New dawn: A demonstrator protests at the San Ysidro crossing port on the
U.S.-Mexico border, during International Migrants Day on December 18. 
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far:

When U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is administered the oath of office on January 20, 2025, and officially kicks off his second term at the White House, it will be the onset of four years that herald the deepening of domestic and foreign policy priorities enacted in his first term as President. On the cards are a reimposition of punitive tariffs against nations exporting to the U.S., and India is likely to feature on that list; a tough stance on immigration; and changes in foreign policy, with America likely to see the continuing withdrawal from global, multilateral and regional engagement like in his first term.

What tariffs policies and tax cuts are likely to be tabled by the Trump administration?

The first Trump administration started a trade war with China when it hit Beijing in 2018 with a punitive net tariff coverage of nearly 15% of all U.S. imports. In that case, his administration had already imposed several tariffs prior to 2018 as well, with the result that there were overlapping tariffs on a number of products; for example, the 25% tariff that was imposed that year was over and above an antidumping tariff of approximately 66% that was already in place. Despite this somewhat chaotic approach to tariff imposition, one fact was clear — China was the main target on the global stage: at 11.1% import coverage by U.S. special tariffs in 2018, the rate slapped on Beijing dwarfed the rate for other exporters to the U.S., including India, at 0.2%. In terms of products, the U.S. special tariffs preponderantly targeted imports of intermediate goods, and to a much lesser extent capital goods and final products. This is likely to have impacted the final price of finished goods based on intermediate goods sourced within the U.S.

During his 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump had affirmed that he would impose an across-the-board tariff of somewhere between 10%-20% on the entire $3 trillion worth of U.S. goods imports and a China-specific additional tariff of 60%. Assuming that the focus on intermediate goods continues in this context, this would imply a significant jump from his first term in terms of the value of goods impacted, most likely additional tens of billions of dollars’ worth on commodities such as steel and aluminium and at least $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. Retaliation from China, the E.U., India, and other trading partners of the U.S. is sure to follow swiftly.

Regarding the high likelihood of a corporate tax cut, it could come in the form of renewing the lapsing cuts that Mr. Trump had introduced in 2017, through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This despite — or perhaps precisely because of — the fact that the policy did reduce taxes for most people, though it disproportionately benefitted the wealthy, according to the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Their analysis at the time noted this policy resulted in households with incomes in the top 1% receiving an average tax cut of more than $60,000 if the cuts were maintained, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60%. Additionally, the Trump tax cut “was expensive and eroded the U.S. revenue base… and failed to deliver promised economic benefits,” the CBPP noted.

Other economic policy actions that the Trump White House might advocate for include a carbon-border adjustment tax and quantitative restrictions on investments into U.S. assets such as infrastructure and essential medicine production capabilities, by China.

His administration would also likely seek the inputs of the Department of Government Efficiency — led by the “tech bros” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — to reduce wastage and inefficiencies within the purview of the federal government, including by rationalising the actions of bureaucrats and cutting down on regulations across sectors. While the duo have hinted at potentially finding $2 trillion in savings through this initiative, including via mass layoffs and the shutting down of some agencies entirely, critics have challenged the size of the potential gains that could be made here.

What action is expected on immigration?

Going by the Trump campaign’s policy promises in the lead-up to the 2024 election, there is a distinct possibility of a large-scale deportation of undocumented workers. However, there may be several obstacles that the White House might encounter as it carries out this possibly unprecedented action. Firstly, across several states, key urban hubs have vowed to be “sanctuary cities” and pass laws to limit local law enforcement cooperation with the federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This is likely to make it politically complicated to carry out detention and deportation actions on a sizeable scale and in a short time frame. Secondly, the Trump campaign is yet to share details on the cost of such operations to the exchequer, but non-partisan analysts such as the American Immigration Council estimate that such an immigration proposal could potentially cost taxpayers considerably more than $300 billion. These estimates notwithstanding, there is little doubt that Mr. Trump will attempt to accelerate deportations to fulfil his campaign promises, especially as the first Trump administration deported close to 1.5 million people – almost the same number as outgoing President Joe Biden and far less than former President Barack Obama, who turned away nearly 3 million people over eight years in office.

What impact could be expected regarding U.S. foreign policy?

Mr. Trump has proclaimed publicly without explanation or details that he can and will end the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict. On the former, he has said he would end the war even prior to Inauguration Day, even if he views the conflict through the lens of halting the “endless flow of American treasure to Ukraine” and demanding that NATO allies in Europe reimburse Washington for its war-related expenses if they expect military support from the U.S. against future Russian aggression.

