A doomed future? – Firstpost

It does not require any backgrounder to admit that the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) project of President Donald Trump is a shibboleth to mask the weak American economy.

In order to check the high rate of unemployment, Trump has imposed heavy import duties, shut down agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), withdrawn funding to world bodies, reneged on citizenship rights of those born decades ago in America, etc. On the other hand, he has rolled out the red carpet for rich people to come and settle in America, for which a Gold Card priced at five million dollars apiece will have to be bought.

Trumponomics has started showing effects in the form of retardation of growth all around, as the dipping market indices suggest. The economists are divided over whether there would be a short-term or long-term impact, but surely the mercurial Trump, with his unpredictable moves, has sent the world into a tizzy.

Some believe that his messianic intuition about the supposed harm done to the US by immigrants requiring their expulsion may create a job shortage, as not all vacancies would be filled up by Americans, and so the production may go down, spiralling up prices and causing inflation. There seems a double whammy in store for Americans when it comes to the higher cost of imported goods due to higher tariffs.

What is true of economics is more so of his political stance. The promised end to the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war is nowhere in sight. When Trump took up office and announced his intention to solve these issues at the earliest, the world welcomed him for his cosmopolitanism. However, his initiatives have not borne fruit because the parties involved in these conflicts do not trust him.

The world at large is unable to believe that the essential businessman Trump will be able to rise to the level of an impartial arbitrator. His recent decision about arms sales in the Indian subcontinent is an example. Providing India with F-35 fighter jets while at the same time offering to maintain F-16s for Pakistan is clubbing the contraries, for sure. It only reinforces the belief that his motive is to earn dollars for America through fair or foul means.

It can be said that a surge of nationalist sentiment has overridden the synthetic sentiment of internationalism (avoiding the term ‘globalism’, which is appropriated by the neoliberals). Ironically, it is the neoliberals who were most vocal for globalisation because it revolved around trade and business. The feeling of internationalism was far off, or yet in its infancy, so that the pushback by the nationalists undid it.

This happened most obviously during the Corona time when the developed countries which advocated globalisation were focused only on catering to their own nationals. This concern was so acute that even the formulae of the vaccines were guarded jealously or offered at exorbitant prices to suffering nations.

However, India’s take on nationalism has been different. So far as India is concerned, though Prime Minister Narendra Modi had underlined the similarity of approach with President Trump in regard to the nationalist agendas of both leaders, the concept of what makes a country great is differently understood.

For Modi, it is the value of ‘the entire world is one family’ for which India has always stood. So, helping other countries – far and wide – during the Corona period or at other times, gifting yoga to the world, contributing liberally to the UN, leading the world in meeting the green targets, or recently, sending help to the quake-hit Myanmar is in tune with this philosophy.

Trump’s notion of American greatness is all about money. He is a denizen of the post-truth world, and every action of his is to be gauged on the strength of fetching money for America. For this, he can ditch his European allies and, like the colonialists of yore, covet Greenland and Canada!

Trump has, in his over-enthusiasm, fixed deadlines for the imposition of tariffs on imports in a very unrealistic manner. Confusion prevails within America also, where leftists (said to be part of the MAGA crowd!) are gloating over the bloodbath on the bourse, while at the same time, people are organising ‘Hands Off’ rallies in protest, as they foresee hard times.

The Trumpian blitzkrieg has upset the economic order in the world. Bilateral or collective agreements will still be there, but the element of distrust due to the American administration’s knee-jerk actions has surely seeped in and will stay long in international affairs. And so, every country will be inclined to be self-reliant in the future in as many spheres as possible.

Jagdish Batra is an academic and writer, presently working as Professor and Executive Dean at O.P. Jindal Global University, India. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.