Trade, North Korea, Iran: The dangers awaiting Trump

Barack Obama met with Donald Trump at the Oval Office on Thursday following his spectacular election upset on November 8. While the president-elect promptly promised to “put America’s interests first, but deal fairly with everyone”, many U.S. allies are nervous about what his win will mean for U.S. policy. That means he now has to begin a major campaign of re-assurance, and prepare for a host of challenges in a world full of potential danger.

Trump is starting to receive enhanced intelligence briefings and his in-tray is vast. In the Middle East, key offensives are underway against Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria. In Asia, political tensions are growing in South Korea, where President Park Geun-hye faces pressure to resign at the same time the nuclear standoff with North Korea has intensified. In Europe, the migration crisis is adding to concern in the continent over the future of the European Union post-Brexit.

One key area of uncertainty for allies is over Trump’s trade policy. He spoke out against agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during his campaign; it remains to be seen what specific posture he will take toward these deals. In particular, the presidentelect must decide how hard to push back if Obama decides, before his presidency ends in January, to have a fi- nal push at getting congressional passage of the controversial TPP. TPP, which may now be dead-on-arrival in Congress, is a massive trade deal with 11 other countries in the Americas and AsiaPacific (including Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Mexico) that account for about 40 percent of world GDP.

This will be a big early call for Trump given that many Republicans want the deal to entrench U.S. influence in Asia-Pacific in the face of a rising China. If TPP collapses, it will intensify doubts about U.S. leadership in the region, potentially undermining Trump’s leverage with some local allies on other key issues. The conundrums now confronting Trump aren’t limited to these issues. In- deed, there are some indicators that geopolitical risks are now at their highest level since the end of the Cold War.

Other foreign policy fault lines include tensions with China over the latter’s territorial claims in the South China Sea; continuing instability in Afghanistan and Libya, and the bleak prospects facing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Meanwhile, continuing hostilities in Ukraine means that Washington’s relations with Moscow are perhaps most strained than at any point since Soviet Communism’s collapse.

The bilateral relationship with Moscow under Trump will be a special source of scrutiny for many internationally. His relationship with Putin has been warm, rhetorically, and Trump has been criticized for calling NATO “obsolete”.

This world of dangers now facing Trump underlines how much the optimistic hopes of how the post-Cold War world might look have been dashed.

The vision of a universal order of liberal, capitalist, democratic states living in peace and contentment has been replaced by a reality in which authoritarian states such as Russia appear to many to be a growing force on the world stage; international terrorism remains a concern a decade and a half after 9/11, and unstable places like North Korea have acquired nuclear weapons.

Trump is among those critics of Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton who see these concerns as a result of weak leadership in Washington over almost eight years. This is an oversimplification.

To be sure, the United States remains the most powerful country in the world — certainly in a military sense. It can still project and deploy overwhelming force. However, despite some of his rhetoric during the campaign, Trump hopefully recognizes Washington is not, to use a piece of jargon from international relations, an all-powerful hegemonic power.

Trump and other unalloyed critics of Hillary Clinton and Obama also often fail to acknowledge that, while 2016 may be a year of high political risk, the current international landscape also contains opportunities for greater stability through careful international leadership. Donald Trump’s sensational win over media favourite Hillary Clinton has demonstrated beyond any doubt how the US elite and several top journalists were totally out of sync with the ground realities. The President-elect has proved all his detractors wrong by wresting the world’s biggest election and has in the process, in a single stroke, dealt a major body blow to deeply embedded vested interests in Washington, DC.

Trump’s momentous feat is an indication of the impending real change in the American power establishment and is an unmistakeable reiteration of the basic definition of democracy as propounded by Abraham Lincoln that an elected government has to be of the people, by the people and for the people. Evidently, the people who ensured Trump’s triumph were of the opinion that the true and accurate picture of what was happening in the country was not being reflected by top Republicans, Democrats, the Wall Street barons and the journalists, many of whom were running a victory lap for Hillary on the eve of polling day.

It is obvious to most observers of the US presidential poll that the media was by and large biased against the billionaire candidate and its overall reportage was more wishful than it was objective. It is to Trump’s credit that despite being hounded and ridiculed, he showed exemplary belief in the people of his country and did not deviate for a single moment from his objective of marching towards the White House.

The writing on the wall that Trump was not going to be a pushover and a weak nominee was clear when he emerged from a very tough Republican field to come out as the candidate of the Grand Old Party. In the process, he overcame resistance from the powerful Bush family, the 2008 and 2012 Presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney and other Republican voices such as Ted Cruz and Colin Powell, all of whom were convinced that the New Yorker was unfit to hold the highest office and had neither experience of the government, politics or statecraft. His brusque and rough demeanour rubbed people the wrong way and his limited vocabulary and play of words were both offensive as well as repulsive.

Equally complacent were the managers and supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, described by Barack Obama as the most qualified person to be President of the United States. The split in the Democratic Party was visible when many of those who supported Bernie Sanders decided not to back Clinton and accused her of manipulating the system to get the better of “their candidate”. Sanders had enjoyed considerable support from the young people and this segment did not transfer its allegiance to Hillary, costing her the election, which, at one stage, appeared to be in her pocket.

While it is for Hillary’s support staff to figure out what went wrong with her campaign, there is evidence to show that rural America was not enchanted by either her qualifications or by her promises. Unlike Trump, who spelt out his plans for the average American and listed out his priorities, Hillary spent more time in ridiculing her opponent, who often shot back using crass and undiplomatic language used most frequently in the business he has minted his money from.

In the aftermath of the extremely divisive contest, people have trooped out on the streets to reject Trump by proclaiming that he was not going to be their President. Things would quieten down once the emotions are brought under control and life begins on its normal course. Hillary has been gracious in extending her support to her rival in the best traditions of American democracy. Nonetheless, several of her supporters continue to have doubts over how Trump would lead the country, given that he had made some outrageous declarations during the campaign against certain countries and communities.

What needs to be understood is that many things are said in the heat of elections and the perspectives change once a person assumes responsibility and comprehends how the levers and mechanisms of power work. Trump may have never held any public office, but the fact that being amongst the most successful business tycoons in the US, he is well acquainted with the way governments work and has acquired an insight of the state scenario. He is expected to bring in fresh faces and new minds to Washington DC to replace the rusted machinery that has been serving the establishment, regardless of the party in power. He may not have the experience but has the will and the ability to succeed in his plans.

Trump has the potential of being the new Ronald Reagan, the 40th President regarded as the most outstanding occupant of the White House in the post World War era, even though many still feel that Richard Nixon was exceptional, but had to pay an enormous price for his alleged involvement in the Watergate scandal. Trump’s newness to Washington also suits those who play a significant role in behind the scene operations. He has definitely ruffled some feathers in the political class, yet he has found support from conservative America. The onus is on the President-elect to prove that he not only possesses a towering monetary wealth but a razor edged political mind as well. Between us.