WHAT TRUMP’S MAGA PROJECT MIGHT MEAN – FOR USA & THE WORLD

Donald Trump’s electoral triumph has been emphatic. Trump has not only won the Presidency but also the popular vote; he has swept the battleground states; the Republicans have reclaimed the Senate and are likely to retain the House. In doing so, he has not only vanquished the powerful Bush, Cheney & Clinton dynasties but has also co-opted the Kennedys of the world.
The lie of the judiciary, 6 :3 in favour of the Republicans, means that Trump 2.0 will be a very powerful administration indeed.
All the fulcrums and levers of power are in his firm clasp – Trump may be the most consequential President since Franklin, Delano Roosevelt (FDR).

In comprehensively rejecting the centre-left, woke, politics (gender transitions, self-identity and all of that) of the Democrats (Kamala Harris has ended up with 14 million fewer votes than Joe Biden), the USA has also moved decisively to the right. The electoral outcome is not only an outstanding comeback for Donald Trump, a personal vindication of sorts, but also a comprehensive rejection of the preachiness, pontification and vindictiveness (use of lawfare to go after Trump and his associates) of the Democrats.

While MAGA, Trump’s sloganeering and dream of MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a TRANSFORMATIONAL domestic component, its external ramifications will be just as salient.
Domestically, MAGA will be a saga of deep change, conflict and turmoil. It will entail addressing the deep economic grievances, the cost of living and kitchen table issues – job losses, price rise, lack of disposable incomes, the rising interest rates on credit card payments (as high as 20% they say, though Trump has promised to cap them at 10 %), the absence of hope, the deaths of despair – the number of deaths due to lack of hope in America in recent times, are profoundly worrying for a first world nation.
So, the economy will be Trump’s topmost priority and first charge.

Trump also, has to come good on his pledge of Mass Deportation (he is already stacking the White House with immigration hawks) – the staggering, 11 million illegal immigrants that he has promised to deport out of the country. This is a monumental challenge – pulling people out of neighbourhoods, breaking families, addressing the emotional scars from dislocation, the attendant logistics challenges – the sheer scale may be as large as the India partition of 1947. There is talk of the military being requisitioned to execute the deportation. So, all kinds of questions, with no easy answers; yet it will have to be done, because that is what the mandate is about.

Trump also has to act on what has been dubbed as Project 2025 – the surgical dismantling of what has been described as the Deep State, the draining of the Washington swamp – Reform of the Federal Reserve, the CIA, the FBI and the powerful Washington bureaucracies who were living in a world of perfect make believe, completely oblivious of the hopeless predicament of the less privileged. His promise to replace career civil servants and professionals with Trump loyalists: a band of small – government revolutionaries, will be chaotic. So will be the role of Elon Musk as the head of a governmental commission to bring in massive de-regulation and make government more efficient.

As noted, author, MJ Akbar tells us, the extent of the divide between Washington DC and the rest of America is reflected in the fact that though Trump has won in larger America rather resoundingly, he lost in Washington by an incredible vote margin of 85%. While Kamala Harris was the candidate of the Capital; Trump’s mind always rooted in common sense, very wisely lived in wider America. He, therefore won.

Washington and Kamala have lost, Trump and the real America have won.
That is why Reform of Washington is so central to the MAGA Project.

Prosecution of those that Trump thinks, betrayed him, or those he thinks are ‘too woke’ will also be on the top of his agenda – gentlemen like the former Chairman Joint Chiefs’ – General Mark Milley and the former White House Chief of Staff – General John Kelley, are on the list. The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Charles Q. Brown, Jr. may also be in the firing line for his ‘progressive views.’ If so, this might turn out to be particularly contentious, while straining the civil-military relationship in complicated ways.
So domestic chaos and turmoil is a very likely feature of the domestic American landscape, in the years to come.
Globally, MAGA will be equally disruptive. It will focus on iconoclasm (the rejection of established beliefs & institutions) to displace benign internationalism.

