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As Donald Trump emerged President-elect of the United States, Mark Schroeder, Africa Analysis Practice Lead, and Vice President of International Operations at Stratfor, spoke with Jide Akintunde, Managing Editor, Financial Nigeria Magazine, on the much-debated potential geopolitical risk of a Trump presidency and the prospects of the incoming Trump administration for Nigeria.

Jide Akintunde (JA): I think I should congratulate Americans on the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. 2016 presidential election, in the same way Nigerians were congratulated last year on the election of President Muhammadu Buhari. A different outcome in the U.S. election was ominous indeed, given the bitter campaign and Trump’s non-committal to accepting a different outcome than his victory. Do you believe Americans have missed the bullet by electing Mr. Trump?

Mark Schroeder (MS): There were faulty poll data going on in the U.S. and the polls may not have accurately captured the sentiments of a lot of the mainstream voters. But we have to be thankful that the election was conducted smoothly without any disruptions or incidents and the results of the election were accepted without any incident. That is a great testament to the constitutionalism of the United States political system that both parties can support the outcome of the election and move forward to what is to be anticipated in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration in January.

JA: There were no concerns that if Trump had not won that the transition would have taken very unconventional turn with regards to what we are used to in U.S. elections and the aftermath of it?

MS: I think part of what resolved the outcome was just the gap by which Trump won the election. He won with such a considerable margin of victory, so there was very little room for Clinton to contest the reality of the outcome. If the outcome had been a tie or close to a tie, there might have been a challenge, like what we saw in earlier elections such as the election in 2000 that led to George W. Bush becoming president.

But with such a wide margin of victory by Trump, there was little Hillary Clinton could do to meaningfully challenge the outcome and she understood that. She accepted the outcome with little contestation. And likewise for Trump, if he had clearly lost the election, by a wide margin, there would have been little to challenge. But if he had lost to Hillary Clinton in a close election, it would have been very reasonable to expect him to challenge the outcome. But as it happened, the margin of victory was just wide so much that there was nothing Clinton could do to challenge it.

JA: The election of Mr. Trump stirred negative reactions in global financial markets. What is your sense of the geo-political risk the market associates with Donald Trump’s Presidency, although he is a billionaire businessman?
 
MS: That is a very important question that requires a couple of answers to it. On one level, the markets, at least here in the U.S., were not anticipating a Trump victory. And you saw the reaction in the market to that. When it was clear Trump was going to win, the futures market in the U.S. reacted very negatively. But what we are seeing today, once the results have become clear, and the margin of victory is so vast, the markets are absorbing the results quite reasonably. Overall, if you look at the S&P 500 in the U.S., it is actually growing today (Nov. 9th). It is in the green. The markets, at least in the U.S., have not reacted negatively to Trump’s victory.

But on a second level, there are certainly a lot of questions being raised. For example, what does this mean for international trade? What does this mean for relations between United States, under President Trump, and other regions of the world? Those are very reasonable questions to ask. Are our terms of global trade going to be adjusted under President Trump? It is probably reasonable to say that some prior agreements are even going to be more difficult to pass such as Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP that already faced some kind of resistance within the U.S. government. Under President Trump, there is probably going to be a review of that sort of trade agreement and how that might potentially harm U.S. economic interest.

There is going to be a period of time now when the U.S. business community debates this Trump victory and tries to accept the consequences for international trade. However, there is going to be an upside to this as well. As you rightly pointed out, Trump is a business man. He has built his career on business here in the U.S. and internationally. That is going to be the strength of his administration, the fact that it can optimise trade – in a manner that increases the competiveness for U.S. businesses, and in a manner that is not going to harm the country’s competiveness or job prospects.

What you can’t take away from the Trump victory is there is going to be some winners in terms of international trade as much as there are concerns in the marketplace.

JA: Not few Nigerians stayed awake all night to monitor the results of the election live. What do you think the America-centric economic/trade policy Donald Trump espoused on the campaign stump would mean for Nigeria and, more broadly, Africa?

