DNA Edit: The baton passes from Obama to Trump

The peaceful transfer of power,  ‘cornerstone of an exemplary democracy’ as Barack Obama termed it, will happen on Friday. When Donald Trump assumes office as the 45th president of the United States, the peace that Western Europe, America’s strongest ally, has known for 70 long years after World War-II may become a thing of the past. Trump has done the unthinkable for any US president. 

He has trashed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), that enduring alliance of Western capitalist nations which succeeded in stalling the advance of communism and the Iron Curtain, and was groomed painstakingly by successive US presidents with money, blood, sweat, and occasional coercion. Diplomacy is clearly not Trump’s forte, having already rubbed key nations like China, Germany, France and Mexico the wrong way. 

Trump’s statements as President-elect seem to indicate that he is turning his back on globalisation and internationalism, which have been defining ideas of post World War-II US policies. In a campaign that focused on blaming the unequal balance of trade and immigration for most of the country’s woes, Trump offered a domestically alluring vision of America closing its borders to products and people. Once the pioneer of free trade, which pressured developing countries like India to remove subsidies and taxes that protect domestic industry and agriculture, the protectionism espoused by Trump can have a recessionary impact on the world economy. Not surprisingly, an assertive China, a selective practitioner of free trade, has eagerly stepped forward to fill the breach, evident from Xi Jinping’s maiden appearance at the World Economic Forum and his championing of the cause of a liberal economic order. 

To be fair, the retreat of American expansionism had already begun under Obama, who found himself hemmed in by the 2008 Wall Street Crash, the setbacks in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the Arab Spring of 2011. The exodus of manufacturing jobs to China was Trump’s ticket to presidency. His actions on manufacturing and outsourcing will decide if he remains a one-term president. But it is on Trump’s foreign policy that the world is awaiting a radical shift, with baited breath. His proximity to Russian president Vladimir Putin has set tongues wagging. Sections of the American intelligence establishment have turned against him. As president, Obama spoke up eloquently for victims of racism, gun violence and hate crimes.

In contrast, Trump has drawn ire with his disrespectful remarks about women, immigrants, minorities, and journalists. In a few hours from now, Trump will enjoy great power, but is it too much to expect responsible conduct from the most powerful man in the world?