One week ago Donald Trump was elected US president. Millions of words have been written since then about the US election and the forthcoming Trump administration, trying to fill the massive void left by the victory of a man with no political or government experience, a man who not only does not seem to know much about anything, but appears totally unconcerned by his ignorance.
“I don’t know” or “I saw it on the Internet” are not acceptable answers for a 10-year-old quizzed over a homework answer, much less an answer from the next US leader to reporters’ questions about his policy proposals or tweets.
Everyone wants to know what a Trump administration means for them, and people seem to be clutching at straws that Trump’s White House will not be the xenophobic, racist, misogynistic, deceit-filled house of horrors that his campaign was.
Many in Taiwan have taken comfort in the idea that the US under Republican administrations has treated Taiwan, and especially its arms requests, more favorably than US Democratic administrations.
However, Trump’s Republicanism is not the Republicanism of old and his isolationist stance could endanger Taiwanese and regional security, while his threats of trade protectionism could do real damage to Taiwan’s export-reliant economy, especially those businesses that have production bases in China, regardless of the “six assurances” reaffirmed in the US Republican party platform.
Platitudes about giving Trump a chance or about how Trump will have to appoint experienced people to his Cabinet and rely on them to turn his promises into policies cannot paper over the cracks.
The world is still reeling from the last time such an intellectual lightweight was in the White House with a team of “experienced hands.” Former US president George W. Bush sold a major arms package to Taiwan, thanks very much, but his decision to invade Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden led to the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the repeated contravention of the Geneva Conventions.
He then decided to invade Iraq — an ill-conceived war led by a US secretary of defense whose disregard for experts’ advice meant the US arrived with a force too small and ill-equipped to do the job, and one totally unprepared for post-invasion governance.
The resulting death toll of allied troops and Iraqis, has as of last year, by conservative estimates, exceeded half a million people, while the chaos and enmity resulting from those decisions fueled the rise of the Islamic State group. The world is a much more dangerous place as a result.
The list of things Trump has said he would be comfortable with — the use of torture as an instrument of policy, civilian casualties in bombing raids, taking Iraq’s oil, trade wars — is horrific, as is his disregard for the overt ethnic hatred his campaign inspired, not to mention his threats to jail his rival, curtail freedom of the media and use legal action to silence his critics.
Trump is a towering mass of contradictions.
He said he would be a president for all Americans, but he has appointed white supremacist Steve Bannon, a proponent of racism and anti-Semitism, as his chief strategist. He supports the US Supreme Court having the final say on same-sex marriage, but not on abortion. He touts education, but believes climate change is a hoax and has named a climate-science denier to head his Environmental Protection Agency transition team. His focus on “America first” could create dangerous gaps that China, Russia and others could exploit.
While many have lambasted Trump and his supporters for living in an alternate Fox News/Breitbart-based reality, they ignore that Trump has created a new reality, one in which the old mores, be they societal, political or economic do not apply.
However, acknowledging a Trump presidency does not mean accepting his view of the world or his remedies for problems.
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