Harim Peiris

The Trump presidency – hastening a multi polar world

By Harim Peiris MBA

 ( published in the Daily News paper on 11.11.2016 )

The world was shocked when Donald Trump, defied all expectations and pulled off a stunning victory in the US presidential election. It was shocking because he was trailing, though by a thin margin in the opinion polls and because conventional wisdom only gave him an outside chance of winning, his support base of a largely Caucasian (white) working class electorate seen as two narrow to carry him to victory. In the all-important calculation of the electoral college, that actually elects the US president, Hilary Clinton was projected to have an almost insurmountable lead. The changing demographics of the USA, with an increasing share of non-white voters and younger voters were making even traditional republican states, become competitive for the democrats. However, election day 2016, was to change all that. The result now history. Many reasons would be adduced for Trump’s victory and Clinton’s defeat, but the numbers from the exit polls show, that despite a campaign that outspent its opponent that Hillary Clinton just could not be the successful political heir and hold on to the winning rainbow coalition, which Barrack Obama built and rode to victory twice before. Every key segment of that coalition, Hispanics, African American, women and youth voters, turned out less and voted slightly less emphatically for Hillary Clinton, which together with the swing of rust belt democrats angered at job losses, in a globalizing economy was enough to create a unique Republican party constituency, which for the second time in recent history would lose the popular vote, but win the electoral college convincingly and hence result in the Donald Trump Administration of the next four years and also  consequently bequeathed the world with an entirely unchartered US international agenda.

The Republican party whitewash of the 2016 election was complete. The Republicans were widely expected to or at least considered quite likely to lose control of the US Senate, where a third of the seats were up for grabs. As it was, the Republicans retained control of Congress, both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, providing President Donald Trump with no real Democratic Party challenge to his relatively radical agenda of change for America. Together with the ability to fill the US Supreme Court seat made vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Trump presidency promises to mold US society in a manner which will likely be near permanent for decades.

However, this article will seek to examine what the Trump presidency would have for the world. The initial world reactions, in terms of the reaction of global financial markets was a near free fall, with the Dow Jones Futures down about 500 points. However, this was more likely an over hysterical reaction to the unexpected rather than a considered evaluation or response to the president elect’s policies, which are after all not entirely known in any great detail and not applicable until he takes office in January next year. President elect Trump though, on the campaign trail did give clear indications about his views on global affairs and his Administration’s policies on several foreign policy or international fronts are likely to be a radical departure from his predecessor’s and also defy conventional wisdom, as he indeed did throughout his campaign.

Syria, ISIS and the Middle East

Nothing has dominated the world during the past year as has the situation in Syria. As that country comes apart in a bloody and brutal civil war, it has challenged American and foreign policy makers in the West, to cope with the flood of Syrian refugees and to deal with Russia in stabilizing the situation in Syria. Donald Trump has been quite critical of the current US policy of challenging the regime of President Assad, through support for the non-ISIS, rebel alliance battling his regime. He declared that Hillary Clinton’s policies in Syria would start world war three. Accordingly, he is likely to reduce or eliminate support for the anti-Assad, rebel alliance and thereby over time concede influence in Syria to Russia. Reading between the lines, the Trump formula for dealing with ISIS seems to be, significantly enhanced aerial bombardments of ISIS targets in the Middle East and enhanced domestic vigilance against terror attacks on US soil.

Global Trade

Global trade has not really been growing in dollar terms during the past few years. However, the US has a significant impact on the global economic landscape by virtue of being the world’s largest economy and most importantly the global economy’s biggest consumer. As the single largest global customer of goods and services, the US is in a strong position to dictate on international trade. Protectionism or various barriers to trade with the US, would lead to an end to the era of developing countries, including Sri Lanka, having economies growing through exporting to the United States. Rather like the make in India policy practiced in the sub-continent, companies wishing to sell in the US, may increasingly be compelled to manufacture in the US. The economic theory of comparative advantage and global competitiveness has been voted out at the US ballot box.

International Security

The international security arrangements in place since the end of the second world war, would also come under a fresh look and renewed scrutiny by the Trump presidency. Candidate Trump on the campaign trail, took umbrage at the financing arrangements of NATO, declaring that the practice of the US picking up much of the tab for the security of the Western world and the established order, was out of place an anachronism of the aftermath of the second world war. A scale back of US defense commitments, troop and naval deployments, in Europe and East Asia, in both Japan and South Korea are likely. US foreign policy interests will be defined more narrowly and domestically, the Munroe doctrine would be contracted significantly rather than expanded gradually, as occurred in the decades since the second world war.

The rise of China, economically and politically, definitely as a regional power and as a fledgling global power, has predicated the evolution of a multi polar world, from the unipolar world in existence since the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The advent of the Trump presidency and its likely foreign policy trajectory would in all probability hasten the reality of a multi polar world.

(The writer is Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The views expressed are personal)