After a tumultuous presidential election, the world is yet watching cautiously for the emerging contours of the new Donald Trump presidency which officially begins next January.
Unlike previous incoming Presidents of the United States of America, the election of Donald Trump causes more confusion rather than clarifying how the new America will behave on the world stage. This is because of the immense policy gap between the candidate, Trump, and the Republican Party which he is supposed to represent. The gap is at the very fundamentals of policy – from global free trade to multi-culturalism to immigration to US strategic alliances.
Throughout his election campaign, Trump presented a slew of simplistic policy statements or, what appeared to be ‘policy’; certainly ‘policy’ that enamoured him to a significant voter segment. However, almost all of these ‘policy’ pronouncements were far away from what is traditionally espoused by the Republican Party, indeed, from the very mainstream of US political discourse - even the Democratic Party!
When Trump said he would trash the North Atlantic Free Trade Area (NAFTA), he was way out of step with the entirety of the US policy mainstream. Only those in the far Right and the hard Left of American politics are against NAFTA. His promise to renege on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is at variance with the global trade outlook of both major parties, especially his Republican Party. His public threat to slap a 45 per cent duty on Chinese exports to the US did alarm Beijing, but wisely the Chinese leadership has adopted a ‘wait-and-see’ stance.
His threat to withdraw US support for long tried and tested key military-strategic alliances such as NATO and, bilateral military alliances with Japan and South Korea and Taiwan, not only shocked and outraged those long allied states but also exasperated his own political party.
Thus, the fact that the Republican candidate will now reside in the White House does not clarify matters for America’s friends or enemies or neutral onlookers (if any). None can simply read up the Party ‘Policy Platform 2016’ and get an idea how the new US presidency will perform.
Nevertheless, many outside America who are familiar with American political style are doing just that. “When it comes to the US presidential election, there has always been a difference between campaign rhetoric and post-election policies,” one senior columnist in the China Daily points out. On this basis, this analyst argues that neither the NAFTA nor the yet-to-be-ratified TPP will be scrapped.
Another Chinese analyst agrees, pointing out that both Republican as well as Democratic presidents have in the past proceeded to retain these and other vital international economic arrangements even though they strongly criticised those arrangements while in Opposition or during election campaigns.
Future trends
More importantly, many Asian observers have chosen to trust the Republican Party ‘Platform 2016’ as the only indicator of future trends.
The Republican Party Platform 2016 promises to be even more tough on Russia than the Obama administration has been. At the same the Republican Party remains strongly committed to the principles of global free trade. And it should be – the advantages of global free trade are heavily weighted in favour of the US and all major capitalist powers. NAFTA and TPP embody such free trade doctrine.
What annoyed some Americans was that these advantages are no longer benefitting the traditional capitalist powers but also the newly emergent giant, China and, in future, new powers like India and Brazil. It was this short-sighted bias by less-aware Americans that Trump exploited with his equally short-sighted (but duplicitous) demagoguery to win votes.
In fact, as one Chinese analyst notes, the TPP – which leaves out India and China - was driven by the US and will benefit the US most. Thus, even if a misguided Trump blunders his way into withdrawing from the TPP will certainly help small TPP partners to establish their markets and exports better while also leaving more space for emerging China.
But many Asian as well as watchers from other parts of world look at the US presidency as being part of a complex US state-system that is solidly entrenched and necessarily so if the US is to continue as a world power. Thus, quite contrary to Trump’s own boast that he will reform or even replace the ‘Washington establishment’, watchers worldwide expect the reverse to happen.
Both Chinese and Japanese analysts see the US state-system for what it is and expect it to largely absorb Trump into the tried and tested structures of policy-making. They note that the Republican Party continues to control the Senate as well as the House of Representatives, thereby ‘encircling’ (as one Chinese commentator put it) the Trump presidency. The experienced politicians they are, the Republican lawmakers are expected to crowd out any Trump-sponsored newcomers to the Washington scene. After all, being not just newcomers to Washington, many of Trump’s protégés are also, like Trump himself, newcomers to politics and government as a whole.
Nevertheless, the general tone of American politics seems now to weigh heavily towards preoccupation with domestic issues. Indeed, as one Chinese commentator points out, if Trump attempts to implement his promised domestic policies, that will create enough local tumult to demand more governmental attention to matters domestic rather than international.
Power rival
For China, this domestic preoccupation by what it sees as its main global power rival, only serves to create more space for it to spread its wings. After all, just a few centuries ago, China considered itself as the ‘centre of the world’ and sees itself today as regaining that lost recognition.
Hence, a US more reluctant to intervene internationally will reduce its attention to regions beyond the American continents. “Trump may choose to spend less on projecting US power in the Asia-Pacific region and use the funds and resources so saved to fight terrorism in the Middle East and address domestic woes,” one Chinese analyst notes. This, he says, will enable China to manage its own neighbouring regions better in consultation with regional countries minus the big-power presence of the US. The current South China Sea control issue is one key regional matter.
Beijing seems to relish an American toning down of the Obama administration’s ‘Asian pivot’ strategy which the Chinese correctly see as a US strategy of containing a newly expansive China.
Meanwhile, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea can only wring their hands in uncertainty and watch the emerging contours of a new US outlook towards an East Asia once dominated by them but now overlooked by their giant neighbour. All three countries have historic enmities with China and, today, are dependent more than ever on their strong military alliances with the US.
Even if Trump breezily (and utterly irresponsibly) encourages them to join in the nuclear arms race, none of them can hope to compete with China. Worse, Seoul certainly does not want to ‘race’ with the speedster in Pyongyang who is ever ready to pop a nuclear test virtually every few months! For these staunch US allies, it is their hope that the Washington insiders – reviled by Trump – will finally work their way round Trumpish antics and ensure a continuity of the currently solid military partnerships.
Farewell tour
At least Europe had the comfort of a ‘farewell tour’ by outgoing President Obama recently in which the President had the unusual additional task of reassuring his European friends and colleagues that what they heard on the presidential campaign trail is not what they will get from the incoming Republican presidency.
New Delhi is also uncertain about the Trump presidency. The ruling BJP may have found some affinity with the raw ethno-supremacism of the Trump election campaign, but New Delhi is also weighing the pros and cons.
If, for example, a more withdrawing Washington goes soft on the nuclear control regime, would that make it easier for Pakistan to compete with India in a nuclear race? Of course, many Indians are not aware that Pakistan simply does not have the capacity to build itself up as a nuclear power. This may be why most serious Indian commentators are yet holding back from rushing to conclusions on Trump.
Certainly, Delhi expects the Republican presidency to be less tough on human rights issues and such niceties, unlike a Democratic one. And currently Delhi is basking in America’s newfound preference for stable India over an unruly Pakistan.
But as a Muslim country, Pakistan is yet a vital cog in the war against Islamist insurgency in a way India can never be. Thus Islamabad will continue also to benefit from its US link.
At the same time, any severe Trump hostility to Iran will undermine India’s growing ties with Teheran – a useful ally in Pakistan’s rear (in accordance with Kautilyan strategy).
So, Asia looks forward cautiously to a new world in which possibly many familiar linkages and comfortable arrangements will give way to a looser world order that will be helpful to some and tough for others.