Donald Trump entered the American White House in January 2017 after winning the 2016 US presidential election. His election victory was quite unexpected and probably even he and his campaign team were then pleasantly surprised by the election outcome. Incidentally, his Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton, had then won the popular votes while Trump romped home with the lead in the Electoral College.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House after his victory in the 2024 US presidential election sprang no surprises, although nobody was sure about his victory. A series of polls repeatedly forecast a neck-to-neck race between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican Party supremo Donald Trump who demolished easily all his competitors to win the party’s nomination to contest the presidential race.

Significantly, none could predict the election outcome, but many were apprehensive that Trump’s victory could spell disaster for the democratic polity in the United States and spread uncertainty internationally amidst two deadly wars, one in Europe and the other in West Asia, that have been utterly distressing global stability and political economy. 

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, some Republican leaders and many others within the US feared that the return of Trump to the White House would be a victory for fascism and the death of democracy.

America’s strategic allies in Europe and Asia shivered with the imagination that their long-standing alliance relationship with the United States would be in for bottomless trouble with Trump’s victory in the 2024 race. There were anxieties that the fate of NATO and Washington’s alliances with Tokyo and Seoul could be in peril.

Ironically, China and Russia – two fierce critics of the Biden Administration and its policies – did not exhibit overwhelming hope or despair over the possible outcome of the US presidential election. While President Vladimir Putin ‘hailed’ Trump’s victory terming it as “courageous,” Beijing, formally, ‘congratulated’ Trump on his win notwithstanding the latter’s clamour of targeting China with heavy tariffs, with Canada and Mexico too added lately to the target list.   

Instead, it was Trump’s Western critics who painted a grim picture of a Trump Administration 2.0 that could yet again cosy up to the autocrats of the world. They visualized the 45th President of the United States smiling, shaking hands and making deals with leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, Kim Jong-Un of North Korea and a few others from Europe and Latin America.

There were some speculations that under a Trump administration, no speaker of the US House of Representatives or Chairman of the US Senate would visit Taiwan. There were others who felt that Putin would be pleased to find Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky lose the huge backing in both financial and military terms under a Trump Administration.

But President Xi knows that he would have to get ready for a more intense economic Cold War and President Putin is aware that Trump would focus on MAGA goals, which would clash with his strategic goals.  

Now that Trump has been elected with huge margins of votes, the speculating dust has settled and more soul-searching has begun to think about the things to come and the ways and means of navigating through the next four years of the second Trump administration.

Trump 2.0 will be a new spectacle

It appears almost certain that the Trump 2.0 is not going to be a replica of Trump 1.0. The four years of his stay in the Oval Office of Washington’s White House is supposed to have made Trump more experienced, and knowledgeable.

Furthermore, his grand success in electoral politics has immensely emboldened him to implement some of his signature campaign agendas. The Republican Party now controls both Houses of the US Congress and Trump now is the unchallenged leader of the Republican Party.

Trump’s critics in American politics seem to have gone silent. Prosecutors in several of the legal cases against him have promptly been closing the litigations or dismissing some of the allegations.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is finding it hard to decipher the reasons for its crushing defeat and seems greatly in a mourning mood to be able to give a big fight to President Trump during upcoming policy decisions and initiatives. President Joe Biden had bitter things to say about Trump but has had no alternative but to proclaim a smooth transition.

The speed at which Trump nominated his cabinet picks clearly demonstrates the planning he had made to assume the reign of the administration and steadfastly implement his dream projects and policies without losing time. Trump, his views and statements, his nominations for various cabinet positions and his moves for a smooth transition have dominated the media headlines and occupied space as never before.    

As far as the domestic scene is concerned, there are anxieties over Trump’s plan to reorganize the government and governance in the United States. The new department that Trump is going to set up will be headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Both have kept no secret of their plans to downsize the bureaucracy, pack it with loyalists who will raise no questions to the President and devotedly implement the policies.

Corporate America is waiting for the promised tax cuts, while the middle class is worried about the effect of high tariffs on imported goods that will cost them the most in the marketplace.

Working-class Americans are apparently happy about Trump’s plan to deport illegal immigrants that may raise their wages, but American companies are worried about the rising cost of their businesses due to expected labour shortages. Pharmaceutical and drug companies, for instance, would be looking forward to tax breaks and other benefits, but beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obama Care) appear to be apprehensive about the continuity of the Act that has enabled millions of Americans to register for medical insurance.

The impact of Trump 2.0 on international affairs is already felt and speculations of several kinds are in the air.

The President-elect has already announced that he will impose 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, threatening these two countries to keep the high tariff in place until they act to stop illegal immigrants from entering the United States. He wants to raise tariffs on China by an additional 10 per cent.

Many other countries are perhaps on notice to get prepared for similar tariffs!   

Trump’s cabinet: A stunning line-up

Trump’s choice for his national security team, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are under intense scrutiny in the media by academics and commentators.

Their background, statements and past actions are being examined and analysed to have some ideas about Trump’s engagements with the world in coming four years. The team is viewed as hardliners on China, and sceptics on Pakistan and some of them have positive views on US-India strategic partnerships.

While work experiences and other backgrounds are important to predict the future approaches of the nominees of the national security team, these can only provide a fraction of the facts. All these nominees, if confirmed by the Senate, will carry out President Trump’s assignments and instructions.

Their personal choices in the past will have a limited role to play in decision-making.

Trump is known as a mercurial personality. His consistency in advocacy and agenda-setting is now revealed and his second administration is unlikely to be a victim of ad hocism and uncertainty. Trump has a large base of advisors and he is expected to listen to all and then make a decision, instead of forcing his whim like in his first term.

His Cabinet Officials are then expected to implement his decisions without question – an aspect most relevant since many officials, including senior members, of the first Trump administration had since publicly disavowed him.

It is, nonetheless, agreed by a large number of scholars and commentators that Trump will be less inclined to get involved in foreign wars, more likely to push for advancing American trade and business interests, less interested in progressive ideas and more proactive in promoting conservative ideas.

No matter how unpredictable he may appear, his ideas are a new phenomenon in American politics. Trumpism is not a passing miracle; it is likely to survive his second administration.

India is one of the least concerned countries, while deeply watching the American election drama over the last one year. Indian ministers and officials have masterfully dealt with him during his first term. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has commendable personal chemistry with him.

Mandarins in South Block might rejoice at the mere thought of Trump tariffs against China and how India might stand to benefit from Trump’s expectant anti-China policies. However, it could be worthwhile to note that Trump has not been happy about India’s alleged trade firewalls having termed the latter as the “biggest import tariff charger” – ironically an approach that Trump is slated to follow but refuses to accept others following suit.

While Trump had, during his first tenure, singled out India’s 50 percent import tariff on Harley Davidson bikes to flag his displeasure on New Delhi’s protectionism, there was also ongoing friction over India’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defence system with the Trump administration delaying a CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) decision over this matter.

Going by these instances, it could be affirmed that India has experienced both negative and positive fallouts of its relationship with the first Trump administration. The second Trump administration, likewise, is going to be a combination of constructive partnership and unavoidable differences, especially on trade and investment matters.