Trumpism re-incarnation and geopolitics

Machiavellianism, providentialism and ultra-conservatism principles are necessarily invoked by Donald Trump’s re-election as the 47th President of the United States on November 5, 2024. Trump, the Republican Party candidate, defeated his Democratic Party rival, Vice-President, Kamala Harris, by winning 78.4 million popular votes (50.4 per cent) to the VP’s 71.2 million (48 per cent)and taking the majority (312) of electoral college votes to Kamala Harris’ (226).

Machiavellianism, becauseTrump deployed orthodox and unorthodox means to regain power. Trump’s political ends of securing victory justified the means towards achieving that strategic objective. That assertion is reinforced on three key points. One, immediately after the 2020 elections, Trump refused to concede victory to then President-elect, now, 46th President, Joe Biden. Two, Trump alleged material irregularities in those election results. Three, Trump contested those election results across U.S. courts and was directly implicated by a bipartisan U.S. Congressional Panel in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which resulted in five deaths including a police officer and a military veteran.

Providentialism, because against momentous odds, Trump won a presidential re-election,with a commanding democratic mandate, inferentially invoking ametaphorical nexus established in Psalm 118 verse 22 of the Holy Bible: “the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone”

Here’s why. First, Trump was impeached twice by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on December 18, 2019 for obstructing Congress and abuse of power. He was again impeached by the Representatives on January 13, 2021 pursuant to the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2024 by Trump supporters. Thus, earning the unenviable record of becoming the first U.S. President to be impeached twice.

Second, Trump was indicted on August 2, 2023 for seeking to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections and charged with “conspiracy against the United States.” That case went right up to the United States Supreme Court (SC), with a Republican majority, including three Trump appointees (who were pivotal in overturning abortion rights long-established in Roe vs Wade 1973); which decided in Trump’s favour.

It ruled that under the United States constitutional arrangements of separation of powers between the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature (Congress), the nature of Presidential power entitles former Presidents – and by necessary inference serving Presidents to: (1) absolute immunity from criminal prosecutions within his conclusive and presumptive constitutional authority; (2) presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts; and (3) no immunity for unofficial acts. Thus, Trump was handed a materially significant lifeline by the SC.Third, whilst facing other serious federal indictments, Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt on July 13, 2024 at a Pennsylvania campaign rally.

Ultra-conservatism, because the majority of the U.S. electorate supported Trump’s populist ideology espousing anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, assertations of belief in Almighty God; “blood and thunder”, strategic disruption, asserted emotional connections with “grassroot supporters”; low taxation, business-friendliness, protectionism; law and order, America First in domestic and foreign policies, realpolitik, unashamedly pro-Israeli and a rejection of liberalism.That in essence is Trumpism, and underpins its extant re-incarnation.

How then will Trumpism shape Nigeria/U.S. relations? Africa/U.S. geopolitics? Will it impact the Russian/Ukrainian crisis? Trump has asserted his capacity to end that war in “24 hours.” Is that blustering rodomontade or an intellectually coherent claim grounded in rigorous policy analysis? Will Trumpism alter U.S. foreign policy regarding the Israel/ Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthi crisis? Iran? Is the prognosis towards a doveish or hawkish policy towards China, America’s major strategic rival under Trump? Will NATO survive Trumpism? How will global markets react to Trumpism?

Surely, none of these posers can be answered with exact precision not least because, Trumpism itself, is grounded in strategic disruption and unorthodoxy. Notwithstanding, Trump’s policy choices in his first term as the 45th president (2017-2021), afford some useful insights as to the probable domestic and foreign policy trajectory. Nigeria/U.S. relations have been on an even keel over several years and that’s unlikely to change in the coming Trump years (2025-2029). Besides, United States pre-eminence presupposes that it holds the aces in the power dynamics between both countries.

Nigeria has advanced a formidable case for UN Security Council permanent membership with veto-wielding powers, which in turn has received encouraging signals from the current Biden administration. However, Trumpism’s America first doctrine, suggest that Nigeria’s aspirations in that realm may not be accorded the relative priority which it has so far received from Biden’s administration.

Nigeria’s eventual “diplomatic” handling of the Binance employee and U.S. special agent, Tigran Gambaryan’s case will be remembered by the Trump administration. Tigran was held by Nigerian authorities on moneylaundering charges for eight months until his release in October 2024, following high level interventions by U.S. Congressmen and a June 2024 Nigerian “visit” by FBI Director, Christopher Wray.

