From the CEO: What will change under a Trump administration?

Wow! We didn’t see that coming! Even with the Simpsons’ prediction and the fact that it was a two-horse race and the second horse had some significant hurdles of her own to overcome, it still sent shockwaves around the globe when the US voted Donald Trump as President-elect on 8 November. So when the inauguration of Donald Trump finally takes place on 20 January 2017, what can we expect?

At the time of writing this article, only a few days after the election, we had seen three days of share market volatility, gold price variations, exchange rate dips and rises and wide and varied condemnation and commendation. This, for me, is one major challenge Trump will have in the short term. How do you unite a country that has over 50m people voting so strongly for you NOT to be in office?

There are some key issues and political decisions that President Trump will have to make that could change America’s relationship with the rest of the world. He has been hugely critical of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for more than 60 years. He has attacked the organisation as being obsolete and said that America can no longer afford to protect countries unless they pay up. The world waits to see how this will play out. Will he be able to ease tensions with Russia and how strongly will he back up his promise to defeat the so-called Islamic State? And what does this mean for Australia? The US has always been our strongest ally when it comes to matters of national security. Is that about to change?

Donald Trump’s trade policies, if he imposes them, would amount to the biggest change to the way America does business with the rest of the world that we have ever seen. He has threatened to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and impose a 35% tariff on imports from Mexico and a 45% tariff on imports from China. It is hard to see any of these threats actually being carried out, such is the risk of the trade war that may follow, but then again it is what he has said he will do. Even though he has not specifically mentioned the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, it will be interesting to see what impact any changes to the way America trades in the future will have on Australia. Will his open confrontation with China threaten to put Australia in a compromising position with our economic trading partners?

Climate change is another significant global issue that will be impacted by the US if Trump has his way. He has promised to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement within 100 days of taking office and says he will do everything in his power to reverse the climate change regulations introduced by President Barack Obama. He has pledged to stop government funding of clean energy projects and climate change initiatives and push ahead with coal and fossil fuel as the prime energy source production. What impact will his view of “affordable energy” versus “renewable energy” have on global warming and climate change?

Trump’s views on immigration have the potential to impact on Australia. The world needs compassionate and decisive leadership that is able to manage the mass humanitarian problem relating to immigration and refugees. Trump has vowed to stop immigration from the southern borders. He has called for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US until his representatives can figure out what impact this will have. Australia rightly prides itself on its multiculturalism. But humanitarian and refugee issues remain an important political issue here and are we likely to be impacted by what stance America finally takes?

These are issues that will have global impact. Then, of course, there are the questions that America waits to have answered internally. Will he build “The Wall” and who will pay for it? Will he scrap “Obamacare” and what will he replace it with? Will he deport the “hundreds of thousands of immigrants” that he says arrived as children illegally with their parents?

As you can see, there are many questions waiting to be answered. One thing we can be certain of – President Trump will make change. History will show us whether it is good or bad for America and the rest of us.