Regarding Israel, the incoming President has followed in Mr. Biden’s footsteps and criticised the Israeli government’s aggression in Gaza, although Mr. Trump had tacitly expressed support for Israel by moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in his first term.

What bolsters Mr. Trump’s intentions?

While the Trump 2.0 administration is yet to spell out critical details regarding its policy plans on the domestic and international fronts, one thing is certain: Mr. Trump enjoys an overwhelming mandate expressed through the result of the 2024 election. Further, he will be fundamentally operating from a position of institutional strength given the federal government trifecta, which implies that the White House will enjoy the luxury of greater cooperation in getting policies sanctioned by Congress, and possibly important cases ruled in his administration’s favour by a sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is poised to kick off his second term at the White House, a four-year stint that will likely see major shifts in domestic and foreign policy and transform the functioning of a wide range of American public institutions. The fact that he defied the odds, as predicted by pollsters and some sections of the U.S. media, to sweep the seven swing States of the country in the 2024 election, win both the popular vote and the electoral college, and end the presidential run of Democrat candidate Kamala Harris speaks to the disenchantment of the electorate with the previous administration, the reasons for which are still being debated widely.

Yet, it also says something about the entity that is Donald Trump, a man who remains a saviour to some, an enigma to others, and a symbol of an abhorrent brand of politics to many, including, perhaps, the majority of the 73 million who voted for Ms. Harris. To understand what the next four years portend for the U.S. and for the world, it is instructive to peer through the haze of weaponised propaganda on all sides and disambiguate what Mr. Trump truly stands for.

Mr. Trump has worn many hats over the long arc of his 78 years, and as he dons the mantle of the oldest President to enter the Oval Office, the sheer dexterity with which he has moved across career ‘avatars’ — from inheritor of a real estate empire to a cult TV show personality and then the head of a sprawling conglomerate to ultimately being a two-term President — reflects on the deep changeability of his core, and the lack of a fixed view — his detractors would call them values — on his professional mission.

Born in Queens, New York, in 1946, as the son of a successful real estate developer, Mr. Trump studied at the New York Military Academy and the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania. When he took control of the company of his father, Fred Trump, in 1971, he named it the Trump Organization, a corporate group that would go on to operate in a range of sectors, including commercial and residential buildings, resorts, hotels, golf courses, and casinos.

Among his several books was The Art of the Deal, published in 1987, which offers early hints about his belief that dealmaking is the true measure of success and the sole means to achieve it — a paradigm that runs contrary to the long-standing belief in, say, the U.S. State Department, that successful diplomacy entails “patiently building and deepening alliances and partnerships… playing a constructive role in regional institutions and investing time, at the highest levels, in regional summits”.

In a move that once again reflected what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s devotion to gimmickry and theatrics, at whose altar the loyalty of all his employees would be tested and judged, in 2004, he launched the hit reality television show The Apprentice. With his now famous dismissal line of “You’re Fired” going viral as a pop culture meme, the show solidified Mr. Trump’s credentials in the world of entertainment television, even if it prompted questions about his business ethics as they applied broadly across the Trump Organization. Especially by the time of his first presidential campaign in 2015, it became clear that no major U.S. company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection more than Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casino empire in the last 30 years — four distinct filings. In each of those cases, the implied corporate restructuring allowed Mr. Trump’s companies to stay afloat while shedding the unsustainable debt that it owed to banks, employees and suppliers.

Surprise win in 2016

With his record steeped in Wall Street shenanigans and proximity to power-broking at the highest echelons of the system, it came as a shock to many that Mr. Trump rose to meteoric heights in his campaign for the 2016 presidential election, all the while marketing himself as a man of the people, the saviour of blue-collar jobs in the Rust Belt, and as a political maverick far removed from Washington’s elite policymaking circles. Even his campaign slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’, was widely marketed to the benefit of the Trump campaign — reports suggest that, in a single year during 2024 alone, more than a million hats were sold at $40 per piece. However, on the eve of the 2016 election, major newspapers projected 90% odds that his rival, Democrat and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would win the presidency — a failure by the U.S. mainstream media to recognise that Mr. Trump was in fact at the helm of a global nativist-populist movement that was poised to upturn the liberal economic consensus in the West and deglobalise its trade, investment and strategic cooperation paradigm by gradually eroding the rules-based international order.

