Donald Trump’s political philosophy is Make America Great Again. The United States, goes the argument, has been a pushover for too long. Too many other nations have taken advantage of its generosity, is the Trump cry.

But  second Trump term is likely to plunge the world into a global trade war. We know this because Trump has frequently talked about putting high tariff rates on imported goods. He did likewise during his first presidency, as Chatham House reported in 2021: “During his tenure, Trump arbitrarily imposed tariffs on all the United States’ major trading partners, launched a trade war with China, and blatantly violated the rules of the WTO – even repeatedly threatening to withdraw from the institution. Under Trump, the United States really began behaving as something of a rogue state in international trade.”

In contrast to Trump, Kamala Harris is a more mainstream, moderate, consensus politician. She will seek to strengthen the great post-WW2 institutions of rules-based global order - most notably, Nato, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the latter three being seen as essential to global financial stability and the West’s leadership in finance. Harris will want to see a strong EU as a bastion and partner against Russian expansionism and as a dependable friend competing with China and India.

In a mirror-like modern manifestation of the Cold War’s NATO v The Warsaw Pact, the 16th meeting of the BRICS nations in Russia in mid-October marked an upscaling of political and trade tensions between the democratic West and many of the world’s most powerful authoritarian nations.

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Among the new nations joining BRICS founders Brazil, Russia, India and China are Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. According to the BBC, BRICS states now control some 24% of the global economy and contain 45% of the world’s population.

The BRICS name the World Trade Organisation, The World Bank and the IMF as core targets in their drive to reduce the dominance of the West. If successful, we can expect huge disputes over taxation, trading regimes, product regulations, climate change policies and in the structure of international markets for food, fossil fuels and minerals.

Russia and China look at America and see a nation in a deep internal crisis that is weakening US authority internationally and lessening its appetite to be the world’s policeman. Tariff-led protectionism by Trump can only lead to a more fragile world. Nor can Harris afford to show anything but political and economic determination to put American interests front and centre.

Harris will maintain a higher level of commitment to Nato than Trump, but like Trump will expect Europe to dig more deeply into its own pocket to support NATO and strengthen national armed services. But America’s primary concern is no longer the Atlantic. For Harris and Trump, the Pacific is far more important as a marketplace and as a political and military sphere of influence.

Both the Russian and Chinese navies claim much of the Pacific as theirs to control.

India is set to be the world’s most populous nation. Japan, for all its recent woes, is still the world’s fourth-largest economy.

In Peru, a country the US has long thought of as in its “back yard,” China is providing most of the $3.6 billion to build a new port capable of handling the biggest ships. It opens most of Latin America to Chinese influence.

China will be a major preoccupation of the next US administrationChina will be a major preoccupation of the next US administration (Image: Getty)

Taiwan, a US ally and the source of 60% of all the world’s microchips, is harassed and threatened daily by China. What happens in the seas off China is of fundamental interest to the economic stability of the West.

A Harris America will want to see its allies not only united on military security but on trade policy, technological self-sufficiency, net zero regulations, financial stability and unswerving commitment to liberal democracy.

Kamala Harris will be a more liberal and globalist president than Trump, but she too knows that “America first” has taken hold of huge parts of the American psyche. A Harris White House will be sensitive to the need to improve the financial lot of America’s blue-collar class. Harris must be seen to be trying the make America great again.

The UK should not expect favours from Harris or Trump. There will be too much to do at home and in managing global threats to its place in the world for America to bother very much about an island far away that has chosen to make itself less competitive and less relevant.

Brexit has left the UK a far less influential political and economic power than it was. It has cut us off from our nearest, biggest and friendliest market, just as global politics is becoming less stable. In any case, Asia, Africa and the Americas will always be further away than Europe.

Given what’s happening in the US and the growing might and power of China and India, the UK looks more and more isolated, its economic recovery less and less likely. There is low-hanging fruit just across the English Channel. It is time to rejoin the European Single Market and begin to think seriously about rejoining the EU. Our options are narrowing. Let’s act before they get narrower still.

Martin Roche sits on the executive committee of the European Movement in Scotland