What Does Donald Trump’s Victory Mean?

On November 5, 2024, the election for the 47th President of the United States was held, and the results announced on November 6 showed that Republican candidate Donald Trump won the election. He defeated a female candidate for the second time. Trump received 312 out of 538 electoral votes, while Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate of Indian origin, received only 226 electoral votes, losing by 86 votes. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Although Trump received fewer popular votes than Clinton, he won the election by securing more electoral votes. The U.S. election system works in a way that the public chooses electors, and then these electors choose the president. In 2016, although 306 electors voted for Trump compared to 232 for Clinton, the electors who voted for Clinton received more popular votes from the public, totaling 48% of the vote. Trump’s electors received only 45.9% of the popular votes.

Now that Trump has won the election and is set to take the oath of office as the 47th President on January 20, 2025, there is much speculation about what will change in the U.S. and around the world. Many people have high hopes, with the most significant expectation being the end of the wars in Ukraine and between Israel and Palestine. Donald Trump made a pre-election promise that, once he becomes president, he will end the wars within 24 hours. Many unemployed voters in the U.S., mostly with lower levels of education, are struggling with job shortages and rising costs. They have been led to believe that their jobs are being taken away or reduced because of immigrants. So, when Trump announced that he would expel Ten million illegal immigrants from the U.S. as soon as he takes office, it gave these unemployed Americans a sense of hope. They thought that if he became president and removed Ten million illegal immigrants, the jobs left vacant would go to them. This is one of the main reasons why many of them supported him in the election.

To understand what Donald Trump will do in the coming days, we need to look at the actions he took during his previous term. There are several reasons for unemployment in the U.S., one of which is the decline in the construction industry and the massive growth of the service sector. Within the service sector, financial services—businesses that make money from money—have caused significant damage to the construction industry. Wealthy individuals, instead of investing in the construction sector, have prioritized money-making businesses in the financial sector. Compared to the construction industry, there are very few jobs in this field. The service sector accounts for 80% of the U.S. GDP, while the industrial sector contributes only 19% and provides jobs for only 19% of the workforce. Agriculture provides jobs for just 1% of the working force.

During Donald Trump’s previous term, his actions made it clear that he was not in favor of implementing the old policy of globalization in the U.S. Globalization, which the U.S. led in the 1980s, aimed to remove barriers to trade between countries. However, Trump’s steps seemed to go in the opposite direction. For example, he imposed a ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the U.S., while globalization was intended to reduce barriers to global trade. One of the goals of globalization was to eliminate tariffs and non-tariff barriers to international trade. Many countries had imposed high tariffs on imported goods to protect their domestic industries. Non-tariff barriers included things like quotas and subsidies for local industries, which were part of this protective strategy.

The idea behind globalization was to remove all kinds of barriers and provide all countries with a level playing field in global trade. This concept was promoted under U.S. leadership through organizations like the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, aiming to make the global market more open and accessible. The creation of the European Union was also driven by this idea. However, when the concept of free markets was put into practice, people realized that this uncontrolled system was not as beneficial as the old system. The new globalized economy endangered the protection of local industries in each country, leading them towards destruction. This resulted in rising unemployment. The same happened in Europe and the U.S., which was supposed to lead the world in globalization.

In the UK, people felt that leaving the European Union through Brexit would help them avoid this crisis. After seeing the consequences of Brexit, countries in the European Union that had adopted a single currency, the Euro, are now considering whether they should return to their own independent currencies.

In 2016, the American public showed through their vote that they wanted to correct the mistake made by globalists with the concept of ‘globalization’ from two and a half decades ago. As soon as Donald Trump took office, he began to step away from the idea of globalization. One of his early actions was announcing that he would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and he even tried to make Mexico pay for its construction. He wanted to stop cheap laborers from Mexico, who were entering the U.S. in search of work, so that American workers could find jobs. However, he also claimed that he was building the wall to prevent criminals and rapists from entering the U.S.

For 25 years, the U.S. had been promoting the removal of walls between countries, but under Trump, the U.S. was now going to build a wall at its own border. The creation of the World Trade Organization and the effort to include more and more countries was driven by America’s goal of removing the walls between nations.

