Nastier and More Brutal
By Glenn L. Carle
January 8, 2025
In 2016, I was working in Kampala when Donald Trump was elected president.? The next morning my Ugandan Military Intelligence colleagues, in a good-natured moment of painful wit, immediately offered me “political asylum.”? When Trump was re-elected two months ago, I was staying at the H?tel Métropole in Hanoi, where Graham Greene had savored fine French wine amidst grenade attacks by the Vietminh and wandered off to smoke opium, a jaded Cassandra, as he was preparing The Quiet American, the definitive novel about the tragedy of American self-delusion. ?Some of the Americans at the hotel were pleased that Trump would now “Make America Great Again.”? Alas, the ghost of Greene remained as perceptive in November 2024 as he was in 1953:? America and the world are in for what may well prove four harmful, epoch-changing years under the most delusional president in American history.
International Organizations and Agreements
In Trump’s view every other country in the world has taken advantage of weak American leaders, and every international organization only serves to fetter American freedom, power, and wealth.? Trump derides even America’s post-war network of alliances, which have been the centerpiece of American foreign policy since 1945, multinational institutions such as the United Nations, and agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change as venues for “weak,” or simply non-American, states to take advantage of the United States.?
Trump is likely, therefore, (once again) to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement within weeks of returning to the White House and will at the least undermine the mandate and influence of international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations.? Trump has even already expressed the intention to revise or undermine the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), when it comes up for review in 2026, even though he negotiated it himself for what were imaginary ills.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the principal guarantor of stability in Europe since 1945 and widely considered “the most powerful and successful alliance in history” is almost certain to come under tremendous strain from a series of tariffs Trump will impose against various NATO members, and from his pressure on each member state to increase its defense spending or see the US refuse to honor its commitments to NATO.? He even recently repeated the statement he made in his first term, that the United States would not honor its obligation as a NATO member to aid any member state that comes under attack:[1]? He has reiterated that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO state, unless all NATO members increase their defense budgets to 5% of their GDPs,[2] the kind of position and statement that led many intelligence and foreign policy experts, myself included, to assess that Trump appeared to have a treasonous relationship with Russia.?
Trump approaches all issues as zero-sum transactions, and always prefers to negotiate bilaterally:? If Trump negotiates about the Ukraine-Russia war directly with Russian President Putin, one of the critical issues affecting European and world stability, Ukraine and all other NATO members will face a daunting dilemma about what their policies should be, what level of aid to continue to Ukraine, and what to do about their coordinated sanctions regime against Russia.? Hungary and Slovakia, which are sympathetic to Russia, would be tempted to break ranks with NATO completely, fracturing the alliance. ??
The European Union (EU) will also struggle to maintain cohesion.? “The most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff,” Trump has said.[3]? He is threatening to impose a series of bilateral tariffs and other restrictive policies against a number of EU members in “retaliation” for a wide range of alleged sins the targeted countries are committing against the US, such as unfair trade practices, trade imbalances, or refusing to sell Greenland to the United States.? The EU, like NATO, will struggle to maintain cohesion if Trump singles out individual members for selective tariff attacks.
Bilateral Relations
The US-China bilateral relationship is the most important in the world.? Relations are fraught now, but may well deteriorate.? To stop China from “stealing” US jobs and industries and to redress the US-China trade imbalance Trump pledges to – of course – impose tariffs, of 60 to 100% on all Chinese imports.[4]? Trump is likely, as always, to seek specific bilateral deals with China:? Perhaps each nation might accept some specific level of imports from the other concerning certain products?? More likely is an economic “agreement” that declares victory for both parties but does not address the underlying trade imbalances and security disputes.
Japan should anticipate the same tough talk of tariffs from Trump, who spent a good part of the 1980s and 1990s telling interviewers that “Japan is laughing at us.”? His solution:? Tariffs, win concessions and then cut a deal for a specific good.? Trump is also an isolationist who dislikes treaty and alliance commitments:? He is far less likely than his predecessors to honor US security commitments to NATO, to Japan, or to other allies such as South Korea and Australia.? It is unclear how he will respond to China’s increasingly strong and aggressive military and diplomatic postures.? Bluster and threats are certain; more than that doubtful.???
Trump has long advocated a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran and North Korea, members of the “new axis of evil” along with Russia and China, believing that such policies will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and will keep North Korea from developing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.? In fact, the maximum pressure policies had the opposite effect.? Iran, now gravely weakened by Israel’s recent evisceration of Iran’s proxies and demonstrations of Iranian military inferiority, has doubled down on its nuclear weapons program as the last “protection” it has of national survival, while North Korea has increased its ballistic missile tests.? Trump is likely to continue his “maximum pressure” rhetoric, at least.? This will either increase tensions and the risk of either military conflict, or will demonstrate the rhetoric’s ineffectiveness.? But Iran is weak, internally challenged, and it is possible the regime might not survive a crisis that stirred significant internal unrest.? ??
Effects on International Order
The results of this isolationist, antagonistic, unilateral, single solution and simpleminded approach to international relations will be, depending on the number and levels of tariffs, a rise in global protectionism and the decay of international organizations:? Costs will rise in the US and worldwide; GNP growth will slow or reverse; stock markets could well tumble in alarm; international cooperation will decline.
