One of the tensest elections in US history are taking place today with a nail-biting race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. A US president’s policies affect the rest of the world because of the US domination on the globe. Americans and people from around the world have been awaiting these elections from months. Their strategies are crucial to know as the results are coming down to a close call.
Donald Trump won the 2016 elections mounting on his Make America Great Again. As he is seeking to grab hold of his second term in the White House, he is faced with an America struck by Corona virus and its adverse implications on the economy. His 2020 fling is to bring back the economy, boost jobs, protect US trade interests, and to continue with his hard-liner stance on immigration.
Trump has long campaigned on his America First slogan pushing for bringing back jobs and manufacturing to USA. He promised huge tax cuts for working Americans, to lower the corporate tax rate, and to shake up the trade status quo and he has certainly delivered on most of these policies. He has promised the Americans that jobs will start rolling back soon if he stays in the office for another four years.
When it comes to trade, Donald Trump has taken a very harsh stance on China, along with a policy to protect local manufacturers from foreign involvement and this remains the key aspect of his trade policy. He has also offered tax credits to tempt US firms to move themselves out of China. He also imposed tariffs on goods from European Union.
His America First policy has also made its way in the foreign policy of America. He stepped away from some large multi-lateral agreements like Paris climate accord and he also challenged some international alliances like North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He has been quite successful in the Afghan peace process by starting withdrawing troops from there and being involved in the Qatar peace talks. He also brokered a deal between Israel and United Arab Emirates successfully. But critics say that he ignored USA’s conventional allies and moved towards Russia and North Korea more.
Cornering immigration, Donald Trump has continued working on building a wall on US-Mexico border to prevent immigrants from coming in. He also vows to diminish visa lottery and chain migration. But his immigration reforms faced a defeat when Supreme Court ruled out his bid to rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
In terms of the healthcare sector, Donald Trump has taken out major campaigns to revoke Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He has only been successful in repealing certain parts of that act though. He has promised to bring down drug prices and also taken steps to restrict opioid prescribing.
Coming to climate change, Donald Trump has rolled back USA from a lot of environmental protection agreements and climate change accords. Most recently, he approved an Oil and Gas drilling in Alaska which was off-limits from decades.
Donald Trump has worked a lot on criminal justice. He brought the First Step Act for making employment barriers towards former prisoners. He has proved himself as a staunch advocate of law enforcement. He brought in the Bipartisan bill and reformed laws at the federal level, giving judges more discretion during sentencing as well as strengthening prisoner rehabilitation efforts. In June 2020, President Trump signed an executive order introducing several police reforms, offering federal grants for improved practices, including the creation of a database to trace abuses by officers. Donald Trump, however, has done very little to control the gun violence in America which has been a hanging sword for years now on USA.
When he officially announced his entry into 2020 elections, Joe Biden made it clear that his campaign rooted for two things that are the workers who built America and values which can bridge divisions among Americans. Where Trump has been quite insensitive towards the pandemic Covid-19, Biden’s approach has been to provide free testing for all, call upon federal agencies to deploy resources and give a better national guidance through federal experts.
Joe Biden has given economic policies to support young people and blue collar workers. He endorses the idea of increasing minimum wages. He also supports the idea of spending a lot of resources on social security, student loans, and the green energy program. His 2020 plan also calls for the federal government to invest $300bn in US-made materials, services, research and technology.
Coming towards the racial injustices and criminal justice reforms, Joe Biden proposed policies to reduce incarceration, address race, gender and income-based disparities in the justice system, and rehabilitate released prisoners. He is also of the view that some funding for police should be redirected to social services like mental health, and calls for a $300m investment into a community policing program.
Joe Biden has called Climate Change as an existential threat to the world and America. He is proposing he is proposing a $1.7tn federal investment in green technologies research, some of which overlaps with the funding in his economic plan, to be spent over the next 10 years, and wants the US to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Joe Biden wants to reestablish lost ties with America’s conventional allies which have been disrupted in Trump’s reign. He endorses the idea of a strong US-China relationship unlike Donald Trump. He also wants to repair relationships with NATO allies.
In the health sector, Joe Biden obviously wants to expand the Obama Care and bring back the parts which have been repealed by Trump. Furthermore, Biden has proposed building down the walls and letting in immigrants from all around the world to pursue their dream of living in USA.
USA is about to have the most historic election results in a few hours. Whether Joe Biden takes on the White House or Donald Trump, it will change the course of America for a very long time to come. Americans will surely reminisce these elections for a lifetime ahead.
Author is doing BS in International Relation from Lahore College for Women University. She is a freelance writer. Previously worked with The Frontier Post, Dawn and Express Tribune.