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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
The author is a contributing editor of the FT, an economist at the American Compass and writes the Understanding America newsletter.
Washington was full of hope this weekend, but not confident. At receptions and galas where gossip is the main currency, and at podcasts where everyone is selling their own spin, positivity reigned supreme. “Trump really has a chance to be . . . ” said the people. “There are a lot of good things.”
Without a doubt this is a “change of vibe”, as the opinion suggests, especially compared to the president who has been easing the painting slowly and painfully towards the end. The return of a president who can do anything at all would be a huge improvement by default. But the renewed administration's high chance of ushering in a new “golden age,” as Trump's team likes to put it, is not matched by any certainty about how his administration will fare.
Everyone wants to talk about artificial intelligence, for example – though less because of the excitement about artificial intelligence than because of the potential for augmented reality. The issue is that continuing to improve the models and expanding their potential for widespread use will require Herculean infrastructure investments in clear timelines.
In another possible world, Donald Trump and his team are focusing their economic agenda on building: rapidly developing natural resources, expanding infrastructure, supporting investment and training workers. That would make sense, but it's not something they talked about much. Trump himself may have focused his interest in cryptocurrency, while high-profile supporters such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have spent much of their energy criticizing American culture and calling for more foreign workers.
Likewise, separating the American and Chinese economies is very important and Trump has shown his support for this, including a call to withdraw China's “permanent normal trade relationship” status in the Republican party platform. Although he issued an executive order in 2020 to shut down TikTok, he is now reprising himself as its savior. The law requiring the parent company, ByteDance, to drop service to the American firm or shut down on January 19 led to the platform going dark that day. Users received notice that the company is looking forward to working with Trump to restore it. And Trump now says he will do just that. In response, ByteDance brought TikTok back online, to the delight of users.
Is Trump the China hawk willing to reverse the mistakes of globalization, even if the American people have to suffer while climbing out of the hole they dug themselves? Or are you more interested in scoring points like the president who defended TikTok after his predecessor let it lapse?
There are many similar questions. Will the fight to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 dominate the legislative calendar in the first year? Will the government use humane methods of deporting illegal immigrants to maintain public support for this action, or continue with methods designed to provoke backlash and discrimination?
Will administrators be happy to attack the excessive system of higher education, or will they work just as hard to build useful non-college pathways that lead to good jobs? Will the “Department of Public Works” focus on the functioning of the government or cause further chaos without its purpose?
Reasons for optimism lie in the quality of Trump's top appointments, which represent a dramatic improvement over his first-term picks. If executive training and execution go the distance from Mike Pence to JD Vance, Rex Tillerson to Marco Rubio, or Reince Priebus to Susie Wiles, a new golden age may be upon us.
While in 2016 Trump outgrew the core of support, ideas and personnel, he can now draw from a deep bench of talent and a thick playbook that aligns with his priorities. In all the agencies and offices of the White House, he quietly keeps his team of serious players.
But the team's captain, coach and quarterback is still Trump himself. Not many people would do well to place bets on the decisions he will make in the Oval Office, least of all when he predicts that he will do what conventional analysis suggests. The fruit is bigger and juicier and hanging lower than before, and now everyone is waiting to see what he will pick.