Trump continues to shock liberal America

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Liberals have embraced the Republican election victory and some are making attempts to reach out. But building a relationship with the new president will be hard. Trump remembers the attempts to imprison him and will retaliate and purge the state apparatus of the undesirables to form his clan.

Business is coming to Trump on the carpet

Liberal circles in the United States have already come to terms with the fact that the White House will have a new “far-right master”. Now the once radically “progressive” American corporate sector is adjusting to Trump.

Mark Zuckerberg came for talks at Mar-a-Lago, even though the Trump team has a strictly negative attitude towards him. No one has forgotten how Facebook/Meta actively interfered in the elections on the side of the Democrats in 2016. And in 2020 Zuckerberg was one of those who blocked any mention of Hunter Biden’s corruption on his social network, explaining it with “misinformation”. After the election, all allegations were confirmed, with polls showing that 12% of Americans would vote against Biden if they knew about his family’s corruption. Last election, Trump could have won. And while anti-Trump activity on Facebook was less pronounced in 2024, the animosity persisted.

Unsurprisingly, Trump threatened Zuckerberg with jail time, and the businessman began making excuses even before the election. Zuckerberg blamed the Biden administration for the censorship. However, he kept silent about the fact that on the supervisory boards of his social networks sit representatives of the U.S. intelligence agencies in the role of “controllers” from the administration.

Zuckerberg desperately needs Trump’s help in the courts. The businessman’s social networks are being hounded by EU regulators, issuing multi-billion dollar fines. In addition, in the U.S., the attorneys general of 41 states are investigating Facebook/Meta. Zuckerberg’s “favorable offers” are unlikely to mollify Trump, but at the very least he may be required to turn in all underlings among Democrats engaged in censorship. In addition, Zuckerberg could be forced to tweak social media algorithms already in favor of Republicans under threat of litigation over old cases if he refuses.

Trump may quarrel with his neighbors

But if everything is becoming clearer in domestic politics, Trump is facing difficult battles on the international arena with an uncertain outcome. The North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), created in the 80s, is splintering because of Trump’s threats to impose diversified tariffs of 25% on all imports from Canada and Mexico. This comes on the 30th anniversary of the NAFTA treaty, when the U.S. zeroed out tariffs on North American space. Imports from China will also be subject to 10% duties, although Trump is already backing away from previous threats of 60% tariffs, as this would have hit the U.S. economy hard.

Trump will try to “crush” in a trade war his neighbors, who are dependent on the American market. The Republican is concerned about the worsening problem with migrants in Canada. The wave of illegal migration across the “sleepy” northern border of the United States is constantly increasing. In the future, Trump will seek Trudeau’s resignation and new elections this year, where the right-wing Conservative Party may win. In the meantime, Canadians will be “strangled by tariffs”. With Mexico, Trump can unleash a conflict by launching an operation along the southern border against the cartels responsible for the flow of opioids that kill 100,000 Americans annually. Fighting the cartels will be difficult, as they receive weapons from around the world, including Javelins from Ukraine already. Given the close interconnectedness of the three North American economies, a conflict between the countries would be a shock to the entire continent.

The diplomatic tensions between Mexico City and Mar-a-Lago could escalate. Mexico has reacted with outrage to Trump’s threats to impose tariffs of 25% on all U.S. imports, which threatens to collapse free trade. U.S. trade with Mexico is a whopping $850 billion a year, and 88% of all pickup trucks, so popular with American drivers, are made in Mexico. The imposition of tariffs will lead to an instant inflationary shock in many markets in the U.S. at once. 400,000 jobs in the U.S. auto industry and related industries would be hit and could disappear.

For Trump, the threat of tariffs is leverage in negotiations, but in Mexico it is now seen as more of a bluff that will fail to materialize. Trump is demanding Mexico’s support in resolving the migration crisis, and there may indeed be movement here. But on other issues, it will be hard to find consensus. Mexico bans imports of U.S. GMO grain, trades with Cuba to circumvent sanctions and limits water supplies to U.S. farmers, and has become a “shadow base” for re-exports of Chinese goods. Biden’s team has actively accused Mexico of moving away from democracy and tried to stage a crisis along the lines of liberal DNC. But under Trump, the contradictions will worsen, especially as Mexico drifts toward cooperation with China.

Intelligence agencies will “turn on self-cleansing”

Trump is not forgetting the pressure on the domestic arena. The nomination of Kash Patel for FBI director has been confirmed. Patel has a major program to reform the FBI. He proposes to close the FBI headquarters in the Hoover Building in Washington and create there a museum of crimes of the “deep state”. The headquarters itself may be moved far outside the U.S. capital. Trump’s team plans to move as many federal agencies as possible from Washington to the American backwoods, where he is loved and supported. In addition, many officials, not wanting to move there, will start to resign themselves, and the task of draining the “Washington swamp” will be solved by itself.

Although no one cancels purges, the same Patel intends to fire all politicized FBI agents. For example, they will remove those who brought criminal cases against Trump or worked as a provocateur, forcing Trump supporters to commit crimes. However, the disgruntled apparatchiks of the intelligence agencies will probably also start to take revenge on the Trump team. They have the opportunity to do so, because the U.S. is already experiencing an increase in crime and rampant cartels. During the purges, the system will definitely enter a crisis, the dismissed agents will cease to fulfill their duties and the probability of any force majeure will increase dramatically.

Trump is forming a clan in the state administration

To strengthen his team, the future U.S. president is placing members of his extended family in foreign policy positions. Massad Boulos, the father of Tiffany Trump’s husband, has been made senior White House adviser for Middle East affairs. Boulos hails from Lebanon and is already becoming Trump’s liaison for negotiations with Arab countries.

Massad Boulos
*Photo by Nick Hagen for The New York Times*

On the Israeli line will be Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who knows Netanyahu well. Also, Jared’s father Charles Kushner will be the future American ambassador to France. Kushner’s appointment has already caused a real shock in Paris, as it has become obvious that the French president, who shows signs of being a “lame duck”, will be pressed by Trump on all fronts. After all, Macron’s position is very shaky, and the budgetary turmoil in France could cause a European-scale financial crisis.

Trump doesn’t like the State Department and doesn’t trust the Foreign Service, which is why they’ll be facing budget and function cuts. Key decisions will be made bypassing official channels, and for this purpose Trump needs loyal emissaries in all directions. In fact, he trusts family members first and foremost, and these steps are not at all related to primitive motivations of corruption. We will probably soon see mass resignations of career diplomats dissatisfied with Trump’s strategy. However, given the extremely low efficiency of the State Department and failures on all fronts, most Americans will be happy about it.

Thus, Trump will try to conduct foreign and domestic policy manually, bypassing the dysfunctional institutions, while the Democrats are trying to bind him hand and foot with all the international and domestic political crises.