MAGA is just a populist pipedream

IF one untangles his executive orders, it is clear that US President Donald Trump’s attempt to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) is unlikely to succeed.

At best, MAGA seems delusional, disruptive and divisive.

The hundred executive orders Trump signed, the many statements he makes and his chosen personnel reveal his broad agenda.

Business-politics nexus

Trump’s cabinet has 13 billionaires and the billionaire funders of the 2024 elections and tech-monopolists seated in the front rows during the inauguration indicate that America’s richest will continue to influence policies.

This is the traditional US business-politics nexus. But what Trump shows is the performative spectacle as wealth and power combine. This super-rich interest group is removed from the workers and the middle class. The voices of the grassroots voters are barely represented.

In this context, Trump has committed to tax cuts including for the rich. Simultaneously, he has declared that all NATO nations including the US will have to increase defence spending till it reaches five percent of the GDP.

For the US, this would mean defence spending increasing to a trillion dollars. SIPRI data shows that US defence expenditure is already at a record high.

The combination of defence spending increase and tax decrease implies a decline in the budgetary support to health, public education and social expenditure -- undercutting the basis of a healthy and cohesive society.

Divisive policies

Trump’s policies are also set to polarise and divide American society because of his framing of internal threats.

He labels migrants as invaders equal to national security threats. He declared a national emergency on the southern borders, and employed the army to deport migrant labour.

Deportation policy is not new to American presidents, but Trump showcases it as ‘victory’, humiliating deportees by shackling and herding them into transport planes and then threatening countries with sanctions if they refuse to accept such flights (for example, Colombia). This has negative impacts. It racializes labour, divides American workers between immigrants versus locals, disrupts the work force, and humiliates the receiving countries.

Trump’s executive orders establish that the US recognises only two sexes. abolish birthright citizenship (14th Amendment), and end the US policy of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) in all institutions.

To make these effective, the Federal Government ordered a pause on federal grants and loans as they undertake an ideological review that aims to stop the “advance of Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies…”

These orders are being contested in courts on the grounds that they deny equal citizenship, promote inequality, undermine women’s equality, take away the rights of sexual minorities and go against American Constitutional procedure.

The impact is a division in society between straight vs LGBTQ, men vs women, liberals vs conservatives, and between races, pressurising the already marginalised.

American global hegemony

Trump is committed to furthering American global hegemony and exceptionalism: “America will soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before”.

Exceptionalism (or the right to desist from international laws and norms) is embedded in the 1829 Munroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, both of which support US territorial expansionism.

Trump’s way of negotiating the international system combines change (focus on the Western hemisphere and decreased multilateral commitments), deepening transactions (tariffs and deals), continuity (Israel and Middle East); and challenging threats (Cold War for China, Iran, Russia).

For change, Trump focuses on the Western hemisphere. He calls for Canada to merge with USA as the 51st US state; declares that Greenland must be under US control and does not rule out force to take it over; and wants the Panama Canal to be re-taken by the US because the Chinese operate the canal while the US is a victim being “ripped off”. Trump has proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico to exhibit US influence.

Further changes include withdrawal from the World Health Organisation, the Paris Treaty on climate change, and the reissue of sanctions on the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Trump has ended foreign aid totalling US $60 billion including aid to Ukraine and Taiwan but made for Israel and Egypt.

These steps show the US as an unreliable partner to the least developed countries, who will look to the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

In the list of new transactions Trump proposes 25 percent tariffs on a number of countries like Canada and Mexico from February 1 and tariffs on Denmark if they do not cede Greenland. BRICS nations are threatened with 100 percent sanctions if they attempt to replace the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Economists warn that tariffs increase inflation and harm economic growth and innovation.

Disruption with few continuities

Trump’s threats reveal that both US adversaries but also allies such as the European Union are vulnerable. US allies could re-think relations with the US.

However, the continuity of US policy is evident in the Middle East. Trump’s pressure on Israel and Hamas led to a fragile ceasefire but in continuity with earlier US policy Trump lifted sanctions previously placed on Israeli settlers in the West Bank. This led to extreme violence against Palestinians as Israeli settlers burnt houses and aimed to destroy resistance and seize Palestinian property in the West Bank. This move undermines the ceasefire.

Trump has announced that he wants Jordan and Egypt to take in one and a half million Palestinians from Gaza to “clean out” this ‘demolition site’ since Gaza was an excellent site for ‘something new’.

This policy would be an illegal act of ethnic cleansing. The Arab states have opposed this proposal because it would destabilise the entire Middle East, potentially lead to new regime changes and wars and alienate old partners.

Trump has promised an end to the Russia-Ukraine war but this would depend on a number of factors. In the meantime, Trump is putting economic pressure on Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and others.

Trump's methodology in both domestic and international politics combines transactions with pressure, bullying, threats and deals.

However, Trump’s policies have some positive aspects as well. He has promised to restore free speech in consonance with the American First Amendment.

He also wants to engage Russia and China in disarmament talks on nuclear arms control even though in his last administration he withdrew from arms control.

Internationally, however, his intentions destabilise the order of US inter-state relations with allies and upend the resolve of his adversaries to increase their strategic understanding.

Trump’s second coming was premised on Making America Great Again. It attracted the disillusioned white voter, the worker class and multiple small communities who were convinced that Trump's message of jumpstarting domestic manufacturing, re-directing war expenditure to fix infrastructure and reinstating a conservative culture of American family values would lead to a cohesive, prosperous, peaceful American society.

However, his policies will neither lead to cohesion, nor garner internal support or ensure external peace – the essential prerequisites for making America great again.

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Anuradha Chenoy is Adjunct Professor, Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.

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