Interest in the current process leading to presidential elections in the United States in November, will surely be increasing in the Caribbean as in the rest of the world. What is already noticeable, and perhaps surprising, is the current competition within both the Republican and Democratic parties towards the selection of a candidate, as well as the rising competition between them as efforts are made to finalise that part of the process.
Surprising too, has been the spectacle of a contender for the Republican Party candidature, Donald Trump, who has had no previous experience in participating in American elections at either state or national level, using his extensive financial resources to draw support, while simultaneously choosing to attack the expected Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton, even before the Democrats have completed their traditional process of selecting a candidate. So the process already has the aura of a competition between the two parties, even as their candidate selection arrangements are still on the way to completion.
Observers and government officials within Caricom, and indeed in the wider Caribbean, will therefore be faced with almost delaying their own assessments of the probable conclusions of the selection and election processes of each party, even as those processes have also already included attempts, particularly by Trump, at denigration of the political stature and record of Hillary Clinton. And it is noticeable that he has already virtually dispatched contenders from within the Republican Party, by essentially using the same tactic of denigration.
Trump has been conscious of the fact that his entry is novel, in the sense that he has, up to now, never held political office, and cannot therefore go to the electorate on the basis of a previous political record of governance either at the state or national levels. Instead he has chosen to dismiss the efforts of other political contenders, particularly in the Republican Party itself, painting a picture of various of them having done little to sustain the growth of the American economy on the one hand, or maintain the prestige of the United States in the international system. And that in that in that sense, they are viewed with a certain scepticism by the national electorate.
Trump has therefore been presenting himself as bringing a novel approach to governance, based largely on his record as a businessman.
So even before the two parties have formally settled on candidatures for the presidency, the political debate has gone beyond this, a presumption being that certainly the primary elections within both the parties have already indicated their future candidates for the national election. In that context too, Trump has been visibly seeking to mend fences with his initial opponents in the Republican primaries, and it is probably true to say that the general population of the country has now accepted his approach to finalising the selection process.
On the Democratic side, observers will probably have been surprised by the longevity of the effort of Senator Bernie Sanders vis-à-vis Hillary Clinton. Putting forward what observers in our region would perceive as something approaching a socialist agenda, many, probably including Mrs Clinton herself, will have been surprised at the strength he has shown, particularly among the youth and working class supporters of the Democratic Party.
In that respect Sanders has shown up a void in Hillary Clinton’s approach, and there can be little doubt now that she will be anxious to draw on his support, given that the general consensus is that she will prevail as the candidate of the Democrats. Yet Sanders seems to be unwilling to concede up to now, observers suggesting that the longer he remains a substantial force in the primary elections process, the more it is likely that Mrs Clinton will feel constrained to accept some elements of the plans that he has proposed.
In a sense, the campaigns have, up to now, not shown a very substantial interest in dealing with the foreign policy approaches of the United States. True, Trump has tried to demonstrate that the Obama presidency has diminished the status of the United States in world affairs, the President having, as a general line of action, sought to proceed in the settlement of international issues through attempts at inducing negotiations.
In that regard, Trump has sought to draw a picture of a government almost approaching a stance of appeasement vis-à-vis those perceived by Trump himself as hostile to American interests. Thus, for example, while general international opinion has tended to support the approach of the President to a settlement with Iran as a means of inhibiting further division in the Middle East, and in a similar fashion there has been approval of his policy of reconciliation with Cuba, Trump has seemed to portray these efforts as appeasement.
In that regard, he has sought to tie Mrs Clinton’s potential approach to global affairs in the same fashion, though her record as Secretary of State seems to have demonstrated a generally harder line of approach than that of the President. Nevertheless, though Trump has attempted to take a hard line, including his proposal of building a wall between the US and Mexico, and his exclusion of Muslims from entering the United States, it has gradually seemed to be the case that he is sensitive to a certain lack of public credibility as far as these policies are concerned.
As the campaigns within the two parties have gone on however, Trump seems, up to this point, to be having a harder time consolidating his party support, and is now visibly seeking to mend fences with those who were competitors, well aware that the cohesion of the party is an absolute necessity for fighting the national election in November, and that he will need the campaign finance that traditional Republican funders can provide.
We are yet to see how this present process of reconciliation is advanced, and from our point of view, whether it will have an effect on Trump accepting a foreign policy line that is more acceptable to hemispheric and international opinion.