Also read: Trump hush money trial highlights

While he lost the popular vote to Ms. Clinton, the electoral college saved Mr. Trump and put him in the White House for his first term, four years that witnessed a slew of policies that flew in the face of received wisdom for public policy on immigration, healthcare, defence and foreign relations. While his eyebrow-raising record as the 45th 46th Commander in Chief is well known, his most controversial policy outcomes included bungling mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic response that led to “tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths”; his broad-brush hostility towards minority demographics exemplified in the ‘Muslim ban’ and family separations carried out against undocumented migrants; his triggering of a trade war due to protectionist trade policies, including tariffs on in foreign aluminium, steel, and other products; his attempts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into seeking evidence of corruption against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter; and, most egregiously, his role in encouraging a violent mob that attacked and ransacked the U.S. Capitol buildings in early 2021 disputing his certified loss to Mr. Biden in the presidential election a few months earlier.

Yet, two impeachments, four criminal indictments, one fraud case conviction and an $83.3 million sexual assault judgement later, Mr. Trump has not just apparently won redemption in the eyes of the American voters, but has romped home to the White House on the back of a “red shift” in voting patterns that impacted almost every State — red and blue — in his favour. This time, post-election analyses suggest, independent and undecided voters in swing States were not even debating major questions of economic policy, such as the actual performance record of the Biden White House. Instead, it was “media appearances” such as the three-hour podcast conversation between Mr. Trump and Joe Rogan, a popular conservative commentator, that appeared to shift the mood in favour of Mr. Trump, as much as the optics of Mr. Trump warning Americans from the campaign podium about the dangers of unchecked immigration.

A Cabinet of loyalists

Now that Mr. Trump has the backing of the federal government trifecta — the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate controlled by the Republican Party — and a Supreme Court stacked with a 6-3 majority favouring conservative justices, he has a relatively free hand to reshape U.S. policy and institutions. The Cabinet that he has picked appears to have prioritised personal loyalty through the campaign season above all else — his former associates-turned-detractors, including Nikki Haley, have been sidelined, and instead a new cohort of conservatives has been picked despite their glaring lack of prior experience in the White House.

Notable among them are Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Tom Homan as “border czar”, Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary, Lee Zeldin as EPA Administrator, Mike Huckabee as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as heads of Department of Government Efficiency.

While Ms. Wiles has experience as a political operative in Florida, Mr. Rubio, who hails from the same State, is known to be a hawk on China. Mr. Gaetz was once under investigation for sex trafficking of underage girls and is known as a MAGA lawmaker in the House who fiercely defended Mr. Trump and his policies on the floor on several occasions. Mr. Kennedy has been described as “a hardcore anti-vaccine and misinformation peddler [and the] last time he meddled in a state’s medical affairs (Samoa), 83 children died of measles.” Ms. Gabbard does not have any experience in intelligence and she is staunchly opposed to U.S. support to Ukraine in the latter’s fight against the Russian invasion. Reports also suggest that her “views on Russia and her 2017 meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad have drawn controversy.”

Mr. Homan was the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first Trump administration and Mr. Trump has said he “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin”. While Mr. Hegseth has experience as an Army veteran who was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, he has since been a co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekends”, a show on the conservative news channel. Mr. Zeldin is a former New York Republican Congressman who Mr. Trump said would “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards”. Mr. Huckabee is also a TV personality – he has hosted a show on Fox News as well, and a radio programme, though he has a State-level public sector experience as Governor of Arkansas, from 1996 to 2007. Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy — ironic though it might seem to have two heads of a department designed to reduce government waste and excess — are from the private sector but have been noteworthy for speaking out strongly for Mr. Trump throughout his 2024 campaign. Between all of these potential nominees — assuming they are confirmed by the Senate, still a tall order in the case of several of Mr. Trump’s nominees — the presumed agenda would be to implement the Trump MAGA vision to the fullest extent possible over the four years.

Unfinished agenda

At the top of the list of Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan, “Promises Made, Promises Kept”, will likely be an attempt to carry out a mass deportation of undocumented workers, who number 11 million at last count, a figure that has been more or less constant since 2005. However, across several States, major urban hubs have emerged as “sanctuary cities” – those that have passed laws that restrict local law enforcement cooperation with the ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), making it politically challenging to carry out any sort of detention and deportation activities on a scale that could matter. Then there are logistical and economic challenges — the non-partisan American Immigration Council estimates that such an immigration proposal could potentially cost taxpayers more than $300 billion. However, Mr. Trump will likely take certain actions that will win him some political capital from the immigration hawks that will circle his administration. After all, under the previous Trump administration, around 1.5 million people were deported, and the Biden administration came close to that figure — both of which were dwarfed by their predecessor, Barack Obama’s record of deporting nearly 3 million people over two terms.

