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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

The writer is a contributing editor to the FT, chief economist at American Compass and writes the newsletter Understanding America

Washington is full of optimism this week, but not confidence. At parties and galas where gossip is the main currency, and at podcasts where everyone is selling their own spin, positivity reigns supreme. “Trump really has a chance to . . . ” said the people. “There’s so much upside.”

It is undoubtedly a “vibe shift”, as the commentary suggests, especially compared to the old presidency which was slow and painful to end. The return of a president who can do anything will be a huge upgrade by default. But the great opportunity for a renewed administration to deliver a new “golden era”, as Trump’s team likes to put it, is incompatible with any certainty of how his administration will continue.

Everyone wants to talk about artificial intelligence, for example – though less because of the excitement about superintelligence than because of its more mundane potential for improving productivity. The issue is that continuing to improve the models and expand their capacity for widespread application will require Herculean infrastructure investments on almost unbelievable timelines.

In a possible world, Donald Trump and his team focus their agenda on the construction economy: rapid development of natural resources, expansion of infrastructure, subsidizing investment and training of workers. That makes a lot of sense, but it’s not something they talk about much. Trump himself is more likely to focus his enthusiasm on cryptocurrency, while high-profile supporters such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have spent most of their energy criticizing American culture and calling for more foreign investors. worker.

Likewise, the separation of the American and Chinese economies has become important and Trump has shown his support for it, including a call to withdraw the status of “permanent normal trade relations” with China in the Republican party platform. Despite issuing an executive order in 2020 to ban TikTok, he is now recasting himself as the savior. A law requiring the parent company, ByteDance, to divest the service to an American firm or else shut it down on January 19 brought the platform dark that day. Users received a notification that the company is looking forward to working with Trump to restore it. And Trump now says he’s going to do just that. In response, ByteDance brought TikTok back online, to the delight of users.

Is Trump the China hawk determined to reverse the mistakes of globalization, even if Americans have to experience some pain while climbing back out of the hole they dug themselves? Or is he more interested in scoring points as the president who defended TikTok after his predecessor neglected it?

There are countless similar questions. Will the fight to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 dominate the legislative calendar in the first year? Will the government adopt humane tactics for deporting illegal immigrants to preserve public support for the action, or continue with methods designed to fuel backlash and polarization?

Will the administration just enjoy attacking the excesses of the higher education system, or will it work just as hard to build worthwhile new non-college pathways to good jobs? Will the “Department of Government Efficiency” focus on the efficiency of the government or cause constant chaos outside of its scope?

Grounds for optimism lie in the quality of senior appointments Trump has made, which represent remarkable improvements over his first-term choices. If the administration’s discipline and execution traveled the distance from a Mike Pence to a JD Vance, a Rex Tillerson to a Marco Rubio, or a Reince Priebus to a Susie Wiles, a a new golden age may be upon us.

While in 2016 Trump exceeded the supply lines of supporting institutions, ideas and personnel, he can now draw from a deep bank of talent and a thick playbook that aligns with his own priorities. Across agencies and White House offices, he quietly kept his team of serious players.

But the team captain, the coach and the quarterback is still Trump himself. Not many people are good at placing bets on the decisions he will make in the Oval Office, least of all when predicting he will do what conventional analysis recommends. The fruit is bigger and juicier and hanging lower than before, and now everyone is waiting to see what he will choose.