Global Affairs
Editorial 2025
(Feb. 2025). Donald Trump has regained the presidential seat for a 2nd term in the Oval Office. Trump’s traditional “transactionalism” is expected to surge again to force America’s closest allies to pay their dues, deliver on security issues, and bridge any trade deficit with commercial partners. Such is the current situation with Canada and Mexico, threatened with tariffs to push allies to increase resources on the border and double their efforts on border security to deal with illegal aliens and drug trafficking crossing into American soil. A few days after Trump’s Jan 20 inauguration, the White House announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico would be in force unless America’s closest allies increase security measures to stop illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling into the USA. After the initial political uproar, both Canada and Mexico had phone conversations with Trump and agreed to mobilize resources, monitor and restrict illegal entry, and deepen surveillance of drug smuggling. Having hit a security goal, Trump announced the suspension of tariffs for 30 days.
Trump has also pledged to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the conflict has tarnished the Westphalian order, whereby nation-states commit to respect territorial boundaries under international law. Gaza’s ongoing conflict has put the issue of war crimes and human rights violations to the fore of international debate and legal proceedings emanating from international organizations while at the same highlighting the unsolved Palestinian issue, historical animosity, and the menace of Iran and its proxies against Israel.
Trump’s administration has announced an ambitious investment plan to boost the innovative edge of America’s technological prowess and master the revolution of AI and robotics, strategically placing America at the forefront of technological advances. A new era of nativism, protectionism, and realism in schemes of sum-zero games is back with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) in what analysts call Global Power Competition dynamics (GPC) between the United States and China. But also, Trump’s second term and his new Governmental Agenda are reloaded with the aims pursued in the so-called Project 2025’s precepts whereby America must regain its lead by rescinding the progressive agenda pursued by liberal predecessors, shifting to highly conservative values. Trump’s realist, transactional views in foreign relations seek to make America’s partners prone to give concessions or force allies to pay their dues to enjoy America’s military backup, as NATO members do.
From that perspective, the Sino-American peer rivalry will continue to wage, especially if the winner of the technological race manages to establish a military and industrial edge over their competitor. Nonetheless, Trump’s tariff war to make allies sit at the table and negotiate a deal benefiting America’s interests is a tricky tool that may bring up higher inflation levels and domestic costs through job losses. However, Trump’s pledge to restore America’s leadership and increase prosperity for Americans will have to weigh in the intricacies of a highly connected world, which is interdependent with more grays and shadows than America resists acknowledging. Trump’s announcement of taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal responds to Trump’s realpolitik that the geopolitics of rare Earth elements and the safe passage of maritime vessels cannot be left unattended within traditional diplomacy but through transactional moves to stop the ever-increasing dominance of Chinese interests over ports and their privileges in the Canal and impede the expansionist reach of Russia in Greenland. Denmark has also talked with Trump on the phone. Regarding his bid to buy Greenland, Denmark has refused to sell to Trump, and ultimately, it will be up to Greenlanders to define their fate (a possible referendum of the political tutelage from Denmark).
Consequently, Denmark has played the security game and has announced a staggering figure to reinforce Greenland’s defense in case of a military takeover. However, Trump may have hit another goal, as the issue of Greenland could then be discussed at the heart of NATO to make European allies reinforce security, increase presence, and safeguard maritime passage for the sake of America, limiting Russia’s presence and reach. Ukraine’s Zelensky and Israel’s Netanyahu have been approached on the way forward to end these conflicts, which will be a formidable challenge for Trump, either too challenging to broker or short-lived, because within the logic of GPC, a weakened Iran in the Middle East may rise through different tactics at a later stage, given the historical animosity. A financially drained Russia may be unable to get back into the G7 and might try to rescind any agreement for peace in the longer run. A threatened China may retaliate over tariffs, causing a cascade of levy adjustments at countries’ borders and triggering more profound animosity between superpowers, shifting the current multipolar world into a bipolar one, i.e., between one aligned (or forced to be aligned) to the West versus a revisionist, expansionist axis competing for technological supremacy and access to rare minerals. Thus, America’s response to competition or multipolarity and to the rise of an expansionist China or a revisionist Russia is precisely by becoming an expansionist regional hegemon himself. The American-led world order post-1945, where America sat in the driver’s seat and became the international system's policeman, has become increasingly multipolar and economically interdependent. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, America had more countries to invest in, and by having won the intellectual and ideological battle through capitalism and freedom, America also became an exporter of democracy and prosperity, the "Pax Americana." Over the years, the international system allowed other poles to gain power; this multipolarity has brought other actors to the scene, bringing competition and, thus, higher levels of unpredictability for state actors and global investors. Given the current GPC dynamics and geopolitical interests, investors might see the continuation of Biden’s “nearshoring” policy to relocate the supply of strategic resources close to America. With lithium, for example, extraction from the South Cone is guaranteed through America’s investment. Today, decisions made on investment projects, “all things being equal,” have moved to the geopolitics of global power competition, adding the variables of protectionism and unpredictable trade tensions.
