Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.
A few months ago, friends in the Netherlands asked me who I thought would win the 2024 US presidential election. They nodded placidly when I said I thought the odds favored President Joe Biden, but nearly jumped out of their seats when I said former President Donald Trump has a not-negligible chance of returning to the White House.
My friends, it turned out, had not been paying close attention. They thought Trump was history. Now they know better. Europe and much of the world has awakened to the real possibility that the twice-impeached, twice-indicted Trump might be the Republican nominee, and they are growing alarmed.
And if Europeans —and Ukrainians and South Koreans and Taiwanese — are concerned, Americans have far more reason to worry. Trump’s chaotic presidency didn’t achieve many of its goals because of the inexperience, incompetence and lack of discipline of key members of his administration, along with the strength of US democratic institutions and the people who worked to safeguard them.
But a second term might be different.
Admittedly, much can happen before the election. The GOP primaries could surprise, and Trump’s legal troubles could get in his way. For the moment, however, his primary opponents are mostly not gaining traction. Sixteen months from now, he could be on his third straight presidential ticket.
I’ll predict that anyone who thought the Trump presidency was disastrous — and polling shows that includes many Americans and most citizens of America’s allies — will find Trump 2.0 even more cataclysmic.
Trump now has a strong operation in developing meticulous plans for a possible second term. The overarching goal is to make the former president more powerful than ever, enabling some of his autocratic inclinations.
In a second Trump administration, according to those plans, the Department of Justice could lose its independence, coming under full control of the president, who would be able to mobilize it against his foes and protect his friends. Other independent agencies, those regulating the media or monopolies would also lose their autonomy if the strategy succeeds.
Trump vows to dismantle educational accrediting organizations and appoint his people to oversee colleges and universities, so that he can get rid of “Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” as he explained with characteristic nuance.
The president’s power would reach every aspect of government if, as he promises, he reinstates “Schedule F,” an executive order that would make it possible for tens of thousands of federal workers to be fired at the president’s whim and replaced with his acolytes.
Trump’s backers, meanwhile, working at a new think tank, are compiling lists of loyal Trumpists to fill key positions. Anyone with misgivings about the January 6 pro-Trump assault on the Capitol would reportedly be disqualified.
Seeking to maximize his control, Trump is vowing to reserve the authority to “impound” congressionally approved funds for projects he opposes — an autocrat’s dream that was declared illegal by Congress half a century ago.
And, as an inveterate climate denier, a more experienced Trump — now with the Republican Party in his thrall — would likely move to weaken, if not altogether end, efforts to slow global warming. He also would end birthright citizenship, stripping away the automatic right to be an American by virtue of being born in the US.
Meanwhile, memories of Trump praising dictators from his earliest days in office, while insulting America’s allies, are coming back. When Trump was asked on CNN last May if he wants Ukraine or Russia to win the war, he wouldn’t answer.
Instead, he declared, “I will have the war settled in 24 hours,” confirming fears that US support of Kyiv would falter under a president who has never uttered a negative comment about Russian President Vladimir Putin — even now that Putin is being accused of war crimes — and who appeared to defend Russia’s 2014 theft of Crimea.
With his comments, Trump provided more evidence to those of us who believe Putin wants to prolong the war long enough that during a second administration he would pull the rug out from under Ukraine.
He might also pull it out of NATO.
Europeans vividly remember Trump’s first appearance at a NATO summit, when he had trouble bringing himself to say the US would abide by its Article 5 obligation to come to an ally’s assistance. Many worry Trump would withdraw the US from NATO — a move that would hollow out the alliance and leave the US much weaker.
One of America’s greatest strengths is its vast network of international alliances. But many of America’s friends don’t trust the former president.
The very notion that Trump could become president again is reviving European concerns about Washington’s reliability even now, after the Biden administration has rebuilt US alliances. NATO is now stronger and more united than it has been in decades, perhaps ever. But a US president has enormous power. US allies know that. Putin knows it too.
Before the 2020 election, I wondered if Taiwan might survive a second Trump term. China’s goal of taking the democratic island may have been delayed after Beijing saw the ferocity of Ukraine’s resistance, but the Taiwanese people are uneasy about Trump.
After repeated assurances from President Joe Biden that the US stands with Taiwan, observers there now say, “Taiwan must be ready for a second Trump term unfavorable to Taiwan’s security.”
They remember the then-president praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping — “We love each other” he said, just before the pandemic — even as Beijing continued to crush Hong Kong’s democracy. Trump was hard on China but only on trade, and to shift blame as the US performed dismally on the pandemic. Nothing else mattered. Trump had little concern for human rights or democracy.
South Koreans, too, are fretting about a Trump return. As president, he bullied that long-time ally while flirting with its mortal foe, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, saying the two leaders “fell in love” — one of many times the former president has cozied up to a dictator.
South Koreans are passionately pro-American, but they suffered from deep anxiety about Trump during his presidency. Some 9 in 10 had a positive view of their alliance with the US. But views of Trump have been dismal, as they have been in much of the world.
When he entered the White House, only 9% of South Koreans had a favorable view of Trump, although a Gallup poll in 2018 showed an uptick in his approval to a still-low 32%. And a Pew survey in 2020, as he was leaving the presidency, found that just 17% of respondents had confidence that Trump would “do the right thing regarding world affairs.” And the prospect of another Trump presidency raises questions about the reliability of Washington’s security guarantees. As a result, many South Koreans now say their country should acquire nuclear weapons.
For people outside the US, the notion that Americans would reelect him seems hard to fathom. Trump’s presidency left America bruised and divided. Recovery from that experience is a work in progress.
As harmful as he was the first time he was president, he would be far, far more damaging a second time. But if the nation has not yet healed from its four years of Trump’s stewardship, neither have the nation’s allies who remain shocked and mistrustful.
Friends of the US worry that they may never get the chance to recover from Trump’s first term. Instead they’re bracing, with teeth-gnashing anxiety, for the possibility of another horrifying American electoral surprise.
