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Hastily Recasting U.S. In The Right-Wing Mould

Trump is in a hurry to build a new protectionist America where social norms reflect White Christian values.

| Photo: AP

America, under Donald Trump, is turning back the clock on the liberal international order that it had created and promoted since the end of World War II in 1945. At the speed with which Trump has begun his second term, America will be an altogether different country when he completes his four years in office. The slew of executive orders by the new president is an indication that Trump is in a hurry to build a new protectionist America where social norms reflect White Christian values.

USA라이브 바카라 official policy will now recognise just two sexes—male and female. For the longsuffering LGBTQ+ community, who were gaining acceptance and legal rights, it is now back to square one. Trump repealed a slew of executive orders that allowed transgender athletes in girls’ sports and building separate toilets for transgenders in public spaces. Transgender rights have been a major issue for Trump라이브 바카라 MAGA support base, with the Christian Right and suburban and rural voters opposed to a third gender.

Unfortunately, as the world looks at the US as the standard-bearer on such issues, Washington라이브 바카라 crackdown on LGBTQ+ will encourage other Right-wing leaders in various countries. “Earlier, America gave a fillip to gay and LGBTQ+ movements, and set the trend for other countries. Trump라이브 바카라 action now will certainly encourage many countries to follow suit,” says Delhi-based sociologist Radhika Chopra. “But, let라이브 바카라 wait and see as there will be pushbacks… Trump is also a shrewd politician with his ears to the ground and will dial down his position if people are not with him,” she says. Just as he dialled down on a federal abortion ban with an eye on women voters—he has left the issue open to the states. However, emboldened by Trump라이브 바카라 victory, anti-abortion activists held a huge rally in Washington calling for an end to abortion nationwide. Vice President J D Vance, who addressed the rally, said: “This administration stands by you, we stand with you, and most importantly, we stand with the most vulnerable,” and added, “America is fundamentally a pro-baby, a pro-family and a pro-life country.”

With immigration a hot button issue, one of Trump라이브 바카라 first orders was to declare an emergency on the US-Mexico border; send an initial batch of 1,500 soldiers to man the border; and, extend the powers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to conduct raids and detain illegal migrants. Schools, hospitals and places of worship like churches, temples and mosques—once out of bounds—can now be raided. Planeloads of people without papers are being sent back to their countries. Colombia, which initially sent back the first plane, backed off after Trump threatened a 20 per cent increase on Colombian imports. While sending back immigrants is welcomed by most Americans, Trump라이브 바카라 decision to end birthright citizenship—that critics say goes against the US Constitution—will be much tougher to implement. The order has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge after 22 states challenged it.

By another flourish of the executive pen, Trump has stamped out DEI, the department overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Liberal governments have promoted DEI to make up for centuries of discrimination against African-Americans and other minorities in government offices, colleges and schools. The president has asked federal officials overseeing DEI to go on leave till further notice. Hundreds of federal jobs are also on the line, as Elon Musk—now popularly referred to as the First Buddy—is planning to cut down the federal bureaucracy. The school system is also under attack as Trump believes that American schools are promoting Left-wing indoctrination. He announced that he will cut federal funding to “any school pushing critical race theory, gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children”. Schools that encouraged vaccines and the wearing of masks during COVID-19 will be targeted as liberal institutions. Though all these issues relate to US domestic politics, it will have worldwide ramifications as Right-wing governments will try to emulate Trump라이브 바카라 America.

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Certain things about Trump라이브 바카라 foreign policy are familiar since his first term. He is a climate sceptic and regards climate change as a Chinese hoax to lure companies to produce in China. So walking out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement was expected. Likewise, his views on the World Trade Organi­zation (WTO) are well known. Tariff wars with every nation that has a favourable balance of payment with the US is again a given. The broad contours of American foreign policy will remain the same with China being seen as a major challenge to the US in the near future. In fact, it was Trump in his first term who openly called out China for unfair trade practices and began the tariff war. Biden continued to follow the road set by Trump on China. The US-India-Japan-Australia grouping to contain China in the Indo-Pacific will remain in place.

The first meeting of the QUAD foreign ministers took place a day after Trump라이브 바카라 inauguration. His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, met with the ministers who were in Washington for the swearing-in. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar was upbeat after his bilateral talks with Rubio. India anticipates that its relations with the US under Trump will be “bolder, bigger and more ambitious”.

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New Delhi is familiar with Trump and his equation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is good. The Howdy Modi and the Namaste Trump extravaganzas are just up the showman president라이브 바카라 street. There will be hiccups on tariffs as Trump will continue to badger Delhi for greater access to Indian markets. Tariffs will go through the usual negotiations, with a bit of give and take on both sides. Officials in New Delhi are not worried about it. Deportation of illegal Indian migrants from the US poses no problems. At least two planeloads of Indians were quietly sent back home during Biden라이브 바카라 term. New Delhi will keep out of the birth citizenship issue, as that is America라이브 바카라 internal problem. Restrictions on H-1B visas are a worry. But Trump has sided with the tech moguls on welcoming highly qualified legal immigrants.

Trump had always been critical of war and claimed that if he were president, Russia라이브 바카라 war on Ukraine would not have happened. He boasted of ending the war in 24 hours. He has since dialled down the time frame. It is a fact that Trump got Israel라이브 바카라 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the ceasefire and the hostage swap with Hamas. Though the ceasefire appears fragile and fighting could start at any time—once the Israeli hostages are home—the people of Gaza have got a respite from war and aid is gradually flowing in. Trump라이브 바카라 recent statement that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians to “just clean out Gaza” has led to fears of ethnic cleansing. Whether this was just a one-off comment or serious policy is uncertain.

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Trump has now added another dimension to his foreign policy. Until a few months ago, Trump seemed an isolationist, not willing to get involved in foreign wars or send US troops out to police the world. But he is now talking of expanding America라이브 바카라 frontiers, of evoking the spirit of the early settlers, and in short, of an expansionist power. He wants to buy Greenland from Denmark, take over the Panama Canal that the US helped build, rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and annex Canada. He has not ruled out using the military to achieve his ends. Nobody knows whether Trump is serious about this. But he had eyed Greenland since his first term. But scholars are not surprised and say that this is rooted in US history. “They reflect deep currents, going back to the national-expansionists and sovereigntists of the mid-19th century who envisioned the US’ continental expansion, which was achieved through war at the expense of Native Americans and Mexico, as the country라이브 바카라 ‘manifest destiny’,” says Philip Golub, a professor at the American University in Paris.

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“Trump is the curious heir of this deep-rooted current in US history. How this will translate concretely in US international policy remains to be seen: he does not want to deal with major foreign wars in Europe and the Middle East, which he sees as a drain on US resources at a time when the country—in his view and indeed in the view the US elite—needs to prepare for a long and decisive strategic test of strength with China. But it is going to be harder than he thinks to disentangle the US from world regions that the US has managed as a hegemonic power since the Second World War,” adds Golub.

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