For the United States and much of the world, what 2025 holds rests on what Donald Trump does during his second presidency, and how he achieves it. File Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI |
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Dec. 31 (UPI) -- To start the new year off, one normally makes resolutions to keep or break. Others forecast, or rather guess, what is in store for 2025. Instead of resolutions and forecasts, this column is about who or what will define, distinguish or devastate the next 12 months.
For the United States and much of the world, the answer is what Donald Trump does during his second presidency, and how he achieves it. Will 47 resemble 45, or has Trump learned from his first term and what has transpired since, including the assassin's bullet that put him within an inch of death? Will a different Trump emerge in 2025, along with a changed manner of conduct during his time in office?
On one hand, while a "kinder, gentler" Trump did not surface during his campaign, the former president to some degree tried to appeal to a broader slice of Americans. American carnage was not the theme. His transition teams appeared to be well-designed in preparing to regain the White House. However, some of his cabinet picks sparked fierce controversy, such as his Attorney General designee Matt Gaetz, who was forced to withdraw.
How the rest of his picks fare -- Peter Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kash Patel for Director of the FBI, and Kristi Noem for Secretary of Homeland Security -- will be determined in the coming weeks. Many other nominees for office have the credentials and character for confirmation. It may well be that dissent among Republicans in the House of Representatives will factor more in how many of the president's priorities, from the border and mass deportations to tax legislation and the budget, pass or fail.
The larger question is how some of Trump's "bigger," and some will say "wackier," ideas will determine policy, if at all. One big example being the President-elect's stance on Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. Earlier this month, Trump repeated his desire to acquire Greenland and its some-60,000 inhabitants from Denmark. Likewise, was his jab at Canada becoming America's 51st state a negotiating tactic? Moreover, why would Panama consent to being returned to U.S. ownership, short of an invasion?
Perhaps the Trump team views these ideas as building a fortress America. But a fortress against what? The United States already has Alaska as a window in the Arctic. And while Canada's vast resources and northern border would enhance access to the region, the United States has already failed to seize Canada during two different wars. Elsewhere, China does manage two Panama Canal ports, but is that really a threat to national security?
If Trump's ideas are a serious design, they risk becoming a disastrous failure because not one of Greenland, Canada or the Panama Canal will accede to falling under American control, short of military force. If it is a negotiating ploy, it better be a clever one. However, if it is misdirection or a means of diverting attention elsewhere, it may succeed. Whichever way it goes, the risks are likely to outweigh the benefits.
Trump also has potential IEDs in how he intends to close the border and conduct massive deportations. His Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, could be productive and as easily massively disruptive if it wields an axe and not a scalpel, not to mention the possible conflict of interest issues. Likewise, NATO members are very concerned Trump might abandon Ukraine or seek a peace arrangement that would have the same effect.
Tariffs may be the most concerning double-edged sword. If tariffs are part of a negotiation strategy, they can be effective. If they, as Trump argues, are used as the means to raise trillions of dollars to resolve America's $36 trillion debt, that is a different matter. In the latter case, as history and classical economics demonstrate, tariffs can be enormously destructive, causing trade wars and greater demands on consumers as prices escalate to match the tariff increases.
Of course, this brief discourse does not address the number of other potential decisive factors and issues that will affect 2025. Climate change and natural disasters, the possibility of another pandemic, and man-made crises from the Middle East to Eastern Europe to the Pacific, cannot be excluded. Nor can potentially positive events be dismissed.
Who and what will define 2025? The answer is stay tuned!
Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at Washington's Atlantic Council, the prime author of "shock and awe" and author of "The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large." Follow him @harlankullman. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
