In a month, Trump 2.0 has disrupted global trade, strained alliances, and pushed an "America First" agenda, altering world dynamics
In a month into his second term in office, US President Donald Trump has done more towards disrupting the world order than many leaders may have in a lifetime. Along the way he has also made it appear as if he can make a couple of wars go away though his motives are suspect in why he wants Ukraine to agree to a peace deal because his eye may be on that nation’s natural resources in rare metals.
In a flurry of executive orders that came at the speed of light, Trump rained distortion on global trade, showed utter disdain for expert opinions, appointed his favourites to carry out tasks in dealing with groups of people like federal workers, illegal immigrants and transgenders, and demonstrated hatred for a clutch of ideas like diversity, equity and inclusivity while not hiding his dislike for countries he thinks has been putting one over the US.
In sprinkling tariffs on friends and foes alike he may invite the very inflation on rising levels of which he vaulted to power. But, in his autocratic style, he has shown a willingness to overturn conventional wisdom on economics and politics to present his and his team’s own version of an alternate reality. If the present appears to be a dangerous moment for the world, so be it.
Trump has also done the unconventional in trying to bury the hatchet with Russia and Vladimir Putin while caring a lot less for the traditional allies of the US like the UK, the EU and fellow countries in US-led Nato. Seeing enemies in anyone and anything he considers antithetical to his point of view, Trump has pulled the US out of global institutions like WHO and reneged on the Paris accord and on the need to combat climate change.
A new order of things may have already been developing in a bipolar world in which China aspires to compete with the US, but what the US President is trying to impose is a Trump world order. This is reflected in his atavistic throwback to imperialism in his bluster for territory like Greenland and Canada and his zeal to take back control of the Panama Canal while eyeing the waterfront of the Gaza Strip like the real estate mogul from which avatar he metamorphosed into the leader of the free world.
In his engagements with the world, Trump has made it clear that the US would no longer fulfil treaties and commitments, including those that can be said to be in American interest, if he does not get the deals he is looking for, regardless of how deferential or dependent the other nation may have been in its dealings with the US.
At home, Trump is allowing wealthy private interests to influence, even run government policy, tearing asunder many institutions on the grounds of saving the government needless expenditure. America’s checks and balances and its set of rights and individual freedoms and promise of equal justice are clearly under threat. While that is a problem for the US, what a previously favoured trading nation like India must do is to find ways to get around this transactional president’s tactical moves in reciprocal trade matters.
A month under Trump 2.0 has seemed more like a year of cataclysmic events as he has turned Washington upside down and tries to redo the existing world order while inflicting pain on many old allies and strategic partners. Learning to live with Trump is going to be the biggest challenge, no matter that he is regarded as a maverick or an “America First” leader. And interesting times are just starting.
