Guest Editorial: Trump’s MAGA : Why Sycophancy and Sucking Up Will Not Help
Lim Teck Ghee
Allies and supporters of the United States who praise it as the champion of democracy, freedom and human rights have now rushed to join the media queue to congratulate the incoming president.
In their public messaging, leaders such as Zelinsky, Netanyahu, Starmer, Albanese and Marcos are waxing lyrical over the outcome as an example of American exceptionalism and a role model for the countries of the world. They also are looking for support fromTrump to ensure that their own hold on power in their respective countries are not undermined by policies and actions of this second term Trump regime.
First to jump on the congratulatory bandwagon has been the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. His flattering message in British media reads:
Congratulations President-elect Trump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead. As the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise. From growth and security to innovation and tech, I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come
Not so long ago, Starmer had a different opinion of Donald Trump and his earlier administration.
Media sources have dug up some of his choice sound bites on Trump. They include: “I would not want to have Trump around for dinner to express his views”; “Humanity and dignity: two words not understood by President Trump”. Commenting on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory in the 2020 US election, Sir Keir said: “their victory is one for hope and unity over dishonesty and division.”
How Will MAGA impact US Foreign Policy?
Post election, Trump can be expected to push the MAGA foreign policy agenda hard and at the expense of the interests and concerns of the rest of the world. MAGAs foreign policy impact will be felt not only by countries which the US sees as rivals and enemies - China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Serbia, Venezuela, Belarus and others. It will also inflict costs on allies including Britain, European Union nations, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and a few others such as the Philippines previously provided with generous financial and military support by a moneyed and powerful benefactor which is now relatively impoverished and less influential.
Countries not hitched to the American ideological bandwagon that see themselves as independent such as Mexico, India and Vietnam will find that sitting on the fence in the next four years will be much less easy or comfortable as the new US president will not shield or spare them from the looming policy changes in trade, economy, finance, immigration, security, climate change and wherever else he sees as important and necessary to uplift the US and stem its decline.
Earlier in July, the Economist drew up a table ranking the vulnerability of various countries likely to be impacted by a new Trump presidency’s core policies. The table, The Trump Risk Index, assessed the exposure and vulnerability of America’s 70 largest trading partners to potential policy changes.
Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-countries-most-impacted-by-a-trump-presidency/
Increasingly, we find that liberal and conservative American analysts - both now converging in recognizing that the US is in an existential crisis - are in support of MAGA to be the driver of US foreign policy.
The crisis, a long developing one, exposes not only the deep divisions within American society. It also brings to attention the current status of the US described by Trump as “a failing country”. It is a description that some Americans have taken umbrage with but which many Democrat supporters agree on too whilst denouncing the Republican and Trumpian rhetoric and record on failing to improve the state of the nation.
What is perhaps most unsettling is that the disorder and instability in the US - the failing country - may see the new President become more reliant on the US military - this being the one sector in which it has a clear and overwhelming superiority - to ensure American dominance in global geopolitics. The US military could again be engaged in old and new wars to underpin the foreign policy actions needed to make America great again.
Will the US under Trump continue fighting to maintain the unipolar world that it has shaped and which the western military-industrial-media complex is fixated on preserving?
Leaders around the world who are not part of G7 will be hoping that President Trump will work to ensure that the US plays a key role in upholding the much damaged cause of peaceful coexistence necessary to ensure a better world.
Lim Teck Ghee
Lim Teck Ghee, ANU PhD graduate, is a Malaysian economic historian and policy analyst. He has a regular column, Another Take, in The Sun, a Malaysian daily and Oriental Daily; and is the author of Challenging the Status Quo in Malaysia, and Dark Forces Changing Malaysia (with Murray Hunter).
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External Affairs Minister of India, Jayshankar Subramaniam responded unequivocally on the matterr of fence sitting to a reporter not long ago.
India's position on the criticism that India was 'sitting on the fence' (with reference to India's position vis a vis Russia on the war in Ukraine), Jayashankar articulated thus: "India is not sitting on the fence" but "sitting on its ground."
Trump has a different unique simlpllistic view of the world. It is very American as articulated by George Bush Jnr. during the second Gulf War. "If you are not with us you are against us". That statement is a variation to the biblical theme (New Testament) which reads "he who is not with me is against me". I paraphrase here.
The world has changed significantly and radically since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016. It has changed from what it was before and has changed even more since. Some more changes to the Trump attitude of Trump 2016. He has assured the people that none of his children will have a role to play in the administration. A good mature move. A step in the right direction.
China, India, Russia, South Africa, Iran and Saudi Arabia are no longer those states that used to jump at the howl of the big bad wolf 'The West'. Trump knows where his bread is buttered inspite of his crude juvenile rhetoric and undiplomatic language. Trumps rhetoric and undiplomatic language is in fact a carefully crafted ploy to attract the millions of Americans marginalized by the Washington elites and their cronies for decades. It is what simpletons (the majority of the American people of today) understand and wish for.
Trump cannot retool the USA overnight by bringing back jobs from China, India and Mexico during his second term in office. It takes a lot more than 4 years to do that, especially when 14,000,000 otherwise able bodied, employable, individuals are now hooked on drugs of dependance and unemployable.
Then there is the case of strutural unemployment where jobs which once existed are no longer avaailable with robots and computers having taken their place. There are lots more problems with respect to the US economy. He'll have to shut down Walmart and the food franchises to achieve the kind of economic miracle he wants for the USA.
Those groupies clamouring to congradulate Trump are nothing more than sychophants, desperados, insecure leaders and those wanting military and financial support from Washington like Zelensky and Nethanyahu. Nothing unusual about that. Its been a staple of the US in keeping countries dependent on its foreign policy.
A not unexpected casualty of the re election of Trump is the collapse of the German government of Olaf Scholz. Chancellor, Olaf Scholz yesterday. Shultz unexpectedly sacked his finance minister, plunging Europe’s largest economy into political disarray.
There is much more to come in the months ahead. Israel will not get the support it expects from Trump like it had in his previous incarnation as president of the US. Israel is vulnerable, ustable and not the superman with divine powers it was before. Trump knows that it can't decouple from the Ukraine whilst supporting a more unpopular cause of the survival of the Jewish state which Jews themselves are abandoning.
No wonder there is that queue outside the Tump telephone booth.
Existential is the most overused word in papers, commentary etc. in the world today. Ditto Existential Crisis. Probably the most Existential Crisis in the world is the overuse of the phrase Existential Crisis.
Trump is essentially saying what the Indian External Affairs Minister said: "America is sitting on its' ground." America First does not mean America Only. It means America will not place fillintheblank countrie's interest ahead of its' own. No nation should. India should not place America's interests ahead of its' own, nor should it expect America to place India's interest ahead of its' own. For to long certain segments (Looking at you Europe) have thought that and expected that. Everyone resents America telling it what to do but wants to tell America what to do. And then can't understand why America resents it.