Donald Trump: his agenda this time around

No one expected Donald Trump to be better now than he was during his first term in White House. But few guessed that he would be far worse during his second term than he was before. After all, people learn from experiences of the past. But no such generalised assumptions seem to apply in the case of Donald Trump because he is one of a kind. If there was any doubt about this, his actions and executive orders so far have amply put paid to that.

 

 

Donald Trump 2.0 is an angry old man, consumed by an urge to wreak vengeance on political enemies at home and on countries who have dared to violate his norms of conduct in global affairs. In the international arena, the countries which have run afoul of Trump doctrine are the usual suspects: China, European Union (EU), Canada and Mexico. But it is in his home front that Trump has more and diverse targets to hit than during his first term. When it comes to settling old scores, president Trump makes no distinction between domestic and foreign adversaries. He is equally ruthless and single-minded in the pursuit of revenge against both.

 

During his first term, President Trump had fewer individuals at home in his cross-hairs because before being elected as president of United States (US), he had no reason to gripe against anyone on political grounds. It was only after the completion of the first tenure that he came face to face with individuals, both in the public and private spheres, who in his judgement worked against his interests. First among them were officials at state and federal government levels. Georgia's secretary of state and election staff became targets for revenge the moment they refused to oblige President Trump by massaging numbers of electoral votes.

 

 

Congresswoman and chairman of the then Congress Nancy Pellosi and the incumbent vice-president incurred his wrath for their failure to declare the votes in his favour. Officials in FBI who investigated against him in the case of rioting on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2020 have been marked for retribution. Already six senior officials have been forced out of office and more may follow. Then there is the salacious case of soft porn star, Stormy Daniels, and her allegations of payment of hush money to keep her quiet that led to Trump's conviction in a court. All of these men have already had their comeuppance for running afoul of Trump supremacy, except the soft porn star. It is only a matter of time that she, too, bites the dust at the hands of Trump's henchmen. In carrying out his plan for vengeance, Trump is behaving in no better way than a chief of an underworld organisation.

 

 

Harping on the theme of 'make America great again' (MAGA), president Trump has surrounded himself with billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the belief that they will help him streamline the federal government. But their idea about efficiency in government seems to be abolition of organisations altogether as evidenced by the complete shutdown of USAID and funding-freeze of programs like Medicare. The winding down of the former will see the termination of many programmes around the world that not only improved the quality of life of millions, but also meant the difference between life and death.

 

 

The wholesale termination of assistance, rather than cost cutting, for efficiency speaks of a cynical attitude towards programmes and assistance to countries that are in dire need for them. Apart from the humanitarian aspect, these American-assisted programmes demonstrated the soft power of America in countries where rival ideas and ideologies jostle for recognition and influence. On the domestic front, the stoppage of funding to programmes like Medicare not only affects the welfare of vulnerable groups, they also raise the vital issue of the limits of executive power and the accountability of the executive branch to the elected Congress.

 

One of the first executive orders signed by president Trump was to abolish 'diversity, equality and inclusiveness '(DEI) as criteria for employment in government and private entities. This will put a sudden stop to the affirmative actions undertaken by employers to help the various disadvantaged groups. Equally discriminatory will be the abolition of recognition to the third, fourth and fifth gender (LG BT), erasing the social and economic progress made for these groups. The extreme conservative outlook and reactionary policies of the white supremacists supported by the new Trump Administration is going to leave behind groups of people whose numbers are not negligible. What is more disconcerting, his domestic policies will create a divisive society that will be at war with itself.

 

 

In the name of rationalising government programmes, his trouble shooting team appears to be settling for extreme measures, irrespective of their adverse effects on the low-income groups. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, thinks only about bottom line, profit and has enthusiastically spoken of a jobless world made possible by AI in work places. The first thing he did after taking over Twitter (now X) was to effect a drastic retrenchment plan, sending thousands into unemployment.

 

 

He has been made the head of the department of government efficiency (DOGE) by president Trump to carry out reforms in public sector. The first thing he has done after taking over the new responsibility is to wind up the USAID, an agency revered all over the world for decades for its humanitarian and development programmes. He has now got access to the vast body of personal data from the Treasury's payment system which will allow him to manipulate the lives of millions of people.

 

 

If some of the domestic policies of president Trump is indifferent to their adverse impact on low income groups, his decisions on foreign policy have been regressive to the extreme, undermining the world order that was put in place after the second world war. Through his executive orders he has withdrawn America from the UN bodies like UN Human Rights Commission, World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNESCO, weakening international co-operation in these areas. The withdrawal from the 2014 Paris Climate Accord will be the most harmful of decisions as America is among the top contributors to global warming through carbon emissions. This decision has been accompanied by the executive order to go full throttle in oil and gas explorations offshore and in Alaska.

 

 

President Trump refuses to believe that America has chronic deficits in its balance of payment because of the lower productivity of its producers. He believes America's trading partners are dumping their goods by lowering prices and has sought to redress this by slapping tariff. He did it during his first term in office and has lost no time in doing this in his second term, unleashing a tariff war among countries trading with America. He is oblivious of the fact that 25 per cent tax on imports from Mexico and Canada and 10 per cent on China's exports are going to be paid by American consumers. Apart from adversely affecting the consumers, the tariff war is going to reduce global production shrinking the global economy. The result will be recession that will see unemployment being entrenched in both developed and developing countries.

 

 

President Trump has excelled in his brand of eccentric and self- serving foreign policy no sooner than his second term has begun. Soon after taking office he brazenly declared that America will take over Panama Canal and Greenland on security grounds. He has now added to these preposterous announcements the decision to take over Gaza and own it for the long-term. To facilitate this he is going to 'clean out' Gaza by removing the 2.2 million Palestinians to other countries so that they can 'live in peace and security'.

 

 

One could take this as a joke or a light hearted banter. But coming from the president of America, this need to be taken seriously. Playing footie with president Trump will not do because he is not a nonsense man and means business, however nasty that may be. Europe, Arab countries and the rest of the world must unite and strongly oppose the cynical and imperialistic policies of president Trump. Policy of appeasement will not do now as it did not in the case of Adolf Hitler. History must not be allowed to repeat itself, even in a new version. Nothing less than the global peace and shared prosperity are in stake.