In making America great again could Trump end wars?
As the old year gives way to the new and a new American president is about to come to power with a mandate to make America great again (MAGA) it is interesting to predict how he plans to make such a transformation of the world’s only superpower.
The MAGA mandate presupposes that America is no longer great – presumably a superpower power is not thought to be great as the epithet carries with it additional qualities beyond military power that include a belief in its people that their country is exceptional.
American exceptionalism grates with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a letter to the American people published in the New York Times of September 12, 2013 he explained that it is dangerous for any country to believe it is exceptional. At the time, US president Barack Obama encouraged the belief the US was exceptional because it was able and willing to intervene militarily in other countries impelled by humanitarian considerations.
But Trump’s MAGA slogan is for a different kind of American exceptionalism. What Trump has in mind is to make America great as it was before it went downhill in the eyes of its working-class, when Ronald Reagan’s republicans were in power – basically before globalisation, mass immigration, loss of major manufacturing to China and the loss of jobs to automation.
Love him or loathe him, what you see is what you get with Donald Trump. He has said many times that the way he will change things on the home front will be by reversing mass migration and imposing tariffs on foreign manufactured goods – in his inimitable hyperbolic style he has described the word tariff as beautiful.
He plans to stop illegal immigration and to deport millions of illegal entrants, who the Americans call undocumented migrants. Easier said than done but that’s what he said he will do and that’s what he was elected to do.
As for the imposition of tariffs, Britain and the EU hope his threat is just a bargaining salvo. He is known to be very annoyed that while the US has been paying for the defence of Europe it gains little in return as the balance of trade also favours Europe. Trump is very transactional and wants a change of European trading policy in return for the security umbrella it provides. In the case of China, obviously the Chinese would prefer he did not impose tariffs against their goods but they have advanced contingency plans to respond in kind if Trump does.
What is even more interesting, however, is the effect making America great again will have on international relations. US relations with the rest of the American continent, Nato, Russia and Ukraine, China and the Middle East will all change under Trump.
Trump sounded very acquisitive in his attitude to the rest of America. He hinted that the US may take over the Canal Zone in Panama, wants to buy Greenland from Denmark and joked about Canada being the 51st state of the US.
Trump threatened to intervene in Panama over excessive charges for use of its canal. The US built and controlled the canal until 1977 and Trump regards it as vital for the US to be able to control the trade link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Trump is serious about a US offer to buy Greenland even though he was told by Denmark, which owns it, that it is not for sale. It is situated in a strategic location, is sparsely populated and potentially an enormous source of wealth – and Trump’s insistent offer to buy a territory that is not for sale must be troubling for Denmark.
Greenland is much closer to Canada but that does not matter to Trump because he even suggested that Canada should be part of the US – the 51st state of the US he joked. But as we all know many a true word has been spoken in jest and most Canadians did not find the joke funny at all.
Trump has never been a Nato fan and recently made it crystal clear he could not care less if Russia invaded Nato countries that were not paying their way. There is no way the US under Trump is going to expose itself to nuclear attack because of a provision signed during the Cold War that an attack on one is an attack on all. It is not just that Trump is transactional, he doesn’t buy that at all!
As for Trump’s policy on Ukraine, it will be the opposite of President Biden’s. Trump said he intends to end the bloodshed and it seems it is top of his agenda. Like Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel, he believes the war should never have occurred if wiser heads had prevailed. He does not see Russia as America’s natural enemy in the same way as the Europeans do.
America’s natural rival these days is China but with this difference, Trump’s instincts on Taiwan are that it is not really an area of the world within America’s orbit. Taiwan has a right to its system but has to negotiate it with China because it lies so close to China it is none of America’s business.
Lastly there is the Middle East. It is difficult for Trump to match Biden’s extremely pro-Israel stance in its wars in the Middle East except in one respect: in so far as an attack on Iran’s oil and nuclear installations was discouraged by Biden it will be encouraged by Trump. On Syria he has already said that it is a mess and that the US should not get involved.
Strictly the above are not New Year predictions. They are MAGA policies that Trump promised.
If he ends the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, 2025 will be a happier year than the last three have been.
Alper Ali Riza is a king’s counsel in the UK and a former part time judge
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