His MAGA leitmotif rests on the idea that the US has been unfairly carrying the weight of the world, and has been taken for a ride. As in Trump 1.0, we’ll be looking at the US playing alpha shrinking violet, withdrawing from international agreements and organisations.
This will impact meeting shared goals. Yet, as both Trump and the world that includes China and India know, a consistently adversarial relationship is untenable. So, the world needs a playbook to deal with Trump 2.0 as it unfolds.
Unlike 2016, the world is wiser in dealing with the man. His mandate – and Republican strength in House and senate – also means having to not divide our attention too much when dealing with the US.
Ironically, the vacuum provided by a ‘less globalised’ US will provide the likes of China, and to a lesser extent Russia, more elbow room. That MAGA is really ‘Make China Great Again’ is a joke, but not quite ha-ha.
But Trump’s reputation as a maverick ‘outsider’ politician may well yield unexpected results. His policy of working according to Occam’s Razor – a problem-solving principle that suggests the simplest explanation is often the most likely to be correct – could throw up solutions in Ukraine, Israel and other ‘complex’ knot-spots currently invisible.The world will need to operate at two-speeds – one where it engages with the US; the other where it can function as an example of viable multilateralism. Whether the former track will draw strength from the latter or lead to schizophrenia is a prognostication too early to tell.