You have got a new president. Congratulations! The election process went well this time and shows that democracy still works in the USA. The results were certified peacefully and in an organized manner. The contrast is big to what happened four years ago. We all remember the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021. The role of Mr. Trump in this attack has been studied and discussed a lot. It is true that he did not specifically order his supporters to attack Capitol, but he had systematically created the momentum for this kind of invasion through repeated use of vilifying rhetoric that inspired his people, i.e. the right-wing extremists. He encouraged the people to collect to Capitol, called on Pence to block the Congress’s confirmation of the election result declaring that, if Pence failed to act, the rally crowd would not let the confirmation to take place (“We are just not going to let that happen”), urged them to “fight like hell” or “you are not going to have country anymore”. It is fair to say that he rather encouraged the crowd to violence than tried to prevent the invasion although the chaos was already ongoing, and his own advisers had strongly advised him to stop the attack.

Immediately after the Capitol attack many republican politicians said that “we cannot accept this, enough is enough”. I thought that this could have been the moment when at least the leading republicans would have taken more distance to Trump, but I was wrong. A few weeks later the rhetoric on the Capitol attack changed from “this was an attack against the US democracy” to “this was a normal demonstration”. The delegates were ready to abandon their values and political moral.

You wrote in your last letter that Trump is not a criminal. You are perhaps right, but when we also consider how he tried to impact the election officials and manipulate the election results, I would say that he is pretty close. Richard Nixon was saved in the Watergate scandal, because he retired voluntarily. Trump was saved because he was elected as a president.

Covid pandemia hit the world in 2020. It was a shock to the economy worldwide. Governments in basically all the countries had to loan money from the markets and boost the economy through public expenditure. Inflation rate increased and the central banks both in the US and Europe were forced to increase interest rates, which of course had a negative impact on the economic growth and created a risk of increased unemployment. You say that the last four years have been terrible in the US. This is very likely true for many people, because the prices went up and living costs increased. But at macro level Biden’s administration succeeded very well in the economy, much better than the rest of the world. Under Biden’s administration, real GDP rose 12,6 percent. Since the pandemic, economic growth in the US has far outpaced that of peer nations. Business investment is up and unemployment is low. The starting point for Trump from US economic perspective is very good. I would assume that growth will continue at least in a short run, because Trump will lower the taxes and cut restrictive rules for the companies. But what will happen in a bit longer time frame? It is difficult to predict, because we do not know how strongly he will implement the measures he has promised. We do know however that higher import tariffs will raise the prices, export tariffs will also rise, and the global economy will suffer, which will also impact negatively on the US. Deporting immigrants in the scale he has promised will certainly cause problems in American agricultural and construction industries and will undermine economic growth. One thing that we easily forget is the fact that both parties have significantly increased the budget deficits. The US economy is based on borrowed money. Trump will continue this development although he has promised to cut the deficit. He must loan more money to finance his tax reductions. It is impossible to cut public expenditure so much that they would balance the tax reductions. Republican party has historically been very reluctant to increase the budget deficit, but this is one thing that has changed in the party because of Trump. The change happened in Trump’s first presidential period.

I am not so much concerned about how much Trump can cause problems to US or global economy. My main concern is about how much he can ruin the US democratic system. It is normal in the US that the top-level officials are replaced when the president changes. But Trump’s intention is to deepen the replacements to much lower organizational layers. He wants to have loyal people throughout the administration. Loyalty counts, competence is a secondary issue. He also wants to strengthen the president’s power, make ministry of justice serve the president rather than the justice, he also wants to weaken the role of the central bank as an independent body. He somehow admires the dictators like Orban in Hungary. Trump’s delegation has already visited Orban’s strategists to learn how Orban took the power in Hungary. The change has happened over the years in a formally democratic process, but the country is not anymore democratic. Orban and Trump are populistic politicians but very talented in their populism. I wonder, if they have studied the methods of the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in Hitler’s administration or are they adopting his methods by nature. Goebbels implemented the following principles in his propaganda: do not worry about the truth, a good story is more important, repeat the story over and over again and it will become the truth, point out the enemy, express clearly that you are suffering because of this enemy. Goebbels was very popular at his time.

Trump has promised to solve the Ukraine war in 24 hours. He certainly has realized by now that he cannot do it in 24 hours, but on the other hand he must keep the promise or lose his credibility. The key issue is whether he is willing to contribute to a stable, permanent peace agreement or would he be satisfied with a ceasefire that would let Putin continue the war after a while. A permanent peace will require security guarantees to Ukraine, which means a strong military power from the West. Unfortunately, Europe does not have the sufficient military capability to provide these security guarantees and therefore a commitment of the US would again be needed. Trump is basically reluctant to tie US military power to a problem that looks to him like a Europe specific problem only. I just hope that Trump himself would understand, or his advisors would explain to him that the war in Ukraine has global implications that will impact on the US, too. And certainly, Trump wants to show to the rest of the world that he can handle Putin and does not want the same kind of episode happen that happened in the Helsinki summit with Putin in 2018, where Trump believed more in what Putin said than what his own intelligence service had reported.

Mankind is currently having several global problems that are fundamental in nature, and would require multilateral co-operation, climate change being one. Trump does not believe in warnings and facts from scientists regarding climate change and therefore wants to pump more oil and neglect measures for more carbon free world. This is irresponsible. Fortunately, many states and many companies do not agree with Trump. And a question mark is also how eager investors are to invest in oil business anymore.

This was a long story. I understand that you do not agree with my comments, which you have probably heard already many times before. I do not believe either that my comments would change your thinking at all. I accept that you think as you think although I do not fully understand the reasoning behind your opinions. I can understand that many people vote for Trump because the other choice is even worse. But it is a mystery to me why so many US citizens honestly believe that Trump is perhaps the best president ever.

In any case, I wish you all the best for 2025.

Heikki