Secondly, a corporate tax cut is likely, at least the renewal of the lapsing cuts that Mr. Trump had introduced in 2017, through the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The problem is that while the policy reduced taxes for most people, it was criticised for disproportionately benefiting the wealthy: the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policies Priorities noted that under this law, households with incomes in the top 1% would receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60%. Additionally, the Trump tax cut “Was expensive and eroded the U.S. revenue base… and failed to deliver promised economic benefits,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) noted.

Third, in the foreign policy space, a retaliation-based trade war of uncertain proportions is almost a certainty on the global economic stage, as Mr. Trump has promised a 10-20% cross-cutting tariff on all $3 trillion worth of U.S. goods imports and a special, punitive 60% tariff on Chinese goods. Beyond that destabilising action, and based on the first Trump administration’s plan for the U.S. to exit the Paris climate agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, UNESCO, UNHRC, NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), and more, it is quite likely that America’s inward withdrawal from global, multilateral, and regional engagements will continue apace. This may well have a strong impact on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and broader conflicts in West Asia and the South China Sea, besides innumerable bilateral and regional arrangements that may fall into disarray, perhaps to the detriment and chagrin of U.S. allies and partners across the world.

Trumpism unleashed

After four more years of Mr. Trump, the U.S., and indeed the world, may be a very different place. His second term is coterminous with the zenith of the MAGA movement. What began in 2016 as a poignant political assertion of the basic principles of Trumpism — a complex blend of concerns over genuine economic despair and social disempowerment of White America with an unapologetic articulation of baser sentiments rooted in racism, misogyny and bigotry — will now find free flow and seep into every public institution of the U.S. and transform the very core of the socioeconomic landscape of the country. Mr. Trump’s time at the helm of this movement will end one day, but the forces that he has unleashed may live well beyond that time.

“Tough, smart, innovative, and universally admired and respected” is how the 2024 president-elect and former President Donald Trump described his campaign manager and now Chief of Staff appointee Susan Summerall Wiles, more commonly known as Susie Wiles. Along with Chris LaCivita, an experienced Republican political strategist, Ms. Wiles ran one of the most successful, disciplined and effective electoral campaigns of Mr. Trump than the ones he led in 2016 and 2020.

The 67-year-old political lobbyist, considered quiet and unassuming, is feared and respected within and outside the party. Quite contrarily to other people close to Mr. Trump, the U.S’s first female Chief of Staff keeps away from the limelight and prefers to ‘work in the background’.

Her demeanour has earned her the epithet of ‘Ice Maiden’, a title even Mr. Trump used during his victory speech while congratulating her on her work on the presidential campaign.

Seasoned strategist

Ms. Wiles is a seasoned political strategist with her first major stint in electoral politics being with Ronald Reagan for his 1980 presidential bid.

Since then, Ms. Wiles has worked in the electoral campaigns of a wide range of Republican candidates — from moderate candidates such as former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr. (who criticised Mr. Trump after the capitol siege in 2021) to current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Early beginnings

Ms. Wiles met Mr. Trump in 2015 and became his campaign manager for the State of Florida during his 2016 presidential run. Following her success there, Ms. Wiles also headed the successful gubernatorial campaign of Mr. DeSantis to Florida in 2018.

However, a falling out between the Governor and Ms. Wiles led to him dismissing her when he assumed power and actively sabotaging her relationship with Mr. Trump who then dropped Ms. Wiles from his campaign during his 2020 presidential run.

Ms. Wiles later used her knowledge of working with the Governor against him when he ran against Mr. Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination for President.

Her successful strategy for Mr. Trump made Mr. DeSantis look out of touch and lacking personal charisma.

Rocky road ahead

The Chief of Staff of the White House is the head of the U.S. President’s Executive Office. They act as the President’s confidante, advising him on key policy matters while also overseeing staff appointments to the executive office, directing and managing the flow of information between different offices of the President, and most importantly regulating access to the President (that is, deciding on who is or is not allowed an audience with the U.S. President).

