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U.S. President Donald Trump poses with Vice President Mike Pence, first lady Melania Trump and Conan, the U.S. military dog that participated in and was injured in the U.S. raid in Syria that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, while standing with the dog's military handler on the colonnade of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, U.S., November 25, 2019.
Opinion: Roll over and play Trump
While the second season will not officially launch until Jan. 20, 2025, the Donald Trump show has already come to town. Look no further than Trump’s remarks this weekend at his first major post-election rally where he declared it the start of America’s “Golden Age.”
President Joe Biden’s final months in office may go down as the lamest of lame ducks. His administration’s post-election priority to bring peace to the Middle East has landed where so many other such endeavors have – in a pile of hopes and dreams. Instead, with Bashar Assad’s regime collapse in Syria, the conflagration has spread, taking on a seismic significance that is likely to lead to the vast reordering of the region, if it has not already begun.
A new norm
Biden’s presidency, once seen as a restoration from the Trump aberration, now appears more like the last gasp of the (post-)Cold Warriors. Trump is less of a deviation and more of a new norm. His protectionism and adoption of industrial policy are on the rise, reopening the settled debate around globalization. His emphasis on NATO members contributing more to their own collective security has also been internalized across European capitals and in Brussels. Populism and migration anxiety, each key Trump talking points, are pervasive trends.
With the dawning realization that the US will not be returning to a familiar role as the world’s superpower, global government and business leaders are considering what it will take to be Trump’s best friend.
Europe grapples for purchase
Europe received a major clue late last week when Trump took to social media to demand the European Union “make up their tremendous deficit with the US by the large scale purchases of our oil and gas.” Luckily for Europe, Trump’s message dovetails nicely with plansits leadership had reportedly already been developing to purchase more American LNG. Not only would doing so further reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, but it offers a blueprint to avoid falling afoul of a costly trade war with its closest ally.
Also at play for Europe is how to maneuver around Ukraine. Six months ago, when Trump repeatedly suggested on the campaign trail that he would end the war in Ukraine on day one, it was generally met with a shrug and an eye roll. How could Trump unlock a resolution to a war that started on Feb. 24, 2022, but had roots going back decades?
And yet, sitting just months ahead of the third anniversary and with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s newfound willingness to negotiate, it seems more likely than at any previous time in this hot conflict that a deal may be possible. Perhaps the understanding that Trump would make good on promises to curb US support and the depth of the about-face in US policy Ukraine will soon encounter has clarified the stakes. How well Trump can apply pressure on Russia’s Vladimir Putin remains an open question, butPutin’s statements that he is ready for “negotiations and compromise” are telling.
Trump’s neighbors look to keep pace
Elsewhere, the question of how to operate in a world that is already Trump’s dominated Canadian politics in late December. A fragile government suffered a further corporal blow that may soon lead to its collapse after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sought to shuffle Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s cabinet position.
Rather than go along with it, Freeland resigned,citing the need for a “true Team Canada response” to the incoming US administration’s “economic nationalism.” Freeland’s departure reflects not only Canada’s precarious frontline position to Trump’s agenda but also speaks to a wider geopolitical truth: resist the realities at one’s peril. Freeland put it in the plainest terms: “how we deal with the threat our country currently faces will define us for a generation, and perhaps longer.” These are not times for denying the signs flashing 25% incoming tariffs and America First. This is the moment for adapting to what Trump has clearly and repeatedly articulated as the direction of travel for US foreign policy.
Global business heeds the call
Across the business world, recognition of the unfolding realities has quickly taken hold. Sizeable financial commitments are being offered up to the next administration even before its first official day in office. Various multinationals with US headquarters have made donations to Trump’s inauguration committee. The list of donors includes global firms (many of them tech firms) that faced scrutiny during the Trump 1.0 administration. Not to be outdone, one international firmcommitted to $100 billion investment alongside the creation of 100,000 new US jobs. Bold pledges for bolder times, such support from the international business community aligns directly with a number of Trump’splatform positions from “Build[ing] the greatest economy in history” to “Protect[ing] American workers and farmers from unfair trade.”
Trump is on a winning streak, and he has not yet taken a single step into the White House as the 47th president.
From Washington to Wall Street, the effects of the “Trump trade” are already in motion. Around the world too, both leaders in government and business are hoping to find themselves on his “nice list” in the year ahead.
Aubrey and Taylor Endicott cast their votes while their children, from left, Sterling, 5, Adelaide, 3, and Lincoln, 7, wait patiently under the voting tables at Shawnee Heights Middle School on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.
What to expect when the US is expecting
In making her final pitch to American voters before 75,000 attendees on the National Mall, Vice President Kamala Harris closed by declaring: “The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised.” While undoubtedly hyperbolic, Harris’ remarks point to the heart of what is at stake in the US election: For the US and other countries with elected leaders, Tuesday’s election represents a referendum on the future of democracy. Will it come away battered, or will it remain intact?
Harris hopes American voters place system over self – rights over kitchen table issues. Only with hindsight will her campaign find out whether this was a winning strategy.
Still, one of Europe’s most frequently repeated questions about the US election is whether we will see a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021. Watching Americans climb their Capitol building shocked the international audience. While observers abroad may not fully agree with Harris’ declaration, seeing the fissures in the US democratic system laid bare that Wednesday in January shifted perceptions of what was possible in America. If the US could come under attack from within, where next? If the US could not uphold its democratic promise, who could?
Although many Americans have hoped to tuck aside the storming of the US Capitol as a 2020 election “one-off,” the sentiment of that day has lingered. Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, routinely claim that the 2020 election was stolen and that Trump never lost. At a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend, Trump lamented that he “shouldn’t have left” office in 2020. Three years after the Jan. 6 riot, polling found that roughly two-thirds of Republicans still did not believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected, a proportion that has grown since 2021.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators.”
Yet, at his final major rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump warned his supporters, “We must defeat Kamala Harris and stop her radical left agenda with a landslide that is too big to rig.”
This leaving open the door to the risk of fraud, a stolen election, and “a rig” – whether valid or not – makes clear that should Trump lose when all the votes are counted, he will not go quietly. Nor will his supporters.
Trump is right to point out that the margin of victory this week will be pivotal for what happens next. Democracy is a system in which groups lose elections and accept the election results. Losers consent to being losers in any given election because they believe they will have the opportunity to participate in the next cycle. Losers withdraw this consent, however, when they come to believe that the institutional framework will not allow them to become winners – the system is rigged against them.
With the 2020 election still so salient, Trump and his supporters are primed to interpret any small loss in today’s election as evidence of the big rig. A narrow margin of victory that delivers Harris 270 electoral college votes likely represents the most volatile outcome of today’s election. For those forces unleashed in 2020 and still itching for a fight, a small Harris victory – perceived by them as improbable – is an easy mark. A wide margin of victory for Harris presents its own potential for criticism, especially as both aggregate national and swing state polling have consistently been so close. But should Harris pull off a meaningful polling surprise, it may suck the air out of the fraud argument and deflate the Trump world.
Given that Trump is not currently president and does not hold the reins of office, a replay of Jan. 6 is remote, but a flood of legal cases and calls for recounts is certain. Disturbances at courthouses and state government buildings should also be expected. Challenges within Congress around vote certification, especially should Republicans retain the House and regain the Senate, will be set in motion. And where there is disaffection, as there is in this post-pandemic, hyper-polarized political moment in the US, political violence cannot be ruled out.
We are in for a wild finish. What happens between today and the full results, and between the full results and Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2025, will be fluid. Many ideas are at stake, not the least of which is the foundational idea of democracy itself. As the US votes, the world holds its breath.
Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
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