MS: That is a very pertinent question to ask. I think what we have to do is look at the policy imperatives of the Trump administration. Trump is going to take the opportunity to review his priorities which are going to be domestic, primarily, and then secondarily the U.S. position within the global system – and how that fits into the global and regional dynamics. Bringing that to Africa and Nigeria, for the immediate term, we expect there will be a certain period of continuity, or to put it differently, a certain period of auto-pilot of U.S. foreign policy while Trump reviews U.S. national interest in Africa and in Nigeria. That boils down to two things we could expect the Trump administration to focus on. One is a smooth functioning of international trade. Second, to look at security threats and to ensure that where there are security threats in Nigeria or Africa, they don’t escalate to compromise U.S. interest.

But we can expect the trump administration to really try to clarify what those national interests are. What that means is as long as there is smooth international trade that supports U.S. economic interest, or as long there aren’t any security threats that compromise U.S. interest, there would be wide room to maneuver and for African governments to pursue their interests. As to how that would apply to Nigeria, as long as security concerns in the country don’t escalate to compromise the U.S. directly, and as long as there is a smooth functioning of the economy that supports U.S. economic interest, the U.S. would essentially be indifferent, certainly for the immediate term, giving indirect room for the Buhari administration to conduct its policies. In other words, there would be less attentiveness towards the Nigerian government and the other governments in Africa so long as the environments in those countries support international trade for U.S. or security concerns in those countries don’t jeopardise U.S. interests.

JA: Candidate Donald Trump also espoused a homeland security policy that was anti-immigrant. And although his counter-insurgency worldview seems limited to the Middle-East, his anti-Muslim rhetoric should be a concern to Nigeria that has a large population that is about evenly-split between Christians and Muslims. What should Mr. Trump be advised regarding Nigeria?

MS: In terms of the Nigerian security environment, there are threats, certainly by militant groups such as Boko Haram. Potentially, you have to take a look at the Islamic State or ISIS, their operations within the broader Sahel, sub-Saharan region of Africa or North Africa, and how a relationship that flows across the Sahel could compromise Nigeria. Those are concerns that a Trump presidency needs to be aware of and work together with the Nigerian government on.

One of the great concerns that Trump articulated during his campaign was that in terms of immigration, there is the vulnerability that hostile elements take advantage of loose immigration policies into the United States. Militant groups such as ISIS can take advantage of loose immigration policies against the U.S. homeland. That is why Trump would articulate that we need to further regulate the U.S. immigration policy. How does that affect Nigeria? Obviously, there are many Nigerians who are active in international trade and competitive businesses all around the world. Those would likely be supported. I think we just have to be mindful that under a Trump presidency, the U.S. will be concerned about the trafficking of transnational terrorists. This was articulated by Trump during his campaign. And if Nigeria falls under that paradigm of having militants trafficked to the U.S. through Nigerian territory, it would become a concern for the Trump administration.

JA: Perhaps Mr. Trump’s presidency actually holds some good prospects for Nigeria – maybe he will support the counter-Islamist-insurgency against Boko Haram. Is there anything you have gleaned that supports a positive outlook of US-Nigeria relations from next January?

MS: I think at this point, there is probably going to be a degree of goodwill for Trump to continue U.S. government policy towards Africa right now. So things like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and U.S. security cooperation with African governments that are confronting terrorist groups. I am sure those would be reviewed and continued as long as there is demonstrated definition of interest that supports United States national interest.

JA: What would be the constraints Mr. Trump will face in asserting the interest of the United States in engaging the world as he purported to do during the campaign?

MS: In terms of international trade relationship, in the short term, it would be difficult to unwind business operations that have become globalised or have become dependent on supply chains that are globalised. It is not easy to regress those supply chains in terms of trade to conform to campaign promises of job growth at home in the United States. As much as Trump would pursue policies that respond to his campaign -- grow jobs at home, the middle class and blue-collar workers -- there are constraints that compel President Trump to behave in a manner he may not have anticipated. Plus there are U.S. geopolitical imperatives around the world that would be articulated to President Trump that require his administration to remain engaged in certain conflict theatres around the world that he might not yet fully appreciate.

And these are impersonal geopolitical imperatives that any U.S. president has to respond to, such as that no single geopolitical hegemon could emerge to challenge the U.S. power around the world. These are impersonal forces that Trump would learn and appreciate and it would be a tremendous opportunity to test the theory of geopolitics as Trump enters the White House on January 20 and learn those pressures that apply to the U.S. president.