By crying novelty, novelty, every time he talks of the policies he will pursue, he will have the world sit up and take notice of what he says, writes Mihir Bose
Donald Trump always reminds me of the hawkers who walked around the streets of Flora Fountain in Mumbai when I was growing up. I could hear their cries “Foreign, Foreign, Novelty, Novelty” as they sold their wares, their shouts growing louder as they approached potential customers.
India then, in the immediate years of having won freedom from British rule, was a very poor country. There was rationing, food was so short that America passed a special law, PL480, to send its surplus grain to India for which India paid in rupees as it had little foreign exchange. With rice in short supply, twice a week everyone had to eat wheat and to travel abroad you required a P Form signed by the Reverse Bank to get a ticket. Even then you only got £2 in foreign exchange.
Given such shortages hawkers knew that they would be much in demand if they offered foreign goods not available anywhere else. Trump may never have seen any such hawkers but, like those Mumbai hawkers, he has long ago worked out that, given how the public at large distrust modern politicians, by crying novelty, novelty, every time he talks of the policies he will pursue he will have the world sit up and take notice of what he says. And the more outrageous his cries of novelty the more frightened everyone will become.
The classic instance of this was in his first term. Recall how he made much of his meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. There was astonishment, and much disquiet, that he was becoming the first American President to meet this, the most ruthless communist leader in power, without first having wrung some concessions from him. But Trump assured everyone that his one meeting would sort Kim Jong Un and North Korea out. But, just as the goods the hawkers tried to sell turned out to be not very novel and indeed sham, very often made in some side street of Mumbai, so that meeting changed nothing. If proof was needed this came a few weeks ago when it emerged that North Korean soldiers had been fighting with the Russians in Ukraine. The last time Asian soldiers had been fighting in a European war was during the Second World War when Indian soldiers were fighting the Germans in defence of the British empire. Now the Koreans were fighting to extend the Russian empire. So much for Trump’s meeting with Kim changing anything.
Immigration provides an even better example of how his cry of novelty, novelty, like that of the hawkers of Flora Fountain, was never meant to be taken seriously. Recall the great cry of his first election campaign. This was Build the Wall which was heard at every rally of Trump. This wall, he promised, would be built between the US and Mexico stopping the flood of immigrants to the US. By the time Trump’s Presidency had ended very little of the wall was built. So little indeed that immigrants continued to pour in during the Biden administration. This, as it happened, suited Trump very well for it became the great campaign slogan for his second run for Presidency. He has promised that on his first day back at the Oval Office he will pass an order throwing out these illegal migrants. He may well issue such an order but, like his earlier promise to Build the Wall, it may prove just as genuine as the novelty cries of the hawkers of Flora Fountain.
Trump has also made other novelty claims. His most novel is that he would stop the war in Ukraine. As he put it, “I would fix that within 24 hours, and if I win, before I get into the office, I will have that war settled.”
However, interestingly, since he beat Biden both Trump and his transition team have been making noises, albeit quietly, that this novelty cry is not meant to be taken seriously. Getting ready to take office Trump himself said during a Mar-a-Lago news conference that his “hope” is to try to get a deal in six months. Two of his advisers conceded that it could take months or even longer to resolve the war. Trump’s claim was “campaign bluster” and “a lack of appreciation of the intractability of the conflict and the time it takes to staff up a new administration.”
Of course, Trump will be able to claim, with some justification as he prepares for his return to the White House, that he has done something Biden could not despite trying for months, bring about a cease fire in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. Yet it is by no means certain that the cease fire will last very long, let alone that it might lead to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The cease fire is to be welcomed but, unless it is followed by a lasting peace deal, it is not the triumph that Trump will claim it is.
The big novelty item which he has been shouting about is imposing tariffs on Chinese imports to America. Everybody expects him to do that almost as soon as the ink has dried on his order to expel the illegal immigrants. Many fear this could lead to a trade war. It is certainly novel, overturning what has been American policy since the second world war and could have a devastating impact on world trade.
But I wonder if this proves to be another novelty cry like Build the Wall. There might be some curbs but nothing as drastic as people think. I think the same thing will happen about his plans to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Trump loves to get everyone excited. He knows the more he excites them the more they talk fearfully about his plans without paying attention as to whether they can be fulfilled. He can then use the turmoil to either quietly ditch them, or do so little that it amounts to the same thing. Like the hawkers he knows it is noise that matters and Trump knows how to get himself noticed.
(Mihir Bose is the author Thank You Mr Crombie Lessons in Guilt and Gratitude to the British.)