The normative, rules-based international system is likely finally to tear apart under four years of sustained hostility from Donald Trump’s United States, its hitherto champion.? The US will remain the most influential nation on earth no matter what Trump does, but already we are living the progressive establishment of a multipolar world of competing Great Powers.? Trump’s isolationism and weakening of the normative alliances and multilateral institutions could well enable Russia, for all its weaknesses and woes, to assert the great power sphere-of-influence it has long sought in its “near abroad” of eastern and central Europe.? China, already one of the world’s two most powerful nations, will consolidate its preponderance in Asia and the western Pacific, establishing its own, heavily bilateral, Middle Kingdom style of normative rules and institutions, a haughty Asian and Western Pacific imperium.? India, a rising Great Power and tomorrow’s superpower, will champion the “Global South,” but that will mean leveraging the world’s weaker nations to reach better bilateral deals with the rich “West” and with China and Russia, while acting as a free rider to what remains of the American-led normative system. ?Regional powers, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, will more aggressively pursue their own unilateral interests, and expand their influence in an ever-chaotic Middle East and beyond.? Some of the world’s weaker and poorer nations may welcome Trump’s disregard for international norms concerning human rights and democracy, but all will lament the imperfect but real protections that the normative system still provides smaller states.?
All these trends have been emerging since the millennium; Trump’s policies will accelerate them, whatever bilateral deals he may cut:? Might will make right more than any time since 1945.? International relations will become nastier and more brutal.? ?
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Domestic Policies
Like any malignant narcissist, Donald Trump’s only interest is whatever action or statement will seem to enhance attention on himself.? He has almost no set principles or views on public policy.? He has, however, aggressively adopted conservative social and economic Republican positions on domestic policy, because the Republicans are his base of power.? His domestic agenda, therefore, is clear, stark, and grotesquely self-contradictory:
Trump centered his campaign, and derives much of his appeal, on the problem of illegal immigration.? Trump has pledged “to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program,”[5] of millions of illegal immigrants.? Trump and his advisors have spoken of creating mass detention camps.? Deportation will help address, in Trump’s view, the economic and social stresses on America’s working class, and will remove non-whites from America.? In fact, it is America’s immigration – legal and illegal, professional and untrained – that for years has provided the labor force that has helped enable much of America’s strong economic performance.? ??
Trump and Republicans also have pledged to cut taxes, reduce the budget deficit, and reduce regulations, which in their view hinder economic growth.? The tax cuts he touted during his campaign, however, will add more than four trillion dollars to the government’s deficit, even while Republicans continue to assert that reducing the deficit is a top priority.? Yet, Trump’s first term tax cuts added 40% - over eight trillion dollars – to the national debt, while giving 83% of the tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of US households, who already hold between 30 and 40 percent of all US wealth.[6],[7]?
The cure-all tariffs Trump promises will amount to an inflation-causing national sales tax and will raise every consumer’s cost of living $1,700 per year, while depressing overall economic growth.[8]? Any student of economics learns that it is domestic consumers who pay for tariffs, not foreign producers (tariffs promote more but less efficient domestic production, and depress foreign production.)?
“Preparations are underway to slash massive numbers of job-killing regulations — eliminating ten old regulations for every new one,” Trump has said.[9]? This is a longstanding Republican and businessmen’s bugaboo.? In Trump’s first term, however, he imposed twice as many regulations as he removed, although his administration did slow the pace of new regulations by forty percent.[10] ?The issue, of course, is the trade-offs:? Which is better, less restrictive air pollution requirements for factories, or less harm to public health from pollution?? Desirable or not, deregulation is a gargantuan task, and any change sure to be slow and incremental.
Trump will pursue this nativist, protectionist, isolationist agenda while insulting anyone who does not fawn over him.? US politics will become even more divided and paralyzed.?? Social cohesion will continue to corrode.? Objective truth will continue to dissolve in a torrent of “alternative facts.”? Faith in public institutions and democracy itself will continue to erode.? Amidst the chaos, however, we will hear over and over how Donald Trump is “making America great again.”
The wine at the H?tel Métropole the day after the US election was a little light for my taste, yet gentle and still round.? Was it elegiac, a toast to the failed dreams of the idealistic Americans who preceded me there?? Or was it a pledge to continue fighting truly to “make America great again?”
[10] Ibid.
Experienced Senior PM/Consultant focused on delivering operational effectiveness
1 个月My second point, and I will take the Australian example, is that American allies are taking advantage of America and not pulling their weight in. Australian defence spending has been stuck on 2% of GDP and the state of the Australian Defence Forces is abysmal. Constant delays in real investments, strategy only relying on the AUKUS alliance and the hope of getting nuclear subs. In the meantime, they can't even send a warship in the Middle East as they can't protect against drones.... So Trump is not wrong when he says that others also have to make an effort and should not only rely on America
Experienced Senior PM/Consultant focused on delivering operational effectiveness
1 个月I will leave any comments about internal US policies to the Americans, so my comments will focused on 2 things - NATO- this is becoming a big joke as anyone and his dog can join. Now, in all seriousness, who will go and die to defend Latvia if invaded by Russia? Do we think Greece will really fight for Turkey? NATO is too big now. Politicians from the 1990s bear the responsibility for the Ukraine war and that desire to humiliate Russia. Pushing NATO 's borders right to Russia's doorstep was pure provocation. Remember the Cuban crisis when America baulked at Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba...