Donald Trump is Good for America

Never before a sitting US president is impeached twice. Donald Trump is the first — and hopefully the last in the US history. This time around, Trump is charged with inciting riot to the US Capitol by the House of Representative.

Trump is undoubtedly a bad president for America. He is not fit for office, and he clearly has issues.

But I’d argue that Trump is actually good for America — in the long term. Trump is a wake up call for Americans, and for the world; a call to not get complacent.

Professor Kishore Mahbubani — when asked about the outlook of Biden’s presidency for China — said that Trump is bad for China in the short term, but is good for China, in the long term.

The same is true for America. Trump is (probably) bad for America in the short term. But Trump is definitely good for America in the long term, as he is the wake up call.

Trump does not start the division in American politics. He is a symptom of a disabled American politics. Trump did not create the polarization of American politics. He is the outcome of the polarization. And he capitalized on that when he ran for office in 2016.

Many of us was left stunned in a surreal situation on November 3, when Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 election. And again when the electoral college certified Trump’s victory. And again when he was sworn in office on January 20, 2017.

But that was the truth. For the past four years now, America had been led by a 70-something year old that is deemed by many as not fit for office.

Despite some breakthrough in US foreign policy (talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and the Abraham Accords), Trump has failed America.

He pulled out of TPP, TTIP, the Paris Agreement, WHO, UNESCO, UNHRC, and many more. He basically disrupted the very basic of the conduct of US foreign policy.

And this, should be a wake up call, not only for Americans, but for us all in the rest of the world. Trump has exposed how fragile our international system is. Trump has exposed how prone we are to unilateralism and unilateral moves taken by the unilateralists. Trump has exposed how weak the White House is. And that needs a fixing.

The surreal moments in US foreign policy — like how Trump met Putin in Helsinki; how Trump met Kim Jong Un both in Hanoi and Singapore; how Trump brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel and Bahrain, UAE, Sudan, and Morocco; Trump’s absence from ASEAN and APEC Summits; as well as Trump’s unthinkable hostility to its partners like the EU, NATO, and G7 — should be a wake up call, that we need American leadership in international politics more than ever.

With a growing influence of a rising superpower — China, the rest of the world needs America to help the world in doing the check and balance on China.

With increasing protectionism and unilateralism all over the world, the world needs America to defend the very core foundation of the Post-World War II world order created by America.

The very institutions created by America such as the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and the UN should be guarded by America and its values.

All of these are either abandoned or faced with hostility by Trump in the past four years.

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Now, that that the House has impeached Trump for the second time, we are waiting for the Senate to resume and convene the trial — as Senators are scheduled to be back on January 19. The additional two Senators-elect from Georgia are expected to be certified — and join their colleagues — on January 22 at the latest. By the time Joe Biden enters office by January 20, the trial of Donald Trump by the Senate would have been convened.

While the world is watching whether Trump will be barred forever from running for office ever again, the world is definitely watching how the Post-Trump America under Biden could act on the lessons it has learned in the past four years.