It’s a fool’s errand to try to determine what Donald Trump will do in a second term in office.
It is even more difficult given that Trump has prioritized winning re-election far more than disclosing a comprehensive policy plan. Kamala Harris used the same strategy in many ways to keep an ambiguous plan agenda, though certainly with less success.
Having said that, Trump returns to the White House after serving in the Oval Office for four more years as president. Although his several times in the public eye may not be exactly what he will do, they do give us some sense of his interests.
Trump’s confusing policy plan
Some point to Trump’s coverage agenda as lacking both persistence and consistency.
On the one hand, he has praised his contenders for the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade. On the other hand, he cautioned opponents of abortion on the campaign trail and advised fellow Democrats not to pass traditional limitations.
On the one hand, some of his top officials wrote the ostensibly liberal and contentious Project 2025 statement from his first term in office. On the other hand, he claims he has never even read the document and distanced himself from the authors.
And on one hand, Elon Musk, one of Trump’s biggest backers and economic donors, has claimed he could reduce the size of state, government spending and also a number of national authorities. Most economists agree that the Trump administration’s economic plan may significantly increase the national deficit more than Harris ‘ plans did.
It should be noted, nevertheless, there certainly is one area where Trump has not wavered: business.
We can anticipate continuity from Trump because he has had a protectionist position for several decades. Nevertheless, it’s still unclear whether his Republican colleagues in rural America will help these protectionist measures.
The “dictator on time one” mission is on the agenda.
Trump’s statement about being a despot “only on time one” was the most well-known – and probably the most renowned – of his promises for his returning to the White House.
This ode became a well-known part of the stump speeches by the Biden and Harris efforts against Trump. It’s probably less well-known what specifically he would do.
He had immediately promised to develop digging for fossil fuels and near the border with Mexico right away. On the campaign path, he broadened his first-day interests to even include:
- firing Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has charged Trump with two counts of national indictment.
- pardoning some of the protesters who were imprisoned after the protests of January 6, 2021
- the estimated 11 million people who are deported to the United States without having a legitimate emigration position are beginning to deport in large numbers.
- and ending what he has called” Green New Deal atrocities” within President Joe Biden’s platform for tackling climate shift.
Trump likewise, in a surprise to immigration protesters, said he would also “automatically” offer non-citizens in the country continuous citizenship when they graduate from college.
What about his Cabinet?
The proverb that “personnel is plan” applies to both Republican and Democratic services.
When Biden appointed Kurt Campbell to lead the White House’s Indo-Pacific work on the National Security Council, the shift made clear that an “allies and lovers” approach may establish his administration’s plan in Asia.
And when Trump chose Mike Pence to get his running mate in 2016, it was evident to traditional Republicans that Trump did have a” Republican inside” in a powerful place within his administration.
Trump has made it clear that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Musk may play significant roles in his management, but it is still unclear what exactly they will do.
Kennedy has pledged to” Make America Healthy Again,” and Musk has promised to cut back on federal regulations and bureaucracy. Practically speaking, it’s still too early to say what kind of position the two celebrities will play, especially since Trump’s cabinet nominees does require Senate verification.
While the Republicans are going to control the Senate again, this does n’t guarantee it will support his appointees. A lean Republican majority in the Senate in 2017 did not support all of Trump’s plan.
Trump’s second term in office may once more be defined by the high staff turnover that led to his next word. Sometimes his appointments did n’t have much coherence, either. For instance, Trump’s national security officials, Michael Flynn and John Bolton, had little in common beyond a shared opposition for the Obama government’s plans.
Matt Pottinger, the administration’s assistant national security advisor, remained in the end for nearly the entire day. He not merely led many of Trump’s corporate guidelines toward Asia, but also defined the term” proper competitors”, which will probably outlast both the Biden and Trump services.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
In the end, if Trump’s second term in office is anything like his first, then the debate over his personnel appointments and policy priorities will continue for some time.
Therefore, it is less important to speculate on Trump’s intentions than to concentrate on the long-term structural trends that would have continued regardless of who is in office.
After all, the Biden administration maintained or sought to expand many of the Trump administration’s efforts abroad, including his” Free and Open Indo-Pacific” policy, tariffs, and the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states.
The Biden administration’s domestic policies expanded with Trump’s, which included expanding the Child Tax Credit, and enforcing new restrictions on large technology companies.
Additionally, even a Harris administration would have been improbable about sending US troops to the Middle East or opposing NATO allies ‘ increased defense spending.
Trump will undoubtedly remain unpredictable and unconventional, but it would be foolish to assume that there are n’t clear areas of continuity that started before and will continue long after him.
Jared Mondschein is director of research, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.