Trump’s comeback

Donald Trump is back as the US president. As his comfortable victory margin has revealed, it wasn’t as neck and neck a fight as it was billed to be. This marks only the second time in American history that a leader has staged such a political comeback. A century ago, Democrat Grover Cleveland, the President between 1885 and 1889, failed to get re-elected and then won elections and again served between 1893 and 1897. But now the contest is portentously different. It is now a Republican president with political leanings verging on the far-right who has returned to power.

In his previous term, Trump had proved to be disruptive for the US and the world. At home, he adopted an America First policy that mainly sought to focus on the growth of the American economy. Geopolitically, his energies were focussed on containing China and to this end he launched a trade war with Beijing by raising tariffs on its exports to the US.  He sought to withdraw the US from its multilateral commitments,  straining even the military alliance like NATO and alienating the European Union, the bulwarks of the world order led by the US.

He refused to put the US weight  and money behind the United Nations, and as result, the profile of the world body correspondingly diminished. He even trashed  the multilateral agreements which the previous administrations had played an instrumental role to rally the world around. One such critical agreement was the Paris Climate accord. Trump unilaterally withdrew from it saying it was unfair to the US. He recognised Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and relocated the US embassy to the holy city, a far-reaching move rejected by most of the rest of the world.

However, more than a withdrawal from US global engagements and commitments, it was the US abandonment of the human rights discourse that was a source of great concern.This mortally detracted from the US moral high ground, denying it the legitimacy to lecture other countries on human rights and democracy.

Trump 2.0 could be more of the same. And given that this time he has a more decisive victory, he could choose to be much more disruptive. This triggers a deep sense of de javu. In a world of strongmen leaders who have bent their respective governance systems to pursue ideological agendas as well as accumulate personal power, Trump’s return to the driving seat in the US would only exacerbate the situation. It would potentially further encourage authoritarianism around the world.

It is true that the US hasn’t generally been a disinterested champion of democracy and human rights. More often than not, it has used their promotion to advance its foreign policy objectives. It has selectively condemned and acted against the countries straying from both. Currently, all of the US focus is on stonewalling China’s rise and its potential emergence as its global rival.  In pursuit of this grand objective, Washington has overlooked the excesses of its allies and instead built an elaborate discourse about the human rights situation in China and Russia.  The situation in Gaza has cast this hypocrisy in a much sharper relief.

The brutal war has made it clear, the US and the larger west uses democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, and equality of rights more as stratagems to perpetuate their power than practice them in good faith. The glaringly differential approach to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza has only further detracted from the credibility of the western-led order.  In a sense, the sharply contradictory positions towards the two wars has made the west’s position ludicrous. The position they take on Ukraine, they go against  on Gaza: For example,  Russia’s aggression in Ukraine becomes Israel’s right to self-defense in Israel. Killings of civilians in Ukraine is a crime against humanity, but those in Gaza are collateral damage.

Trump, on the other hand, has shown that he isn’t interested in the promotion of democracy or human rights and his engagement with other countries would rather be transactional.  At home, he has already declared his plan to check immigration, especially of Muslims, and deport illegal immigrants as well as rebuild the aborted wall alongside the border with Mexico. Globally, his focus is likely to be the containment of China raising the possibility that the trade war between the two might again come into play. As for the Ukraine war, he is expected to take steps to not just end it but also make up with Putin. But as for the war in the Middle East, he has made it clear that there will be no space for nuance in the US government's policy and it will be a full-on backing for Benjamin Netanyahu. What this will lead to is difficult to predict.

By: Ahmad Rizwan