If Trump makes the US great again, what about the world, asks Siphamandla Zondi.
Donald Trump has swept into the US presidency with aplomb declaring in the process that he will work to make America great again, which is also his campaign payoff line. The question is: what will this imply for the rest of the world? Will making the US great also make the world greater or it will diminish it so that the US stands out as a lone superpower?
These questions should trouble all of those who understand that what happens in the US affects what happens in the world system that the US and the West still control. When the US drinks poison and falls ill, the whole world suffers as we saw when the US financial institutions made reckless trade decisions that triggered the financial crisis in 2009, which then transformed into a global economic crisis we are yet to recover from.
When the US decided the military was a critical strategy for managing international relations the world was militarised. When it put its power behind spreading a liberal brand of democracy, it became a global trend.
The US is not an ordinary state. It is not just another global power. It is not a typical nation-state, in fact, but is a state with a wide international character that millions in the world feel through the force of US commerce, the influence of the dollar and Coca-Cola, the violence of regime change designs and the war on terror excesses.
Every twist and turn in US conduct and foreign policy affects us all everywhere in the world. The modern world that the West built beginning in the late 15th century, using imperial trade and commerce, colonialism, slave trade and wars had its custodianship shift from Portugal and Spain in the early stages to Holland, Germany, Britain and France, and ended up being the responsibility of the US after World War II to this day. This gives the US immense power and influence on world affairs as a leader of the West and hence the modern world as a power system.
With this power comes responsibility. The US has the burden to act responsibly and with consideration for what ripple effects its actions have on the globalised world under its care.
It is a responsibility that obligates Washington to understand and consider the interests of the international system by which the world system operates, the UN to regional organisations to international finance institutions. It has over the years grown aware of the fact that it does not have pure national interests because what it does affects others in real ways.
Trump is elected on the basis of his promise to restore the US national interest as a primary consideration in US political and economic actions.
It is to fix the internal problems related to the effects of globalisation on US jobs, international trade links on US manufacturing industry, and globalisation on certainties about the US “dream”. It is to put the US and its people first, which can imply putting the world second.
At his inauguration, Trump declared that he will put the national interest of the US above other considerations.
It is about putting the poor, unemployed in the US ahead of what the US can do for others. He has promised to focus on building the US while maintaining relations with others in the world.
This can imply that the US will want to act like a normal nation state. It will not take more responsibility than a normal state does. He is promising a very different America from the one we have known for the past 70 years.
If Trump keeps his promise, we can expect a US that pulls back to its national shell in an effort to fix its domestic issues.
It can be a pull back from the damaging role of a military power interfering in the affairs of countries only in order to impose US ideals on others, establishing military bases everywhere.
But this could also mean a US that will be reluctant to take the responsibility arising from global agreements on issues like climate change, sustainable development, multilateral trade, development effectiveness and other matters of global good. It might mean a US that is less enthusiastic to support and strengthen multilateralism, but one that is willing to undermine global consensus on public goods when it is not in their national interest.
The international system works on the basis of the willingness of actors to build relations, strengthen international co-operation, and keep dialogue going in search of global consensus. A US that becomes a spoiler or a bystander in such processes will have a negative bearing on the search for consensus.
Trump may in the process accelerate the unravelling of the “American World” as a current version of the older “Western World”. It might accelerate the decolonisation of the world system.
But it might also just sow more and more confusion as the US maintains its hegemonic power and uses it for its pure national interest.
The progressive forces hoping for fundamental transformation of world affairs, have to seize upon this moment to build linkages across the world for purposes of building a truly pluriversal world in place of the universal (one version) multipolar one of Western dominance now.
* Zondi works at the University of Pretoria’s Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.