Trade relations will be sustained although Nigerian cannot reasonably expect special favours under a reincarnated President Trump. In 2022, U.S. exported $3.24 billion goods/items to Nigeria.In the same period, Nigeria exported $4.83 billion to the U.S. mostly crude petroleum ($4.0 2billion). InAugust 2024, United States exported $220 million and imported $382 million from Nigeria, resulting in a negative balance of trade balance of $162 million. Through August 2023 and August 2024 U.S. exports to Nigeria increased by $41.7 million (23.4 per cent) from $178million to $220 million, while imports shrunkby $64.2M (14.4%) from $446 million to $382 million.

More widely in Africa, the Trump administration may seek to streamline the African Growth and Opportunity Act 2000 and prioritise trade links with demonstrably pro-American African allies like Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, whilst strengthening coordination with ECOWAS. The challenge however, is that ECOWAS is fractured following the exit of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and the pro-Russian leanings of that trio. Robust Chinese economic inroads across the continent will concern the United States, who may strategically refocus assets on defence and military links with friendlyAfrican countries and USAFRICOM.

Given his extensive pre-election rhetoric, the odds are that Trump will favour a pragmatic resolution to the ongoing Russian/Ukrainian war. Trumpism suggests that U.S. military spending in Ukraine and NATO will be recalibrated and streamlined. The inference, of strategic consequence, being that Russian/Ukrainian belligerents will be more likely to seek a negotiated outcome if the policy trajectory is a reduction of U.S. military assets.

Likewise, America First and Trumpian principles will necessarily collide with NATO spending. Yes, the United States remains pivotal to NATO, however, European allies will need to be self-reliant and manage their expectations on future U.S. financial contributions. It won’t be business-as-usual!

Trump is unlikely to alter his consistently robust pro-Israeli stance, so little change is expected in his administration’s Middle-East foreign policy. It is reasonable to expect an optimisation of the Abraham Accords and sustenance of strategic engagement with moderate Middle-Eastern allies like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Morocco, UAE et al.

The challenge however, is that Palestinians, are caught on the hop and their agony persists. Without demonstrably honest U.S. support, Palestinians’ moral victories at the UN General Assembly and legal victories at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, though symbolic, are of negligible practical consequence to the suffering of ordinary Palestinians in what remains of Gaza, the West Bank and further afield.

Trumpism’s America first philosophy, by its very definition, suggests proactively defending and projecting American interests. The first Trump administration on January 3, 2020, oversaw the assassination of Iranian Major-General Qasem Soleimani, by an American drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq.Soleimani was head of the Quds Force, a designated terrorist organisation by the U.S. Congress.

The point being that Trumpism is instinctively hawkish not doveish. The inference there is that the U.S. will target perceived and real enemies, adopting “blood and thunder” in the emergent Trumpian reincarnation upon the logic of its historical antecedents working either independently or in concert with proxies.

The United States strategic rivalry with China will persist over Taiwan, relative to China’s one-China policy; market access; America’s claims of protectionism and unfair trading practices, and human rights violations against China. Will that boil over into a military skirmish? That’s a known unknown, although the prospects of that happening are pretty slim. Plus, it won’t be in the interests of either superpower. So, the expectation of strategic ambiguity between both nations remains.

It’s too early to ascertain the probable economic impacts of Trumpism. However, indications following the election results of November 5, 2024, suggest a positive bounce in U.S. stock markets. The Dow Jones recorded its best trading day in two years surging more than 1500 points, ditto Standard and Poor’s 500 and the NASDAQ.

In the final analysis, Trumpism, yet again, heralds a resetting of the global and domestic geopolitical order, contested multilateralism, a robust projection of American foreign policy, muscular diplomacy and a redefinition of America First. Quite likely, policy tensions will materialise with the Global South over expansion of the UN Security Council, BRICS, American oversight of multilateral agencies, and more intense strategic rivalry amongst the superpowers.

On the domestic front, Trumpism will give, subject to legal challenges, effect massive deportations, straining international relations and social cohesion. Nevertheless, true statesmanship is what’s called for now and in the future; not triumphalism!

Thus, Kamala Harris’ stirring concession speech at her alma mater, Howard University, struck the right chords: “I do not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign—the fight: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.”

Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, and the author of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, Foreign Relations, Jurisprudence and National Development (2023).