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 plans its 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, but Putin’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 firm committed 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’s platform 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.
