Regardless of the reasons behind Donald Trump's electoral victory, what counts is that he has become the next president of the United States and that change has triumphed over continuity. Trump comes from outside the “establishment” which is epitomised by Hillary Clinton who was determined to carry the torch of the Obama presidency into a third term and perhaps even a fourth. But the American people had another opinion. The billionaire businessman entered the campaign armed with an array of unconventional ideas that shocked many in the US, after which the shock rippled throughout the rest of the world. Right now all capitals in the world are feeling no small degree of anxiety as they send congratulatory messages to the winner. Trump will keep his responses vague until the time comes for him to move into the Oval Office at which point the masks will come off and perhaps the gloves as well. In the Arab world there are two schools of thought in response to the Trump victory. There is the less worried that holds that the Arabs have dealt with US presidents of all stripes — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, interventionists and isolationists, and various mixtures of all of these. Still, US presidents come and go while US interests remain and US decision-making institutions work to press the president into the mould that makes him part of the ongoing system. Trump, the proponents of this school maintain, will be no exception to the rule. He will be pushed through the lathes that will shape him into the customary manageable form. The second school approaches the question from a different angle. Individuals have roles to play in history and democratic countries do not hold elections as a form of national sport but as a way to settle choices between different alternatives. This time, and in contrast to many times in the past, the US was sharply divided and the side that won is different to everything that has prevailed and become familiar since World War II and since the end of the Cold War in particular. Whatever the merits of these two schools in terms of the accuracy of their observations, analyses and predictions, caution is of the essence. Trump has hardly been magnanimous towards the Arabs. When he began his campaign, he knew nothing about them and frequently confused them with Muslims in general, and he always made a point of implying that Islam was synonymous with radicalism and terrorism. But this falls into an ideological and conceptual framework that rests on two pillars: America comes first and all other countries are either scheming enemies, allies who gain from it, or neighbours who take advantage of it. Taken together both pillars suggest that, contrary to common belief, the US lost and not gained from economic and political globalisation. However, according to this thinking, the loss could be turned around if the US uses its strength and plays its cards right. The most important of these are not just its military might but also its huge market, which attracts people and goods. Ultimately, Trump ideology is a blend of isolationism and new kinds of imperialism. It may be open to both friends and former or potentially former enemies as long as they pay the price for American protection and as long they listen to Washington more attentively than they have in the past. Within this conceptual framework fall the Arabs who bear the historic responsibility for the most important challenge facing the US and the world: “Radical Islamic terrorism”. They are viewed either as allies who are supposed to fight that bloodthirsty trend that threatens international and regional security or as enemies because some among them subscribe to that destructive ideology. But whether the Arabs are on this side or that, they have to pay the price when the US destroys that phenomenon and when they take part in the battle against it. In all events, the Arabs are not welcome in the US because they are Muslims. Those with long established roots in the US and those who have acquired American nationality more recently are to be singled out for special security treatment. On top of having to pay in the foregoing ways, the Arabs, and especially the Gulf Arabs, will have to pay for US protection or if they want to remain within the US defence system against Iran. Naturally, this leaves no room for a strategic partnership of the sort that has existed for decades since World War II. Rather, it is the recipe for a form of dependency within the framework of the US defence system. This is where Trump's “clarity” stops and dozens of pending questions continue to nag. For example, how far will he go towards rekindling US antagonism against Iran and reopening the Iranian nuclear question? Or what about the prospects of a US-Russian understanding or even accord? The flirting has started in that direction. But there still remains the question as to how much he would step on the brakes of the courtship if the Europeans, Arabs and Japanese paid the price, or how fast he would rush into an embrace that would divide the world and frustrate the emerging powers of China and India. This line of thinking may seem a bit farfetched, but it is based on what Donald Trump himself wrote and said before, and after fielding himself as a prospective president, and on projections as to what this would imply with regard to his policies. At any rate, we need to keep watch. Above all, it will be crucial to scrutinise the people he selects for his presidential team. One thing is for sure: Dealing with Donald Trump will be very different from anything we have experienced with previous US administrations. There will be at least a few things that may work in positive ways for us. Most importantly, Trump does not belong to the neoconservatives who subscribe to such notions as “creative chaos” or who support such trends and groups as the “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood. Nor will he champion rights groups: He has had the temerity to openly advocate torture. Judging by his own remarks, he is no friend of renewable energy. In fact, he has already made it clear that he wants to boost exploration for conventional energy resources such as petroleum and coal. If, in the short run, this precipitates further drops in oil prices, in the mid to long terms it could cause oil prices to shoot up. In such matters, and perhaps a good many others, the Arabs hold the key. The more they safeguard the sources of their strength and enhance their unity, the greater their ability to handle changing circumstances and to turn the ominous to the fortuitous and risk to opportunity. Trump is not going to be an ordinary US president. But maybe there was never any such thing. Newcomers always had to be put through a process of taming and moulding. In all events, it is no exaggeration to say that Arab capitals — Cairo and Riyadh above all — need to coordinate very closely. The writer is chairman of the board, CEO and director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies.