Trump’s nativism should not be considered an isolated phenomenon or an unprecedented protectionist surge in American politics. In that sense, America’s manifest destiny is back. By urging the wars to come to an end, Trump sounds more Wilsonian than commonly accepted, that is, “to make the world safer to protect America’s democracy.” However, for the supporters of the liberal order and closest allies of America, such as Europe, Canada, or Mexico, Trump’s transactional diplomacy is a source of preoccupation, especially when Trump announced America’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord, the WHO, and the cease of funds to USAID, at a time of crisis worldwide, pandemic threats, extreme weather events under climate change, transnational crime, and drug cartels, emerging and non-emerging disease, etc., which Governmental agencies have been confronting “to make the world safer", but, unfortunately, in this regard, Trump’s agenda resents America’s involvement in areas of common interest to the world based on an ideological counter-revolution to progressive ideas and thus such actions provide China with a gift to lead in the void. Given the decline in the middle class’s purchasing power, domestic politics has played an important role in bringing Trump back to the presidential seat. Americans no longer wish to wage war on foreign soil; Americans feel betrayed by globalization, and many feel they are the new “precariat" class at home.
With Elon Musk at its head, Trump’s new DOGE department for government efficiency may trigger higher levels of political animosity and disruption to domestic politics. Trump’s aim to end the “Deep State,” as Trump calls the intricacies of bureaucratic machinery, continues to be a priority of his governmental agenda, but how far Trump’s 2nd term will go to achieve this end remains to be seen.
Feb.25, 2025
Editorial 2024
The International Order since 1945 is under strain. On one side, COVID-19 has been the black swan that took leaders and IOs unprepared to deal with a global pandemic. Self-interest and lack of collective action prevailed worldwide during the vaccine inoculation era and exhibited the world’s inequality as the primary driver of vaccine campaigns. Once the worst of the pandemic came to a close, war broke out in Ukraine after the unlawful invasion of Russia into Ukraine’s lands, violating International Law. Today, the conflict in Gaza involving Palestinians and Israelis over historical grievances and land is not only putting the chances for a peaceful conviviality and a two-state solution at risk of irreparable harm but also putting Israelis worldwide at grave risk of deadly attacks.
EDITORIAL 2016
Political scientist Ian Bremmer was convinced Brexit would harm England's economy and threaten the EU's survival. What began as a good strategy by the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, to break an advantageous deal to remain in the bloc provided the basis for a polarized debate on whether or not to break ties with Europe.
What Cameron had achieved in the negotiations to remain - less money spent on migrants and economic privileges to protect the City - soon gave way to a heated controversy on the issue of whether to stay or leave the EU. Polarization grew between those who believed the UK should return to its exceptionally isolationist mindset and those who believed such a move would be disastrous for the economy. Brexit put England at a crossroads. On one side, those who believed the UK would be better off outside the EU with a strong anti-immigration sentiment. And on the other, the FTSE 100's major companies that needed reassurances that a break would not imply a BIT to be signed independently with every EU nation after the "divorce".
Brexit has become a straining test for politics and politicians in the UK on how they will minimize the impact of such a break from the European Union. Implications seem harsher than anticipated.
For more information, visit "Here, There and Everywhere" by Ian Bremmer and from Oxan, "Brexit Battle
