President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of the US Congress on March 4 in the longest such session in modern American presidency. While it marked just six weeks of his second term, his address strongly indicated a vastly different policy contour in the works — doubling down on drastic changes both within the Beltway bureaucracy and outside in foreign policy by shaking America’s relations with the world. The fracture that the American polity today signifies was on display in the US Congress when most Democrats refused to either greet the president or stand in ovation to Trump’s speech highlights. Perhaps the most dramatic moment came when representative Al Green of Texas jeered at Trump that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid.
The focus on border was central where the president had underscored the emergency at the southern border within hours of his assuming office.
Trump flaunted more than hundred executive orders and 400 executive actions as steps that will transform governance internally and externally as a no-holds-barred approach to “draining the swamp” — a populist expression used by the Trump team to mean rooting out corruption in governance. A major chunk of his speech focused on domestic policies. The focus on border was central where the president had underscored the emergency at the southern border within hours of his assuming office. Indeed, the number of illegal immigrants crossing to the US from the southern border last month dropped to its lowest in decades.
The “drain the swamp” strategy also includes cutting bureaucracy, laying off a record number of people, downsizing the government, controlling inflation, reducing energy costs, and saving government expenditure. DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, is at the helm of that effort. Despite widespread concerns of DOGE’s modus operandi among Democrats, Trump made sure that he highlighted the achievements and reaffirmed its importance.
The other big focus area where Trump centred his administration’s achievements in ushering in change was in terminating the “green new scam” — a reference to steps ending the last administration’s environmental restrictions and clean energy policies. Trump has reversed the Biden administration’s clean energy mandate, signed executive orders to restart onshore and offshore energy drilling, announced US plans to become a net energy exporter, and also reversed mandates on the use of electric vehicles.
Trump also championed his decision to pull America out of the Paris climate accord as it was costing America “trillions of dollars”. If the last Trump administration was minimally cautious, his second term is a slash-and-burn style approach to reducing government internally and forcing countries to align their choices with those of the current administration.
Trump has reversed the Biden administration’s clean energy mandate, signed executive orders to restart onshore and offshore energy drilling, announced US plans to become a net energy exporter, and also reversed mandates on the use of electric vehicles.
In his address to the Congress, Trump claimed, “We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in four years or eight years — and we are just getting started.” There is an unprecedented urgency in the second Trump administration for two reasons. First, the Trump administration wants to see America set on a new path on the back of a slew of policy changes before the mid-term elections next year. Second, Trump realises that in order to leave a legacy that lasts well after him, he may have to mould others. Currently, he may have forced the Republican Party to capitulate but whether that will last remains as much of an open question as that of who will carry the legacy of Republican leadership after Trump.
Externally, Trump’s world view is a mix of unique unilateralism, a bloated sense of manifest destiny which is bordering on expansionism, and an untested belief that all countries will oblige with the policy choices of Washington. Near home, Trump’s decision to reimpose a 25% tariff on both Canada and Mexico only to be reconsidered later, his insistence that the Gulf of Mexico is renamed the Gulf of America and change Denali to Mount Mckinley in Alaska, threat to merge Canada as the US’ 51st state, and persistent threats to take back the Panama Canal and Greenland are depicting a world order which is rapidly sliding into a chaotic unilateralism. Except this time, the primary leverage is economic.
What most analysts dismissed as quintessential Trumpian bluster may indeed be taking shape as a new form of manifest destiny. Trump found victory in the recent decision by the US firm BlackRock to buy the $22.8-billion ports business in the Panama Canal currently being run by Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison. Trump is pushing the “Canada could be the 51st state of the US” narrative, and is believed to have already challenged the border treaty between US and Canada. He has also shown displeasure with the current water agreements between the two countries.
Trump is pushing the “Canada could be the 51st state of the US” narrative, and is believed to have already challenged the border treaty between US and Canada.
Trump’s decision to pull America out of the World Health Organization, the Paris climate accord, and the United Nations Human Rights Council may have been decisions whose impact are still to unravel in their full manifestations. But it puts America in the spotlight as a country which can be counted as in only for its own interests. This is most starkly foregrounded by the emerging daylight between Europe and the US, fracturing the idea of a united West.
Trump’s decision to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by pausing all aid to Ukraine was the culmination of a new American foreign policy where economic leverage is the primary driver and allies, partners, and friends must prepare to bring something substantial to the table when negotiating with Washington. It is the US now under Trump that is the quintessential revisionist state and the world is left with China admonishing Washington that “major powers should not bully the weak”.
This commentary originally appeared in Finanacial Express.
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