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The Maltese Herald

History is back

—

by

Mark Camilleri
in

History is back with a vengeance after Donald Trump successfully avoided an assassination attempt. When Trump was elected President of the United States in  2016, The Economist ran an article saying that the end of history had ended, yet the resurgence of the Democrats in 2020 had put the world back on its previous Fukuyamist and liberal course. Russian then invaded Ukraine and now, China wants Taiwan.

As Donald Trump seems to be set to win the next US presidential elections, we are once again set in the route of historical volatility, and with the global events that transpired during the current US Presidency, a new Trump Presidency is set to be even more volatile and world-changing than the previous one.

What is clear, at the very onset and this early stage, is that Trump is ready to appease Russia. This will potentially make the war in Ukraine even worse considering that the Ukrainians are not willing to surrender on Russia’s terms. Either way, Trump will empower Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and all other dictators. The international law-based order will be further weakened. Tyrants will be empowered to wage wars abroad and and suppress their dissidents at home.

However, there’s a small silver lining. Trump intends to once again, exponentially increase oil and gas production in the US bringing back the high probability that oil and gas prices go significantly down again. If oil prices go down, Russia’s economy would be significantly damaged given it is one of its last sources of income. Oil and commodities are common sources of revenue of dictatorial regimes.

These will be interesting times, but not necessarily for the good. Donald Trump’s return to power doesn’t augur well for the rule-of-law, democracy and the free press. He will empower dictators around the world while weakening the US and his allies in the process (Chin actually increased its exports to the US during the Trump presidency). Trump may have very well saved himself, but he has no plan to either save the United States from itself, let alone solve the world’s current problems.

 

 

Comments

  1. Dejjaqtuni avatar
    Dejjaqtuni

    I am sorry they are not interesting times at all, yet they are discerning!

    We are are talking about the USA and it’s presidential elections. One is certainly suffering from some sign of a serious mental ailment, whilst this Trump is completely demented and dangerous to the world’s stability.

    God help us… one way or the other, another World War is in the offing.

    Reply
  2. Banquo avatar
    Banquo

    History did not re-start with Donald Trump’s rise to the United States presidency in 2016. History just never went away. Francis Fukuyama’s theory that the world would converge towards democratic values and open trade was too simplistic.

    For a very brief period in history (roughly from the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s to the early 2000s, when Communist China joined the World Trade Organisation), that seemed to be like a real possibility, but the forces of evil in tyrant-led countries were biding their time and using their new freedoms (the West opening up to them) to catch up economically and militarily with the West.

    Germany na?vely believed for a long time that opening up to the East economically would eventually lead to political and social liberalisation – ?????? ????? ?????? (Change through Trade) is an actual German foreign policy – but presidents like Vladimir Putin (Russia) and Xi Jinping (China) were only interested in the trade part (because this could make their countries rich) while at the same time being adamant that this would not lead to Western-style democracies.

    The West’s openness to Russia and China (such as shifting factories to them and buying their minerals) made this possible. The tyrants realised they could become rich without giving their people political freedoms. As long as the tyrants gave their previously poor people more wealth, stability and services, they could get away with not giving them a free vote or a right to form a political party.

    Now that China has become the second largest economy in the world, an indispensable trader of the the European Union and the United States, the main provider of rare-earth metals needed for the green transition, and a model for African dictators who want their countries to progress economically but remain oppressed, it can throw its weight around and reveal its true colours.

    And, as for Russia, it is too impatient to become as powerful as the Soviet Union once was, so it is willing to take military risks even if its economy is roughly only the size of Spain’s. To further its military goals, it can bank on nuclear threats and the West being too cowardly to act (a strategy that is working perfectly, as evidenced by the West’s unwillingness to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, or even to let Ukraine lob Western-made missiles into Russia).

    Donald Trump was not an end of history. He was a reaction to it (as suits his reactionary personality). The West was nice to the autocracies for over a decade but, instead of being grateful, the autocracies gave very little back (seeking to rebuild their empires, stealing intellectual property and clamping down on social freedoms, to name a few things), so the people got angry and they opted for Brexit, Trump, ??????????? ??? ??????????? and the ????????????? ????????. If openness does not work, maybe insularity will (all these parties are very anti-migrant and anti-trade).

    Joe Biden’s United States presidency is only marginally better in all this. It is still insular, trying to bring back manufacturing jobs from China, pretending Ukraine can save itself and keeping most of Trump’s trade policies intact, but at least it recognises the EU as a fair trader. Meanwhile, countries like Brazil and India prefer to not commit themselves to either the West or the East, seeing what they can get out of each side and values be damned.

    Whoever becomes president of the United States next year, we are stuck in a new cold war for a while. Donald Trump is only a bit player in this great arc of history. However, he looms larger than other actors because he is larger than life, and drama and chaos always surround him, while simultaneously somehow still being leader of The Free World.

    Reply
  3. asterixgod1992 avatar
    asterixgod1992

    Interesting read.

    However according to studies by Professor Alan Lichtman, Biden will win the election.

    Reply

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