Making sense of Donald Trump's world view

Time of India

2 days ago

Robin David is resident editor of The Times of India's Hyderabad edition. His first book, City of Fear, was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award in 2007.
To understand why US President Donald Trump doesn't think twice before causing upheaval, like attempting to bar Harvard University from admitting foreign students or arm twisting Apple into not manufacturing iPhones in India, one has to understand his worldview.
In his piece in the Financial Times on April 18, historian-philosopher Yuval Noah Harir does just that, saying that Trump's understanding of how the world works is diametrically opposite to the liberal order. Liberals believe that cooperation between countries is a win-win strategy, Hariri says. They also believe that people may live in different countries and cultures but have shared experiences and interests, which form the basis for universal values, global organisations and international laws.
By contrast, Trump sees winners and losers in all human transactions and, therefore, views the movement of ideas, goods and people with suspicion. He sees the world as a 'mosaic of fortresses' where countries feel safe behind high walls. Hariri says such an ordering of the world would collapse because smaller countries would be overrun by bigger, more powerful ones. Also, all countries would have to invest heavily in defence, eating into welfare expenditure.
Finally, Trump would like weaker countries to be subservient to stronger ones, but the history of the Vietnam War and other such conflicts has shown that the strong don't always prevail.
There is, however, one key aspect that Hariri missed out on why this mosaic of fortresses doesn't work. The economic and military powerhouses of the West – the US and much of Western Europe – are fast becoming countries of old men (and women). They are seeing declining birth rates and longer life expectancy, which, in the next few years, will create a growing shortage of young working-age people who can keep their economic wheels turning.
Populists may have come to power in many Western countries by pushing an anti-migrant agenda. But if they start running out of young people, they will have no option but to let migrants in to ensure that their economies don't implode.
Projections of the United Nations population division and the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, give a clear picture of where populations are dipping and what jobs will be available in different parts of the world in the next 15 to 25 years.
By UN estimates, Central and Southern Asia are expected to become the most populous regions in the world by 2037 even as the population of Eastern and South-Eastern Asia could start declining by the mid-2030s. If the projections are correct, Southeast Asia and Africa will also see growing populations. 'Between 2022 and 2050, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to almost double, surpassing 2 billion inhabitants by the late 2040s, and is projected to account for more than half of the growth of the world's population between 2022 and 2050,' the UN projections say.
These regions with high population growth rates will, simultaneously, see comparatively slower job creation. The World Bank said in its jobs and growth overview in March that developing countries will see 1.2 billion young people reach working age over the next decade but will be able to create only 420 million jobs at current growth rates. 'Among those youth who will get a job, few will find good jobs, where workers can be more productive and earn more,' the outlook said. 'Without immediate action, millions of young people could be left behind, deprived of opportunity and hope—with wider impacts for social stability and economic growth.'
The answer may lie in preparing the youth of countries like India and those in other parts of Asia and African to fill that hole in the West created by missing young workers. According to the UN numbers, Europe and Northern America are projected to reach peak population size and begin experiencing population decline in the late 2030s. That is barely a decade away.
The Future of Work Report 2025, which surveyed more than 1,000 employers 'representing more than 14 million workers across 22 industry clusters and 55 economies', echoed these numbers. Some 40% of its respondents believe that shifting demographics would shape how and where people will find work in the next few years. 'In higher-income nations, aging populations are increasing dependency ratios, potentially putting greater pressure on a smaller pool of working-age individuals and raising concerns about long-term labour availability,' it says. 'In contrast, lower-income economies may benefit from a demographic dividend. These demographic shifts have a direct impact on global labour supply.'
According to the WEF report, employers facing the effects of an aging population are more pessimistic about talent availability and expect facing bigger challenges in attracting talent.
It is, of course, difficult to predict how this labour shortage in one corner of the world, and a spike in another corner, will play out in the next few years; how Western countries that see a cultural threat in growing migrant populations will reconcile and welcome back the same people they are pushing away now. But the possibility of the developed world looking for skilled manpower in the future is high. If projections by the UN and others are correct, the drawbridges will come down. And, if countries like India play their cards right, their youth would be the first to storm these fortresses.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.