Trump is very close
Trump is very close
Donald Trump, with his 4 years of experience from the previous term and a plethora of grand and small promises, will soon enter the White House for the second time. The market for bold one-liner statements that summarize complex issues in one sentence is hot. One-liner analyses such as ‘Trump is a businessman and will avoid a new war’ are common.
This unique and powerful figure in American politics, who calls himself the man of great negotiations, had a particular approach to international treaties such as NAFTA, JCPOA, TPP, the Paris Climate Agreement, the UN Human Rights Council, and UNESCO in his first term. Analyzing them can provide a forecast of his next four years’ performance and the thought process of one of the most capricious and unpredictable politicians in the world today.
Trump, with his fanatical supporters who attribute a cult of personality to him, has a simple yet complex character. His decisions are spontaneous like a self-absorbed populist yet have a particular consistency and calculation like a shrewd businessman.
Both the radical neocons and the white supremacists are in his circle, but he has no permanent and long-term alliance with anyone. Although his rhetoric is at a sixth-grade level, he employs a particular cleverness in using words.
The general slogan of ‘Make America Great Again’ alongside his populist character and fascist, supremacist spirit will be the compass for his decision-making and thought process. Additionally, he is now four years older, more irritable, and has nearly succeeded in sidelining the independent Republicans who were a nuisance during his first term in the Department of Justice and the Senate.
Therefore, the decisions he will make for or against countries will have more domestic support. For example, if he wishes to enter nuclear negotiations or establish some sort of diplomatic relations with Iran, he can break through the Senate barrier. Is he against war? His campaign slogan that America will not enter a new war is not reliable considering his cult of personality. Trump and Trumpism will avoid a new war as long as it burdens the U.S. economy, but he won’t shy away from a war whose costs are borne by others.
Trump hates taking on the security costs of lazy Europe and NATO, which do not pay the bill, but if NATO pays its bill or the Arabs pay America’s military costs, he will easily bypass that promise. As a businessman who has worked with numbers all his life, Trump knows that 5 to 10 percent of the U.S. economy is war-based and that wars whose costs are covered by allies will boost the economy and create jobs.
In fact, a new war, especially in the Gulf region, aligns with the slogan of ‘Make America Great Again.’ It’s enough for the radicals in Trump’s National Security, Defense, and State Departments to whisper in his ear that the growth of the Gulf’s economic ecosystem means oil dollars won’t spill over into the U.S. stock market.
Trump and NAFTA
The NAFTA agreement, known as the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, had entered the implementation stage after years of back and forth. Trump, with the same phrases he used to call JCPOA one of the worst deals ever made, criticized the important NAFTA agreement with exactly the same words.
An agreement that, over two decades, was negotiated with the support of the two main parties, approved by the Republican President Bush Sr., passed by the Democratic Congress, and implemented by the Democrat Clinton, had many intricacies. Trump, by exiting NAFTA, demanded renegotiations with Canada and Mexico, which they immediately accepted, and with some adjustments, it was signed and implemented under the new name USMCA. What happened with NAFTA was an example of the undo feature of a populist character, meaning that before the populists, it probably never occurred to anyone that such an agreement between the world’s leading economy and a developing country like Mexico would lead to the spillover of manufacturing jobs to the neighboring country.
In fact, one of the main reasons for NAFTA for its designers was to solve the big problem of illegal Mexican immigration to the U.S. by rebuilding their economy. Additionally, it was to diminish the effects of China’s economy after joining the WTO on the U.S. economy, and more importantly, a third of U.S. exports were redirected to the two neighboring countries. In short, the worst trade deal in history, with a little update when adorned with Trump’s signature, turned into the best deal the U.S. economy has signed and executed in the past two centuries.
Trump and JCPOA
The same phrases used by Trump regarding NAFTA were used with more intensity and frequency regarding JCPOA. One of the worst deals ever made, this time the undo feature of Trump as a populist became more significant because JCPOA was the result of years of effort by the Obama administration and its allies across the Atlantic. Of course, one of his excuses for calling JCPOA the worst deal was the overall lack of benefit to the U.S. from the agreement.
But it was clear that JCPOA, which was hailed as one of the greatest diplomatic achievements in decades, was never going to be tolerated by someone who considers himself the best negotiator in history, even if his party members supported it.
He believed that by exiting JCPOA and applying maximum pressure, Iran would come back to the negotiating table. He viewed Iran as a company whose stock had fallen due to maximum sanctions and that, under shareholder pressure, a big deal signed by him would be realized.
Of course, the presence of individuals like Nikki Haley, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo was influential in the decision to exit, but his self-centered, under-the-table dealing character in his thought process even takes precedence over the opinions of his advisors, whom he himself selects.
Undoubtedly, slight changes in parts of JCPOA’s complex clauses could have subjected it to the same fate as NAFTA, and perhaps a revised version of JCPOA, signed by Trump, could transform it from the worst deal in American history to the best deal in human history. This opportunity still exists for Trump, the great negotiator, to call himself the signatory of a great deal with Iran, even if there are only slight changes to the complex JCPOA.
He is interested in depriving the Chinese of cheap, discounted, and smuggled Iranian oil. Even in Trump’s thought algorithm, reviving relations with Iran is not as complicated as the debates between Republicans and Democrats.
The idea of being the initiator of relations with Iran, like Nixon was with China, is probably more important to him than the complexities of Capitol Hill politics.
Necessarily, self-centered populists like Trump don’t see complex issues as simple, but they have the power to sell simple solutions to complex issues to their supporters and make those solutions appear special with superlative adjectives like the best and worst.
Trump and TPP
One of Trump’s most bizarre actions, which was in clear contradiction to America’s interests and the slogan of ‘Make America Great Again,’ and clearly revealed his mental algorithm, was his exit from one of the largest free trade cooperation organizations known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was one of the major achievements of the Obama administration aimed at reducing the dependency of important Pacific Rim countries on China’s growing economy.
Under this agreement, U.S. exports would increase, and China would be somewhat contained. His exit from TPP showed that his mental algorithm operates in a way that sometimes is in clear contradiction to his own slogans and even to America’s interests.
In short, Trump is a unique character, and interacting with him doesn’t follow fixed parameters. His character is simple yet complex; one cannot rely on his commitment to peace, nor can one have prolonged negotiations with him.
Iran’s slow and quiet behind-the-scenes diplomacy will not work against him. He is prone to exaggeration. The Adelsons, Bin Salmans, Sheikh Maktoums, Russians, and Chinese know that he is all about quick, impactful deals.
