The President’s speech was full of invectives and driven by references to personal victimisation in the past four years when he was subjected to legal and political vindictiveness and warfare. He happens to be perhaps the most arraigned US leader for felony and other charges.
In front of the full bench of Supreme Court judges, part of the audience, Trump vowed to end the weaponisation of the politico-legal system that is used to hound the political opponents and misused perhaps referring to the large number of controversial presidential pardons by Biden in his last few days.
Trump has decided to ban government censorship on opponents, how will it be achieved in practice will be interesting to watch. He is also pardoned 1500 ‘J6’ convicts and defendants, who were charged with sedition and attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in support of Trump, who lost the election after his first term.
Trade Tariffs
Tariffs happen to be his favourite negotiating instrument to leverage and penalise the errant and not so pliant trading partners including his northern and southern neighbours, who have a comprehensive free trade agreement since the NAFTA days and came in for his special affection. Hence overhaul of the trading system and relationships has been proposed as he announced the establishment of an External Revenue Service, whose main function appears to extract the prescribed pound of flesh while monetising the imports through additional import duty.
In effect, it might run counter to his war on inflation as these steps may even enhance the impact on cost of living and hence contradictory apart from other counter measures by the affected parties.
Trump declared an emergency on the southern borders deploying more forces and promising to follow on his pet project of an impregnable wall to prevent immigrants from Mexico. He is ready to send large number of them back. He also announced the change of Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America. This will also be an issue for India as there are number of illegal immigrants are said to be there. India’s quest for the Migration and Mobility will find greater scrutiny as H1B visas could provoke more G2G consultations.
He also intends to take over Panama Canal which the US had built but which according to Trump is now being run by the arch competitor China to the disadvantage of the US businesses being charged much higher transit fees.
Trump is also expected to change the geo-economic landscape of the energy markets as he vowed to promote USA as the biggest producer and exporter of oil and gas with his call for ‘Drill baby drill’ which was met by huge cheers. Fight for climate change and Paris Agreement go for a six as far as most polluting nation is concerned. This would also bring him in direct competition with the Russians and Middle East producers while countries like China may resort to greater US crude imports to reduce the confrontation and trade deficit with Trump’s Administration.
This approach was further supplemented by his lifting the EV mandate. While it will have an impact on Musk’s Tesla it will also have negative consequences for surplus Chinese EV production capacity at least for next four years.
His withdrawal from the WHO as the one of the first of his 100 Executive orders will undermine multilateral institutions in general.
The new President also called himself the ‘Pacemaker and Unifier’ quoting the ceasefire and release of hostages by Hamas in the Middle East. He wants to end wars and in first hundred days he is expected to undertake meetings with Xi Jin Ping and Putin and perhaps PM Modi within the first 100 days. Putin addressing his Security Council also expressed desire to discuss ending Ukraine war and potential for nuclear disarmament and possibility of WWIII.
Trump spoke to Xi a few days back as well and is perhaps looking for a grand trade bargain with China. Invitation to President Xi Jinping was a matter of huge media commentary even as his Vice President attended the inauguration ceremony. Fate of these discussions will define the dynamic in the Indo-Pacific.
PM Modi sent his Special Envoy Dr S Jaishankar, who was seated in the front row, is also symbolic. Meeting of QUAD foreign ministers would be substantive as President Trump is expected to visit India for the QUAD Summit in 2025. PM Modi who does have a good personal rapport with Trump tweeted ‘Congratulations my dear friend President @realDonaldTrump on your historic inauguration as the 47th President of the United States! I look forward to working closely together once again, to benefit both our countries, and to shape a better future for the world. Best wishes for a successful term ahead!”.
PM Modi was also one of the first few to congratulate Trump in November. Irrespective, certain trade, tariff and transactional nature will keep the engagement somewhat challenging.
Although President Trump will shy away from deploying US troops outside, not being a war monger by nature and conviction, his choices for key foreign policy and national security incumbents indeed point towards an activist US policy rather than an isolationist approach. This sits well with his umpteen statements for ending the unending wars where USA’s role has been questionable. No doubt he prefers a policy of ‘Peace through Strength’
He also brought cheers to his friend Elon Musk who, along with other tech giants — the CEOs of Google, Meta and Amazon, was in the audience that US would land on Mars. As such Musk is tasked with newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to significantly reduce the bureaucracy and its huge costs as well as to defang the ‘deep state’, which Trump considers the biggest obstacle to achieving his vision and objectives. He issued an executive order freezing new government hirings.
One of the biggest domestic societal challenge and rift will come due to his announcement of only male and female as legal and legitimate genders. His anti-abortion views already have a significant female activism against his convictions.
As President Trump embarks on his second term and goal to deliver all his pronouncements and promises by the time USA celebrates 250th anniversary he wants to bring about an inclusive and colour blind society with, as familiar to us, slogan ‘One People, One Family, One Glorious Nation’. He exhorted that ambition is the lifeblood of any great nation and in the US — the impossible is what we do best ‘. But to heal a divided America will be his biggest challenge for ushering in a “Golden Age for America’ and claims over Panama Canal, Canda, Mexico and Greenland, and junking the multilateral organisations will only add to complexity in the ensuing global disorder.
Pope, who has usually been quite critical of Trump, conveyed his prayers ‘Almighty God will grant you wisdom, strength, and protection in the exercise of your high duties.” Amen.
—The author, Amb. Anil Trigunayat, is a former Indian Ambassador to Jordan, Libya and Malta, and currently heads the West Asia Experts Group at Vivekananda International Foundation. Views expressed are personal.
Read his previous articles here