In a few days from now, the United States will witness the swearing in of its 47th president, President-elect Donald Trump, for his second and last term in office. He was the 45th US president from 2017 to 2021 succeeding former president Barack Obama.
Chanceries around the world, particularly those that have been allies of the United States since the end of World War II, are guessing how the second Trump term will impact their relations with the new Republican Administration, given the ups and downs of the first term.
Trump issued threatening messages to some US allies, among them Panama, Greenland, Canada, and Mexico, after he won the US presidential elections on 5 November last year. The Middle East has also figured among his threats.
On two occasions, Trump has promised that the region will see “hell” if the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are not released before 20 January, the day he goes back to the Oval Office for the second time. At the time of writing, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Stephen Whitlof is in Israel where, according to press reports, he has held a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Known for his unpredictability and his penchant for springing surprises, the other day the president-elect reproduced on his Truth Social social-media site a podcast with US academic Jeffrey Sacks that was highly critical of Netanyahu, accusing him of dragging the US into endless wars in the Middle East. Known for his unlimited and unquestioned support for Israel, which was amply demonstrated during his first term in the White House, Trump’s move surprised many in the Middle East, especially the Israelis, let alone Netanyahu himself.
I guess the president-elect meant to convey an unmistakable message to the ruling coalition in Israel – namely, don’t take me for granted. It may have been a way of saying that his second administration will seriously aim at military de-escalation in the Middle East as well as in other parts of the world, with Ukraine topping the list. In other words, hold your guns, at least for the next four years.
The way the next Trump administration will deal with Iran is a main question hanging over the region. In my article in Al-Ahram Weekly last week, I argued that a military confrontation between Israel and Iran should not be ruled out and that the Iranians will come under serious US pressure in two main areas – the future of their nuclear programme and the role they will play in the Middle East.
The first test in this context will be whether the Houthis in Yemen will end their year-long campaign of targeting international shipping in the Red Sea. It is interesting to note in this respect that the US and British Air Forces have intensified their attacks on a host of Houthi targets in Yemen. For the first time since last January, the Israeli Air Force also conducted a joint military operation with the Americans and the British last week.
As far as Egypt is concerned, I believe that Egyptian-US relations will be warmer than they have been during the Biden administration. Had it not been for the 2021 war on Gaza as well as the war Israel unleashed on Gaza in retaliation for the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas, Egyptian-US relations would have been in a deep freeze.
This might not mean that these relations will be great over the next four years. However, we could see a bilateral US-Egyptian summit at the White House, something that did not take place while President Joe Biden was in office.
In Ukraine, it seems that the belligerents, the Russians and the Ukrainians, have realised that the time has come to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Both the Russian and the Ukrainian Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, have expressed their willingness to end the war. The possible terms of a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine have been aired, and 2025 could see an end to this unnecessary war.
In his first term in office, Trump dealt with China by avoiding military threats and favoured competing with China on commercial terms. After receiving Chinese President Xi Jinping in April 2017 at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, Trump slapped high tariffs on Chinese exports to the US but avoided making indirect military threats against Beijing.
This time around, I believe that the second Trump administration will adopt the same positions that it followed from 2017 to 2021, while in the meantime also threatening to impose higher tariffs on Chinese products. On a more strategic level, I would not rule out the next Trump administration adopting policies aimed at neutralising the Chinese-Russian alliance of February 2022. I guess ending the war in Ukraine will contribute in an indirect way in this regard.
How Trump will deal with leader Kim Jong-Un of North Korea will be interesting to watch. In his first term, he broke a taboo in US relations with the North by holding three summits with the North Korean leader in an attempt at the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in return for scaling down US sanctions against North Korea. A fourth summit with Kim Jong-Un during Trump’s second term should not come as a surprise.
The world has changed dramatically since the 45th US president left the Oval Office in January 2021. Wars and military conflicts have broken out over the last four years that the Biden administration has not seriously tried to end. On the contrary, it has approached them as an instrument for projecting and enhancing US power.
Judging from the statements made by Trump, who will be sworn in as president on 20 January, the chances are that the next US administration will try to achieve the same strategic objectives as before but by using means other than the use of force or threatening to do so.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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