(Nueva Diplomacia, 24th January 2017)

By:   Manish Uprety F.R.A.S.

The swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45^th president of the United States on the 20^th of January 2017 in Washington D.C. and the entire buzz that had been going around for almost a year or so, makes someone like me who is an outsider to conclude that the road of Trump’s presidency shall most interesting for the US and the world.

Though a fellow colleague of mine from the past was nicknamed “the Donald Trump of Abu Dhabi’ by The Telegraph, a British publication, in the last decade; it was actually a casual acquaintance and fellow diplomat during my days at the United Nations, Paolo Zampolli who had been really close to Donald Trump. An enjoyable company and thorough bon vivant with a thick Anglitalia accent, Paolo was credited with securing Melania Trump’s visa to the United States and introducing her to Donald Trump, her future husband at a 1998 party he had hosted. However, how would the road from the West Indies to the East Indies shall fare under Trump’s presidency would be anyone’s guess including Paolo’s.

The 2016 US presidential elections were a hotly contested affair that challenged the wisdom of traditional psephologists and analysts by sheer surprise of the outcome. In predicting who ought to win elections, The Economist, ‘a newspaper,’ which gets it wrong 80% of the time also got it wrong this time and Nate Silver, who astoundingly predicted correctly the results of all 50 states during Barack Obama’s re-election campaign of 2012, is now being seen as the face of everything that’s wrong with America’s pollsters and data journalists, and their absolute disconnect with the populace. On the other hand, the victory of Donald Trump as the next US president was correctly predicted by Chanakya III, a fish from Chennai, India and a Chinese monkey in Shiyanhu Ecological Tourism Park who is described as the “king of prophets” and tipped Trump for the US presidency. A few humans who foresaw Trump’s victory included among others the historian Prof. Allan Lichtman; the film maker Michael Moore; and statistician and risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Prof. Lichtman described Donald Trump as a candidate who is so outside the bounds of history that he could break the patterns of history. In the first UK-wide poll since Mr. Trump’s astonishing victory 53 per cent of British believe he is destined to be a bad president and only 15 per cent of those questioned thought the opposite, and just one in ten reckon the world will be safer with him leading it. Interestingly, UKIP voters are most likely to support the new US administration with two in five having confidence in him. Whereas, a counterview is provided by noted scholar Nassim Taleb who opines that the Trump presidency is not going to be as cataclysmic as most people believe it will be. He posits-“In the end, Trump is a real estate salesman. When you elect real estate salespeople to the presidency, they’re going to try deliver something.”

The world in our times has become more or less like a small room because of globalisation. Arnold Toynbee wrote in the late 1940s that “America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.” Thus in the aftermath of its presidential election, the US might be the only nation of the world which hopes their elected president doesn’t keep all his promises.

The America-first approach of President Trump and his opinion on issues like immigration, national security, counter-terrorism, border security, public safety and how the US should to deal with its allies, partners, and rivals provides a very complex picture of the US policies. The primary reason for the confusion is that while some measures are perceived as counterproductive, the others are outright impractical.

However, a proclaimed shift from the traditional U.S. stance that argues that the world will be worse off if America doesn’t lead as it has traditionally done all these years, to one which aspires to make the United States into Fortress America, build walls around it and put the country in a defensive crouch against others would be an interesting one and keeps the foreign policy professionals and the country’s allies, guessing.

A prominent paradigm which had evolved during the presidential campaign aspired to reduce America’s role in the world. This shall encompass moving away from the traditional allies and to move closer to adversaries; along with exercising the option to take unilateral action.

The above will result in changing the complexion and dynamics of the present open international economy, U.S. military alliances with Japan, South Korea, European NATO members, and other countries, and support for liberal rules and institutions that govern how countries should conduct themselves.

Experts note that President Trump has held a set of core beliefs since the 1980s that are hostile to the existing system- opposition to free trade, opposition to America’s alliance arrangements, and fondness for authoritarian leaders. Should the policies based on the same be implemented, they would wreck the current international system which is already strained.

Rejection of open global trade, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and rubbishing WTO and NAFTA would be a paradigm shift from the existing Washington consensus that has been the longstanding pillars of U.S. foreign policy. Hence, there is a very high probability that the present international system that the United States helped establish after the World War II might transform over the course of a Trump presidency. There are four key things which might be affected– the current world order, the global American alliance, the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the anti-climate change initiatives.

This is contrary to what the bedrock of traditional U.S. foreign policy had been for long. Former Secretaries of State of the U.S. Dean Acheson and George Schultz described the very process as “ Diplomatic Gardening,” that involved the U.S. planting seeds of progress and carefully tending the garden over many years. Diplomatic gardening by the U.S. entailed patiently building and deepening alliances and partnerships where it played a constructive role in building and strengthening regional institutions through carefully investing time and resources. The underlying assumption to undertake such practice being that diplomatic gardening at the highest levels with a positive economic agenda and an understanding that strong national and regional economies would ultimately be good for the U.S. The result of it was an interesting mixture of cooperation and competition with the countries the U.S. had relations with.

It is to be noted that Donald Trump is the first president of the United States to have neither served in government nor in the military. Since he does not carry an ideological baggage with him, Trump may be able to switch positions easily, leaving room to maneuver in negotiations with Congress and foreign leaders. Donald Trump thinks of himself as a dealmaker above all else. One should not be surprised if one finds that Trump uses his business skills to drive global deal making, and he is unlikely to shy away from risky decisions. Should they work out, they would burnish Trump’s legacy and provide him an emotional payoff as he has criticized his predecessors from both parties for their failure to negotiate good deals for the American people. A bespectacled view of the road ahead of Trump’s Presidency in the US and its implications for the world is bound to be a very interesting one and even more interesting to report as it unfolds and CORVUS OCULUM CORVI NON ERUIT, if Nassim Taleb is right this time as well.

**Trump Presidency in the US and a bespectacled view of the road ahead; Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. @ Nueva Diplomacia; January 2017