Trump returns to presidency stronger than before, but remains just as unpredictable

Washington, DC

As Donald Trump returns to power, much of the world is bracing for a repeat of his first term in office. Yet, in light of his own conflicting pronouncements and radically unworkable proposals, the new administration’s likely policies are still a wild guessing game.

During his first term in office, Trump ruled the United States in a style that defied convention and routinely challenged established norms, both at home and abroad. After his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, a sense of normalcy was restored, and many commentators assumed that Trump had been an aberration. In the years that followed, the former president was besieged by a series of legal setbacks, including a criminal conviction, which many believed would hurt his political future.

Yet, in this month’s elections, Trump defied all those expectations. In an astonishing result, Trump beat the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, by a wider margin in the electoral college than had been achieved in the previous two elections. In the process, he became the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years.

In securing his victory, Trump made inroads into all demographic groups that have traditionally been loyal to the Democratic Party. According to a New York Times study, large percentages of voters among Hispanics and African-Americans, rural and urban populations, educated and less educated sections, and both young and old shifted towards Trump. In particular, compared with 2020, Trump gained in Hispanic-majority counties by over 13 percentage points and in urban counties by nearly 6 percentage points.

These shifts also manifested in gains for the Republicans in the concurrent elections for the Senate and House of Representatives. The Republicans secured a majority in the Senate after flipping four seats from Democratic incumbents. They retained the House as well. This adds to the already iron-clad conservative majority in the US Supreme Court following new judicial appointments during Trump’s first term.

Trump therefore returns to the White House with far more political capital and power than before. He has not only won gains in Congress and within his party but has also won vindication for his brand of politics.

It is still unclear what these developments will mean for the US and the world under Trump’s second term. In the run-up to this month’s elections, Harris tried to rally voters around what she argued was the threat posed to democracy by Trump’s confrontational style of politics. But voter sentiment was instead dominated by economic concerns―rising inflation and housing costs and worries over limited upward socioeconomic mobility. According to data from the National Association of Realtors, between July 2023 and June 2024, only 24 per cent of new home buyers in the US were first-time buyers. Many young families have been priced out of the housing market by rising costs and stagnant incomes.

These frustrations drove strong anti-immigrant sentiments, which Trump tapped into with aggressive rhetoric. On the campaign trail, Trump accused Biden and Harris of allowing large numbers of illegal immigrants into the US, leading to rising crime and economic scarcity. In his presidential debate with Harris, Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants in a small town in Ohio were eating the pets of local residents.

Consequently, Trump promised mass deportation of illegal immigrants. At a rally in New York, he said, “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation programme in American history to get the criminals out.” He also controversially proposed the denial of citizenship to children born in the US to illegal immigrants. But the jury is out on how much of this Trump is truly serious about and how much of it is practically possible.

It is also unclear if Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric will result in restrictions on legal immigration by skilled workers. Back in June, Trump had said that students graduating from US colleges should get a green card. Such a policy may prove to be too ambitious, but the presence and influence of billionaire Elon Musk in Trump’s second presidency may potentially encourage the liberalisation of immigration policy for high-skilled workers. Musk’s business interests, including Tesla, SpaceX, and X depend heavily on high-skilled labour from abroad.

On trade and foreign policy, Trump remains just as unpredictable and inconsistent. During his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to impose tariffs on goods coming into the US. The nature of those tariff proposals changed from time to time. Trump has floated the idea of a 25 per cent tariff on all goods from Mexico, a 60 per cent tax on goods from China, and even a 10 per cent tariff on all imported goods across the board. But the arbitrariness of these proposals suggests that none of them are set in stone.

On this front, relations with China will prove especially consequential. During his first term, Trump presided over a prolonged trade war with China, which resulted in a series of tariffs―many of which continued under Biden. Yet, the two presidents have fundamentally different views on Beijing. Biden often resorted to the logic of geopolitical competition in maintaining trade restrictions on China, arguing that it is not in US interest to rely on Chinese supply chains. To that end, he encouraged US businesses to diversify their operations to other countries more closely aligned with Washington― a strategy widely known as “friend-shoring”.

Trump, on the other hand, has shown limited appetite for the view that China is a geopolitical or strategic rival. Instead, he has approached trade with China through a relatively more transactional lens. As a result, Trump may potentially be more open to negotiating deals with Beijing on trade.

These subtle differences have previously manifested themselves in the way that the two leaders have dealt with President Xi Jinping. In the aftermath of a meeting with Xi in San Francisco late last year, Biden termed the Chinese president a “dictator”. For much of his term, Biden rallied allies in the Indo-Pacific against Beijing, arguing that the world was caught in a righteous fight between democracy and autocracy. By contrast, Trump has often talked up Xi’s leadership, calling him “smart” for ruling with “an iron fist”.

Trump similarly brings a complex dynamic to Russia and the Ukraine war. Over the years, Trump has publicly admired Putin much in the same way as he has admired Xi. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump praised Putin’s strategic prowess, calling it “very savvy”. Separately, Trump has often expressed deep scepticism towards US allies in Europe and the NATO, arguing that Washington was footing the bill for their defence.

Such rhetoric would make most European leaders deeply anxious and many observers believe that a second Trump presidency could dilute Washington’s commitment to Ukraine’s defence. Yet, shortly after winning the election this month, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over a phone call which reports described as a “good talk”. The conversation also reportedly involved Musk who has been a key supplier to the Ukrainian war effort through his Starlink satellite communications network.

A second Trump presidency may swing one way or the other on most of these issues. On most policy matters, Trump has frequently left himself room for inconsistency and unpredictability, often giving little or no thought to diluting or even contravening his own past policy pronouncements.

Yet, despite this uncertainty, Trump’s final moves have often hinged on his transactional approach. Trump’s foreign and domestic policies frequently appear liable to shift based on what he perceives as gains and losses, both personal and political. In that context, Trump’s large business interests provide both domestic and foreign stakeholders with unconventional channels to influence his policies. Those interests have ranged from hotels and golf courses―in strategically consequential countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia―to investments in a crypto venture and a social media company.

Foreign governments will inevitably factor in these interests during their dealings with Trump. But on most issues, there is gross unpredictability on the shape that Trump’s policies would take during his second term.

The author is a foreign affairs analyst based in Washington, DC, and the author of Flying Blind: India’s Quest for Global Leadership