The return of Trump: revenge or legacy

The United States will not implode by January. From there, uncertainty.

In his first statements after his spectacular electoral victory, Donald Trump predicted a “true golden age for America” (This will truly be America’s golden age.). But no one knows for sure how he plans to achieve this.

Perhaps excluding trade and tariff issues, where there is a more predictable protectionist line, Their support and statements have been eclectic enough to expect diverse policies..

Republican control of both legislative chambers, as well as a Supreme Court responsive to the president-elect, may encourage Trump’s desire for revenge against those who took legal action against him. It doesn’t seem like a good first step to get to that “golden age”, but we’ll see.

And this revenge is probably unnecessary. A difficult journey through the desert awaits the Democrats, one that could even cause an irreversible divide within the party between the moderate wing (in European terms closer to the center-right) and the more left wing that has embraced wokism the most absurd and anti-enlightened. .

If the Democrats aspire to find the electoral pulse, the we must stay awake, everyone must be awake Kamala’s (“we must insist on being woken up, we all need to be woken up”) doesn’t seem like the most appropriate recipe.

The announcement of a “golden age” could be a sign that Trump is thinking in terms of legacy instead. This has been the tone of many presidents’ second terms. Often, in terms of international politics, where it is easier to generate genius and artifice, and thus gather support domestically..

However, Trump’s first term was very sui generis. Trump won by surprise in 2016 and struggled to appoint key positions and establish a functioning administration. So you may have a more ambitious national program in mindparticularly in economic matters, and potentially controversial.

But again, uncertainty. Some of those who stood to play a very important role in this new stage, in particular the Heritage Foundation, seem to have gone too far, which has reduced their options and those of their much vaunted Project 2025.

The truth is that until it is known who will constitute the core of his administration It won’t be easy to determine what Trump has in mind or where the shots are going.. In other words, it’s not the same as having someone of the lieutenant general’s weight in the Oval Office. McMaster than to Elon Musk either Elbridge Colbyto name just two names that are in the pools.

Trump’s isolationist profile also indicates that his second term will be more domestically focused. but the United States will continue to be the axis around which international politics revolves.

Just take a look at the hundreds, if not thousands, of articles, papers and reports published in recent months to clarify and if of a possible return of Trump to the White House.

Well, the comeback has happened and it seems that, surprisingly, he has once again sidelined US allies, both in Europe and Asia (excluding Israel and may -being from Japan), and adversaries of the United States. , from Eurasia, Asia and the Americas (i.e. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela), preparing for a second term for months.

With varying shades and degrees of concern, Trump’s return was not well received in many European capitals. Support for Ukraine may soon be called into question. Doubts will grow about the United States’ commitment to the defense of Europe and the extension of nuclear deterrence within the framework of NATO.

All this may seem abstract and distant to public opinion, but it is what preserves peace and stability on the European continent.

Concerning Ukraine, it is necessary to make a relevant remark. Neither the United States nor Europe sends “money” to Ukraine. Headlines like “Ukraine receives X million in aid” are somewhat misleading and are used by Russian disinformation and its European proxies to manipulate the debate.

What Ukraine receives are supplies from budget items devoted primarily to the US defense industry. And the arsenals of the United States, and to a lesser extent Europe, are being replenished with new equipment. This is the cycle of assistance to Ukraine.

Regarding the extension of nuclear deterrence within the framework of NATO, it should be understood that the real debate is not between Euro-Atlantic defense or exclusively European defense, but between having or not having defense.

And the stubborn reality remains this: Without the United States and its nuclear umbrella, Europe does not have a credible defense. And this is happening with a Russia whose strategic and territorial appetite goes well beyond Ukraine.

In Europe, we keep repeating that Trump’s first victory was a wake-up call (a wake-up call), continued to stay in bed and not do homework, with the notable exceptions of Poland and, to a lesser extent, Finland and the Baltics.

Worse still, Europeans enthusiastically supported, barely a month ago, the appointment of a NATO Secretary General as Marc Ruttewhose profile does not at all suggest that it is capable of navigating the looming turbulence in the transatlantic relationship with size and vision.

It is precisely the erosion or, ideally, the rupture of the transatlantic link and its most tangible manifestation, namely NATO, which constitutes the main strategic objective of Russian action. Poutinewell supported by the “boundless friendship” that China of Xi Jinpingwhich has also aspired for years to move away from Europe and the United States. The new Silk Road (BRI) aims to do just that: to close the Eurasian space and distance and “disconnect” the United States from the “global island”.

Predictably, Russia will fuel and increase war tensions on the European continent in the coming weeks with a view to imposing the capitulation of Europe first, then of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, China will praise and encourage European “strategic autonomy” to cajole its (many) friends in European capitals, including the former president. Rodriguez Zapatero.

The new High Representative expected, Kaja Kallasis a character who offers greater guarantees of strategic solidity than Rutte. But the weakness of Germany and France does not allow us to be very optimistic about the EU (or a disoriented United Kingdom) either. A kind of European dismantling, a geopolitical free-for-all, seems the most likely option, at least in the short term..

There is also not much optimism that Spain can or knows how to navigate and defend its (undefined) national interests, which should not be confused with those of the current president, in this new uncertain strategic environment.