With the election of Donald Trump as 47th President of the United States, there are many theories and analyses as to how international politics will unfold in the next four years. Since Donald Trump has different personality traits as compared to pre-vious presidents of the US, therefore most of the scholars of international politics predict unpredictability and uncertainty at international level. Nevertheless, the world goes in its own way; despite wars, conflicts and political and economic uncertainties. Analyzing his past track record as the President of the United States, it is expected that, besides revival of his old policies, Donald Trump will bring major changes in US foreign and domestic policies.
During his first tenure (2017-2021), Donald Trump didn’t initiate a new war which in-volved US troops, rather brought an end to existing American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In his victory speech on November 6, 2024, he again promised to make ef-forts for ending the existing wars and conflicts. It is expected that Trump will use his influence to end the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of Israel; the one sided war against the innocent masses of Palestine going on since October 7, 2023. Since 1973, Israel has enjoyed the unremitting American support in its terror-ism against the regional states of the Middle East. The US fully supported Israel for criminalizing the Palestinians. In the recent genocidal war of Israel, there have been unprecedented human losses; 43000 documented deaths with over 120,000 wounded people.
All livings, hospitals, community centers and infrastructure in Gaza have been de-stroyed, with substantial losses in the West Bank. In addition to Palestine, Israel has conducted attacks in Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of thousands, including key Hamas leadership. It has also launched aerial attacks in Syria, Yemen and Iran. The great-est test for Donald Trump may be to halt Israel’s uncontrolled wars in the Middle East. Dur-ing his first term, he enabled the handover of the Golan Heights to Israel without war and de-clared East Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—both actions violating UN Resolution 181.
The Russia-Ukraine War is seriously challenging the peace in the Euro-Asian region. Indeed, this is an indirect war between US and Russia, since Washington is fully supporting this war along with its European allies. As a result of this continued war, there have been huge casualties on both sides, Russia and Ukraine, in the last two and half years. Since Donald Trump has a matching chemistry with Russian Presi-dent Putin, therefore, it is expected that he will play a decisive role to end this ugly war which has destroyed over 80% of the area of Ukraine. On its part, Russia is fac-ing the crises of its rapidly decreasing population, a very serious demographic factor.
The Interim Government of Afghanistan under Taliban must attract the attention of Donald Trump, after assuming power on January 20, 2025. Taliban came into power as a result of US-Taliban Agreement on February 29, 2020. Despite passage of three years, Afghan Taliban Government is still unrecognized and causing instability in Pakistan by abetting the terrorists of TTP. Donald Trump is expected to re-engage with the Taliban regime for a broader consensus to bring a broad-based and all in-clusive Afghan Government in Afghanistan which should respect international law, global norms, diplomacy and respect the sovereignty of neighboring states.
While continuing his former policies, Trump will impose a ban on the migrants and immigrants, since he considers that this act will secure America and he has the mis-sion to make America Great again through a variety of actions. Analyzing the US his-tory, immigrants have played a major part towards socio-economic development of the US.
By constraining the movement of immigrants, Trump may cause harm to American diverse culture and emerging diverse avenues for the economic develop-ment of the US. On the issue of climate change, Trump was rigid in his previous era. He violated all the international agreements and pacts on climate change and opted to exit from the climate change club unilaterally. Indeed, having the origin as a busi-nessman, Trump is likely to continue his previous policies on climate change, jeop-ardizing the most significant challenge facing the international community.
With Trump as a critic of Chinese world-wide economic outreach, China-US Eco-nomic War may take a new and terrible restart. In case he opts to continue his previ-ous policy of economic confrontation with China, the US economy will drastically suf-fer. Indeed, Sino-US economies are highly interdependent. Besides, US-China eco-nomic confrontation will seriously affect regional and global economies. If wisdom prevails, Donald Trump should adopt a policy of economic cooperation with China, rather than getting into an economic confrontation. As abstracted from his election promises and planning, Trump may increase the 10% tariff on all goods imported in-to the US. This is primarily in the context of China but apparently to eliminate the US trade deficit. He has threatened to impose a 200pc tariff on some imported cars.
Regarding US relations with the South Asian region, it is likely that Trump will be more inclined towards India because of two factors: Pakistan-China relationship and US political, economic and strategic interests in India. Moreover, his chemistry matches with Indian Prime Minister Modi, compared to Pakistani Prime Minister. It will be logical for Trump to adopt a more pragmatic and balanced approach towards India and Pakistan. Indeed, keeping a balanced relationship with Pakistan and India will bring peace in South Asia which will promote goodwill for the United States too.
— The writer is Professor of Politics and IR at International Islamic University, Islamabad.
