18.3.25
Dear Partners in Thought,
Two months into Trump 2.0 it is clear that the impact of his frenetic, erratic and poorly-managed policies is obvious as was expected. A small majority of Americans is now opposed to what they see unfolding, including many of his own voters, with only the MAGA cult base remaining largely faithful and hoping for the best. The US is also now led by a top team characterised by its combined incompetence for such secretary roles and blind obedience to the leader who wants no control this term, mirroring features often noticed in autocracies.
Time has flown very fast since January 20. It is now useful to assess the impact of Trump’s policies and think of their potential developments that may occur in America and the world, all the more as it is likely that they were not seriously expected to be as game-changing as they fast became. Impacts can be seen at many levels, given the long list of decisions taken in a very short time, but the main ones are already clear. Potential developments or scenarios can be many and also far-reaching both for America and the world.
At home, Trump and his team are destroying the Federal government, which has clear impacts in many areas like health and education across the country, including in red states where many of his voters are increasingly voicing great discontent. Many federal employees, including former Trump supporters, are also losing their jobs thanks to a quasi-rogue operating DOGE that is managed by the richest man in the world, who is also looking out for his own interests across the board and globally, not unlike his “Big Tech bros” that the MAGA base finds fine and not the “despicable urban elite” of the day. Trump is now going after personal enemies and the prosecutors who led the many legal actions against him during the Biden administration in ways that recall a bad Count of Monte Christo novel of our times. The appointment of highly questionable leaders of the FBI and National Intelligence known for their conspiracy theories combined with the sacking of experienced FBI and intelligence officers is not sound for sheer American security. Stopping incoming illegal immigration, always a liberal democratic weakness as seen in Europe, appears to be supported by a majority of Americans and perhaps the only Trump policy win, even if the incoherent use of tariffs to do so, not to mention unmanageable mass deportations, has created clear havoc. Republicans in Congress strangely turned against elite academia (and the educated ones?) by aiming at substantially raising taxes of top university endowments such as those of Harvard, Yale or Princeton while the Trump administration has started to cut off federal funding and grants to colleges, overall a core American competitive advantage with 72% of top universities worldwide (this while China is increasing them at home). Diversity and inclusion or DEI, even if admittedly excessive at times in their implementation ways, are being cancelled even by leading global businesses kowtowing to the Trump times (while students at military bases worldwide, of all places and people, resist the crackdown). The pardons of unacceptable January 6 insurrectionists and historical Trump supporters goes on even if helped by Joe Biden’s farewell take on his own son. Free speech is also endangered as shown with the treatment of traditional news media like the Associated Press or the plans to deport a pro-Palestinian former Columbia University student activist and Green Card resident. However, we can see today at least a backlash from the judicial branch that shows the US is still a democracy and the constitution is upheld – for now, even if federal court orders are also defied like with the deportation of 250 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang (all while the Trump-friendly Supreme Court had already taken the view that the US President was immune from any legal action regarding his decisions during his term).
Trump’s economic policies have already led to stark stock market declines in March with likely rising inflation that, as expected, results from announced tariffs and associated trade wars also linked to geopolitical aggression (French wine may become a luxury item soon but will not impact Musk & Co). Such declines are now sold as an expected “temporary pain” though with the word recession resurfacing – not a great development for all those who did not like Trump but voted for him essentially to ensure their economic well-being (making James Carville known for his 1992 “It’s the economy, stupid!” surely smile even if he must be distraught today). Consumer confidence already starts being eroded by uncertainty with less store and fast food chain visits across America. And then mass deportations of illegal but law obedient immigrants will substantially hurt some key sectors like agriculture as some Red State Republican elected officials seem to have woken up to. Traditional foreign investment is also likely to decline as a result of a sapped confidence in America. Trump’s national strategic reserve of Bitcoin is befuddling many but his odd move may also be linked to personal interests given his very recent family crypto projects. While the current negative economic developments are deemed by the Trump team to reflect a necessary “period of transition” or “detox period”, the mix of incoherence and unpredictability of policies ultimately aimed at deregulation and tax cuts is getting too strong not to sap both local investor (even a previously “Trump-flexible” Wall Street) and citizen confidence. At least Trump acting as a White House Tesla salesman tried to mitigate the downfall we see.
The Republican party and its officials in Congress are still (so far) following Trump, even if many of them dislike the president and his hurtful policies. Job preservation matters more than economic and political sanity, even if the 2026 mid-terms may prove damning to many. The Republican party has lost its historical essence in the Trump era, while the Democrats currently seem to struggle to form a productive opposition and need restructuring, all of this making for a very unproductive political environment.
