What India and the world can expect from Donald Trump as POTUS

Donald Trump takes over as the 47th president of the United States on 20 January 2025, and it is early days yet for predictions of what a Trump presidency will really look like.

What is clear, however, is that being the strongest US president in recent times (some say since 1972), with control over the US Senate, the House of Representatives and of course the Supreme Court, puts Trump in a position to call the shots. In effect, the White House and all of these other entities will pretty much do whatever the President and the Republican Party want.

A transactional leader, US President-elect Donald Trump is also expected to extract a pound of flesh for every pound he gives, as several commentators have already pointed out.

Here is a laundry list of what the world expects and fears will unfold, beginning January 2025:

Project 2025

While the President-elect has distanced himself from this controversial playbook during the campaign, it is widely expected to guide the actions of the next incumbent in the White House. The controversial 900-page proposals prepared by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, calls for sweeping changes to ensure an ‘effective, conservative administration’.

It outlines domestic and foreign policy agendas, a personnel database being touted as the 'Conservative LinkedIn' and a Presidential Administration Academy for training personnel.

Its key proposals in a playbook for the first six months of the Trump presidency include getting rid of federal agencies such as the justice department and the FBI (the Federal Bureau of Investigation) and the department of education.

It also proposes that high-school students be required to take a military entrance assessment; a nationwide ban on abortion drugs; and the overturning of policies such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Mass deportation of illegal immigrants

While Donald Trump has promised the largest mass deportation of illegal immigrants, numbered variously between 11 and 25 million, observers doubt if this is feasible and practical.

There is no doubt, however, that on a smaller scale, there will be deportations.

The day after the results came out, Trump campaign’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that millions of undocumented immigrants would be deported once the new president starts his term.

Unauthorised Indian immigrants in the United States numbered 725,000 in 2022, reported the Pew Research Center. Illegal Indian immigrants constituted the third largest group, after those from Mexico and El Salvador. The US Border Protection Agency, part of the department of homeland security, has apprehended 96,917 such Indians — a number that has trebled in just two years. And these are just the ones who got caught.

What about legal entrants?

The Trump presidency is also expected to put curbs on legal immigration as well, especially the H-1B, a non-immigrant visa allowing US employers to employ foreigners in specialised jobs and facilitate the process of obtaining a green card, allowing permanent residency in the US.

The Trump campaign planned to cut the state department visa staff.

As much as 60–70 per cent of the H1B visas go to Indians, a huge majority of whom move into the green card queue as well. But US law places a cap of 7 per cent cap green card approvals per year.

What conservative policy makers want the new president to do is to extend this 7 per cent ceiling to work visas as well. If that happens, the Indians who currently get those 60–70 per cent of H1B visas will be massively restricted as well.

Indeed, Trump is likely to reduce the number of all visas available for Indians to travel into the US, both student visas and potentially other kinds of work visas besides the H-1B as well.

Trump is also likely to try and end birthright citizenship — protected by the US Constitution, but possible to challenge in view of the total control he will have over the US Congress and its Supreme Court. This would impact the newborn children of those who hold green cards or are waiting for them.

Vengeance and retribution

The Trump Presidency is widely expected to be vengeful, prosecuting the ‘enemies’ within and pardoning the Trump loyalists — including the ones who were charged with mobbing the Capitol Hill in January 2020.

The president-elect believes that the liberal system was rigged and dishonest, that the election in 2020 was stolen from him and that he was persecuted by a corrupt system. Therefore, every bureaucrat, general, former staff member, judge and prosecutor who finds themself in Trump's crosshairs may face inquiries, investigations, tax raids and more.

Trump has pledged to use law enforcement agencies to investigate his political foes, including poll officials, lawyers and party donors. Along those lines, he has also said he will consider appointing a special prosecutor to probe outgoing president Joe Biden.

Special relationship with Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu also won the US presidential election this week, commented certain analysts — pointing to Donald Trump having been in constant conversation with the Israeli prime minister.

They are said to have spoken at least on seven occasions this year.

With his avowed aim of ending wars, the signal to Israel is to 'finish what it started' before Trump takes over formally as President of the United States. The next two months, therefore, are likely to witness more brutalities in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as an intensification of Israeli hostilities, which will put Iran in a bind.

Trump, who had once backed the two-nation theory with a separate Palestinian state is believed to hold that this is no longer possible.

It was Trump who, during his first term, moved America’s embassy to Jerusalem.

It was his administration that recognised Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights.

It was Trump who withdrew the US unilaterally from the Iran nuclear deal, despite the United Nations’ certification that Iran was fully compliant with the terms of the 2015 agreement.

Even the Abraham Accords, which brought Israel and the Arab nations — the two pillars of America’s West Asia policy — together, were aimed at building a combined stronger alliance against Iran, the common foe of the US and Israel.

Higher tariffs on imports

Trump has floated the idea of a 10 per cent or higher tariff on all goods imported into the US, a move he says would eliminate the trade deficit. But critics say it would lead to higher prices for American consumers.

He has also said he should have the authority to set higher tariffs on countries that have put tariffs on US imports. Experts believe that it would trigger retaliatory tariffs on goods exported by the US, starting a trade war.

Footnote: Will Trump's healthcare choices wreck global health?

The NBC spoke to President-elect Trump's key health adviser Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who would love for him to do away with fluoride in water as a preventative dental health strategy — one many dentists regard as a big 20th-century win in healthcare.

Now, while this one may only impact Americans (or those migrants living in America for a considerable amount of time), his other hobby horse, an anti-vax stance, may threaten the health of the entire world.