Diane Francis
November 7, 2024
Donald Trump swept to power this week as American voters opted for a pro-business tough guy who will lower taxes, strengthen borders, build factories, deport illegals, and end Russia’s war against Ukraine. Voters chose a leader devoted to improving the country’s economic and military dominance, not extending opportunities to ordinary citizens. They opted for a ruthless “Chief Executive Officer” to navigate through scary times, cut red tape and costs, hobble foreign competitors, and unleash Silicon Valley to win the 21st-century technology race with China. Geopolitically, his approach will be businesslike. Diplomacy will be replaced with dealmaking. Trump plans to weaponize taxes, technology, tariffs, and tycoons like Elon Musk. His approach is unconventional and high risk, but plaudits poured in, and markets rose. Trump made two foreign policy promises: To end Russia’s war in Ukraine quickly and launch a trade war against China by imposing 60 percent tariffs. The Wall Street Journal concluded that the world now waits. “Leaders of U.S. allies and adversaries braced for quick shifts in American economic policy and the country’s approach to relations with the rest of the world.”
Trump’s triumph is impressive; some might say suspiciously so. But as yet, there are no claims that this election was rigged, as happened last time. Republicans appear to be only a handful of seats away from winning the House of Representatives, giving them control over the national purse strings. They have already captured the Senate, which controls foreign policy formulation and appointments to key cabinet and official positions. In terms of foreign policy, Trump’s three priorities are Ukraine, the Middle East with its Iran-Israel war, and China. Not surprisingly, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately congratulated Trump by phone on “his impressive election victory” and lauded Trump’s commitment to “peace through strength,” citing a Ronald Reagan line that Trump is fond of using. According to sources, the two have spoken at length since then, a hopeful sign.
Likewise, Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was effusive and described Trump’s victory as “history’s greatest comeback” and said, “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.” Finally, NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte paid homage and “plugged” the partnership, saying, “I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through NATO. Through NATO, the U.S. has 31 friends and Allies who help to advance U.S. interests, multiply American power, and keep Americans safe.”
Leaders now jostle for position, privilege, and platform inside and outside America. In an interview years ago, Bill Clinton said that when a new president takes over the White House, he is visited by leaders worldwide who want America to be either their “Santa Claus” or “policeman.” Ukrainians wage a war of survival against Moscow, and Israel now fights on multiple fronts. All countries and regions have unique problems and relationships with the White
House, past, present, and future. Here is a summary of what faces Trump and the global geopolitical and economic challenges, opportunities, and potential pitfalls going forward.
Ukraine
Trump boasted that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he had won the 2020 Presidency and that he would end the war after taking office or possibly before the January 20 inaugural. He also said he would force both sides to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations. But neither side wants to do so. Ukrainians are in a weak position to negotiate because only 10 percent of this year’s promised military aid from the U.S. has arrived, so its frontline is weakening. Ukraine needs delayed weaponry and permission to use long-range missiles to destroy Russia’s war machine to strengthen its hand. Putin is also disinclined to stop the war and just escalated the conflict by bringing in North Korean troops and launching a fresh offensive designed to grab territory.
The war is a decade old. Since 2014, Putin has slowly acquired 20 percent of Ukraine. He wants it all and has said he will only talk about peace if Ukraine is disarmed and prevented from joining NATO. He knows that an isolated, disarmed Ukraine will allow him to gobble up the rest and then threaten Poland, the Baltics, and the rest of Europe. Ukraine lost 7.5 percent of its territory in 2014 and the rest after the February 2022 invasion only because its previous Putin-backed dictator left it without an army. But since then, Kyiv has built a powerhouse, revolutionized drone and electronic warfare, and demonstrated military and strategic superiority over Moscow. Its people remain resolved and have shown great courage and cunning. If properly equipped, Ukraine will expel Russia from all its territory. In the past year, Ukraine has stopped Russia’s army of 600,000 from gaining ground.
NATO/Europe
No consolidated armed force protects Europe’s borders on land or sea. The existence of a post-war NATO alliance has been primarily run and financed by the United States — an arrangement that Trump has criticized for years. He believes the US should pull out of the alliance until European members meet their financial commitments and build stronger militaries. He was right. Euro defense spending has increased since the invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s criticism. But the continent is vulnerable. For instance, in recent NATO-sponsored military “games” — designed to mount a defense against Russia for Europe — experts stated that the Baltic states would fall in days due to the lack of logistical or military support. Others would soon follow.
President Trump will continue to hector Europe about its inadequate security and defense spending and seek more favorable trade “deals” on behalf of America. In anticipation of such gamesmanship, some Europeans believe they will avoid tariffs by agreeing to join Trump’s protectionist gang-up against China.
