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In retrospect we ought to be astonished at how unprepared the world was for Donald Trump – we should be shocked that we were shocked.
It’s not that he did not give us fair warning that he would turn on America’s allies, betray Ukraine, embrace Putin and impose tariffs.
Did we fall into that oldest delusion of believing that the status quo would last forever?
If we did, we don’t have that excuse now.
Predicting the future of America's far right, it is easy to imagine not just that it will behave wickedly – that is a given – but that it will behave with catastrophic stupidity and bring the world crashing down around it.
To avoid the embarrassment of being shocked again, here are three scenarios of what might happen next. The first two are plausible. The last is far-fetched, but not unthinkable.
1/ Crashing the west’s economy
No one deserves to be pilloried more than the American business elite. The bankers and CEOs who backed Trump thought that his insane rhetoric was just a pose.
In power, Trump would confine himself to cutting their taxes (as he had in his first term). In an editorial of bottomless idiocy, the Wall Street Journal declared in November that a Trump victory could be good for the economy, and added that there was no need to worry about the US constitution. Trump, the Murdoch paper opined, “was too undisciplined, and his attention span [was] too short, to stay on one message much less stage a coup”.
Like Hindenburg and the German conservatives who put Hitler in power, they refused to believe that the far right meant what it said.
Now Trump has proved he absolutely meant what he said about tariffs. We have no right to be surprised. Protectionism complements the self-pity of the MAGA movement. Its whining insistence that everyone is ripping America off, and must be punished – even though the people Trump is punishing the hardest are Americans, as his tariffs drive up the prices they pay.
As things stand, tariffs and the unease caused by the rampages of Musk through the US bureaucracy have led to the S&P 500 falling from a peak of 6129 in February to 5580 this weekend.
Chief international economist at ING James Knightley said on Friday that
“US data is only inflaming stagflation fears. Hot inflation and cooling consumer spending are trends that are likely to be intensified by President Trump’s aggressive moves on tariffs and government spending cuts.”
This is bad enough. But as things stand we are not yet at the point where Trump’s economic policies have provoked a recession, although that may only be a matter of time.
If, however, Trump goes for the Federal Reserve all bets would be off. The Fed is the essential institution of the global financial system. In the 2008 financial crisis it prevented a global depression by acting not only as a lender of last resort for the US, but for much of the rest of the world too.
To a self-pitying populist the dollar swap lines the Fed supplies to Europe, Japan and others look like free trade and Nato: another means of bailing out freeloading foreigners
In February Chris Giles of the Financial Times described how Trump once appeared unable to harm the governors of the Fed. They could only be removed “for cause” – which means for misconduct in public office.
But, he added, on February 12, Sarah Harris, the acting solicitor-general, declared that the Department of Justice no longer believed that this old limitation on Trump’s powers was constitutional. Trump himself hinted that he wanted a purge when he said, “officials who wield vast executive power must be supervised and controlled by the people’s elected president”. The issue is going through courts. Ominously, appeals judges upheld Trump’s right to fire at will last week.
It is easy to imagine a future where Trump orders the Federal Reserve to ignore inflation and cut interest rates so low the bond vigilantes turn on the US. Or, and more seriously, a future where an isolationist Fed, purged by the Trump administration, refuses to act in a financial crisis and thus turns it into a global catastrophe.
2/ Trump and Putin unite against Europe
We are so unused to real imperialism its return is genuinely shocking. The European empires dividing up Africa in the 19th century, or Hitler and Stalin dividing up Europe in 1939, are now closer to our world than the old liberal order
Indeed, the best way to deal with Trump’s sudden demand to annex Greenland is to see him as a wannabe colonial overlord.
If you stick to the old liberal way of seeing the world, J.D.Vance’s visit to Greenland looks insane.
He damned Denmark for not protecting Greenland. But Denmark allows the US to have its base in Greenland, the very base that Vance was visiting. How is that failing in a duty to protect? In any case, which country does Greenland need protection from? The only plausible enemy is Russia. The same Russia that Trump flatters and appeases.
“Right now the United States is supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine. No one is doing more to contain the Russian threat than Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine is in effect fulfilling the entire NATO mission, right now, by absorbing a huge Russian attack. But Vance opposes helping Ukraine, spreads Russian propaganda about Ukraine, and is best known for yelling at Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office.”
Indeed, if the US were to seize Greenland from Denmark, it would be an attack by one Nato alliance member by another, which would destroy the Nato alliance. Putin would be delighted.
As if to prove the point, Russia is cheering Trump on. Speaking in Murmansk, Putin made the case for American imperial expansion for Trump. It was if he were Trump’s PR man.
“The United States has serious plans regarding Greenland. These plans have long historical roots, as I have just mentioned, and it is obvious that the United States will continue to consistently advance its geo-strategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic.”
Viewed as an imperialist provocation Vance’s language makes perfect sense. Like the Nazis inventing fake border incidents to justify the invasion of Poland or Cecil Rhodes exploiting the suffering of settlers to justify invading Matabele territory, Trump’s America pretends that Denmark is not protecting Greenland as a pretext.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are looking at a future where – like Hitler and Stalin in 1939 – Trump and Putin divide up Europe.
I have repeatedly argued in this newsletter that it is a foolish mistake to take the isolationist rhetoric from the US at face value. True American isolationists would have no trouble in wishing Ukraine and Europe well, while adding, with regret, that the US could no longer provide military support.
Instead the Trump administration is damning Ukrainian democracy, cheering on the far right in the UK and Germany, flattering Putin, and threatening Denmark and Canada.
All of which leads to our third and nastiest scenario.
3/ Are US forces now the enemy within?
The US now has around 84,000 servicemen and women in Europe. What are they there for?
In the past they were to defend Europe from Russian attack. But no one seriously believes that, if Russia invaded the Baltic states, Trump would go to war against Putin.
So what are they doing here? Are they an occupying force? An intimidation force whose presence reminds European governments not to push back too hard against the US?
The only British writer who has asked the hard questions is George Monbiot of the Guardian. Depending on whose definitions you accept, the US has either 11 or 13 military bases and listening stations in the UK, he said:
“Their defenders have long argued, we should suck all this up because the security state is essential to our defence from hostile foreign actors. In reality, our entanglement, as many of us have long warned, presents a major threat to national security. By tying our defence so closely to the US, our governments have created an insecurity state.”
If we asked the Americans to go, would they?
Or would they threaten us, as they are already threatening Canada and Denmark?
If you find such questions paranoid, ask yourself this. Suppose there were no American troops here. Then, suppose Donald Trump asked for permission to set up military bases. Do you imagine for a moment that we would comply with his wishes?
Dear Readers, this week I am running a spring subscription sale. If you sign up as a paying subscriber, you will have access to all posts, archives, and debates – at a 20% discount.
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With Trump and Putin tearing our world apart, I am writing more than ever. I am hugely grateful to all subscribers. You allow me to keep working without pressure from advertisers, sponsors, or media magnates.
The sale will last until Friday April 4.
All my best wishes,
Nick