Donald Trump’s second step in retreating from globalization was to warn companies like Ford that if they built factories in Mexico to produce cars and trucks, any cars, trucks, or parts imported from Mexico to the U.S. would face a 35% tariff. This strong message was aimed at American companies that were moving production to other countries to take advantage of cheaper labor and lower costs. It’s important to note that this is the same America that had been pressuring countries worldwide to eliminate import tariffs to enforce globalization.

On January 21, 2017, Trump took his third step against globalization by signing an order pulling the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks in the Asia-Pacific region. This agreement, made by the Obama administration in 2015, was intended to start a free trade deal with 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically to counter China. Although the U.S. Congress had not yet approved the deal, Trump effectively ended it before it could be implemented. The economic crisis caused by the past two and a half decades of globalization was so deep that even those who had once praised it began to reverse their steps. Protecting domestic industries by imposing tariffs and non-tariff barriers on imported goods is now seen as a return to the pre-globalization situation.

In the U.S., besides unemployment, two major problems are poverty and the high cost of healthcare. The first problem is that 42.1 million people depend on food stamps due to poverty, a significant rise from 17.3 million in 2001. The second issue is the unaffordable cost of healthcare. According to the National Health Interview Survey for the first quarter of 2024, 27.1 million Americans are living without health insurance. According to recent data from the World Population Review, 66.5% of bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to unpaid medical bills.

To address this issue, Barack Obama, upon taking office in 2009, introduced the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. This law made health insurance mandatory for all Americans. It also prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions. Before this, insurers would refuse coverage for individuals with certain pre-existing health issues. The law also required insurance companies to include emergency services, mental health care, and pregnancy coverage in their plans, and prevented them from charging excessive premiums. However, in 2017, Donald Trump repealed this order.

Under Trumpcare, insurance companies were once again allowed to set their own premiums, making health insurance more expensive. Through Obamacare, there was an expansion of Medicaid and Medicare for low-income individuals, and young people up to 26 years of age could stay on their parents’ insurance. Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, was also improved. Obamacare provided subsidies on premiums for low- and middle-income individuals and made the costs of healthcare services more transparent.

However, Trumpcare removed many of the restrictions imposed on insurance companies and halted the expansion of Medicaid for the poor. Trump also attempted to remove the higher taxes on the wealthy that were imposed under Obamacare. While Trumpcare was not fully implemented, it aimed to weaken Obamacare. Under Obamacare, there was a penalty for not purchasing insurance, but Trumpcare eliminated this requirement. Trumpcare also shifted most of the responsibility for health insurance onto the states. Under Obamacare, insurance companies had to cover pre-existing conditions like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Under Trumpcare, premiums increased for people with these conditions. Trump referred to Obamacare as a “disaster.”

In 2018, Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement with Iran. He also held a summit with North Korea, but it ended without a significant outcome. Trump began the process of withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, which was seen as a positive step. However, instead of reducing the defense budget, he increased it. Under Barack Obama’s administration, the U.S. defense budget was $600 billion, but under Trump, it rose to $732 billion.

Obama had implemented the “sequestration” policy, which imposed strict limits on defense spending, leading to cuts in the defense budget. In contrast, Trump promoted the military-industrial complex, increasing investments in combat technology and new weapons.

In the field of trade, Donald Trump pressured American companies to reduce outsourcing in order to create more jobs within the country. To promote domestic industries, he raised tariffs on Chinese goods.

During Barack Obama’s administration, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program provided protection for young people who came to the U.S. as children with their parents and were now living there. Under DACA, they were allowed to work for two years, obtain a social security number and a driver’s license, apply for student loans, and even join the military. Donald Trump’s administration attempted to end DACA, but the Supreme Court struck down his order. Despite the U.S. being a nation built by immigrants, Trump announced during the 2024 election that he planned to deport one million illegal immigrants.

Donald Trump eased environmental regulations and pulled the U.S. out of the 2017 Paris Climate Agreement. He was against the lockdowns imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic but advocated for vaccinations. Under Operation Warp Speed, millions of Americans received the COVID-19 vaccine shots.

This overview helps in understanding his perspectives and policies. It gives a glimpse of what his second term, starting on January 25, could look like. If he manages to distance the U.S. from the Hamas-Israel conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war, it would be a major accomplishment. Additionally, if he can halt the outsourcing practices adopted by American companies, it would provide significant relief to unemployed Americans. However, these tasks remain highly challenging and would require a great deal of effort.

By Musharraf Ali

amanalmi@gmail.com