Trump Syndrome: Unveiling a New Phase in World Politics

Donald Trump has been sworn-in as 45^th President of the United States of America on the twentieth of this month. Before the last year November elections, majority of political pundits were pessimistic about the Trump’s triumph against his Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. But he proved all of them wrong.

Some experts deconstruct his success in combinatory rhetoric of “populism and nationalism”, ingrained with racism, patriarchy and casino-capitalism. Some even argued his presidency would bring a “worst form of democratic trajectory” in the world’s oldest democracy. Some even gone beyond it and said that he would be an “unqualified” person in the White House.

The election campaign of Trump had been highly controversial. One time he talks about banning of Muslims to enter into the US, and at another time he would say erection of a wall along the Maxico border and ‘making America great again’, a hyperbolic sense of nationalism.

Internally he asked for repealing of Obama Care, an affordable medical insurance scheme for poor unveiled by the outgoing US President Obama. Outside the US he talk about fixing of alliance partnerships, revisiting the relevance of NATO, undoing the climate agreement and some multi-national trade agreements such as TPP.

From the geopolitical point of view he started to question the Washington’s states-quo over the “One China” policy vis-à-vis Beijing. He even suggests that the Beijing’s manipulated economic trade and commerce and geopolitical assertiveness need to be fixed right and questioning “one China” would come as first bullet from the Trump’s diplomatic gun.

The worst scenario would come in the messy region of West Asia. He picked two hot points in the region. One side he asked for revisiting the whole US-Iran nuclear deal, a celebrated deal as it put a temporary freeze over the decade long Washington-Tehran bilateral animosity. On the other side he whispered an unqualified support to the Israel. On this issue a diplomatic rumor has already begun that the US may shift its diplomatic mission from Tel Eve to Jerusalem.

The Trump Syndrome has reached the Europe. A far right nationalist leadership has started to emerge strongly from London to Germany and France. Some are even looking for grim prospects over the united European Union. Some even go beyond that and suggest a new form of Fascism is emerging from Moscow Under Putin, Ankara under Erdogan to Washington under Trump.

There are some strong opinions, which argue that Trump administration would be more “transactional” in its approach not only in economy but in political and diplomatic domains as well.  A Trump-Putin convergence is one such move, which ask for ‘give and take’ approach in the current geopolitical scenario. He may push for a deal in West Asia with the Moscow over ISIL, Syria and would maneuver Russian support against the Beijing.  

The Trump Cabinet is also sounding a bad smell. The people he selected for top cabinet posts have complicated background and even some are nurtured by the big businesses. Some experts suggest that Trump administration would not go beyond big business trajectory.

The Donald Trump may have won the election through a well-drafted rhetoric, but it would be an interesting period to watch and see whether he would go for that in reality. But one thing can be easily inked down that America under the Trump would not be an easy phase in the US politics domestically as well as globally. A “Making America great again” would either push the Washington more ‘isolationist’ or more ‘interventionist’, may be in the military-industrial business sense.