Ms. Wiles apparently was very keen on the last point. According to CNN, she had told Mr. Trump that she would only take on the role if she was given power to control access to him in the Oval Office.

Being the Chief of Staff, Ms. Wiles will have her work cut out. Between 2017 and 2021, President Trump went through four different Chiefs of Staff. His brazen, crude and unpredictable nature has made him difficult to work with. Moreover, his refusal to be ‘controlled’, or worse, reprimanded has led to sour relations with a lot of his staff over the years such as his former political strategist Steve Bannon and former communications head Anthony Scaramucci.

Out of his Chiefs of Staff, his second appointee in 2017, John Kelly has been one of his most vocal critics. Mr. Kelly, who had a military background and was seen as politically neutral, was brought in to bring more order to a very chaotic President’s office in 2017.

However, Mr. Trump’s aversion to the restrictions Mr. Kelly put on his office brought things to a head and he left the position after almost a year-and-a-half. He has since gone on record to state that “Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.”

However, Susie Wiles, whose father is Pat Summerall, an NFL player and later sports broadcaster, has worked with Mr. Trump since 2016 and is yet to fall out of favour with him. Her steely disposition has earned her the former President’s trust.

But while she is a seasoned lobbyist, her lack of experience holding government office might work against her. It remains to be seen whether Ms. Wiles will be the one who can finally ‘tame the shrew’.

Chicago:

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump set out Friday on the final 10-week sprint to election day, with the Democrat surging after an electrifying speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination.

Less than three weeks before the presidential debate between the US vice president and the Republican ex-president — and only a month before early in-person voting begins – polls show the race for the White House is neck and neck.

The former senator and prosecutor leaves Chicago with the wind in her sails, having outraised Trump and erased the polling leads he was enjoying before she replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket last month.

But Dan Kanninen, battleground director of the Harris campaign, cautioned at a Bloomberg event on the sidelines of the convention that the race “is not fundamentally changed” and still “very, very tight.”

“We have tremendous enthusiasm — I think momentum is on our side — but we now need to do something with it and engage the electorate effectively this fall,” he said.

Harris accepted her party’s presidential nomination on a glitzy final night in Chicago, buoyed by a galaxy of stars, that set the stage for the gruelling run-in to November 5.

Razor thin margins

The 59-year-old Californian has edged ahead by razor-thin margins in polling, reversing what had started to look like a likely Trump victory against Biden before he dramatically pulled out and endorsed Harris.

In just a month, Harris has raised a record-breaking half a billion dollars, enjoying a political honeymoon that shows little sign of ending.

Party leaders have cautioned that headwinds could still buffet the campaign, however.

These include internal protests over US policy on the Israel-Hamas war and possible shifts in polling with the expected withdrawal on Friday of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who may endorse Trump.

The controversial scion of America’s revered Kennedy clan is planning an announcement in Arizona, while Trump is also campaigning in the state, and promising to showcase a “special guest.”

Analysts are mixed on the effect a Kennedy exit would have.

He is polling in the low single digits and his embrace of conspiracy theories has made him a fringe figure.

However, in a very tight race, it is possible that even a few thousand votes in a crucial swing state could ultimately determine who takes the White House.

Democratic heavy hitters, from Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton to vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, have warned that the party could still lose to Trump’s Republicans if complacency creeps in.

“If we see a bad poll — and we will — we’ve got to put down that phone and do something,” the former first lady told the party faithful in Chicago.

Walz, a former school football coach, used a sporting analogy, saying that Democrats were “down a field goal, but we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball.”

Reaching for the centre

Trump has largely been singing to the choir, mobilizing his right-wing base with apocalyptic warnings about migrant criminals and painting a dark picture of a country in “decline” that only he can save.

Harris and her Democrats have been reaching toward the centre.

Party strategists spent the week in Chicago showcasing a parade of anti-Trump Republicans, including ex-cabinet officials, a small-town mayor and a former statewide officeholder.

“If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat, you’re a patriot,” former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan said.

While they previously characterised Trump as a demagogue, Democrats have instead begun making fun of the Republican nominee in a manner designed to belittle him and dent his aura of invincibility.

Harris called him an “unserious” person.

Harris, who has no events announced for the weekend, heads back to Washington with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff on Friday to begin sketching out a battle plan for the next 70-plus days.

“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations,” Harris said in her keynote speech, earning uproarious applause.

“A president who leads and listens, who is realistic, practical and has common sense and always fights for the American people.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)