Trump gets to work

Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma fired a shot at the United States in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 18.

"It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It is your strategy. You did not distribute the money in the proper way. In the past 30 years, America had 13 wars spending $2 trillion ... no matter how good your strategy is, you're supposed to spend money on your own people," Ma said. Donald Trump, who took oath of office as the 45^th President of the United States, has a lot to learn from Ma’s words. One has yet to see whether Trump, who became US President after losing popular election to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes, will repeat his mistakes or lead the country with a practical sense of a brilliant businessman. The tactic he used to get into the White House was to exploit the displeasure and the racist mentality of the Americans. His presidency therefore stirs apprehensions rather than hope within the US and among the world nations. By pointing at the recent remarks of Trump, many people believe that racism and war mongering that led to the economic decline of America and made the world hate the country more, will only see a hike in the Trump era. In the past several years, America had spent $2 trillion on 13 wars. Had a small part of this amount been used productively, how many job opportunities would that have created? Will Trump follow the path of rational thinking? Or will he be led by the nasty sense of war-traders, which the former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described as a military-industrial complex? These are the basic questions.

What Trump represents is a politics of hatred. And, there is no doubt that clashes and problems will increase if his style of politics prevails in the country. Even if Trump goes for a self-correction due to the impracticality of his policies, how fruitful that would be in the present US scenario? Like in any other democratic country in the world, there are three layers in America – the government, the political elite who stand as the agents and the beneficiaries of the government, and finally the public. The people after the elections become irrelevant while the government and the political elite accomplish their petty motives. Even though the anti-Trump protests currently being held in the US is an expression of public interest, they wouldn’t be able to influence the government policies. There is little difference between the Republicans and Democrats in such a system. One instance is senate representatives insisting on same foreign policy in a meeting held with cabinet members of Trump administration. The policy on the other hand reinforces the blind opposition towards Iran, China and others. Even Obama, who was considered to have a problem with this system, had to spread war to more countries. (The US had spent a whopping $60,000 crore for its troops in different countries in the year 2015 alone). Hence, things cannot be expected to get better under a trader of hatred like Trump. Many believe that Trump’s administration would benefit India. Given the enmity towards China, he is expected to implement the tactic of boosting up ties with India. Several others also believe that the US which favoured Pakistan so far would now show an inclination towards India. It plainly implies that the colonial style of attaining economic gains and carrying out arms trade by exploiting the rivalry and contention between the nations wouldn’t see any change. At the same time, there won’t be any considerations in the case of visa facilities more favourable for India. While Trump’s slogan ‘America First’ is realised, the favourable circumstances for the Indian IT professionals and others in the US would vanish. Whatever it is, it would be America itself that Trump’s administration is most likely to wound if he moves ahead in the manner proclaimed.