Donald Trump’s Manifest Destiny: MAGA is Make America Go Alone

Instead of making America great again, US President Trump seems keener to de-globalise it, writes Raghav Bahl.

"I concede that there are a lot of 'what ifs' here, but none of them are implausible, given the economic coercion that Donald Trump is promising to unleash," writes Raghav Bahl.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

US President Donald Trump has taken less than a hundred hours to upturn the global order.

Instead of making America great again, he seems keener to de-globalise it. Just for a lark, I asked an AI app to “rank the Executive Orders in terms of their ability to isolate America from the international community”.

Within nanoseconds, this marvel of the 2020s threw up a list:

• Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord

• America First Trade Policy

• Immigration and Border Security Measures

• Designating Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organisations

• Energy Emergency Declaration

• Ending Birthright Citizenship

I spent several stupefying minutes staring at the screen, unable to comprehend how large language models can be so darn quick and intelligent. But then realised that this intelligence was a skin-deep listicle.

I honestly cannot build my argument on it. For that, I had to switch from AI to the knowledge stored in the gyri and sulci (in simpler language, the ridges, and furrows) of my own brain.

Meanwhile, President Trump was amping up his outrageous prescriptions with every passing hour.

One hundred percent tariffs on BRICS countries!

H1B visas for sommeliers and cooks!!

Europe’s anti-trust fines against American big tech to invite retaliation!!!

He is beginning to sound like a medieval czar, obsessed by his 'manifest destiny', issuing whimsical firmans. In the pantheon of similarly arrogant leaders, if North Korea’s Kim is predictably predictable, if Russia’s Putin is predictably unpredictable, then President Trump is standing apart as unpredictably unpredictable!

The key question is why? Is he unfathomably astute or simply unhinged? I think Trump’s strategy is akin to a high-school bully, i.e. “since nobody dare stand up to me, I will make one outrageous demand after another, and they will meekly line up or roll over to comply”.

I don’t think he has even considered the possibility of defiance or counteraction by his “subjects”.

Coercion Creates Defensive Coalitions

But reality cannot be so linear. Whenever czars have pushed people beyond a threshold of tolerance, subjects have revolted, set up underground resistance, and often created counterrevolutions. Just as necessity is the mother of invention, extreme coercion is the creator of unlikely, defensive coalitions.

So, is President Trump underestimating the compulsion and ability of the rest of the world (ROW) to quietly take him on? By withdrawing from critical multilateral forums – the World Health Organisation (WHO), Paris Climate Accord, Global Tax Regime – he is allowing other prominent voices from China, Europe, India, Russia, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America to shake off America’s hegemonic presence, find common cause, create an underground resistance, and neutralise the damage caused by Trump’s unilateral policies. China and India have already taken the knuckle-dusters off.

Could these counter-vailing efforts succeed? In his desire to create a unipolar/uni-American world, could the isolation shrink Uncle Sam’s geopolitical footprint? Yes, in several key areas.

Oil, the First Punch-Back

Oil could plant the first counterpunch. Recall how Russia’s oil, and China’s and India’s excessive consumption/compulsions, blunted America’s Ukraine war sanctions. Russia did not fall to its knees, China increased yuan-rouble imports to create a special bond with the 'outlaw', and India quietly pushed back against American pressure to reassert its relationship with the 'renegade'.

Now, with Trump going 'drill, baby, drill' and increasing tariffs on all imports into the US, major oil-transacting nations have an urgent incentive to deepen the non-American oil market. China has been leaning hard on the Saudis to expand yuan-based oil trading. They did a local currency swap of $7 billion in 2023, largely to finance oil transactions. India has already begun discussions with the Saudis to settle in local currencies.

Fuelled by Trump’s oppression, could a tenth of non-American oil trades jettison the dollar? Never say never in such uncharted fields.

Now turn to non-oil markets. America’s transactions with the ROW are loosely about a sixth of global trade. Think about it. The ROW, excluding America, trades about five times more within itself. With Trump’s threatened tariffs, you can bet that the ratio will become even more adverse for America.

Of course, there are complex global supply chains because of which nobody can 'boycott' America. But the ROW can create enough catalysts to expand its non-American footprint. This becomes truer if Europe, which is getting a rough stick from Trump, quietly pivots towards more benevolent deals with others. Germany and France, invisibly bristling at Trump, could lead this underground charge.

Do also cast a quick look at what’s happening in global capital markets, with several Chinese giants delisting from America and finding refuge in Hong Kong. While Chinese companies have a market cap of $850 billion in America, that balloons to over $3 trillion in Hong Kong. Already, global indices like MSCI are tracking JD.com and NetEase via their Hong Kong-listed shares. Slowly, but surely, global capital markets are getting more un-dollarised!

What Happens If De-Dollarisation Accelerates?

Imagine if all three – oil, general goods and services, and capital instruments – accelerate their de-dollarisation in response to Trump’s outlandish and coercive economic policies. Quite conceivably, the world could shed five, even ten, percentage points of dollarisation over the next few years. What then happens to America?

Some real sh$@ could fly here. America is already running an eye-burning deficit of over 6 percent of the GDP, at nearly $2 trillion. Trump’s sweeping tax cuts could add $5-8 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. Very innocently, he believes he could get nearly $4 trillion via a 20 percent universal and 60 percent Chinese tariff hike.

Even otherwise, about 22 percent of American debt is financed by savings from other countries, notably Japan, China, the UK, Cayman Islands, and Luxembourg. India is a reasonably big contributor, too.

What if the ROW quietly builds a coalition as described above? What if 10 or 20 percent of global savings sway out of America? Bonds would crash, 10-year treasury rates could leap above 6 percent, inflation (already pumped up by high tariffs) would rocket, and the dollar would be gut-wrenchingly volatile. Frankly, it would be a financial tsunami that could wreck Trump’s ship.

I concede that there are a lot of 'what ifs' here, but none of them are implausible, given the economic coercion that Trump is promising to unleash. A supremely threatened world could regroup, push back, create an underground resistance, and perhaps author a counterrevolution to Trump’s MAGA. Which would then read Make America Go Alone, not Make America Great Again.