Can Trump be the new Reagan?

Eight years ago, at a post-election breakfast party we threw in POLITICO’s Brussels offices, I watched Donald Trump claim victory in a presidential election for the first time with shell-shocked European legislators and policymakers.

The reaction in global capitals this Wednesday morning was very different. Anxiety in many, jubilation in some. But not shock. The world has experience with Trump in office. These same people from the Brussels party in 2016 have spent months preparing for a possible restoration.

There’s something else that’s different and more unexpected. One of America’s perceived weaknesses is our “polarized” and “dysfunctional” politics. I’ve not heard those words since the election was called early for Trump. The manner of his victory — a comfortable sweep of the swing states, the popular vote and what could be a majority in both houses of Congress — neuters the charge that for all of America’s huge advantages over any other rival, what dooms us to be a fading giant is our messy internal politics.

This election is clarifying. Trump will lead a unified party, unlike after 2016, and most likely a unified government as well. You can call that many things but that’s not a recipe for dysfunction or a sign of debilitating polarization for the time being. Trump has a mandate. He won’t be litigating his victory like he had to with the Russia probe. He has plenty of other baggage, including some legal troubles, and 78 years of habits. But Trump is a far stronger figure than the ’16 version when he was distrusted by Republican mandarins and despised by Democrats for taking the White House after losing by three million votes. Stronger at home, and as a result abroad.

This political comeback gives Trump credibility and freedom on the world stage he didn’t have in 2017. That’s not to say he will be more “presidential,” not by conventional standards. “Unpredictable,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the other Donald this week. I’m not suggesting it means the U.S. is bound to be stronger. Trump’s isolationism, his thing for Vladimir Putin and trade protectionism are red flags from a now long public life.

I’m saying Trump has the ability to shape the world like he didn’t before. This is horrifying or exciting, depending on whether Trump chooses to engage with the world or hunker down. “Gloom and despair,” is the mood in most of Europe, according to former Swedish Prime Minister and face of European establishment Carl Bildt. In the Free Press, the British economic historian and columnist Niall Ferguson discerns the potential for Trump to be a powerful presence on the global stage, seeing a “line of continuity” from Reagan to Trump who can lead the free to victory in “Cold War II.”

The world is more complicated and dangerous than the one Trump left behind as president in 2021. In this Cold War, the U.S. faces an empowered axis of authoritarians led by China, joined by a Russia at war in Europe, Iran at war in the Middle East and North Korea. This group gathered last month in Kazan, Russia with others like South Africa and NATO member Turkey in a kind of summit of the parallel non-U.S. world.

American allies in Asia and Europe are looking to Washington for leadership. Will Trump 47 surprise them? That depends on whether “Make America Great Again” is more about, to use a couple other slogans that Trumpists love, “America First” (in the sense of the 1930s isolationist Father Coughlin) or “Peace Through Strength” (still unmistakably Ronnie). His choice.

Three early tests will tell us. Who Trump puts in which seats. What he does on Ukraine. And how far he goes to restrict world trade.

Trump’s options for his team span the orbit. Experienced pros ex-NSC adviser Robert O’Brien and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio want America engaged in the world. Brian Hook, appointed to run the transition at the State Department, comes from that class. Ric Grenell, the former ambassador to Germany tipped for a top job, is a blusterer who takes his cues from Trump. Vice President-elect JD Vance is the isolationist wing. There are a fair number of grifters too. “If Trump brings in Johnny McEntee or Kash Patel,” one Trump-friendly ambassador told me referring to two from that class, “we’re all screwed.”

Ukraine will be the litmus test of American military and diplomatic power. Certainly for Europe. But to my slight surprise, Ukraine was top of mind in Asia when I spent a few weeks out there earlier this fall. When they look at what America does in Ukraine, they see it through the prism of what it might do to deter China in East and Southeast Asia. When the Europeans look, they worry about how committed the U.S. will be to NATO and stability on their eastern flank with Russia. Both want clarity. During the campaign, Trump blamed Volodymyr Zelenskyy for starting the war and refused to say he wanted Ukraine to win. He says wants to end it on day one. Let’s hope he does not. This should be an easy one for Trump and his advisers: Anything that gives Putin a win gives China a win, weakening Europe and the U.S. That isn’t a recipe for greatness or strength.

It was hard to miss the nods to Reagan from leaders who pray he chooses the path of the Gipper. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, advised wisely in this case, put “peace through strength” in his congratulatory tweet for Trump. Mike Johnson, the House speaker who signed off on the $60 billion aid package to Ukraine this spring, threw out the phrase from the Mar-a-Lago stage on Tuesday night. NATO’s new boss Mark Rutte praised Trump’s “strong” leadership the first time around. Not to be outdone in appealing to virility, Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised Trump for acting “bravely as a man” after an assassin’s bullet grazed his ear.