3 national capitals that will be the unhappiest about Trump’s victory & 3 that will be happiest

In the capitals that will now be the unhappiest, a Kamala Harris victory was presumed, and a lot of actions and calculations were predicated upon that.

Let me give you a listing of three each: Three capitals that will be the unhappiest with Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris to become the next US president. And three that will be the happiest.

I begin with the unhappiest because the difference in this case will be the most substantive.

And also, because the actions in these capitals so far were predicated upon the presumption of a Democratic victory. Because the presumption was that Kamala Harris, particularly after Joe Biden had withdrawn, was pulling away. She had built a margin and was adding to it.

And even towards the end, it looked like she had built a small margin in bellwether states or in swing states. That was not borne out. But in these capitals, a lot of actions and calculations were predicated upon that.

The unhappiest capital will be Kyiv in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fought a remarkable two-and-a-half-year war. Until a decade back, Ukraine did not even have an army, navy or air force.

In fact, there is still no navy and hardly any air force. And yet, he has been able to fight the Russians. If not fully to a standstill, he has reduced them to a very slow gain in the war. 

He was hoping and presuming that the Democrats would come back and the support from the Americans and Europeans would not only continue, but be strengthened. That the Americans would double down on this. In the process, he would get better weapons, longer-range weapons, and also the freedom to use these weapons to strike inside the Russian mainland.

That is unlikely to happen now with Trump’s victory. One should not say definitely because it’s Trump. He can change his mood.

Trump promised several times in his campaign that when he came to power, the first thing he would do was stop the war in Ukraine. What he said was, “I will call Putin, I will call Zelenskyy”— to stop the war in a standstill manner, which means, ‘Each one, be where you are. Don’t try to take more territory. You will also not lose more territory. And then, in the course of time, we will negotiate what will happen.’

If that happens, Zelenskyy is in deep trouble, because he has lost a lot of territory, about 18-19 percent of Ukraine. He has lost a lot of people.

His army’s morale will already have crashed. If there is ambiguity, can it keep fighting? We’ve seen armies collapse in these situations in no time. 

So, he will wait for clarity from Trump. Even if Trump wants to say, ‘No, I will bring about a ceasefire. Even if it looks like I’m enforcing it to Ukraine’s cost because they’re the ones who’ve lost territory, I will do it.’ 

That might be a relief for Zelenskyy. But if Trump takes time thinking about it, Zelenskyy will really struggle because Putin will take advantage of it.

So, Zelenskyy stands in a lose-lose situation. A little downside to this will be that since World War 2, there hasn’t really been a substantive case where a country has been able to make a territorial conquest over another country and keep that territory. Usually, when countries capture territory, they give it back.

The Israelis captured the Sinai Desert. That was given back. The Golan Heights, the Israelis have annexed.

And under the last Trump presidency, the US accepted that. But most of the rest of the world has not. So, in this case, if Putin is able to keep these spoils of war, that will set a new post-World War 2 precedent.

The second most anxious capital will be Tehran, because the ayatollahs are smart, as are their diplomats and politicians. 

They had built the proxies they call the Axis of Resistance: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinians in the West Bank, the Houthis and their militias in Syria and Iraq.

They were using these proxy fighters. They were only lately drawn into missile or bombing exchanges with Israel.

Why were they doing it? Because they thought if they kept it like that, at some stage, they would be able to get the Americans involved to bring about some kind of truce with Israel. In the process, they could resume the dialogue with the Americans on uranium enrichment, and finally get rid of or at least bring about a relaxation of the sanctions that have been hurting them. 

They will now look at Trump’s rise with great concern because he had withdrawn from the earlier agreement that would have taken away the sanctions. The Biden administration, as we know, had been counselling restraint to Israel in its retaliation to Iran, telling it not to hit nuclear sites or kill important leaders because that escalation would become too much.

So, they’ve been counselling Israel and there has been a back channel working between the Biden administration and Iran. Will that still exist, or will Trump be more inclined to let Benjamin Netanyahu deal with the Iranians? And maybe join in himself in some ways to try and bring about a capitulation by the Iranian regime, at least on its nuclear programme. This is more unilateral than Iran would have liked, because the Iranians are great negotiators.

So, the Iranians have lost one of their biggest instruments in geopolitics and global power play: their diplomatic skill.

The idea of using their proxies to build pressure on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the western world and through that create leverage for a deal; of peace in the Middle East in exchange for the lifting of sanctions—that idea seems to be over with the rise of Trump. 

