Optimism but not confidence as Trump takes control

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

Washington was full of optimism this weekend, but not confidence. At receptions and galas where gossip is the main currency, and at podcasts where everyone sells their own spin, there was an air of positivity. . . “, said the people. “There is so much.”

It’s certainly a “novel shift,” as the comments suggest, especially when contrasted with an aging presidency that’s slowly and painfully coming to an end. The return of a president who can do anything at all would be a major improvement the huge opportunity to usher in a new “golden age,” as the Trump team likes to put it, doesn’t match any certainty about how his administration is likely to fare.

Everyone wants to talk about artificial intelligence, for example, though less because of the excitement of superintelligence than because of the more conventional potential for high productivity. The problem is that continuing to refine the models and expanding their capabilities for widespread use will require Herculean infrastructure investments on a barely realistic schedule. :

In a possible world, Donald Trump and his team focus their economic agenda on construction. rapid natural resource development, investment subsidies, and workforce training. That would make a lot of sense, but that’s not what they’ve talked about much. Trump himself is more likely to focus his enthusiasm on cryptocurrency, while high-profile supporters, like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have spent much of their energy criticizing American culture and calling for more foreign workers.

Likewise, the separation of the US and Chinese economies has become very important, and Trump has expressed his support for it, including a call in the Republican Party platform to revoke China’s “permanent normal trading relationship” status. However, despite issuing an executive order to ban TikTok in 2020, he is now recasting himself as its savior. The law, which requires parent company ByteDance to provide the service to the US company or else shut it down by January 19, led to the platform going dark that day. Users have been notified that the company is looking forward to working with Trump to restore it. And Trump now says that he will do just that. In response, ByteDance brought TikTok back online to the delight of users.

Is China hawk Trump determined to undo the wrongs of globalization, even if Americans have to suffer some pain as they climb back out of the hole they dug themselves?Or is he more interested in scoring points because the president, who? defended TikTok after his predecessor let it languish.

There are countless similar questions. Will the fight over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 dominate the legislative calendar in the first year?Will the government adopt humanitarian tactics to deport illegal immigrants to maintain public support for the action, or will it continue to fuel backlash and polarization?

Will the administration simply enjoy attacking the excesses of the higher education system, or will it work just as hard to create useful new, non-college pathways to good jobs?Will the Office of Government Efficiency focus on government efficiency or be permanently out of scope? cause confusion.

The grounds for optimism lie in the quality of Trump’s senior appointments, which represent extraordinary improvements over his first-term picks.If the administration’s discipline and execution have gone as far as Mike Pence to JD Vance, Rex Tillerson to Marco Rubio, or Reince Priebus. to Susie Wiles, then we may indeed have a new golden age upon us.

While Trump outgrew the supply lines of supporting institutions, ideas and personnel in 2016, he can now draw from a deep bench of talent and a tight playbook in line with his own priorities.

But the captain, coach and quarterback of the team is still Trump himself. Not many people made good bets on the decisions he made in the Oval Office, especially when they predicted he would do what conventional analysis suggests. The fruit is bigger and juicier and lower hanging than ever, and now everyone is waiting to see what he will reap.