Politics as a business

Donald Trump's first official tour has taken him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The same thing happened during his first term in 2017. Trump is set to sign multimillion-dollar contracts with the Saudi monarchy and the Gulf states, which welcome him as a friend, partner, and ally. The rapprochement with the Syrian dictatorship is profitable.

Trump's foreign policy has a business component, which he himself makes explicit when referring to the business deals that must accompany agreements with other states. The expedition includes tech nouveau riche like Elon Musk and Zuckerberg, and executives from firms like IBM who are working on the revolutionary implications of artificial intelligence.

Politics as a business has replaced politics as an ideal for promoting democracy, trade, and freedoms.

Trump favors very wealthy allies with an authoritarian vision of politics.

Never mind that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was linked to the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Donald Trump, in his first term, said the United States “was not going to jeopardize multi-million-dollar contracts” over the death of a Washington Post journalist.

The president is leaning toward allies with deep pockets and an authoritarian vision of politics, while distancing himself from partners who shared ideas and strategies in the 20th century.

In the United States, it is widely blamed that many of the deals with Gulf countries are confused with the interests the Trump family has cultivated in recent years.

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Trump's paradigm is politics as business, backed by military force and technological capabilities. It is unclear whether this strategy will successfully replace the "soft power" inspired by Professor Joseph Nye years ago, following the defeat in Vietnam and the Soviet fiasco in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It may be an irony of fate that Professor Nye passed away on May 6.

The United States won the 20th century not only through its military strength but also through the appeal of its scientific advances, its culture, and the ideals of a free system. The authors of Trump's speech may have made a serious miscalculation. Authoritarian China is challenging it militarily and technologically.