The State of the Union Address 2020: A key event in the American presidential calendar
On 4 February 2020, President Donald Trump delivered his third annual State of the Union Address to a joint session of the US Congress. The event was staged in the Chamber of the House of Representatives, a day before before US Senators were to cast their votes in Trump’s impeachment proceedings. There were instances of both ungentlemanly behaviour, when President Trump appeared to ignore the proferred hand of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, as well as unladylike behaviour, when Pelosi subsequently tore up a copy of Trump’s speech in full view of television screens throughout the world.
Trump’s 63-minute State of the Union Address not only re-energised his election campaign for a second term as President of the USA, but also further defined his intended direction of travel. Before looking at the specifics of his speech, it is worth reminding ourselves about President Trump’s short, and yet eventful, career in politics. Trump is as far removed from your traditional politician as is possible, having never occupied a formal role in either State or in Federal politics in America. Not only that, but his early political sympathies actually lay with the Democratic Party, a not unnatural choice for an erstwhile New York City-based property developer.
Trump is one of a kind. His popularity among the large mass of disaffected voters in the US, in the de-industrialised Rust Belt, for example, derives from his lack of formal ties with the established political and media elite in Washington DC. Trump’s untainted political history thus legitimises a modus operandi that is guided by the tactics of deal making as outlined in his 1987 ghost-written bestseller, The Art of the Deal. Furthermore, by ignoring the etiquette and rules of conventional politics, he has chosen to communicate directly with the public through his prolific Twitter feed, in the process bypassing the purveyors of what he frequently refers to as “fake news”.
The latest State of the Union Address is a triumphalist tour de force, one that has been greeted with rapturous applause and repeated standing ovations from the Republican members of Congress. Even Pelosi herself stood up and applauded on fifteen separate occasions, and further clapped while remaining seated at several other times. Many aspirations and achievements are indeed equally shared and cherished by all American politicians, whatever their individual party backgrounds.
“America First” is the overarching theme of the speech, with the declared aim being to revive and restore the nation’s perceived rightful role as the leader of the free world. Trump takes credit for a booming economy, new job creation, increased border security, tighter immigration control, beneficial international trade, and a successful fight against global terrorism and tyranny.
Trump’s claims to have created a “roaring” economy have been backed by improved stock market performance, falling unemployment rates within all sections of American society, rising median household incomes, as well as falling poverty (as measured by welfare dependency), according to his own statements. A believer in “trickle-down” economics, he claims that massive tax cuts are the major reason behind the creation of seven million new jobs, and also a catalyst for new investment in hitherto neglected neighbourhoods within America. This new investment has evidently led to the restoration of America’s manufacturing base, with 12,000 new factories already having been constructed. Trump also promises investment in infrastructure, as well as to provide high-speed internet access to under-served rural areas of the US.
In matters of international trade, Trump believes in bespoke deals, negotiated on the basis of “fairness and reciprocity”. He has either renegotiated pre-existing multi-lateral trade agreements, as in the case of NAFTA (US-Canada-Mexico), or withdrawn entirely from them in the pursuit of new bilateral trade agreements. He claims that unfair trade deals were the most important reason why he ran for President in the first place, and that imposing tariffs on China was the right way to restore America’s competitive advantage in a previously very unequal scenario.
Enhanced border security is meant to restrict illegal immigration, as well as the trafficking of drugs and humans, across the 1,954-mile-long southern border with Mexico, which runs adjacent to 23 counties, within four states. The “long, tall, and very powerful” wall in Mexico remains a major plank of Trump’s policy to strengthen America’s borders, notwithstanding the continued porosity of a land border that is frequently bypassed illegally via underground tunnels or by alternative seaborne and airborne routes of traffic. Trump, however, claims that his policies are demonstrably working to America’s benefit. Cooperative agreements with Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras appear to have facilitated the process of restricting illegal border crossings, while allowing increased seizures of illicit drugs coming into America.
Immigration control is a particularly popular Trump policy. Trump supports the merit-based immigration of desirable migrants, coupled with the deportation of undesirable illegal immigrants or “aliens”, who are believed to be the source of much drug-related and violent crime. He strongly supports ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in their efforts to prevent the illegal movement of people and goods into the US and is vehemently opposed to sanctuary cities and states which provide “shelter” to undocumented aliens.
Current American foreign policy has elements of both isolationism and interventionism, the choice of either option being guided mostly by the need to protect American interests in a given situation. The US is fervently opposed to socialist regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which have all been subjected to crippling American-imposed sanctions. In addition, the US remains actively involved in fighting Islamic terrorism in the Middle East. Trump takes particular credit for the elimination of the ISIS caliphate and the killing of both its leader al-Baghdadi as well as the elimination of the Iranian General Soleimani. In his attempts at peacemaking he has even gone as far as to produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, which is widely regarded by the Palestinians as being rather one-sided.
Trump has made some limited concession to the environment in the form of his support for the trillion trees initiative. At the same time, in order to make America energy-independent, oil and natural gas production has been stepped up within the borders of the US, thereby increasing reliance on fossil fuels in an era dominated by the imperative to further reduce carbon emissions.
The need to safeguard American freedoms and liberties justifies increased military spending, to the tune of $2.2 trillion, so that no nation ever feels able to “mess with us”. While Trump seeks early withdrawal from the long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he remains committed to boosting military hardware production in all its forms and to further extending American military capabilities-most recently through the creation of a new Space Corps.
While Trump talks of healthcare reform, he is strongly opposed to the “socialist takeover” of healthcare. He rather wishes for lower-cost lower private healthcare insurance plans, and also supports lower prices for generic medicines. He opposes free taxpayer-funded care for illegal immigrants, while simultaneously supporting the continued funding of Medicare, social security, and the care of people with pre-existing medical conditions. He specifically supports efforts to tackle kidney disease, mental health, Alzheimer’s disease, and AIDS.
Despite frequently being described as a “racist”, Trump reaches out in his speech to those of “every colour, race, religion and creed”, while making several references to African-American achievement, to the civil rights movement, and to increased funding for “historically black” colleges and universities. He even mentions Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass in the same breath as many other conventional white American icons.
Trump continues to appeal to the Conservative heartlands of America through his support for school prayers, religious freedoms, and his opposition to abortion. His commitment to the First Amendment of the US Constitution is complemented by his equally strong support for the Second Amendment, which means that firearm control is unlikely to gain any momentum under a future Trump presidency.
The criminal and civil justice systems in the US are heavily politicised. Trump has taken advantage of the politically-based appointments system by appointing 187 new federal judges, including two members of the Supreme Court, to ensure continued and important support for his domestic agenda from within the highest levels of American judiciary.
To sum up, Trump has delivered a speech that will equally delight his wide and unswerving base of supporters as it will depress his Democratic Party opponents, who at the moment seem incapable of providing the kind of strong opposition that is to be expected in any mature democracy. Once again, the world will have to wait to see how events unfold in the coming months. In today’s newly liberated political environment, nothing can ever be taken for granted.
Ashis Banerjee