Photo: Reuters /Carlos Barria
By Dr. Phar Kim Beng, Expert Committee Member of CROSS
Seven, seems to be the lucky number of incoming President Donald Trump. Come January 20th 2025, he would be the 47th President of the United States (POTUS).
This presidency would be many times different from his prior term as the 46th President of the US between early 2017-2021.
Unlike his previous term, in his re- election bid—-that proved successful beyond all metrics—–Trump not only started the process to cast away any Federal investigations on him, which would lead to two other states likely to drop all charges in due course, but Trump made a successful comeback in the most stunning manner ever seen in the US elections or anywhere.
At the US Senate, Trump’s republican party has a majority of seven against the Democratic Party. In the US House of Representatives, Trump has doubled the seven to make it a majority of fourteen. Either way, Trump is bound to control the White House, the whole of Congress.
Although Trump has promised to come into office on January 20th with a slew of measures which will be enforced by signing what the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) called the “Three Hundred” executive orders (EOs)—- one of which requires America to demarcate the human gender as either male or female in any official forms of the Federal government—– previous practices in early 2017 also saw Trump using EOs to kill off the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).
With the domineering control of the US Senate and the House of Representatives in 2025, two institutions that form the US Congress, such levers of influence can allow Trump to enjoy even more executive powers.
Trump is also allowed by law to use more EOs to end any redundancies in the Federal government, all with the stroke of a pen; not unlike he has done in his first term.
However, it would be a mistake to believe that Trump has every intention to listen to all his worst instincts. As the most powerful President of the US, the irony is that all his opponents and supporters would be cowed by the tremendous power which he wields. They won’t challenge him too overwhelmingly, as they did in Trump’s first term. Thus there is no issue of Trump becoming a Dictator, when every indicator post November 5th 2024 has shown Trump to be ahead of many platforms.
First and foremost, Trump not only reached the 270 Electoral College votes in the most compelling manner on the night of the election, by winning all the seven swing states, Trump also added more than 1 million more popular votes from the 72 Million voters whom he has been able to preserve since 2020.
In other words, this time around Trump won the presidency not only with more popular votes than Kamala Harris, who remains the Vice President of outgoing President Joe Biden on January 20th 2025, Trump also won all seven swing states of this election. The seven swing states are Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
With Elon Musk, who was once a Democrat who pivoted to Trump, backed by a donation of USD 120 Million’s war chest, Trump and Must have been looking into the creation of the the Department On Government Efficiencies to further deregulate, potentially, de-fund, some of the 5000 Federal government agencies that have not been operating with a clear line of authority.
Meanwhile, following the surge in the stock of Tesla, X and two other companies, Musk’s donation of USD 120 Million has seen his own stock portfolios rising to more than USD 26 Billion alone. A total of ten other tech billionaires and those who have made their fortunes from crypto currencies, too, enjoy a spike in their wealth.
Entities like Bitcoin, Ether and Doge, all saw a surge in value, at the New York Stock Exchange in the morning after the election, anticipating the further deregulation of the crypto sector.
While Trump has time and again spoke of the need to raise tariffs ranging from 20 percent to 60 percent on all foreign goods, including those from China, there is every likely that Must would be able to dissuade him from such measures since Musk, when appointed by Trump, is likely to focus on removing onerous regulations that have proliferated across all agencies of the Federal government.
This does not mean cheap foreign exports of China, even Taiwan, into the US, would be spared from crushing tax increases but such a move would not necessarily be forthcoming; as Elon Musk has gently warned Trump that too many taxation and tariffs too fast and too widely will lead to an unstable global economy too.
As for Ukraine, the Middle East and even the South China Sea, for that matter, the East China Sea, President Donald Trump’s massive electoral victory, the likes of which have never been witnessed since the days of former New Deal President such as Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, will provide Trump with enormous domestic advantage where the Congress will not second guess or filibuster any more policy actions of Trump.
This was a line of analysis offered by Professor Victor Davis at the Hoover Institution in Stanford University.
In trying to understand if the first term of Trump viz a viz the second term, there is every likelihood that the second tenure will be completely different from the first. Old stereotypes that Trump likes authoritarian leaders abroad may only be true to the degree these foreign leaders understand the powerful electoral mandate that he received from more than half of the American electorate.
In fact, as long as Trump does not fall into any “war traps,” to get the US all entangled militarily abroad, Trump’s focus on high corporate tax cuts, potentially reducing them to 15 percent, would trigger a bull run of the American capitalist markets in Wall Street, as had been seen from a more than 3 percent increase in the New York Stock Exchange.
As long as Trump, who was once prone to very whimsical behavior, in his first tenure as the 46th president of the US, the latter should be able to stay away from those fickle nature, even tantrums, all of which will rob him of the merits and standing as one of the most powerful American leader to have emerged in the first quarter of the 21st century.
As long as Trump is able to remain a measured and mature leader in the next four years, which will also be his last term in office, Trump has the chance to pass the torch of Make America Great Again Part II to his Vice President JD Vance, who is 40. With such strategic visions and careful transition, will Trump secure his legacy as one of the most powerful presidents in the history of the US.
Alternatively, since Americans will remain divisive over the victory of Trump, the substantial numbers of his voters affirmed that they can rally around one leader and one party too. In this sense, the US has finally found a leader to work with President Xi Jin Ping of China to create a new “Great Power Relationship.”
Only by working with China, can the US start to ameliorate its own economic stagnancy by channeling the energy of America on economic growth that is directly correlated to innovation without which American decline in manufacturing and advanced industrialization will once again fall on the way side. Two economic problems that China and many Asian countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia, have tried to avoid altogether.
The article was published in The Jakarta Post on 14 November 2024