Israel/Middle East
Trump has, like the Biden administration, called for Israel to wrap up the wars in Gaza and Lebanon started by Iran’s terrorist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. However, a Trump
administration would support favorable terms to Israel. (During Trump’s first term, he moved the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and promoted a two-state solution, called the Abraham Accords, with Saudi Arabia that involved trade and investment.) Now that the war has spread across the region, Trump will place even more pressure on Iran and threaten to deploy American military assets that are already there to bring about ceasefires. It is also possible that Trump’s re-election will convince Iran to avoid further escalation despite Israel’s recent bombing success.
China/Taiwan
Trump’s biggest target is Beijing, and his proposed tariffs will further destabilize its economy. The country stumbles due to strategic mistakes made by its government for a generation. These include permitting real estate speculation to run riot, allowing local governments to borrow excessive amounts to build fancy infrastructure, and the $1 trillion cost of China’s Belt and Road Initiative worldwide. Beijing has built ports, rail, roads, airfields, and other developments for struggling nations to curry their political favor, but many of these countries cannot pay for them. Trump’s toughness with China may yield benefits eventually but will also result in retaliatory tariffs against American companies.
Trump has not promised to protect Taiwan. He recently criticized the island nation’s technology giant, Taiwan Semiconductor, because its chips were found in products made by the Chinese electronics giant Huawei, contravening US Chips Act sanctions against the company. But it’s safe to bet that Trump won’t cut Taiwan loose and will also retain membership in the Quad military alliance, which includes Japan, India, and Australia, and patrol Asia’s shipping lanes to contain and monitor China.
North America
Trump will upend NAFTA or the three-way tariff-free trade deal that has been in place since 1994. His last tirade of the campaign, on November 5, called out Canada in particular for the fact that fentanyl has been pouring across its border into the U.S. West Coast. If this doesn’t stop, he warned, “Canada won’t believe the tariffs that we will hit them with.”
Mexico faces a worse fate. During the campaign, Trump warned Mexico to stop illegal migration or face military action. He also called out its trade practices. In 2023, Mexico overtook Canada as the biggest exporter to the United States, largely due to new Chinese-owned car parts manufacturing plants along its border built to take advantage of tariff-free access to the U.S. and Canada. Trump has condemned China’s “back-dooring” and will slam such exports with 60 percent tariffs.
Trump has also said he will place a 10 percent tariff on all exports from Canada or Mexico into the United States, which automatically abrogates the 1994 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The three-way treaty has gone through many iterations but is headed for the dustbin under Trump. His team will continue to support “Buy America” requirements on government procurement contracts that have shut out Canadian or Mexican competitors for years.
But Trump’s mass deportation of up to 11 million illegal migrants will do the most damage to its immediate neighbors. These people will be dumped into Mexico and create social problems. Others will flee to Canada before they are deported, crossing its gigantic, undefended border with impunity. They will declare they are asylum-seekers, and millions may become a burden on Canada’s welfare state for years.
The American Republic
While many people despair, Trump’s first term did not destroy the Republic. He threatened to blow up NAFTA in 2020, but he renegotiated instead. And he will reconsider his tariff scheme for several reasons. The public will hate them because prices will jump. Economists will deem them inflationary. US multinationals will suffer because they’ll be slapped with retaliatory tariffs on their exports, hurting earnings. Markets will hate the tariffs because, as one economist said, the return of trade barriers to excessive levels will be “a grenade thrown in the heart of the international system.”
However, there are legitimate concerns about Trump’s vindictiveness and legal skirmishes. Voters didn’t care, and his criminal charges will melt away once he is President again. Perhaps many believe that Trump’s rhetorical flourishes and threats — that God chose him or he will be a dictator for a day — are simply more Donald BS. His followers know he’s no saint but that he’s also not a megalomaniac nor an Ayatollah. To skeptics, he’s just another real estate hustler from Queens who has become the world’s most powerful man. Hopefully, he will realize he has nothing to prove anymore and can concentrate on leaving a lasting legacy by improving the state of the world.
Diane Francis is an expert on Canada, the United States, Canada-US relations, Silicon Valley, future technology, geopolitics, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Putin, energy, business, and white-collar crime. Always provocative, her direct and forceful writing has established her international reputation in covering the personalities, trends, and financial backstories that affect companies, individuals, governments and societies. Her popular twitter feed on tech and corruption has more than 240,000 followers around the world. An award-winning columnist, bestselling author, investigative journalist, speaker, and television commentator, she is Editor-at-Large at Canada’s National Post and a columnist for American Interest, Atlantic Council’s Ukraine Alert, and Kyiv Post. . In 1991, Francis became Editor of Canada’s Financial Post, the first woman editor of a national daily newspaper in Canada, a position she held until the paper was sold in 1998. She is the author of ten books, including Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country (2013, featured in a cover story in Foreign Policy), Who Owns Canada Now?: Old Money, New Money and the Future of Canadian Business (2008), and Immigration: The Economic Case (2002).