According to the Observer, the United States is ushering in the 2024 election process, and Trump won the first Republican primary by a clear margin. According to the analysis of the Associated Press, if the current primary process of the Republican Party continues, there will be no possibility of any contender surpassing Trump. Trump and Biden are roughly equal in the polls, and the British media Reuters released the poll results on the 10th, showing that the support rate of the two is about 35% each. The other three out of ten voters have yet to decide to make a choice. Trump advocates America First, and during his tenure he has tried to promote the recovery of American power in various ways. It has promoted the strategic contraction of the United States, openly implemented trade protection policies, and launched a global multinational trade war dominated by China.
During his tenure, he withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and took a negative attitude towards climate change. Trump and Biden represent two directions in U.S. policymaking. The former advocates concentrating on the United States and pushing the United States into a period of strategic contraction. The latter continues the trend of global expansion of the United States, and provides an entry point for the United States to expand abroad by heating up geopolitical events.
The anxious state of Trump and Biden shows that the United States is in a state of strategic chaos as a whole. On the one hand, the inertia of global expansion of the United States since the end of the Cold War still exists, and some Americans have not yet emerged from the afterglow of the Cold War. The United States, which focuses mainly on international games, still has a lot of support. On the other hand, it is clear that the United States has reached its maximum limit in its foreign expansion.
The backlash of overexpansion has already occurred in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Trump's proposal to "make America great again" is based on the fact that the United States is no longer great. After Trump's defeat in 2020, he is now expected to make a comeback. It can be said that the failure of Biden's expansionist policy and the consequent backlash have provided a boost to Trump. The fact that the pro-establishment forces of the Democratic and Republican factions in the United States have used various means to stop Trump at the moment shows that they have carried out a comprehensive strategic contraction, carried out policy restructuring and returned to the Monroe Doctrine, which is quite supportive in the United States at the moment. Trump's resurgence has alarmed many Western countries.
The Lithuanian Foreign Minister said during the Davos Forum on the 17th that Trump's coming to power may trigger the withdrawal of US troops from Europe, which will be a nightmare for the Baltic countries. EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said that Trump had privately said during the 2020 Davos Forum that the United States would not send troops when Europe was attacked, and NATO was dead. Belgian Prime Minister De Croo told MEPs on the 16th that if Trump wins, Europe should be more independent than before, and this prospect should not be feared. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly made statements about interfering in the US election, claiming that a Trump victory would be a step backwards. Trudeau said the American people are faced with two choices: to be "optimistic and committed to the future" or to choose populism, which reflects bitter anger and may not work.
It can be seen that the possibility of Trump's expected victory has made many Western countries uneasy. Of these countries, Lithuania reacted the strongest. The foreign minister said that Trump's victory and the withdrawal of US troops would be a nightmare for the Baltic states.
This statement is not only related to Lithuania's population of only 2.8 million and its weak national strength, but also directly related to Lithuania's hostility with its major neighbors in the region. Lithuania played a symbolic role in the collapse of the Soviet Union and is now a pawn at the forefront of the U.S. geopolitical layout. Its collusion with "Taiwan independence" has triggered China's downgrading of relations between China and Lithuania, and various types of cooperation between the two sides have been suspended, and basic mutual trust has fallen to a freezing point. Lithuania shares a border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and has threatened to ban Russian transit to the enclave.
It also encouraged the EU to expand its economic blockade against Russia and NATO to strengthen its military preparations for Russia. In this context, if the United States changes its strategy to shrink its national strength, Lithuania will be in an awkward position. If Russia wants to punish him, the Chinese side, which has been provoked by Lithuania, has no position to obstruct or mediate. Rather than worrying about Trump's victory, the Lithuanian side should adjust its own policies and reduce the probability of being used as a "price" in shocks with a more balanced diplomacy.