Editorial Comment:

Anyone who thought Donald Trump would resile from the rhetoric of his campaign as he took up the reins of office will have been taken aback by the new President’s unapologetic inaugural address. We were told he would adopt a more emollient tone to heal the wounds of the most divisive election campaign for many years. Not a bit of it. If anything, the nativist and protectionist inclinations that propelled him to last November’s unexpected victory have been amplified. His America First doctrine, implied by his candidacy and last articulated 70 years ago by Charles Lindbergh in an attempt to keep the US out of the Second World War, is now explicitly the watchword of his government.

This was what his supporters had gathered in their thousands to hear, and to some extent the concept is hardly controversial: after all, which leader would not promise to act in his own country’s interests? But for outsiders this was an unsettling speech that seemed to presage the emergence of an inward-looking, isolationist America. The democratic world will be a poorer and more dangerous place if the US retreats from the responsibilities and obligations that have been accepted by every president since the Fifties.

In addition, Mr Trump mercilessly hit out at the Washington Establishment sitting around him on the steps of the Capitol building, bluntly telling the four former presidents present that they had promised much and failed to deliver anything. That message will find a resonance around the world. Many millions will recognise his depiction of the professional politicians who look after themselves and their friends but do nothing for the voters who put them into power. “The people have become the rulers of this nation again – the forgotten will be forgotten no longer.” There will be a lot of very disappointed voters four years from now if those words turn out to be empty as well.

But President Trump, at 70 the oldest first-time occupant of the White House, was adamant that he would not let them down and would take every decision for the benefit of America and its people. Mr Trump has promised “to make America great again”; yet voters are bitterly divided over what that greatness entails and he made no attempt to reach out to the other side. The protests that accompanied the swearing-in ceremony showed that a section of the US electorate will never be reconciled to a Trump presidency.

This was an inauguration like no other, not least because Mr Trump is a president like no other. He was elected on a Republican ticket but he is not a Republican by ideology or even instinctively. Indeed, he was once considered a Democrat and his party did not even want him to be the candidate. If anything, he is the first independent nationalist president since the 19th century. He does not fit easily into any political category. His promise to embark on a huge fiscal stimulus to create jobs has echoes of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Yet his intention to cut government programmes and reform taxes recalls Ronald Reagan.

For all his braggadocio, Mr Trump will have his work cut out getting his ambitious programme through Congress. Even though there is a Republican majority in both Houses, he has enemies in the party who refused to endorse his candidacy and are waiting to thwart his ambitions if there is something they do not like. His formidable inbox will test his skills as a deal-maker. But above all, that is what makes him different from past presidents: his lifetime’s work has involved striking bargains. It is no coincidence that many members of his Cabinet are, like himself, drawn from the worlds of commerce and finance and will, in the words of the new president, “get the job done”. We shall see.

For the rest of the world watching events in Washington, the big uncertainty is what America First means for foreign policy. His immediate challenges are what to do about Russia, China, North Korea and Syria. Eastern European countries are nervous about his apparent admiration for Vladimir Putin, but if he can forge a better relationship with Moscow that eases tensions in the region, Mr Trump’s supporters say that can only be a good thing.

He wants a better trading deal with China, yet must avoid a damaging tit-for-tat protectionist war since that will benefit no one. The new President has also been unenthusiastic about Nato, suggesting European countries should contribute more to their own defence, as indeed they must. But the US alliance with Europe’s democracies has been the bedrock of post-war freedom and must not be abandoned.

It was fitting that President Trump chose My Way as the song for the first dance at the inauguration ball in Washington last night. If ever a new president has made it to the White House his way, it is Mr Trump. How long he can keep doing things his way remains to be seen.

There will be a lot of very disappointed voters four years from now if his words turn out to be empty

For the rest of the world, the big uncertainty is what America First means for foreign policy