By Mason Richey
As I write this column on the evening of Nov. 6 (Korea time), presidential election ballots in the United States are still being counted, but former President Donald Trump has defeated current Vice President Kamala Harris to win the presidency for a second time. Trump will thus become the 47th president of the U.S. following his 2017-2021 term as the nation’s 45th president.
The result of the electoral college — the archaic federal system delineated by the U.S. constitution to formally elect the president — is likely to be decisive, with Trump receiving more than 300 of the available 538 electors. Yet, the election has also been very tight, revealing a divided America. Indeed the national vote underlying the electoral college will likely show that both Trump and Harris were roughly even, once all the ballots have been counted. The Republicans have retaken the majority in the Senate, but the House of Representatives is in limbo, and the Democrats still have a chance to gain control of the chamber. This would produce another split legislature, paralyzing lawmaking and making Trump’s agenda more difficult to realize than if the Republicans controlled both the Senate and the House.
The U.S. electorate is at least consistent in its inconsistency. In 2016, Trump won 306 electoral college votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232; in 2020, Joe Biden won 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232; the New York Times 2024 electoral college predictor needle currently shows Trump winning 311 votes to Harris’s 227.
Frankly, the U.S. appears crazy, swinging like a pendulum from one political philosophy to another. The fact that Trump was nearly assassinated — twice — during the campaign and Harris was installed by party heavyweights over the summer after an intraparty Democratic coup against a clearly infirm President Biden only adds to the sense of insanity.
Nonetheless, it is worth asking two basic questions. What happened this election cycle to explain this outcome? And what does it mean for the U.S., the world and Korea?
To start with the former question: how do we account for the fact that the U.S. just reelected a scandal-ridden convicted felon? An authoritarian who already incited a seditious insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the 2020 presidential election, thus violating the principle of the peaceful transfer of power, a fundamental element of democratic governance?
To borrow a phrase: it’s the inflation, stupid! At base, the U.S. electorate — like many voters throughout a 2024 full of elections worldwide — threw the incumbent party out of power in significant part to punish leaders for failing to prevent inflation. Reasonable or not, democracies all over the world in 2024 have rejected incumbent leaders who were in office when inflation started after the COVID-19 pandemic. Those same leaders have not gotten much credit for taming inflation. In the case of the Democratic party in the U.S., it has also not gotten credit for the low unemployment and high GDP growth. Such figures are abstractions to the millions of Americans struggling paycheck to paycheck to put gas in the car, food on the table or presents under the Christmas tree.
The Democrats — and especially Kamala Harris, who was tied to Biden’s performance — had no answer for these issues. Trump, by contrast, had a simple campaign message: Biden, and by extension Harris, broke the U.S. in terms of immigration and the economy, and Trump would fix things through mass deportations and tariffs. Although certainly misleading, this has the advantage of being easy to understand.
Harris did not have a coherent platform tailored to a broad swath of middle America. Her campaign instead was centered on her differences from Trump, especially her promise to uphold U.S. democracy. Important though this may be, ultimately U.S. voters weighed the abstraction of democracy maintenance in comparison with perceived economic interest — they chose economic interest.
So, what does this election result mean? Unpacking the implications of this election for international affairs will require several columns, but a few initial points are worth making. In the first place, we need to wait for the outcome of the House of Representatives. If Republicans hold control of the House, Trump will enjoy a chance to drive forward on radical changes to the U.S. health care system, government bureaucracy, the tax code, immigration law, environmental protections, inter alia. This will likely make the U.S. a more volatile place.
Second, the rest of the world — both U.S. allies and adversaries — needs to wake up quickly to the new reality of a Trump 2.0 White House. Trump’s risk tolerance, unorthodox beliefs and inclinations and transactionalism may not be welcome, but they are the new framework for foreign affairs. Third, U.S. allies in particular must understand that the U.S. of today is not the same partner in values as previously. U.S. alliances — under Trump and quite likely after him also — will be less undergirded by values and more determined by naked interest. Fourth (and related to points two and three), Korea would be committing security policy malpractice if it did not more seriously devote attention to figuring out a pathway to an independent nuclear deterrent. Simply put, the U.S. under Trump is a less reliable security guarantor. This has consequences.
Lastly, spare a thought for Ukraine. Trump has already broadcast his intention to cut support for Kyiv in order to push for a “peace” deal. This is likely disastrous for Ukraine, which will come under huge pressure to negotiate a cessation of hostilities under very unfavorable conditions. Beyond Ukraine, of course, this will also have cascading effects on international security. Korea must be ready to navigate those uncertain waters.
Mason Richey is a professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, president of the Korea International Studies Association and editor-in-chief of the Journal of East Asian Affairs.
English (United States) ·