Largely unheralded and against the odds, Donald Trump beat his Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton, to win the United States presidential election. Trump, 70, will assume office on January 20 as America’s 45th president. His victory in the November 8 election was a stunning upset, which defied all the predictions. The impact is not only being felt across the US, but in every major political and business capital of the world. One thing is clear: there is a high sense of uncertainty about what his presidency portends for a fragile world struggling with economic recession, Islamist terrorism and climate change.
Accused of hiding his tax papers and using his “university” to dupe students, Trump nevertheless appealed to Caucasian Americans at the grass roots. He was labelled a misogynist, which ordinarily would have severely wounded his bid for the top job as he contested against Clinton, America’s first female nominee of a major party. But, it did not. His offer was simple: ban the Hispanics, black immigrants and Muslims from entering the US. Even in victory, he has been denounced by thousands of Americans through protests in several cities across the country.
For Nigerians, Africans and the rest of the Third World, the message is obvious: clean up your act and work for self-sufficiency. The era of a benevolent Uncle Sam may well be over with Trump in the White House and Republican Party majorities in both chambers of the US Congress. These ones have not a jot of sympathy for failing countries. The fear is that the US may return to its Cold War era strategy of backing brutal dictators as long as they do not threaten what the right wingers in Washington regard as American interests.
For Nigeria, particularly, the omens are that critical support in trade, security, emigration and the anti-corruption war may not be so forthcoming under the new dispensation. The Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, in a BBC interview, has already alerted the country that support for the war against Boko Haram, for which the Barack Obama administration gave $71 million, will wane. Nigeria should stop wasting opportunities. We have yet to fully benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act passed by the US Congress in 2000 to provide favourable access to the American market of products from sub-Saharan Africa. Our government should do everything possible to grow our industrial sector and tap into it before it expires in 2025 or the Congress repeals it. Should Trump fulfil his threat to tighten the screws on immigration, millions of Nigerians living in the US (legally and illegally) may find it difficult to contribute to the $21 billion sent home annually by the Nigerian Diaspora. The IMF and the International Organisation for Migration say that after oil and gas, foreign remittances are the second biggest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria.
We should shake off our complacency and collusion with corrupt and inept politicians, become more active in civic duties to create a palatable country and stop the desperate migration of Nigerians to the US and Europe. We are no longer welcome, either by Washington or in the cities of Europe, where similar xenophobic and anti-immigrant ultra-nationalists are on the rise. The expected freeze in free trade policies and anti-globalisation is predicted by Bloomberg to also hurt emerging economies like Nigeria as protectionist measures take hold in the US and elsewhere.
To close followers of events in the Middle East, Trump’s victory spells nothing but danger for an already troubled region. Although his vision for the region remains largely blurred, going by his incendiary rhetoric during his campaign, however, the Republican president-elect is likely to stir up fresh storms in the region, especially in the area of the nuclear deal with Iran, which he has variously described as a disgrace, lopsided and the worst deal ever negotiated.
Another area in which the diplomacy of a Trump presidency will be tested is in conflicts the Middle East is engulfed in. If belligerent states and non-state actors in the region have always behaved irresponsibly, believing in the ever presence of America, as the policeman of the world, to broker peace, then there is the need for a rethink. Trump, during his campaign, did not hide his dislike for Muslims, whom he said would be barred from entering the US. This will be an opportunity to limit the intervention of the Americans in the Middle East as much as possible.
It may also mean an endorsement of the role of his prospective ally, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, whom he has already expressed so much admiration for in the run-up to his election. As for the fate of the refugees from the region, it is obvious that there will be no place for them in the US, given Trump’s undisguised hatred for Islam.
Trump’s campaign promises and belligerent rhetoric provide the basis for apprehension. He had described the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as “obsolete” and threatened to withdraw the over six decades of US commitment to the global security behemoth and repudiate a slew of trade pacts he considers not in the US favour. His demagoguery that many trade deals killed jobs for Americans and the erection of another “Berlin Wall” at the US-Mexico border will help to arrest this drift and US immigrant crisis, are protectionist overkill that resonates with White supremacists. A move along these lines will make a big caricature of globalisation.
But his specious row met its match in the warning of 370 economists that included eight Nobel Prize winners. “In fact, manufacturing’s share of employment has been declining since 1970s and is mostly related to automation, not trade,” they said.
Besides the economic, the political and security corollaries of Trump’s emergence are no less frightening. Since the end of World War II, NATO, which the US leads, has helped to guarantee peace and stability within the international system. It has put Russia in check, especially its ambition in the Baltic States. An attack on any member of the 28-member organisation is taken as an assault on all, as enshrined in its Article 5. Russia, under Putin, will be happy to see NATO crumble with Trump’s threat; and this will herald a new wave of territorial expansion, war and general global insecurity.
Critically, Trump is re-enacting the ultra-nationalism, which convulsed Germany, and helped the National Socialist German Workers Party under Adolf Hitler to seize power in 1933. A most powerful Germany above any other nation and xenophobia (racism) were of great appeal to Germans still recovering from the ashes of World War I. “Make America Great Again,” is not different from such rabid patriotism. Such obsession is bound to be contagious, as it even gained from the Brexit mentality. Elections are due in Germany, the Netherlands and France in 2017. Right-wing parties are likely to exploit the populist wave of immigration and terrorism to rupture the political landscape. This, indeed, is the beginning of an uncertain new world order.
