Preparing for a Post-Trump World

You may think I am crazy to talk about preparing for a post-Trump world when he is barely three months into his term as 47th president of the United States. But a lot can happen in the approximately 1300 days until the end of Mr. Trump’s second term. For America, World War Two from the attack on Pearl Harbor until Japan’s surrender was only 1347 days. Victory over the Nazis only took 1248 days. And President Roosevelt and his staff began thinking what a post-WWII World would look like long before those final victories.

Of course, FDR had no idea what the world would like at the end of such a conflict as a world war. Approximately 85 million people died during that conflict. Many more were maimed and wounded. Cities were destroyed. Factories were leveled and the few that remained produced nothing but war material. Entire races and ethnicities were nearly exterminated. Horrendous new weapons were created to better kill the enemy. No, FDR probably could not have conceived of such a level of destruction as America entered that war. But I think he had an idea of what kind of society he wanted to rise up from the rubble. This is our task now.

First, we must concede that there is a possibility that Donald Trump’s vision of the world and his ideas about how to survive and thrive in such a world are essentially correct and that the world he will leave us in a little over four years will be much better than the one he faced when he began his second term. Perhaps his tariffs will create a manufacturing renaissance in America and blue collar workers will rejoin the middle class in droves. Perhaps his negotiating skill will bring peace to a troubled world. Perhaps the faithful will win the culture war and restore the middle-class ethics and morality that our forefathers knew. Perhaps. In which case there would be no reason to undo Trump world and we would all be happily jumping on the Trump bandwagon led by Mr. Trump’s chosen successor (or maybe even himself as he keeps teasing on his social media posts).

But perhaps not.  Perhaps high tariff barriers allow US based industries to raise prices without the threat of foreign competition, perhaps the few new factories are highly automated with few additional blue collar jobs but a slew of jobs that can only be filled with highly skilled foreign workers. Perhaps our food production falters because there is a shortage of immigrants to work the fields. Perhaps Ukraine has become an oblast in the new Russian Empire while the break-up of NATO renders European countries vulnerable vassal states within the Russian sphere of influence. Perhaps China figures out that Mr. Trump lacks the ability to follow through on his threats and moves to take over Taiwan while forming a trading bloc with Japan and South Korea.

Unfortunately, the two dominant political organizations in the US, the MAGA-populists (nominally but erroneously called Republicans) and the progressive populists (nominally but erroneously called Democrats) will have little new to add to the 2028 presidential elections. The MAGA-populists will claim that only Donald Trump saved us from even worse outcomes and that we need to elect a Donald Trump clone to continue the Don’s good work. The progressive populists will say that only they can save us from Donald Trump (even though he will not be running) and besides Bidenomics was actually working but the American public was too dumb to realize it.

These radicalized political parties will offer nothing new in the 2028 election. Their message, each in their own way, is essentially un-American. Has been and will continue to be. The MAGA-populists will offer the great power politics and mercantilist economics of the 17th and 18th century that the American Revolution specifically rejected. And the progressive populists are reluctant to modify their anti-capitalist economic policies or their anti-Western culture wars. What we need to get out of this morass that we have fallen into, is a reversion to ideas and principles that led our ancestors to break away from the great power politics of their day.

So what will America and the rest of the world look like as the country prepares for the first post-Trump election?

Domestically the US economy in 2028 is likely to be struggling. Trump’s tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs of the other countries will make things expensive and non-tariff barriers will make intermediary products and critical minerals scarce and costly. As illegal immigrants are deported there will shortages of agricultural and construction workers, again raising prices and slowing real estate development. A compliant Fed will lower interest rates but lacking workers there will be little supply of new houses in spite of more affordable mortgage rates. Negative real interest rates will drive up asset prices vastly increasing the wealth of the one percenters. The reshored manufacturing plants (lacking the necessary skilled workers will be highly automated) adding few blue collar jobs. Companies will require workers (many from Asia) with HB1 visas to run the highly automated plants so America will trade importing goods for importing workers.

Internationally, there may not be major conflicts but there will likely be numerous regional conflagrations as the fragmented and demoralized Western Alliance lacks the ability to take a strong stand against aggression. Already autocratic powers are expanding their military reach as North Korean troops are battle tested in Ukraine. Russia is already preparing bases for further aggression in Europe as reported by the Wall Street Journal (The Russian Military Moves That Have Europe on Edge, April 27, 2025). Deglobalized world trade will be further hampered by regional powers blocking freedom of navigation in choke points around the world such as the South China Sea and the Red Sea. Overland routes will be dominated by China’s Belt and Road initiative as developing countries suffer under mountains of debt. Economic hardship caused by President Trump’s tariffs will make China evenmore dangerous. Cooperation among former western allies will be strained by Trump’s demands for compensation for its security umbrella.

In other words, the world is likely to be poorer and more dangerous in 2028 than it is now. This is what the world looks like without American global leadership. Leadership is not all glory. Leadership is not well compensated (which is President Trump’s biggest complaint). Leadership is sacrifice and America has sacrificed a lot. It is not surprising that Americans grew tired of global leadership. The cost in blood and treasure needed to keep the peace in Afghanistan was too much to bear. Many people felt that the burden of supporting Ukraine in their desperate fight for freedom would be better spent on more entitlements for folks at home. But the vacuum created by “leading from behind” and the slow erosion of international institutions created by the United States was not replaced by benign leaders or better institutions but rather a retreat of democracy and the rise of autocracy.

Many people in America did not like our presidential options in the 2016 election. Nor in the 2020 election nor in the 2024 election. Unless you want a repeat of those lousy options in 2028 you need to do something now. The traditional Democrat and Republican Parties that have been captured by radicals are promoting un-American agendas that have led us into our current mess. But there is a reason why so many voters abandoned those traditional parties. It will take more than raising the old Republican and Democratic parties from the dead to solve our problems.

Coming next, we will look at the factors we need to address to restore America as leader of the free world.