Donald Trump as US president again would be the stuff of nightmares

After just three years of Biden as president, the world has yet to recover confidence in the US preference for civilised and consistent diplomatic engagement
The mere possibility of Trump back in the Oval Office will make that task even harder

David Dodwell

Published: 8:30pm, 12 Nov 2023

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For three years, I hoped the day would never come when I would be forced to consider what The Washington Post last month called the “chillingly plausible chains of potential actions and reactions” from Donald Trump’s return as US president.

I echo the thoughts of the Economist: “Sequels are never as good as the original. And when the original was terrible, there is even more reason to dread the next episode.”

With still a year to go, polls are suggesting that the presidential election will be a rerun of the 2020 battle between Trump and Joe Biden – except Trump might win. This is the stuff of nightmares.

Hillary Clinton said on a TV show that a Trump victory “would be the end of our country as we know it”. As a sore loser from 2016, she might be expected to say this, but more dispassionate figures voice similar concern. Harvard professor and former assistant defence secretary Joseph Nye wrote earlier this year that, if Trump succeeded, “the only predictable future of US foreign policy will be unpredictability”.

When Trump was elected in 2016, he was arguably an unknown quantity, with many confident that his “propensity for hyperbole and falsehoods”, as The Washington Post put it, would be held in check by the reality of high office.

Seven years later, and after one of the US’ most erratic presidencies, no one can suggest he is an unknown quantity. Trump’s track record tells it all. His megalomania, erratic vengefulness, manufactured claims of victimhood and pursuit of fact-free theatre thrive in plain sight – along with two impeachments, and 91 criminal charges in four separate trials, which together could involve hundreds of years behind bars.

US Representative for Florida Jared Moskowitz holds up a whiteboard during a House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden on September 28, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Photo: AP

These embarrassing personality failings were in open view for those who knew him. Ahead of the 2016 election, a group of 50 former national security officials released a statement: “A president must be disciplined, control emotions and act only after reflection and careful deliberation … Trump has none of these critical qualities.”

It added: “He does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts impetuously. He cannot tolerate personal criticism. He has alarmed our closest allies with his erratic behaviour.”

Bill Barr, who resigned as attorney general under Trump, described him as “a very petty man” with “a very fragile ego” while Trump’s biographer Tony Schwartz observed that “facts are whatever Trump deems them to be on any given day”.

The puzzle is why such a man attracts the unquestioning support of such a large and loyal army of “conservative warriors”, holds the Republican Party in his thrall, and so dominates media attention. How is it that his business and moral transgressions only seem to bolster the loyalty of his supporters and his campaign fund coffers?

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Part of the explanation must be his success in brushing off legal charges as politically motivated witch-hunts. So, too, a craving among many Americans for braggadocio, charisma and “strong” leadership.

If Trump ends up winning the next presidential election, it cannot be because voters are unclear about what is to come. His manifesto would be largely unchanged from 2016, coupled with him being better prepared, with generous time spared for “retribution” against those who have crossed or “betrayed” him.

MAGA (Make America Great Again) will remain at the heart of a protectionist, tariff-laced trade policy. Immigration control and the Mexico wall will remain a priority. So too will tax cuts and less regulation.

“Draining the swamp” will be high on the agenda, with large parts of government targeted – in particular the state, defence and justice departments, the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Last year, Trump pronounced: “The FBI and the justice department have become vicious monsters controlled by radical-left scoundrels, lawyers and media, who tell them what to do.”

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Those in line for retribution will include General Mark Milley (former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), former Republican senator Liz Cheney, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and his predecessor Barr. And, of course, the Biden family.

Frustrated that he arrived in office in 2016 ill-prepared for action, Trump has been working on battle plans for 2024.

Think tanks like the Centre for Renewing America, the America First Policy Institute, and the Conservative Partnership Institute have been developing Trump’s “Project 2025” strategy, and building his “Agenda 47”.

Trump supporters outside the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 25. Trump and 18 of his allies face charges over interference in Georgia’s 2020 election results. Photo: Reuters

This includes some fantastical ideas like “freedom cities” that would sit outside the country’s regulatory net, tent cities for the homeless, programmes for state schoolteachers to “embrace patriotic values”, and replacement of career professional civil servants with political appointees and Trump loyalists.

On foreign policy, plans include universal baseline tariffs, cuts in international aid, perhaps including Ukraine, and withdrawal from multilateral organisations that could include Nato and the World Trade Organization.

Is there a better option than Biden or Trump for both US and China?

After just three years of Biden as president, the world has yet to recover confidence in the US preference for civilised and consistent diplomatic engagement. The mere possibility of Trump back in the Oval Office will make that task even harder.

For example, as Chinese President Xi Jinping sits down on Wednesday with Biden in San Francisco, the ghost of Trump will almost certainly be hovering. Until that ghost is banished, unpredictability is likely to remain the hallmark of US foreign policy engagement, and distrust the response. In or out of office, Trump’s terrible legacy could still cast a long shadow – even from behind prison bars.

David Dodwell is CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, focused on developments and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific over the past four decades