Jehangir Khattak
The United States is entering 2020 more divided and polarized than a year before, setting the stage for the trial of President Donald Trump following his impeachment by the House of Representatives.
December 18, 2019, will go down in the 243 years history of the United States as a day when American constitution and democratic traditions brought the un-removable stain of impeachment on the legacy of Trump. He became only the third president in the US history to have faced such a scrutiny. Earlier, Bill Clinton (1998) and Andrew Johnson (1868) had faced similar trial. Like his predecessors, Trump is unlikely to be removed from the office by the US Senate, which will serve as the trial court, to be led by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Trump’s impeachment was the culmination of almost a three-month-long investigations by six congressional committees into the charges of Trump overstepping his authority in the Ukraine scandal and his failure to cooperate with the Congress. Will the stigma of impeachment dampen the re-election prospects of Trump is anybody’s guess at this stage? The US Constitution allows an impeached President to re-run for the office, unless barred and unseated by the US Senate after a trial.
Loyal supporter base, stable economy, protectionist economic agenda and assertive foreign policy all go in Trump’s favor. His approval rating, in fact, has slightly gone up since his impeachment. According to FiveThirtyEight, a website that tracks American leaders’ polling numbers, as of December 20, Trump’s approval rating stood at 43.3%, almost 3 points up since October 28. But the million-dollar question remains how strong or weak he will emerge after the Senate trial which the Democrats are trying to make as politically bruising as possible. But Trump is expected to have the last laugh, many inside the Beltway predict.
A Challenging Year for Trump
Russia investigation and impeachment aside, 2019 was overall a difficult year for President Trump. It kept him embroiled in fights and arguments with the deep state, the media, a few world leaders and even a 16-year old climate change activist Greta Thunberg. His international diplomacy pitched the US against the rest in trade wars and brought Afghanistan to the verge of peace and then pushed it to the edge. While negotiations with the Taliban have been resumed, the roadmap remains hazy.
A few erratic decisions on disrupting negotiations with the Taliban aside Trump deserves the credit for breaking away from the self-defeating policies of George W Bush and Barack Obama on Afghanistan. The recently published “Afghanistan Papers” are an endorsement of Trump’s opinion on Afghanistan. He is against nation building and fighting an endless war, while his predecessors Bush and Obama, according to the explosive revelations in the Afghanistan Papers, had hidden and manipulated facts to mislead Americans on the progress in the war.
The year witnessed important shifts in international alliances, mostly over conflicts and hot spots such as Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iran, Venezuela, Yemen etc. In Syria, President Bashir Al Asad and his Russian backers regained much of the territory lost to ISIS and other militant groups. US withdrawal from strategic regions opened the doors for Turkish invasion of Syria and giving the Russians and the Syrian Army control over more territory.
The year also saw new strains in Washington’s trans-Atlantic relations. Trump kept NATO allies under pressure to contribute more to the NATO budget and to increase defense spending. Trump’s tactic apparently worked. NATO in late November announced an agreement to reduce the US government’s contribution to its direct budget of around $2.5 billion. Under the new agreement, Germany and the US will now equally pay 16% of NATO’s central budget. Previously the US contributed 22% of the budget, more than any other member.
Trade wars and Slowing global economy
Trump’s trade policies might have strained sectors of the US economy, especially the agriculture, but it is expected to bring dividends in the long term. His business instincts have been on display all over, re-shaping America’s external trade relations. He prefers to stay transactional rather than strategic in redefining how America should do business with the world. The results are obvious. The US sealed a new and much more favourable trade deal with its neighbors, and a “phase one” of a trade deal aimed at de-escalating a mutually bruising trade war with China is ready to go into effect.
Trump partially succeeded in bringing some balance in US relations with its trading partners, especially China. But Washington’s new tariffs regimes contributed to slowing down the global economy, where protectionism stalled the demand, manufacturing and global supply chain. Trump is blamed for starting the war, with snowball effects on the continental Americas and beyond. Leading economies in Asia, Europe and Americas could not escape its impact. The war’s negative impact aside, it benefitted many smaller and medium size economies as well, such as Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India etc. Pakistan could also benefit if it positions itself in the global supply chain more imaginatively.
America’s global leadership
Trump’s inward-looking worldview has turned out to be more consequential than many had thought. His vision transpired into American withdrawal from key international treaties, dented important alliances and spurred new realignments to the US detriment. Aside from withdrawing the Iran nuclear deal, North American Free Trade Agreement, his decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Treaty, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty were more consequential and divisive. Withdrawal from INF treaty, experts fear, will stoke a new nuclear arms race with Russia. The US withdrawal from global leadership roles has eroded its sway in the world politics and created space for powers like China, Russia, France and Germany, to replace it. Continuation of such policy is unsustainable in the emerging international realignments and is bound to somehow suck Washington back into these theaters.
Thaw in Pakistan-US relations
For Pakistan, the Trump presidency’s best result so far has been the ice-breaking visit by Prime Minister Imran Khan to Washington DC in July and New York City in September. These tours broke new ground in the frosty relations. Trump promised to double, triple and even quadruple the trade between the two countries during his meetings with Khan. However, not much has happened ever since largely because both sides seem to have not done enough follow up. One reason, some Pakistan watchers in the US believe, could be that while political leadership on both sides may be reconciling, mistrust and mutual suspicions among civil military bureaucracies on both sides remain largely entrenched.
A slight uptick in Pakistan’s exports to the US is expected in 2019. Bilateral trade remained in Pakistan’s favor in 2019 with deficit growing from $860 million in 2018 to $1.31 billion dollars until October 2019. Pakistan’s exports to the US, according to the office of US Trade Representative, stood at $3.7 billion for 2018 as against $2.8 billion dollars in imports. In the first ten months of 2019, Pakistan’s exports to the US stood at $3.3 billion against $1.99 billion in imports, showing a deficit of $1.31 billion.
Another encouraging news came on December 19 when the US announced resumption of Pakistan’s participation in the US military training and educational programs. The program resumption is being considered yet another sign of warming relations between the two countries. Washington watchers are predicting 2020 to be a year of friendship renewal between the two countries. However, much of the progress will depend on the fate of US-Taliban talks.
For President Trump, the new year may not bring an end to his White House occupancy yet will certainly make his re-election fight tougher due to impeachment. Diplomatic success in Afghanistan and North Korea, however, can give him a more respectable place in the run-up to the votes and beyond.
The writer is a New York-based senior journalist and commentator. He tweets at @JehangirKhattak
