What does Trump’s win mean for the world

This America is not going to pretend to play nice, engage in liberal hypocrisies, or even deign to show an interest in issues that don’t fundamentally affect its own core interests. Instead, this America will define its core interests in the context of the security of its homeland, economic self-reliance and domestic job creation, technological and military superiority and protections of Christians.

This America will be more focused and less spread out than the America of the post Cold War era. This America will be happy to do deals with all actors, based on its interests, without the baggage of neither history nor with the obligations embedded in past agreements. And this America does not care about multilateralism, and does not want to pretend there is any global good beyond the specific good of particular States.

Specifically, at the cost of being speculative, but based on the current conversations inside the Trump ecosystem, here is what it may means for the following actors:

UkraineVolodymyr Zelensky may have sent off a warm congratulatory message to Donald Trump. But he has to make some hard choices now. Trump is not likely to extend America’s support to Ukraine in terms of military and economic resources before knowing the endgame. And the endgame, for Trump’s ecosystem, is peace based on territorial concessions by Ukraine and security guarantees by Russia. Trump is likely to openly engage with Vladimir Putin on the question and give up the pretence of this not being a shadow US-Russia war. He is likely to tell Zelensky to make peace with giving up territories already under Russian control and bid adieu to the prospects of joining NATO, and in return, Trump is likely to extract a promise from Putin that his territorial ambitions will end in eastern Ukraine and not extend beyond that to Europe. In all of this, Trump is likely to read the riot act to Europe and tell the continent that if it wants to continue fighting Moscow, it is free to do so without the American cushion.

IsraelTrump’s long-term priority in West Asia will be getting the Israel-Saudi Arabia normalisation deal done. He will take a strong hawkish position against Iran. In the short term, he is likely to back Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-Right allies and remove even the light restrictions that Washington was seeking to impose on Israel to curb its aggression to allow Netanyahu to achieve his aims in Gaza and West Bank. But in the medium term, and that time frame is hard to define, Trump will need to tell Netanyahu to stop — for that is the only way for him to get that deal with Saudis and create a new architecture in West Asia that suits American security and business.

ChinaTrump will be unpredictable on China. He is likely to take a strongly adversarial position on trade and impose the tariffs he has promised. He will continue to make an issue of how China stole away American manufacturing jobs and will not be forgiven for it. His ecosystem includes strong China hawks who will make it a priority to continue the tech denial restrictions that the Biden administration put in place, improve America’s deterrence, and cement partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, for Trump, nothing is set in stone and the battle with China isn’t ideological. If Xi Jinping offers him a sweet economic deal, on an issue that matters to Trump or fetches him political dividends at home, the next American president may only be happy to turn a blind eye to China’s excess in an area that may not be a priority for him.

EuropeTrump has a simple proposition for Europeans: Mind your own security. This may mean ramping up their defence budgets, which they are doing, or relying less on American security umbrella, or conducting their own bilateral deals with whichever partner they want to. But what Trump doesn’t want is to be told to cough up more resources. In the past nine years, Europeans have prepared for that partly, but still not adequately. And that will inevitably lead to transcontinental tensions.

TradeThe issue that matters most to Trump and that will fundamentally alter how the world does business is trade. The era of multilateralism on trade is well and truly over. Reciprocal tariffs will be in fashion. Domestic manufacturing will be a priority and the era of relatively smooth global flow of goods and services is about to face challenges, though technology and complex interdependencies make it hard to stop.

Put it together, and it is clear that in every theatre — from Europe to West Asia to East Asia — and in every domain – from trade to technology to multilateralism — the world is about to encounter shocks. But that promise of disruption is what has got Donald Trump elected and he will deliver on it, irrespective of the costs.