The Inauguration
Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States of America on Monday 20 January 2025. During his inauguration speech he declared, “I was saved by God to make America great again” and he claimed, perhaps correctly that he had been “tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history”.
Trump had conquered D.C. even before taking office and was enjoying some of the highest favourability ratings of his political career. Days before coming into office, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal for which Trump took credit. As Trump said, “The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend". [i] During his first term as president, Trump produced more peace agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbours than any previous US President.
Trump is all Action from the Moment of His Inauguration
Without delay Trump:
Commuted prison sentences and offered blanket pardons for about 1500 protesters who had invaded and rioted at the US Capital on 6 January 2021. Joe Biden abused the same power with his various pardons, including pardons granted to close members of his family;
Issued an executive order to postpone enforcement of the law approved by the House and the Senate, banning TikTok and instead, floated a “joint venture” deal in which the US would have a 50% stake;
Declared a “national emergency” on the southern border, withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, and withdrew the US from the World Health Organisation; and
Proposed annexing Greenland, reclaiming control of the Panama Canal (declaring “We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back”) and renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” plus the suggestion of integrating Canada as the 51st US state.”[ii]
Clean out the Gaza Strip
During his campaign Trump said Gaza could be “Better than Monaco”. He later said he would like to see Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations increase the number of Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip, potentially moving enough to “just clean out” the area.
During Trump’s joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 4 February, he went further calling for the permanent relocation of the enclave’s entire population of about 2 million Palestinians, referring to Gaza as potentially “The Riviera of the Middle East”. Netanyahu described Trump as “The greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House”.[iii]
Greg Sheridan referred to Trump’s “Most astounding, outlandish, radical, gobsmackingly strange proposal of his entire life, in suggesting that the United States could long-term ‘own’ the devastated Gaza Strip. Trump’s deals start with a good deal of bluster and then move to something more constructive”. During his first presidency, Trump brought about the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. His presidential energy could possibly lead to something better in Gaza than exists now.[iv]
Trump’s proposal has faced a strong backlash. On 1 February, China’s Xinhua reported that Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority, and the Arab League had stressed in a joint statement the rejection of any attempts to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia issued a statement reiterating that it would not normalise ties with Israel before a Palestinian state is established.[v]
Trump has since doubled down on his proposal while his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has described the proposal as a “generous” mission, casting it as primarily a cleanup mission and saying that those living in Gaza “would obviously have to live elsewhere while the land was cleared and rebuilt, but at the end they would be able to move back in”. In addition, the Israeli Defence Minister Katz said he had instructed the IDF to prepare plans which would “allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so”.[vi]
Trump the Peacemaker
Trump announced that he planned to hold talks with China and Russia on reducing nuclear stockpiles claiming that it would be “an unbelievable thing for the planet”.[vii]
At his inauguration, Trump promised a new “Golden age” saying his proudest legacy would be that of a peacemaker and unifier, adding that “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into”.[viii] Trump expressed his willingness to work with China and opened the way to travelling to China for a meeting with President Xi within 100 days of taking office. He described his earlier conversation with Xi as very good for both China and the USA saying, “It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!” [ix]
Trump aims to end the Russia/Ukraine conflict as soon as possible. He issued an ultimatum to Russia urging it to bring the conflict to an end or face new sanctions while insisting that he was “not looking to hurt Russia” . He added, “We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60 million lives in the process” (he confused the figure of 60 million lives which was the total number of war deaths with Russia’s immense losses of about 26 million).[x] Marco Rubio has long urged a swift conclusion to the Ukraine war saying, “We are funding a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion or that country (Ukraine) is going to be set back 100 years". Trump is sympathetic to Putin’s view that Ukraine joining NATO would be a threat to Russian security and therefore Ukraine would have to abandon its dream of ever joining NATO. While Trump’s moves are not yet a game-changer, this is the first serious attempt in nearly three years of war to forge a path towards ending the fighting.[xi]
Tariffs
True to his word, Trump imposed 25% tariffs on goods from both Canada and Mexico. Trump’s primary concerns related to illegal immigration and drugs flowing across US borders. Both Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced retaliatory action against the US with Sheinbaum saying “Problems are not resolved by imposing tariffs, but by talking and dialogue”. That is exactly what happened and almost immediately following dialogue, both leaders agreed to deploy 10,000 troops on each of their borders to stop the crossing of migrants and the flow of illicit drugs. Canada and Mexico were granted a one-month reprieve from the tariffs to provide an opportunity for negotiations with the US on security and trade.[xii]
Trump also imposed a 10% levy on products from China, in addition to the existing 25% taxes on their goods. Beijing immediately announced retaliatory measures including a 10-15% tariff increase on certain US imports and in addition imposed export controls on five critical minerals widely used in the technology and defence sectors. China is the dominant global producer of most of these minerals. This was in addition to China having previously banned exports of gallium, germanium and antimony.[xiii]
And Then Came DeepSeek!
In 2015, Beijing announced its “Made in China” strategy under which it wanted to replace the US as the dominant force in hi-tech by 2025. Now, 2025 has arrived!
The release only days ago of the Chinese artificial intelligence “DeepSeek” chatbot demonstrated that one of the areas of hi-tech where the US was thought to have a decisive advantage over China does not have much advantage after all.
DeepSeek has blown up the assumption that Silicon valley is the Master of the universe and suddenly, US tech dominance is in question with DeepSeek claiming to have trained its DeepSeek chatbot for only US$6 million. The Biden Administration banned the sale of Nvidia’s chips to China, but DeepSeek claims that it does not need those chips. Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon have all recognised that DeepSeek’s R1 model provides “state-of-the-art reasoning capabilities”. [xiv]
The Chinese have surpassed the Americans in 57 out of 64 areas. Western firms once had a decisive advantage in electric vehicles, solar cells and smart phones, but all of these have since been lost to China and we don’t know where China is up to in quantum computing.
There is a strong sense that the West is making reactive, uncoordinated, one-off responses whereas Beijing has a clear plan and bends every sinew of its national power to that end, working on its plan day and night. [xv]
All Action Trump
All of this has taken place within barely two weeks following Trump’s inauguration. Imagine what might take place during his first 100 days!
AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM – HEAR THE OTHER SIDE
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[i] Washington Post 18 Jan 2025
[ii] The Australian, Donald Trump pledges golden age, 21 Jan 2025
[iii] US will take over Gaza and create the Riviera of the Middle East, Times of Israel 6 Feb 25
[iv] The Australian 6 Feb 25
[v] Xinhua, Hamas condemns US proposal 1 Feb 2025
[vi] Sydney Morning Herald, Trump doubles down on Gaza takeover plan, 7 Feb 2025
[vii] RT, Nuclear reduction, 23 January 2025
[viii] Times of Israel, "I want to be a peacemaker, stop all wars", 20 Jan 2025
[ix] Newsweek 21 Jan 2025
[x] Trump offers Putin "a deal", RT 22 Jan 2025
[xi] Asia Times, Trump's Ukraine peace plan looking like a non-starter, 28 January 2025
[xii] The Australian, Canada, Mexico send troops to the border, with 30 days reprieve on tariffs, 4 Feb 2025
[xiii] South China Morning Post, How is China Retaliating against US Tariffs, 5 Feb 25
[xiv] Tech war: US firms embrace DeepSeek's AI model despite scrutiny, South China Morning Post, 1 Feb 25
[xv] The Australian, DeepSeek forces the world to face its end game as China takes the lead, 1 Feb 2025
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