy, including with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

If Trump helps end the Ukraine war, as he has promised to do, the US will finally be able to pivot to the Indo-Pacific, the world’s emerging economic and geopolitical hub. The new world order will be determined in the Indo-Pacific, not in Europe or the Middle East.

Trump may like to clinch nuclear deals with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Iran’s ayatollahs, but it seems unlikely that Pyongyang or Tehran would be willing to genuinely surrender or constrict its nuclear card. But it is almost certain that Trump will demand that American allies in Europe and Asia do more for their own defence, including increasing payments to the US for the upkeep of American troops on their soil.

 THE PRESIDENT’S MIND

Trump has completely upended traditional ideas about leadership and politics. His complex personality, which blends refreshing candour with deliberate combativeness, braggadocio and grandiosity, is likely to shape his second presidency, just as it defined his first term in office. Trump’s personality profile and leadership style may well explain his rhetoric, tactics, deal-making proclivity and emphasis on legacy-building.

But what stands out about Trump in particular is that he isn’t scripted like his predecessor, Joe Biden, or many other politicians across the world. In fact, as his freewheeling speeches and news conferences underscore, he likes to speak extempore or even from the heart.

Some of Trump’s remarks and statements may bear the hallmarks of political bombast, but he also at times displays notable candour and honesty. For example, in a February 2017 interview with Fox News, President Trump responded to the statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “killer” by suggesting that the record of American leaders was no better. “There are a lot of killers, we’ve got a lot of killers,” he said, adding, “You think our country’s so innocent?”

Likewise, he famously said at a 2020 White House news conference that the “top people in the Pentagon” want to “do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. But we’re getting out of the endless wars.”

That statement echoed President Dwight D Eisenhower’s warning about the US “military-industrial complex”. In a farewell address just before President John F Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, Eisenhower, a former military general, warned that “the immense military establishment” had joined with “a large arms industry” and was capable of acquiring “unwarranted influence” on American policy.

Trump has never been afraid to tell the truth bluntly, when nobody else will. When he first decided to enters politics and run for president, he said the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was a big mistake and that “China is taking over the world”. During an Asian tour as president, Trump urged every country to put its own interests first, and emphasised that each nation should be “its own bright star, satellites to none.”

While railing against “endless wars”, Trump ended his first term as the first US president since Jimmy Carter not to start a new war. Trump sent no troops to fight abroad. Instead, he sought to strengthen America’s deterrent posture and end allies’ free rides without being overtly interventionist.

The volatile Middle East moved towards stability as the US under Trump not only started no new war but brokered agreements—known as the Abraham Accords—to normalise Israel’s relations with Bahrain and the UAE. Trump later announced that Morocco and Sudan would also initiate rapprochements with Israel. In exchange, the US delisted Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism and recognised Morocco’s claim to the disputed region of Western Sahara.

It was Trump who, in his first term, brought about a paradigm shift in America’s China policy. Trump was the first US president in over four decades to simultaneously bash China on three fronts: trade, military and ideology.

Ending the 45-year US policy from the Richard Nixon era to aid China’s economic rise, Trump’s administration reclassified China as an adversary and initiated moves to quietly contain that communist giant. The Trump policy approach towards China largely continued under Biden, although the latter was more conciliatory towards Beijing.

In other words, Trump’s paradigm policy shift on China proved his most lasting legacy from the first term.

Trump may stand up for his beliefs but his personal traits and characteristics also bare his personality flaws, including narcissism and a love for flattery. He is also given to exaggeration, but it is largely about topics that do not matter, like how big was the crowd at his 2017 inauguration.

Furthermore, Trump is known to often talk tough, like a bully. But his tough talk, by and large, does not translate into action.

Consider his provocative Iran policy during the first term, including withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, re-imposing sanctions that had been withdrawn by his predecessor and assassinating by drone strike the general heading the Quds Force. Yet Trump was reluctant to involve the US in another war in the Middle East by taking on Iran directly.

Trump’s threats, as the record shows, do not easily intimidate foreign governments, especially if he is unwilling to put his money where his mouth is. Remember, for example, when Trump threatened “fire and fury” in 2017 unless North Korea halted its nuclear-weapons programme? Addressing the UN General Assembly for the first time, Trump even threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if the US was “forced to defend itself or its allies.”

But just months later, Trump met Kim Jong Un in Singapore in 2018 in the first-ever US-North Korean summit, with their joint declaration steering the bilateral relationship from confrontation to cooperation. The following year, Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot in North Korea, crossing the Demilitarized Zone for a brief meeting with Kim.

When Trump’s threats centre on more realistic action, such as slapping trade tariffs or stepping up or putting on hold military support to an ally, he is able to win through intimidation.

Even before he was sworn in as president, Trump helped secure a Gaza ceasefire deal by warning that there would be “all hell to pay” if the hostages were not freed by his inauguration day—a threat aimed at not only Hamas but also Israel.

And through his pre-inauguration threat to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian exports to the US, Trump precipitated a crisis in Canada’s governing Liberal Party that proved the last straw for the deeply unpopular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who decided to resign. In fact, Canada has announced a slew of border-security measures to address Trump’s two main concerns—illegal border crossings by migrants and the smuggling of illegal firearms and drugs into the US.

More fundamentally, Trump treats diplomacy as essentially transactional in nature and often employs the tactics he outlined in his 1987 memoir-cum-business playbook, Trump: The Art of the Deal. “A little hyperbole never hurts,” he wrote of his deal-making, which he said could also be advanced through some flattery, cajoling and hardball tactics, including pummelling.

In his search for deals, Trump has not hesitated to flatter foreign leaders, including dictators, even as his threats remain barely disguised.

But Trump basically is a pragmatist. For all his thunderous criticism of China as an economic predator, Trump did not impose any sweeping trade sanctions against it in his first term. Instead, he chose to employ the tariff card against China, while sprinkling some flattery on Xi, including calling him a “terrific guy”.

Trump’s unpredictability might perturb Beijing but it loves his mercantile, transactional approach to foreign policy, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also likes to cut deals. In fact, assertive mercantilism is a central leitmotif of the CCP foreign policy.

Trump does not have age on his side: He will be 82 at the end of his current term. Just a few months ago, he survived an assassination attempt with a bullet ripping through his ear. As he said in his inaugural speech, “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

So, Trump will be in a hurry to build a powerful legacy before his time is up, including by challenging political orthodoxy in Washington.

Asia policyChinaDonald Trump Inauguration ceremonygeopoliticsKim Jong-UnNorth KoreaUS diplomacyXi Jinping