Can Trump Make America Great Again? – OpEd

Allies and supporters of the United States who praise it as the champion of democracy, freedom and human rights will now be rushing to join the media queue to congratulate the incoming president.

In their public messaging, they are likely to extol the outcome as yet another example of American exceptionalism and a role model for the countries of the world they regard as autocratic and necessary to bring down to uphold their definition of democracy and the western rule of law.

Privately though, they will be feeling and reacting differently. They are also likely to be very afraid of what will now follow.

The explanation is not far to find. Though portrayed in Western media as offering vastly different visions of the US for the next four years as well as being diametrically opposed in their foreign policy objectives, both Harris and Trump concur in adherence to the slogan made famous by Trump: that is to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA). It is a slogan which Democrat party leaders embrace just as strongly but would rather not let the rest of the world be aware of or knowledgeable about.

How Will MAGA impact US Foreign Policy?

Post election, Trump can be expected to push the MAGA foreign policy agenda hard and at the expense of the interests and concerns of the rest of the world. MAGAs foreign policy impact will be felt not only by countries which the US sees as rivals and enemies – China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Serbia, Venezuela, Belarus and others. It will also inflict costs on allies including Canada, European Union nations, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and a few others such as the Philippines previously provided with generous financial and military support by a moneyed and powerful benefactor which is now relatively impoverished and less influential.

Countries not hitched to the American ideological bandwagon that see themselves as independent such as Mexico, India and Vietnam will find that sitting on the fence in the next four years will be much less comfortable as the new US president will not shield or spare them from the looming policy changes in trade, economy, finance, immigration, security, climate change and wherever else he sees as important and necessary to uplift the US and stem its decline.

Earlier in July, the Economist drew up a table ranking the vulnerability of various countries likely to be impacted by a new Trump presidency’s core policies. The table, The Trump Risk Index, assessed the exposure and vulnerability of America’s 70 largest trading partners to potential policy changes. No similar table was drawn up for a Harris presidency indicating that the newspaper had doubts on her possible victory.

Increasingly, we find that liberal and conservative American analysts – both now recognizing that the US is in an existential crisis – are converging in support of MAGA to be the focus of US foreign policy.

The crisis, a long developing one, exposes not only the deep divisions within American society with equal numbers on Republican and Democrat sides of the political fence in disagreement on the domestic policy reforms that the country badly needs. It also brings to attention the current status of the US described by Trump as “a failing country”. It is a description that some Americans have taken umbrage with but which many Democrat supporters agree on too whilst denouncing the Republican and Trumpian rhetoric and record on failing to improve the state of the nation.

What is perhaps most unsettling is that the disorder and instability in the US may see the new President become more reliant on US military superiority to ensure American dominance in global geopolitics. The US military might again be called upon to underpin the foreign policy actions needed to make America great again.

Is a last hurrah coming to ensure that the US continues its defence of the unipolar world that it has shaped and imposed on the rest of the world and which the western military-industrial-media complex is fixated on preserving?

Leaders around the world will be hoping that President Trump will work to ensure that the US plays a key role in upholding and championing the much impaired and endangered cause of peaceful coexistence.