Richer, safer, at peace with itself and its neighbours – what Trump might do for America and the world

Few people in history have had more words written about them than Donald Trump. And perhaps it is in the nature of things that much of what is written is uninformed, half-informed or mal-informed.

But reading British reactions to Trump’s historic re-election landslide this month, it is still striking how little effort there is in this country actually to understand what Trump is about or what he wants to achieve.

Just one reason why this is strange is that Trump tends to say what he wants in very plain English. And then he does what he says he’ll do.

So if he gets to achieve what he wants in the next four years, what will the world be like?

The first thing is that America will have secure borders. And who knows, perhaps other countries might learn that they could do with them too? The millions of illegals flowing across the southern border in the early 2020s cost America billions of dollars and worsened security in almost every major city.

Trump doesn’t even have to finish building the border wall for his deterrent effect to be felt. But if he and his border tsar, Tom Homan, get their way, millions of people who would have come illegally will be deterred from doing so. And those who came to America illegally in recent years will be forced to return.

This isn’t just about the welfare costs and the national security vulnerability of an open southern border. It is about a basic idea of American life: which is that if you make it to America then you contribute. But if you cheat? You’ve broken the pact.

Trump has always been consistent about the free market and tariffs. He is for free markets, but he isn’t in favour of America being taken advantage of. For decades now, cheap imports from China and other rivals have been like a drug for the US – short-term satisfying, long-term disastrous. Those countries who want to operate in the US market will be able to, but not if they undercut American industry or are actually (through one route or other) subsidised by the American taxpayer.

Energy independence is one of Trump’s signature policies, and if he can make America the great exporter of energy as well, then that would benefit not just America, but also the wider world. What good did it do Germany and Europe in the early 2020s to be so reliant on Russian gas? It did Vladimir Putin plenty of good. But what did it do for Europe? Or the American taxpayer whose dollars do so much to subsidise Europe’s security?

Depending on whether or not the Starmer government is wise, there is a caveat to the trade-wars, which is that Trump has long wanted to do a big, beautiful, mutually beneficial trade deal with this country. He has a great fondness for this country in spite of the undiplomatic behaviour of MPs from most main parties.

If the trade deal that was being worked on in the 2016-2020 period can be picked up again and signed, it would be a tremendous boost for Britain as well as America. But that is in the hands of the UK.

Boom times for America could lead to boom times for Britain. At a time when Europe is economically stagnant, America’s economic success will have major repercussions for the UK. But if Labour decides to make an enemy of America, then that too can all go another way.

What an extraordinary stroke of fate it is that the success of the UK economy in the next four years relies on Rachel Reeves and co playing nicely with Trump.

Domestically, the issue of federal government waste is one of Trump’s major policies. Like President Milei in Argentina, Trump sees government bureaucracy as not just costly, but a cause of sclerosis in the free market – as well as the back door for a lot of the anti-American, anti-Western ideas that have been pumped into the American mind for the past few years.

If his Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, can indeed shave a couple of trillion of the annual federal budget, it won’t just save money, it will also allow the socialist, radical-Left policies that dominate the Department of Education, among others, finally to be stripped out and dispensed with.

On the world stage, all of Trump’s core ideas centre on not just America First, but also peace through strength. Every American politician who wants to get elected says that they will strengthen the American military. Some want to do so in order to use the military. Trump realises that the best thing about having a strong military is that you hopefully don’t have to use it – that its existence is deterrence enough.

On the foreign field, Trump has made his policies plain. He wants Russia to end its war in Ukraine, and believes that Putin can be deterred without the use of force. He wants not just peace in the Middle East, but an extension of the Abraham Accords which did so much in his first term to normalise relations between Israel and its regional neighbours. Depending on what happens in the next few months, and whether the Iranian mullahs stay in power, there is an opportunity for a wider rapprochement across the region.

When the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran is strong the whole region suffers. When it is weak – as it was when Trump was throttling them with sanctions in his first term – they are quiet. Depending on whether the mullahs stay in power, perhaps Iran could even be added to the Abraham Accords by the time Trump finishes his second term in office?

Elsewhere, the main aim is to deter rivals. There is a contradiction in some of the America First movement – people who want America to be top dog but don’t want it to be engaged in the world. Trump understands that you can’t have both. But his idea of engagement on the world stage – whether it is the Chinese Communist Party or other competitors and enemies – is to deter them rather than allowing America to be dragged into a confrontation with them.

Some of the effects of Trump’s success can already be felt. Certain provocations by the West’s enemies have already been reined in. And the corporate world which pandered to the radical Left already looks like it might be ready to do a reset. If this does happen, then something truly extraordinary could happen in the next four years.

Because whether in Britain, Europe or America, the West has spent recent years mired in decline. Economic decline, certainly. But a social decline as well. We have been intimidated by hostile anti-Western voices in our own midsts as well as outside. Mass illegal foreign immigration has radically undermined our societies. Countries which were once coherent have become, at root, incoherent and febrile. Equally bad is that voices from within have sought to undermine one of the central facts of the West – which is that people want to come here for a reason.

They don’t try to break into China illegally – and the CCP wouldn’t allow them to even if they did. But only in the West have new generations been told that there is something not just bad about us, but uniquely bad about us – all while the world still tries to pour in here.

Trump may be an unusual leader for many people, but he might have the opportunity not just to turn American anti-Americanism around, but also Western anti-Westernism too. Perhaps we might even be able to regain a justified pride in ourselves again.

But then four years is an age today, and the world will happen – as it always does. Trump has said very clearly how he intends to act. But events tend to scupper the dreams of all people – even politicians with landslides.