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11-11-2024
WASHINGTON/ REHOBOTH BEACH: US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump will meet on Wednesday at the White House on Biden’s invitation, a White House spokesperson said on Saturday.
Trump will take office on Jan. 20 after defeating current Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
“At President Biden’s invitation, President Biden and President-elect Trump will meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
Biden, a Democrat, had initially sought reelection but dropped out of the race in July after a disastrous debate against the Republican Trump.
“I’m going to see him on Wednesday,” Biden told reporters on Saturday, when asked whether Trump was a threat to democracy.
Biden spoke after leaving a church service in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he traveled for the weekend. The president did not respond to questions about what he would say to Trump.
Meanwhile, with a resounding victory in the US presidential election, Donald Trump can now claim a sweeping mandate to implement his agenda, both foreign and domestic.
Crucially, the result shows you should never bet against self-interest: either for politicians, or for American voters prepared to disregard the most flawed of all characters in the hope he will “fix” their problems.
The guardrails that constrained Trump’s first term, a hostile Senate, opponents in the Republican Party and a public service devoted to serve the nation rather than an individual have either been swept away, or will likely soon be bent to his will.
The global implications of a confident and unfettered Trump 2.0 will depend very much on what foreign policy path he charts and whom he decides to appoint to key positions.
Among those, we then need to watch who is selected to do his bidding and who will replace them when they inevitably fall out of favor. Early lists of potential appointees include:
Marco Rubio and Richard Grenell, who have been mentioned as potential secretary of state Kash Patel, mooted as CIA director Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state and CIA director during Trump’s first term in office, who may end up at the Pentagon as defence secretary.
Even Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who resigned just 22 days into his tenure after lying about contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the US, has been mentioned in discussions about senior roles.
So, too, has the self-styled strategic policy expert Elbridge Colby, a former US Defense Department official.
Trump will demand unswerving loyalty from his appointees, while claiming all the credit for their work but, as he ages, he is also likely to rely heavily on them to take the lead on strategic policy direction.
With that in mind, here are three possible paths a Trump administration might take on the world stage.
Having trumpeted his credentials as a peacemaker, it is possible Trump returns the US to a position of isolationism and exceptionalism, essentially being a friend and enemy to no one.
That could mean either withdrawing completely from NATO, or making US security assistance so conditional on transatlantic fealty that Europe is essentially captive to his whims. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