In two months, Trump destroyed 80 years of US leadership of what was called the West or the Free World, threatening the invasion of close friends like Canada and Danish Greenland, or even leaving NATO. While putting the global climate change challenge aside, he also dismantled USAID which provided clear soft power to the US worldwide with many direct and indirect benefits at all levels, including its image as a good global power – not to mention dealing with so many issues like significant food shortages or health needs in the developing world. Key US-funded and managed pro-democracy media outlets like Voice of America, Radio Free Asia or the historical Cold War era Radio Free Europe reaching out to millions among autocracies worldwide are being gradually dismantled. His main driver and odd rationale, as America was the great beneficiary of such a leadership role, was that too many tax dollars were wasted and America had been taken advantage of for too long. Not realising the harm to America’s power, Trump focused on USAID savings that could then also lead, as with tariffs or federal funding cuts, to lower taxes for ordinary Americans, assuming the economic shocks we see be “temporary”, which is unlikely or at best a dangerous gambling approach.
Some new and potential key geostrategic developments
The new breath-taking approach of Trump 2.0 to international affairs has clear consequences globally, at times via wild and surprising announcements, from renaming the Gulf of Mexico, a new approach to South Africa and its white farmers or DC envoys, taking back control of the Panama Canal, raising doubts about the 1960 US-Japan defence treaty to making Gaza another Riviera. The list is very long and hard to follow, but there are some key actual and potential developments already affecting the world after only two months.
It is clear that, while the US is unlikely to take drastic decisions to break the Western alliance, including NATO, further, Trump will see the world as a transactional geostrategic chessboard with direct US interests, as he sees them, being a primary policy driver. As such he has just launched massive and unilateral operations against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in order to preserve US trade and shipping interests while stressing the global benefits of such a move.
While not having fostered a MEGA movement, Trump has unwittingly cemented European unity and admittedly a much-needed and long-in-the making focus on its independent defence, this while assisting a UK-EU rapprochement, first on defence, that may lead to more concrete partnership steps in the next decade (would Trump be a Brexit killer?) In the same flavour, the EU is developing trade talks with both Mexico and Mercosur in Latin America (Would Trump not be an agent of the EU and not Russia after all?). And finally, a new and welcome Germany is also appearing as wanting to be a core player in European defence, shedding the weight of history and contributing at its strong level.
Trump’s chaotic geostrategic approach may lead Europe to eventually getting closer to China in some strategic and mutually-fitting “safe” areas while Canada may become close to and possibly a formal partner of the EU, two examples of developments that would not support American global interests.
While Trump gets too aligned with Russia (for many reasons, including personal ones) while not fully supporting Ukraine as a key ally should (with back-and-forth decisions on military and intelligence support that look like the tariffs approaches to Mexico and Canada), he may eventually help achieve a peace, even if it may not favour the aggressed country and indeed ally – not to mention NATO members. History may wrongly remember him as the solver of the Ukraine invasion and forget at what cost. One of the hidden drivers of this unbelievable approach is that Trump may want to get Russia against China as another example that Asia, and the great competition he sees against Beijing, means more than Europe today – all while likely forgetting Taiwan as long as semi-conductors are of course manufactured in the US.
While new developments will occur, it is likely that most, if not all, historical Western allies of the US, even if Trump has natural leverage over them (v traditional enemies), will work hard to keep a form of practical relationship with the Trump administration while America is unlikely to invade Greenland or force Canada into being the 51st state. The showbiz news appeal of President Trump is likely to erode over time as his aggressive announcement of policies and their back and forth will usually lead to nothing, or not much but aggravation, risking making America not being taken seriously and being seen as unreliable in international affairs.
Potential developments in the US itself
While the economic shocks following Trump’s policies will affect prices of goods and services, many will suffer job losses unless an economic redirection takes place in the short term. If not, the Republican party will suffer an historical loss in the 2026 mid-terms, assuming the Democrats reshape themselves, find a new leadership, deal with excessive ‘woke’ issues and find the right candidates. This redirection would lead the path to a Democratic win in 2028 for a centrist Democratic candidate like Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom, all needing to take a more conservative turn on societal values. This, of course, would assume that the US Constitution would still hold and a form of mild autocracy were not reached as times become too challenging for the Trump administration. Such a return to normality would also lead to a reshaping of US foreign policy according to pre-Trump 2.0 norms that would be welcome by most of the world at large.
The real domestic danger would be for many in the MAGA cult base to finally realise they have been duped by President Trump and his “Big Tech bros”, which could lead to a form of civil insurrection, if not war, that could involve some of the most Trump-loving red states against the rest of America, this time not along the natural North-South geographic division seen during the American civil war of 1861. Social media, extremist influencers and podcasters who have recently shaped American life may also play a key role in this previously unthinkable development fitting our new times. In many ways, this extraordinary scenario, not unlike the now credible one of the US potentially leaving NATO, would be the logical consequence for voters having blindly backed populist leaders and finding out that they cannot manage governments or make their lives better but can only create chaos. Many of these angry voters, however misplaced their support of extremist populist leaders, often fuelled by lack of formal education and excessive social media focus, may feel without normal recourse any longer.
It is hard to predict the future, even if all could have seen the adverse effects of Trump’s frenetic economic and geopolitical policies without being a PhD in economics or a leading diplomat. However, given the drastic changes to the world we knew, it is quite key to try to see what the future may be at the personal, corporate or country levels, so we can assist our leaderships, and indeed our fellow citizens, in dealing efficiently with our uncertain times.
Warmest regards,
Serge
Desperate Measures 