Trump Needs to Back Off or Americans May Pay the Price

holds almost supreme power in the United States. Not only did he, as he often proudly proclaims, win all the seven swing states but he also won a majority of votes cast nationwide. The Senate and the House of Representatives are controlled by his Republican party, and the party is overawed by him. US institutions are bending to his will as he proceeds to literally, and figuratively, cut them to size.

The lower Federal judiciary is offering some resistance, but the Supreme Court is generally not standing in the way of Trump’s policies and programmes and their execution.

The Democratic party has been largely marginalised for the present. Protests such as ‘Hands Off’ over the weekend are unlikely to impact Trump’s thinking. Yet, despite all this, has he gone too far in the wide sweep of the changes he is seeking to undertake in the domestic and foreign policy spheres? To put it differently—has he bitten more than he can chew? 

Immigration Policy Rejigs: A Mixed Bag

Trump contested the election on the peg of reinvigorating America and emphasised he was the only one who could do so. He promised to Make America Great Again (MAGA). To do so he focused on illegal immigration, US loss of manufacturing and trade imbalance, and a loss of US influence and reputation abroad.

No sooner was he sworn in, Trump signed which included the establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run indirectly by his current crony Elon Musk. Musk’s team is running amok in not only downsizing US government bureaucracy but virtually eliminating some government departments altogether. But while this is occurring – though with less intensity now – Trump’s main focus has been on four areas:

• Sending back illegal immigrants and tightening the screws on the entry of illegal immigrants

• Bringing an end to the Israel-Hamas war

• Ending the Ukraine war

• Eliminating US trade imbalance and restoring the country as a manufacturing centre

How has he fared in these areas so far and what are the prognoses?

A recent media report indicates that US has deported around 1,00,000 over a period of around nine weeks since 20 January. This works out to around 50,000 deportations per month. The number of undocumented persons in the US is estimated to be around 11 million. At the current rate of deportations, Trump will succeed in sending back only about 10 percent of the total undocumented population in the US.

Will this count as success? Where Trump is succeeding, though, is in ensuring a dramatic fall in the entry of illegals into the US since he assumed office.

After all, Trump cannot really succeed in eliminating undocumented workers from the US because sections of the US economy cannot do without them. His record on immigration will, at best, be a mixed one.

Israel-Gaza, Russia-Ukraine: 'Peace' on Halt

The first phase of the Israel-Hamas agreement led to the release of 25 Israeli hostages and eight bodies and the release of about 2,000 Palestinians from Israeli custody. It also led to the stoppage of Israeli bombing and the withdrawal of its forces from some areas of Gaza. This phase was to lead to negotiations for the second phase which would witness the release of the remaining hostages estimated to be about 34 hostages and 24 bodies.

It was also expected to result in the return of a majority of displaced Gazans to their homes. The second phase has failed to take off. Israel has resumed bombing of Gaza. The exchange of hostages has remained suspended.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Trump on 7 April. The two leaders said new negotiations were on to get all the hostages out. Trump has separately warned Iran to expect to be subjected to unprecedented aerial bombing if it does not enter into a new nuclear deal with the US. On its part, Iran has refused to bend to Trump’s pressure and is not willing to go beyond indirect talks.

Meanwhile, Trump’s plan to turn Gaza into a Middle East by sending its people for resettlement to Egypt and Jordan has proved to be a non-starter till now. Trump is tenacious and may seek to pursue it at a later stage. If he does so, Egypt and Jordan will have no choice but to resist it. It may also inflame the Arab street. 

Trump had proclaimed that he would soon end the Ukraine war. He has worked hard on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire.

For this purpose, it is being assumed that he has accepted that Russia would retain the Ukrainian territories that it currently occupies. He has also stopped the supply of all US weapons to Ukraine after his with Ukrainian President in the White House in early March. Trump has turned his back on Europe in his approach to the Ukraine war.

Trump had clearly hoped that after getting the benefit of the doubt from the US, Putin would soon agree to a ceasefire and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will follow. And finally, not only a bilateral understanding would be reached between the two nations but also that Europe and Russia would agree on new terms for European security. All that is not happening because , in the first place, wants Zelenskyy to go. Besides, with the balance of advantage on the battlefield currently with Russia, Putin has little incentive to rush into a ceasefire.

Trump is now frustrated with Putin and making this publicly known. His administration is threatening secondary sanctions on Russia. Whether the latter will succumb to these threats remains dubitable.

Liberation Day Disaster

Trump has gone ahead and imposed reciprocal tariffs and called the day he did so as ''. He obviously believes that US markets are of such great importance to all countries that they will ensure balanced bilateral trade, and the important players will make investments in the US. The immediate economic fallout for the US and the rest of the world has been disastrous.

Stock markets, including American, have plunged as they during the COVID-19 pandemic. US consumers will inevitably have to pay more for imported products.

All countries are trying to cope with the new situation through different strategies stretching from reducing their tariffs to US imports to imposing countervailing tariffs on them. On his part, Trump has called on Americans to endure short term pain for long-term gain. The question, though, is if his step will result in any real gain for the US, including in decisively increasing in the manufacturing sector. That is still an imponderable.

There is no evidence that Trump will succeed on any of the major fronts he has opened. The chances are that he will have to compromise on all four. But then, Trump is unconventional and will declare victory in all these areas, even when there is none.

(The writer is a former Secretary [West], Ministry of External Affairs. He can be reached @VivekKatju. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)