Steering clear of external entanglements, a walk back from global multi- lateralism (the United Nations could virtually proceed on a four-year holiday – Trump will have nothing to do with it) walking out of NATO – a vigorous embrace of bilateralism/ personal relationships, rather than formal alliance structures, is what we are likely to see pan out.

The shutting down of wars, a retreat from globalisation to fix things at home – such endeavours, will be central to his foreign policy agenda. The USA under Trump will almost certainly exit climate change talks and accords.
Trump has promised to dismantle Free Trade – his threat to impose tariffs – 60% on China, and 10% on the rest of the world – will have a huge impact on export economies like Germany and China. We will perhaps see the ignition of the most virulent of trade wars since the 1930s, complicating the Sino-American contest in unprecedented ways.

Trump is likely to do deals on the wars – tell Putin to keep Donbass and Crimea but stop supporting Iran. He is likely to greenlight Israel’s dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons complexes and further aggressive degradation of the proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
Trump may come down particularly hard on the Houthis, to re-open the Red Sea and keep international trade flowing.
Abraham Accord 2.0 – a deal with Saudi Arabia, may also be on the cards, provided Trump has something to assuage the Palestinians to quell Arab anger on the street.

Taiwan for Trump is not so much a sacred, treaty commitment, but more a bargaining chip. He has been persuading the Taiwanese to move their chip making prowess to American shores while also demanding that Taiwan quadruple its defence expenditure. Uncertainties in the Western Pacific, are only likely to grow.

The principal challenge for Trump and his national security team, however, is not so much to de-escalate wars as to restore American deterrence through wise statecraft, the refurbishment of the American Military- Industrial Complex and creation of cold military steel.
Trump will have to grapple with the very serious challenge posed by CRINK – the China, Russia, Iran, North Korean Partnership: which is fragmenting American military power across three theatres of war. Trump has to face the critical question – does America fight in three theatres or focus on winning in one?

One of Trump’s avowed objectives is to de-couple the American and Chinese economies – how do you do that when for intermediate goods, the American- Military Industrial Complex is dependent on more than 10,000 Chinese companies? In February 2003, an American F-22 Raptor, brought down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic. If you open up the F-22 Raptor, over 50 % of the micro-electronics is Chinese. The Chinese economy too, while in deep trouble lately, is no pushover – just last week it received a $1.4 trillion stimulus package to jolt it back to life.

American capacities will have to be beefed up to match widening commitments: make up the shortfall of AD Interceptors, the lack of precision missiles/munitions for a Taiwan crisis and the broader challenge to American power projection in the Indo-Pacific.
Trump’s transactional style, his predilections to disrupt and take risks, may lead to greater chaos at home while setting the world on fire.
We must also consider however, that while Trump may be crazy, he is not mad. In Trump 1.0, he was instrumental in moving the US policy towards China, from thoughtless engagement towards artful containment. His economic delivery too was sound – in terms of median incomes, adjusted for inflation, Trump1.0 did pretty well. The protectionist promises that he holds out, lower taxes and less red tape, may help propel the American and global economies as a whole – in anticipation perhaps, stocks globally have already seen a 2.4% uptick relative to election day.

In so far as India is concerned, Trump’s good personal equation with Prime Minister Modi will be very helpful, to keep the Indo-US relationship on an even keel. India may have to make some adjustments on tariffs so as to keep the momentum of technological collaboration going. Overall, Trump and his advisors like Elbridge Colby, may value autonomous partners like India far more, than other alliance partners, particularly in Europe, that have turned out to be pathetic dependencies – their words, not mine. So, there are good value propositions here for both sides – India and USA, to deliver on the promise of the ‘seas to the stars’ Indo – US relationship.

The Trump Presidency holds out all kinds of possibilities. While volatility is widely predicted, is Trump playing the classic act of a real-estate agent: quoting an escalated price to settle for far less – threatening widespread uncertainty and chaos, only to strike multiple deals, thereafter?
Watch out for Trump’s 2 am tweets to learn what, how and why.