THE “TRUMP HEDGE” OR THE “TRUMP PUT”?
The “Trump hedge” is where countries try to prepare for a Trump administration. This may sound like common sense, but the problem with hedging in the current climate is that it is difficult to know what you are hedging against with Trump.
He is unpredictable, something he says is a deliberate strategy. If your competitors don’t know what’s coming, they explicitly can’t hedge – which Trump suggests creates an advantage.
But unpredictability makes other countries feel insecure. Trump suggests big changes could (or perhaps could not) be coming, such as leaving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), abandoning US commitments to climate change, and new trade rules for China and Europe.
How do you make decisions when the world can transform on inauguration day? The “Trump put” expresses how states are now choosing to delay decisions to see what happens. This delay is not prudence. It is the product of confusion and a feeling that the world is in limbo.
Trump is already creating major disruption this way, and it is not beneficial for international politics. For example, Trump has always been useful to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who may be emboldened now by even the promise of a Trump victory and be unwilling to resolve the Ukraine conflict before then.
With Putin’s main opponent threat to the Kremlin Alexei Navalny now dead, this is a bigger concern than ever. Israel may also feel they can ignore current US proposals for a ceasefire if they know that the man who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem will soon be in charge.
Meanwhile, NATO is believed to have shifted away from appointing a female secretary-general, because of concerns about Trump’s lack of respect for women leaders. And in Canada, there’s talk of the date of the general election being influenced by the Trump campaign.