RECENTLY this week, Donald J. Trump was inaugurated the 47th President of the United States.
Trump started his second term by focusing on domestic issues and the interests of his supporters. There was less emphasis on Ukraine and Palestine, open markets, open travel or green energy and more about American jobs and American borders.
He signed orders to expel illegal migrants, end diversity and inclusion policies and end birthright citizenship, among many other things.
He also pardoned the majority of the January 6, 2021 protesters, and in foreign policy, some pundits believe that it was Trump who pushed the Israelis and Palestine to a ceasefire.
All in all, Trump began his second term running and his voters seem to agree.
For those who oppose him though, Trump is an enemy that has grown in power despite his defeat in 2020, but he is also more than just a political entity. To many, he represents the desire among Americans to end Pax Americana, with its emphasis on free trade and open borders in favor of an America with strong borders, strong tariffs and a more solid ethnic-cultural identity.
This is nothing new. Rightly or wrongly, Trump already represented these principles in his first term, but it seems he’s doubling down in the second if the last few days were anything to go by.
For the globalists and the lovers of Pax Americana, this is a problem because global peace is not free and requires a reserve currency as well as a global police force, and Trump does not want the US to foot the bill, literally and metaphorically.
This self-interested approach is a problem to them because the post-war US is supposed to be an empire, which uses the nation to subsidize the global networks and financial systems that sustain it. By focusing US attention back to the American heartland, often at the expense of both allies and enemies, he and his supporters undermine the post-war order, and that is why Trump will continue to be a divisive figure long after the end of his second presidency./PN