Number three is Dhaka. I could have picked one of the other capitals. Brussels, for example, because Europe—which Trump sees as a spoilt brat—is going to be very worried. I am picking Dhaka because it’s of such great consequence to us. 

The current administration in Dhaka does not have any constitutional or legal sanctity. As for the promises that were made—that reforms would soon be carried out and constitutional amendments were in the works—all of that’s not happening.

On the other hand, bans and victimisation of Sheikh Hasina’s party and supporters are happening. At the same time, Islamist parties and some groups bordering on terrorist in their ideology are being legitimised—causing a lot of trouble on the streets, in the countryside.

They were depending very much on American support because the Yunus administration was a Biden administration venture. 

When Yunus went to the UN General Assembly this time, the US president and top officials paid him a lot more attention than the elected Pakistani prime minister. You can see that in pictures of him with Biden. It almost looked like Biden was treating him as his favourite child. But now, the parents are gone. Trump is going to be impatient.

I’ve not got any videos yet but I’ve seen some reports that a Bangladeshi delegation, probably from the Awami League side, had gone to meet Trump in 2016. And he supposedly said to them that ‘there is this microfinance guy who’s giving funds to the Democrats to have me defeated’. I’ve seen the story on a couple of Indian TV channels’ websites, but I will not vouch for them. 

At the same time, the statement Trump issued on Diwali showed no sympathy for this Bangladesh government. If anything, it bordered on contempt. In Dhaka, there will be a lot of worry as a result of this.

As I said, I could have said Brussels, I could also have said Ottawa. Because Justin Trudeau is in trouble. 

He’s getting very unpopular and is trying to push the elections as late as possible. But he will look at this very closely because if the liberal side has lost out so badly in the US, what will happen in Canada? Many of the same problems and challenges exist there, too.

In America, if anything, the economy was doing very well under the Biden administration. In Canada under Trudeau, even the economy is not doing very well.

Why am I not saying Beijing will be worried? Because it doesn’t have to be.

Because one, Beijing has the size. It has many markets, including the American market. And what will Trump do to Beijing on trade? Raise tariffs? But he raised tariffs last time. Biden didn’t withdraw them.

I don’t know how much worse it can get for China. At least, that’s how I suspect Beijing will see this.

Beijing’s concern, if anything, is something that will take us to our next section. That concern will be, ‘What if Putin now thinks he can declare victory and this war is off his back? So, Putin becomes less dependent on Beijing.’

In that case, what’s the future of the new alliance they had built, of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea? In the process, China was also trying to build a leadership position in the Global South. That will have to be recalculated.

That said, we come to the three capitals that will be the happiest. 

If Kyiv is the unhappiest, Moscow has to be the happiest. If war stops now and sanctions go, Putin can declare victory and rebuild the economy and his army. He’s been stretched to the limits. 

He will also then rise among his friends as a winner. Many of his friends, including India, will sigh in relief that they don’t have to worry about the possibility, however remote, of a Russian defeat, a collapse of the Russian state or at least the Putin regime. That will be over if Trump delivers on his promise.

Number two is Jerusalem. Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. India might still not recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but when Trump was president last time, he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. That’s why I put emphasis on it.

Trump will come like a boon to Netanyahu. It is simply as if Netanyahu’s most important prayer has been answered, because this will stop the pressure he was facing from the Biden administration, the frequent visits from Antony Blinken to ask for a ceasefire or hostage negotiations, and generally playing both sides between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Trump is unlikely to do that.

Chances are, Trump is going to tell Netanyahu, as he’s been saying in the campaign, to finish the job. And if he can help him finish it faster, he might do that. Netanyahu will probably have some respite, at least for quite some time, on pressures to concede a two-state solution, because right now Trump will not be in the mood for that. In the course of time, as Trump tries to expand the Abraham Accords and bring in Saudi Arabia, I am quite sure the two-state solution idea will be back on the table.

And the third of the three happiest capitals is New Delhi. First of all, the pressure and lecturing that the Modi government has faced from the Biden administration will probably go down.

I’m not saying there will be an immediate respite on the Gurpatwant Singh Pannun issue. Remember, that case is now part of the judicial process. So, the Department of Justice is dealing with it. The capability of a President to interfere in these things is very limited. However, the public shaming, lecturing, etc. will go down. And who knows, in the course of time, a Trump administration may be less patient with Pannun’s kind of activism that threatens their relationship with an important country. 

Again, for India, there may be respite in Bangladesh, if the concerns I imagined in Dhaka turn out to be right, and also in Myanmar.How this plays out will also depend on the cabinet officials that Trump chooses.

But I am sure the Modi government is very happy with this result.