Trump causes extinction and turns case.

Trump is surely watching what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing since his return to the premiership in Israel, in terms of “judicial reforms” that grant him greater authority to do away with his own indictment by an Israeli court. In fact, various media outlets are reporting that the former president is planning to do what it takes to solidify his power once he is back in the White House, including limiting the independence of federal agencies, deploying the military domestically, and cracking down on his detractors.

Trump appears ready to render the United States less liberal and more autocratic, as Netanyahu is doing now with Israel. The strong checks and balances of the American constitutional democracy may not withstand the vicious assault by Trump and his white nationalist and evangelical conservative allies. He would also find sympathetic ears in the US Supreme Court that has been dominated by conservatives, three of whom were appointed by him.

That being said, the international ramification of a Trump 2.0 may be more dramatic than the domestic ones. If he returns to the White House, he would find it less constraining to effect change in foreign policy than domestic policy. Indeed, he would have greater authority as the leader of a superpower to change the world for the worse, than he would have to change America to his liking.

Just as he reversed much of what his predecessor, President Barack Obama, achieved globally, whether on climate change, trade, nuclear proliferation, Russia, Europe or the Middle East, Trump would also seek to erase Biden’s progress on these and other policies.

Under a second Trump presidency, it would be impossible to reach another nuclear deal with Iran, or a more urgent accord on climate change. There would also likely be major cuts in public spending on social protections and renewable energy expansion.

As president, Trump would also act swiftly on the Russia-Ukraine war. He has already claimed that he can resolve the conflict in “24 hours”. Some have speculated that this means he would cut US military aid to Ukraine in order to facilitate a quick end of war in Russia’s favour.

The prospect of this scenario has irked Washington’s European allies, who have been highly supportive of the US efforts against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They fear that appeasing Russia would weaken NATO, embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin, and force them to search for immediate, radical and costly European alternative to America’s strategic umbrella.

European centrists and liberals are also worried that a Trump victory in 2024 would create a domino effect across the West, strengthening populist right-wing leaders in Hungry, Poland and Italy, and encouraging more far-right electoral victories in France and Germany.

If all of this were to happen, it would weaken America’s own foreign policy push, especially its response to rising China, which is perhaps the only major foreign policy issue – aside from Israel – on which Trump and Biden agree. An emboldened Russia, a weakened NATO, and a divided West, would not help Trump’s haughty attempts at curbing Chinese economic and strategic influence.

Beijing likely does not mind seeing Trump return to the White House, not only because he is a divisive illiberal populist leader, who is ready to abandon US global responsibilities and replace its assertive leadership with pompous bombast, but also because he wouldn’t or couldn’t use the democratic pretext to advance US interests over other more autocratic nations.

Trump has threatened that if he were to become president again, he would give the Chinese government “48 hours” to abandon its “spy base” in Cuba or face severe economic sanctions. But such bombast has not worked in the past, neither against China, which has grown more powerful militarily and strategically during the Trump years, nor against smaller powers like North Korea or Iran, both of which have expanded their nuclear programmes during his tenure. If anything, Trump’s bravado has failed even against Bashar al-Assad’s Syria.

Biden’s foreign policy hasn’t been exactly successful or responsible either; his foreign policy has been imperialist, interventionist and hypocritical. But Trump’s alternatives are worse than Biden’s globalist prerogatives. They come in the form of reckless America-first hypernationalism, vulgar racism, apathy towards the environment and the climate crisis, total disregard for multilateralism and universal values, and overall, a dark vision of the world.

A Trumpian world, in which no sane person should want to live in.