The 2024 US presidential election will be contested between the incumbent president, Joe Biden, and his predecessor, Donald Trump. There was no mainstream political analyst in the US or anywhere else who had foreseen in January 2021, when a bitter and truculent Trump, who had refused to accept the election result, had gracelessly left Washington DC, that three years later he would win the Republican party nomination to contest Biden for the presidency again.
In these three years Trump has had to face criminal investigations, the most serious being those relating to fostering an insurrection to deny the 2020 presidential election result. The ‘insurrection’ relates to the accusation that he encouraged his supporters to storm Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. In addition, there are ongoing other criminal and civil cases against him. However, the US Supreme Court ruled on March 5 that no state can refuse to let Trump contest a primary to be his party’s nominee. This has effectively paved the way for his nomination. By any yardstick Trump’s nomination as a Republican party candidate is a remarkable personal political achievement.
This is at one level but at another the presidential electoral contest this year for the world’s most powerful office between Biden and Trump raises a host of troubling questions about the state of world’s pre-eminent country’s society and polity. This is especially because, at a time of enormous scientific and technological changes which are re-shaping our planet, and when fundamental internationally consensual decisions are needed to meet the grave challenges that confront humanity, the political class of the world’s leading country could not put forward for the ultimate leadership position anyone other than these two very old men. Neither of the two are by any objective criterion capable of handling these grave issues with the vigour required to convince their own society for basic attitudinal changes leading to sustainable life-styles. Unless the US changes there is no chance that it will be able to provide leadership to the international community on these issues.
From now till the first Tuesday of November which falls on the 5th this year all countries, big and small, will closely follow the election campaign. The approaches of the administration of an incumbent president impacts the interests of all countries of the world in one manner or another. Hence, the great interest in US presidential elections.
At the present time the two foreign policy issues which will affect the choice of US voters are the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the continuing Israeli actions in Gaza. In turn the policies of he who wins the election will impact these issues. Hence, Europeans and the peoples of West Asia and North Africa, to begin with, will watch the words of the Biden and Trump from now on. In the case of Biden, they will also evaluate his actions.
The Europeans do not have good memories of Trump’s approaches to issues which concern them. On becoming president in 2017 he began as a NATO sceptic and that scepticism has not disappeared. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally altered European security. Biden has been standing firmly behind Europe and has given fulsome support to Ukraine. He has also tightened sanctions against Russia. The question that will greatly trouble all Europe is whether Trump will continue with Biden’s approaches if he wins the election.
Biden has also essentially stood firmly with Israel following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 last year. He is now seeking that the Israelis should agree to a ceasefire but his administration has vetoed all UNSC resolutions seeking the Israel to mandatorily agree to cease its operations in Gaza which have resulted in over 30000 deaths. By now, there is considerable unease in sections of US opinion at the carte blanche which Biden has virtually given Israel. Naturally, Israel will now follow Trump’s remarks on the Israel-Palestinian issue to gauge if he will seek to modify US’s policy through purposeful action on the West Asia situation. Another country which will be impacted by the election will be Iran. Hence, Tehran will no doubt be looking at US politics minutely this year.
The major and determinant contestation of our age is between a rising China and the US and its allies. Biden has been strong in wanting to contain China but at the same time he has sought to build a modus vivendi with it. How will Trump act especially as despite a downturn in the Chinese economy its power is, on the whole, rising? For China this election will be of vital importance and its US experts will follow its every twist and turn.
India enjoys bipartisan support in the US. Both parties want to strengthen India-US ties but while the Democrats, if only for the record, stress the importance of India adhering to its strong democratic system and preserve and promote the fundamental rights of all its citizens the Republicans do not show the same passion on these concerns. Indeed, if anything Trump, if he comes in, will pressure India not on these issues but on opening up more on trade. He did so when he was president and there is no reason to think that he will not do so again.
What the world will have to once again get used to if Trump wins in November is his erratic diplomatic ways and his lack of interest in following standard protocols and conventions.