What Is Trump’s Inauguration Bringing

So, it’s D-Day – Donald Trump Day – again in America, his second inauguration as president of the United States.

This time, he’s even meaner, if not leaner, and more vengeful, than last time, in January 2017.

Trump has branded himself as an iconoclastic populist and assumed the role of a would-be superman promising to right all of the wrongs in America, “Make America Great Again,” and start putting the world in order according to America’s interests.

And, of course, to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine in record time.

Trump remains fiery, impulsive and unpredictable. The new team he has selected ranges from the most diehard far-rightists to moderates, and includes highly influential oligarchs, as well as enemies of the established order in the US.

Yesterday, according to the BBC, “President-elect Donald Trump promised to sign a blitz of executive orders on his first day as president, telling supporters that he would move with “historic speed and strength” in the hours after taking the oath of office.

And let us not forget that at 78, Trump is the oldest person to be inaugurated as president of the US, and that he has chosen as his deputy an ideologically rigid self-described “hillbilly” and isolationist, JD Vance. Should Trump leave the scene, Vance would take over the reins of the world’s most powerful state.

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Unpredictability has therefore filled the atmosphere bringing with it, for many, also anxiety.

We are left to hope for surprises and for things working out better than anticipated.

The truce reached between Israel and Hamas has temporarily taken some of the pressure off the incoming US administration. 

And there’ a new factor – Trump’s sudden courting of China. Trump spoke to Chinese president Xi Jinping on Friday and even invited him to the inauguration. He secured the unprecedented presence of a top Chinese official – Xi’s deputy.

Trump’s personal intervention after this symbolic breakthrough to block the closure of Chinese owned TikTok in the US has also won him friends in Beijing.

Imagine how all this will go down in the Kremlin as it watches the US and China move towards a possible rapprochement with its broader implications, especially for pressuring Moscow to end its war against Ukraine.

And finally, there’s also another silver lining for Ukraine. The only major EU leader to be invited to the inauguration is Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. A staunch supporter of Ukraine, she gets on well with both Trump and his closest ally, multi-billionaire Elon Musk.  And from Latin America, another friend of both Trump and Ukraine – Argentina’s president Javier Milei will be present.

So even without President Zelensky’s participation, Ukraine will have its de facto ambassadors at the inauguration ceremonies.