By Javier Surasky
Trump is
the new US elected President. As always happens, it is easy to find articles
and debates on what a Trump 2.0 presidency could mean for the world. Well, Here
I catch the wave and humbly share my own “informed predictions” on what to
expect.
First, Trump's
election does not mean the end of multilateralism, as some doomsday
prophets like to say. In fact, during his first term in office, Trump himself engaged
with the UN, joined the General Debate, and the US and his administration actively
participated in UN Security Council and General Assembly debates promoting
issues such as religious freedom, counter-narcotics, and to face the “North
Korea menace.” So, to start, we can expect that Trump's second term in office
will maintain its high-profile participation in the UN, even if you like the
position they will be defending or not.
Having said
that, the first clues on how the US will engage in the UN debates are starting
to come. The designation of Elise Stefanik as the US
permanent representative to the UN means a lot. Stefanik, a
long-experienced congresswoman and the House Republican Conference chair, has minimal
experience in foreign policy. She was mentioned in the early stages of the
presidential run as a possible
Trump vice-president, is a strong supporter of Israel, and was a visible
face of the US critics of the UN response to the October 7 Hamas terrorist
attack.
Now the
question is, how many options will she have to define US policies at the UN?
It is worth remembering that under Democrat governments the US Ambassador to
the UN used to be a cabinet-level position. Still, when Republicans are in office,
it only happens sometimes. When Nikki Haley was Trump's Ambassador to the UN during
his first presidency, the position was at the cabinet level. However, when Kelly
Craft assumed the position, which was still under the Trump administration, it
was not.
Having the US
permanent representative to the UN in the cabinet sends a sound message to other
capitals and the UN regarding the Ambassador-President alignment and proximity.
If that happens, Stefanik will be considered a President's voice, with a word-to-say
on multilateral issues. Then, the position of Secretary of State will probably have
less to say on UN-related issues.
The “tandem”
Trump-Stefanik and the Democrat control of the Senate and the House of
Representatives allows us to imagine some initial Trump presidential targets
at the UN: UNRWA, UNFPA due to its work on reproductive health, and the WHO, that
Trump’s first administration attempt to abandon.
It is less
clear how Trump will proceed regarding the Paris Agreement. I do not
think he will withdraw (again) from it. Instead, I expect that the new
configuration of the legislative branch will be used to cut funds from
environmental activities, paired with an impulse to fossil fuel energy exploitation
within and without US frontiers.
This is
linked to Trump's broad strategy to confront the UN actions and entities with
which he disagreed. The Republican majority in both legislative chambers,
a major issue distinguishing Trump’s first period in office and this triumphant
comeback, would be his primary weapon to threaten the UN with withholding
funds. Trump will probably become a “mediator” between an aggressive anti-UN House
of Representatives and a more moderated Senate. The play between both chambers
will be critical in the US funding/defunding the UN key issue.
Another
intriguing movement of Trump’s new administration is related to Ukraine.
The nomination of the future Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense will,
again, provide some clues. From now on, Zelenski has many reasons to be worried
about: Trump was never inclined to support Ukraine, and future President Vance
has said in the past July that it was not in the American interest to fund that
“never-ending
war.” Moreover, in a very pragmatic way, he said that negotiating
with Russia is “a necessary part” of ending the Ukraine war, and we all
know that the republican congressmen are in favor of cutting US financial
support to Ukraine.
What I find
very challenging to predict is the US-China relationship under the new
Trump administration. The dialogue between both countries worked well immediately
after Trump’s first election in 2016, but it cracked under the COVID-19
pandemic and led to a surging trade war. Biden managed to rebuild friendly
relations, but Trump vowed during his campaign that he is ready to impose
tariffs of up to 60 percent on imports from China, and a possible US self-absorption
policy under Trump is also creating shadows
over Taiwan’s future, a potential US-China bargaining coin?
In
parallel, European leaders are worrying not only about the Ukraine war, in
which they have invested a lot in financial and political terms but also about
NATO and regarding the role Trump has in mind for Europe at the global
level. Trump is an “Americanist,” far from a person worried about the “West”
block, and he came to the Oval Office when neither European countries nor the
European Union seemed to have leaders ready to keep pace with the rising challenges.
Finally, I
cannot skip the AI issue, in which we can wait for significant changes,
including the repealing of Biden’s October 2023 Executive Order on AI that
established safety and privacy standards for AI and promoted its ethical use.
It is expected that Elon Musk will play a significant role in the new American
approach to AI: In September, Trump
pledged to have Elon Musk as the head of a governmental office dealing with
efficiency “tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit
of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms.”
Both Trump and Musk are unpredictable, so the advice could be to expect the
unexpected.
