What does Trump’s victory tell us?

It will be exhausting and at times alarming for American allies, but the two thirds of Americans who say the country’s best days are still ahead can still be proven right.

Michael GreenThe author is CEO of the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Republicans under Donald Trump just swept the Electoral College, the popular vote, the swing states and the Senate — and will probably take the House. But it is a mistake to fixate on Trump himself and lose sight of the structural factors that determine where change will and will not happen.

The American people were voting for change but not for Trumpism. In exit polls 75% of voters said they did not like either candidate and Kamala Harris was actually the more popular of the two. Even among Republicans only one-third of voters self-identified as part of Trump’s “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) movement. What mattered more than anything was the consistent polling that showed over two-thrids of the public think the country is on the wrong track. The U.S. economy is strong but prices are still painfully high for many. 75% of voters said that Donald Trump represented the better opportunity for change, so he won. As Bill Clinton’s political guru James Carville famously said about elections in 1992, “it’s the economy stupid.”

Trump has not necessarily realigned American politics for the long term. Trump shocked Democrats by doing better among Blacks, Hispanics, youth, women and labour union voters than any he did in 2020 and in some cases better than any Republican presidential candidate has in decades. This was a warning to Democrats that they have lost touch with small town and working-class Americans, but they can regain that ground if they focus on practical issues that affect those voters rather than the social justice agenda that excites elites in Hollywood or Manhattan. The winning President almost always loses in their first mid-term election and if Trump over-reaches on abortion or immigration he will pay a big price in Congressional elections in 2026 as he did in 2018. Harris was saddled with the incumbent label despite her best efforts to appear an agent of change. That will not be true for the Democratic presidential candidate who carries the mantle in 2028. Americans are generally not as progressive as Harris or as reactionary as Trump and things could easily reverse.

Much will depend on who goes into a Trump administration, particularly since he is much more of an entertainer than a policy expert. The appointment of Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff was encouraging. That is a very powerful position, and Susie is a sharp and rational political operative who has Trump’s trust. The betting now is that State Department will go to Senators Bill Hagerty or Marco Rubio. Though both are loyal to Trump, their real hero is actually Ronald Reagan. Treasury could go to one of the Wall Street investors who backed Trump, like John Paulson. They will understand the global economy. Secretary of Defence will likely be someone like former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien who understand alliances. Against these Senate-confirmed institutionalists will be scores of political appointees who come into the departments with pitchforks and torches. There will be a lot of tension under the surface. My bet is on the institutionalists, but we will have to see.

On defense policy towards Asia there will likely be more continuity than change. Behind the scenes the key officials who ran Asia in the first Trump term are surprisingly close to the Asia officials in the Biden administration. Moreover, public and Congressional support for U.S. alliances in Asia is strong. There are some risk areas though. The biggest is Ukraine. While majorities in the Congress still support Ukraine, many Trump advisors argue that the United States should retreat from NATO to focus instead on the threat from China. It will be important for Korea, Japan, Australia, and Taiwan to make the point that it will harm deterrence in Asia if the United States abandons NATO.

The other risk area is Trump’s attitude towards U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula. He would probably like to have another go at a grand bargain with Kim Jong Un and demonstrated last time that he would put U.S. forces on the table to get one. There may also be pressure from budget hawks to reduce spending on U.S. forces not directly deterring China. But the U.S. military presence on the Korean peninsula has not been a major political theme this time and none of the think tanks around Trump have issued proposals regarding USFK. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have prepared legislation that would prevent the President from withdrawing troops without Congressional approval. Nevertheless, Seoul should still be ready for this issue to emerge and should maintain strong connections with Congress and with U.S. allies like Japan and Australia.

There is also understandable trepidation about Trump’s love of tariffs. He has promised 60% tariffs on China and 20% on everybody else. However, the American people just voted out the Democrats because they are unhappy about inflation — and a barrage of new tariffs would only make inflation worse. Moreover, China and others will retaliate against American soybean exporters and other constituencies that matter to Trump. When Trump withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2017, agricultural associations panicked at the spectre of massive tariffs shrinking their exports. Trump retreated and signed new deals with Japan, Mexico and Canada to avoid the damage. Interestingly, the New York Stock Exchange had its best day in two years after Trump won the election. The market rightly assumed that under Trump there would be tax cuts and deregulation that would spur profits, but investors were also swayed by a Goldman Sachs report that predicted the Trump administration would only put 20% tariffs on China and virtually none on everyone else. That scenario sounds right, though it is too soon to be confident.

Americans like bold candidates who promise change but also the checks and balances that prevent it. Donald Trump sometimes recklessly thinks and talks like a dictator, but he is not going to become one. There will be plenty of viscosity within his administration and with his own party in Congress. It will be exhausting and at times alarming for American allies, but the two thirds of Americans who say the country’s best days are still ahead can still be proven right.