In four days American citizens will decide whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will be the next US president. The race is so close that it's impossible to call. Even the best political forecasters that got the previous elections right are divided about 50-50 this time. Whoever wins, it's going to be very interesting.
If Kamala Harris wins, she will be the first female president and the first with Asian ancestry and with no European ancestry (Barrack Obama had full European ancestry on his mother's side).
But as the voting intentions are so close on both sides, many people fear that Mr Trump won't accept defeat and might attempt another coup d'état like four years ago - only better organised. If he does and he succeeds, it would be a terrible blow to democracy and the potential instauration of an authoritarian regime. I very doubt that this would happen. But if he tries and fails like last time, the are good chances that he will end up in prison this time. In fact, he has very strong incentives to win the election if he wants to definitively get rid of the court cases against him and avoid heavy fines or even jail time.
If Donald Trump wins, we are back in uncertain territory. He promised to do so many unbelievable things that few people really know what he is really going to do while in office. I personally think that he is more reasonable than he appears. His last presidency showed that he almost didn't do any of the outrageous things he promised to do while campaigning. For example he promised to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, but didn't. He also promised to do it this time, and we can be reasonably confident that he won't, or at least not on a big scale, as the authorities just don't have the manpower to do it. He said he would have Mexico pay for the border wall, but obviously couldn't.
Even the promises Trump tried to implement, like banning travellers from Muslim countries or repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), he failed because of opposition from the courts of Congress. Actually he almost certainly knew that these attempts would fail, but he tried so that he could tell his electorate that he tried and so that he could blame others for not letting him, thinking about his re-election and his popularity.
This time Trump made other outlandish promises like launching missiles on Mexican drug cartels in Mexico, or imposing death penalty on drug dealers, which are obviously just rhetoric to stir up the populace. He also promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24h of being elected (so 3 months before being inaugurated president!), which is also nonsense.
What's going to be more interesting to see if whether he actually imposes tariffs of 10-20% on all imported good, 60% on all imports from China and 200% to 500% tariffs on cars imported from Mexico. This would have serious repercussions. Other countries could follow suit and impose tariffs on US imports. But what really doesn't make any sense is the extreme tariffs on cars imported from Mexico, as most of them are actually American cars (GM, Ford, Chrysler) or Japanese cars (Nissan, Honda, Mazda). What's more Tesla is planning to open a gigafactory in Monterrey, Mexico (already under construction), and Elon Musk is one of Trump's top supporters, so that really wouldn't play well with him.
Other people (like journalists at The Economist) worry that Trump would let Russia win in Ukraine, and would also let China invade Taiwan. I am not sure about the former, but the latter would be economic and diplomatic suicide for the United States. Taiwan manufactures most of the semiconductors and chips for American high-tech companies (Apple, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom). If China took Taiwan, they would seize all the manufacturing know-how of these American companies. Additionally, if the US fails to support such a long-standing ally with a formal defence treaty (the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and the Six Assurances of 1982), no other country would trust the US as a military ally anymore, which would have disastrous consequences.
So if Trump is elected, what is he really going to do? Not much of what he has been talking about during his campaign, that's a safe bet. But then what?
Whether Trump loses or wins the election, his reactions will be very interesting to watch.
If Kamala Harris wins, she will be the first female president and the first with Asian ancestry and with no European ancestry (Barrack Obama had full European ancestry on his mother's side).
But as the voting intentions are so close on both sides, many people fear that Mr Trump won't accept defeat and might attempt another coup d'état like four years ago - only better organised. If he does and he succeeds, it would be a terrible blow to democracy and the potential instauration of an authoritarian regime. I very doubt that this would happen. But if he tries and fails like last time, the are good chances that he will end up in prison this time. In fact, he has very strong incentives to win the election if he wants to definitively get rid of the court cases against him and avoid heavy fines or even jail time.
If Donald Trump wins, we are back in uncertain territory. He promised to do so many unbelievable things that few people really know what he is really going to do while in office. I personally think that he is more reasonable than he appears. His last presidency showed that he almost didn't do any of the outrageous things he promised to do while campaigning. For example he promised to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, but didn't. He also promised to do it this time, and we can be reasonably confident that he won't, or at least not on a big scale, as the authorities just don't have the manpower to do it. He said he would have Mexico pay for the border wall, but obviously couldn't.
Even the promises Trump tried to implement, like banning travellers from Muslim countries or repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), he failed because of opposition from the courts of Congress. Actually he almost certainly knew that these attempts would fail, but he tried so that he could tell his electorate that he tried and so that he could blame others for not letting him, thinking about his re-election and his popularity.
This time Trump made other outlandish promises like launching missiles on Mexican drug cartels in Mexico, or imposing death penalty on drug dealers, which are obviously just rhetoric to stir up the populace. He also promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24h of being elected (so 3 months before being inaugurated president!), which is also nonsense.
What's going to be more interesting to see if whether he actually imposes tariffs of 10-20% on all imported good, 60% on all imports from China and 200% to 500% tariffs on cars imported from Mexico. This would have serious repercussions. Other countries could follow suit and impose tariffs on US imports. But what really doesn't make any sense is the extreme tariffs on cars imported from Mexico, as most of them are actually American cars (GM, Ford, Chrysler) or Japanese cars (Nissan, Honda, Mazda). What's more Tesla is planning to open a gigafactory in Monterrey, Mexico (already under construction), and Elon Musk is one of Trump's top supporters, so that really wouldn't play well with him.
Other people (like journalists at The Economist) worry that Trump would let Russia win in Ukraine, and would also let China invade Taiwan. I am not sure about the former, but the latter would be economic and diplomatic suicide for the United States. Taiwan manufactures most of the semiconductors and chips for American high-tech companies (Apple, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom). If China took Taiwan, they would seize all the manufacturing know-how of these American companies. Additionally, if the US fails to support such a long-standing ally with a formal defence treaty (the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and the Six Assurances of 1982), no other country would trust the US as a military ally anymore, which would have disastrous consequences.
So if Trump is elected, what is he really going to do? Not much of what he has been talking about during his campaign, that's a safe bet. But then what?
Whether Trump loses or wins the election, his reactions will be very interesting to watch.
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