Trump’s win creates chances for the Tories

There are opportunities for the Conservatives in devising an election winning platform around low taxes and immigration

Donald Trump’s capacity to confound all expectations, except his own, seemingly knows no bounds. In 2016, he overcame the combined might of so-called progressive opinion to pull off an extraordinary election triumph to become the 45th president.
Now the 47th president-elect, he claimed victory at around 7.30 GMT, calling it the greatest result in US history. For once he was not exaggerating; only one previous president, Grover Cleveland in 1893, has returned for a second term after losing office.
Moreover, Mr Trump not only won in the electoral college but was on course to secure a majority of the popular vote, something few thought likely. Mrs Clinton won three million more votes than her adversary in 2016. This time, Kamala Harris trailed, even though her strength was in the high population states like California and New York.
Everyone said that it would be close, but in the end it wasn’t. Trumpism won resoundingly. The Republicans took control of the Senate, while the full results for the House of Representatives are still coming through. Mr Trump made advances among groups not historically attracted to the Republicans, including some ethnic minority groups.
At the start of the year this outcome seemed impossible. Mr Trump was facing a number of court appearances and the received wisdom held that he could not be convicted of a felony and still run.
But he forged on, convinced he was a man of destiny, and aware he was up against an ageing president whose mental acuity was being called into question. Joe Biden’s decision not to run again discomfited the Trump camp for a few weeks, but then Ms Harris fell back in the polls again.
Mr Trump began to focus less on culture wars and more on the economy. He routinely asked at his mass rallies, “Do you feel better off than four years ago?” to which the answer was a resounding, “No”. The Bill Clinton adage “it’s the economy, stupid” was proved correct once more.
Mr Trump’s economic policy will not necessarily make Americans better off, if he follows through on what he has promised. He has said that he will impose tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all imports, a move that would almost certainly make goods much costlier for US consumers, reigniting the very inflation that the electorate fears most.
Mr Trump is not a free-trader, even if some of his biggest supporters, like Elon Musk, take a diametrically opposite view. There are, however, potential opportunities for growth through cutting taxes, deregulation and slowing down the dash to net zero – the complete opposite of what Labour proposes here. One of the reasons for Mr Trump’s victory is the nostalgia that many Americans feel for the strong growth of the early years of his first presidency, before the Covid pandemic hit, driven by massive reductions to taxation and his push for America to achieve energy independence.
Mr Trump’s foreign policy is less easy to discern, though in his first term he did much to engineer a peaceful rapprochement between Israel and Arab nations through the Abraham Accords and was tough on Iran. Under President Biden, the Middle East has plunged into conflict.
Mr Trump has talked of “peace through strength” and his strongest suit is unpredictability. The world’s troublemakers like Iran and despots such as Putin do not know what he might do and will have to adjust their strategies to this new reality.
On the other hand, his ambivalence towards Nato remains problematic for the UK, even though he is right to insist that European countries take greater responsibility for their own defence. The country that will be most alarmed by this result is Ukraine which fears Mr Trump will reduce financial and military support or seek to negotiate a settlement with Vladimir Putin that will see them lose land.
In Britain, the re-election of a president who was widely traduced by Labour politicians during his first term in office poses a particular difficulty for the party now in power. Sir Keir Starmer sent his congratulations to Mr Trump and promised close cooperation with an old ally.
But many in his Cabinet, including David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, have made disobliging comments about Mr Trump and some continue to do so. Labour also sent 100 staffers to America to campaign for Ms Harris. Maintaining close relations with our most important ally is perhaps the key task of our Foreign Secretary. Whether Mr Lammy’s position is sustainable must now be in serious doubt.
The British politician who will take the greatest heart from this result is Nigel Farage. He has been in America campaigning for Mr Trump and will see the opportunity to carry out the same level of disruption here, with immigration a key factor in Mr Trump’s victory.
This will all prove a challenge for the Tories, whose new leader Kemi Badenoch made a confident debut at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday. She put Sir Keir on the spot over Labour’s “student politician” criticism of the new president and the Government’s commitment to the sort of “Bidenomics” rejected by the US electorate. There are opportunities for the Tories in devising an election winning platform around low taxes and immigration. Mrs Badenoch must seize them.