A VERY INTERESTING GAME

There seem to be obvious leaders in the presidential election in the United States: former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of the Democratic Party, and Donald Trump, a Republican. Over the next five years one of them will lead the most powerful country - from military-political and financial-economic points of view – of the modern world. The US currency is the backbone of the global monetary and financial system. US political analyst Nikolai Zlobin has told R+ about his expectations from the upcoming election and possible changes in US foreign policy.

- Who stands a better chance of becoming president – Hillary Clinton or Trump?

-  At the moment, there is a struggle under way in the election for nominations from their own political parties. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are fighting for leadership within their parties. At the moment they seek to prove to the Democrats and the Republicans that they are better able than others to protect their interests in the White House. Hillary Clinton is, certainly, the leader among the Democrats, and the probability is very high that she will be the candidate from the Democratic Party. As for Donald Trump, things are not very clear yet because, first, there are other candidates who could provide competitiontohim, and, second, a certain part of the Republican establishment opposes Trump. Many Republicans do not like him.

After all, he is a non-traditional candidate from the Republican Party, and some Republican functionaries wish to stop Trump. The peculiarity of the US electoral system is that contenders for candidate become members of parties during primaries. If rank and file Republicans vote for Trump, party functionaries cannot withdraw his candidacy in any way. In this regard, the US electoral system is less controllable. Nonetheless, Trump is meeting with resistance within the Republican Party, and his opponents are looking for legal way to stop him.

But they are unlikely to succeed. Once it is definitively clear who the candidates are, things may dramatically change, all Democrats will back Clinton, and most Republicans will probably back Trump. The Republicans will seek to regain control over the White House and the Democrats to maintain control over presidential power. That is to say, party interests will prevail. If Donald Trump manages to win the election, a rare situation will take shape in US history, in that the Republican Party will control the White House and US Congress, where the Republican Party has a majority.

If Clinton wins the election, there will be a frequently seen situation: there will be a Democratic president in the White House, while Congress will be under the control of the Republicans. This situation has received conflicting assessments. Some believe that this kind of a situation impedes US policies, while others believe that this political setup is the most fruitful one in the history of the United States.

- What will be the presidential election be like? The Republican candidate is way too emotional, controversial and impulsive. This kind of a person will not stop at anything, and would discredit his opponent for the sake of victory.

- For the time being, it is fairly obvious that Hillary Clinton could easily defeat Donald Trump. That is a problem facing the Republicans, who are unable to find a candidate capable of defeating Clinton in the election. But nobody knows for how long this preponderancewill last. The Republicans need to resolve the problem of how to attract different categories of citizens who traditionally vote for the Democrats: ethnic groups, immigrants, young people, women, etc. There is the theory that Trump’s extravagant behaviour will attract those categories of voters to his side. Albeit this behaviour by Trump, on the contrary, has pushed away Latin Americans, Arabs and some others. Overall, there is no category of voters left in the United States that Trump has not insulted. Therefore, the situation remains uncertain.

Hillary Clinton has her own problems. The Democrats win when young people vote for them. There is no definite certainty that Clinton will be able to persuade democratic young people and also the middle class to vote for her. The fact is that she is associated with the political establishment of the older generation, the 1990s era. At the same time, women’s organizations, feminists, US civil society activists, etc have mixed views about her. That is to say, there is no certainty that the Democrats will be able to mobilize their permanent electoral base. Barack Obama once succeeded in doing so - with the slogan “Yes, we can do it”, he raised a huge number of young people. They voted for him, and Obama won the election. But eight years later young people were very disappointed in Washington’s policies. In this kind of a situation, it is hard to hope that Clinton will come and cause fresh enthusiasm in young people.

Next, there will be a very interesting struggle between Clinton and Trump for voters. Clinton traditionally represents the American political class, and she is a world-famous very experienced politician. Trump, who is certainly very charismatic, achieved everything in life by himself, and has big money and faith in his success. At the same time, he causes the American establishment and investors to distrust him, he does not understand anything about foreign policy or politics in general, but has a very good sense of public sentiment. Certainly, this will be the strangest election campaign in modern US history. It is hard to find examples of this kind in US history. In particular, Donald Trump has never been in politics, and Americans do not like newcomers. Hillary Clinton was a senator from the New York State and US secretary of state, but she was not a governor. Most Americans prefer former governors. In US history there have only been two presidents who had not been governors: John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. If Clinton wins, that will be the third such case. If Trump wins, he will be the first person outside politics to become US president. That’stheintrigue.

- Foreignpolicywas notapriorityfor incumbent President BarackObama. His focus was domestic US policy. What will US foreign policy be like if one of the current contenders wins, particularly with regard to the South Caucasus?

- No US presidential candidate goes to elections with foreign policy slogans. They always focus on domestic political slogans.

From this point of view, this election is different from others. The thing is that the US economy is developing quite successfully, there has been economic growth for 70 weeks, the unemployment rate is lower than in Russia, investments are coming, and there is effectively no inflation. There are fundamental negative trends, but overall the economy is doing well. From this point of view, it is very hard to criticize Barack Obama’s economic policy. Voters are not interested in doing so, as they can see that the economy is alright. Therefore, unexpectedly for themselves, Clinton and Trump are having to comment on the foreign policy of the US administration. And it could be seen, especially in the beginning of the election campaign, that the contenders were not prepared to do so. While Clinton, as a former secretary of state, has succeeded to some extent, Trump has all been improvising, doing impromptu. At the moment, Clinton and Trump have no foreign policy manifesto. All they are saying is momentary. If Trump wins, it is clear that the South Caucasus will not be within the view of US foreign policy. The Republicans have no interests in the South Caucasus. All that may be of interest for Trump is Russia, Turkey and Iran. These countries are obvious for him, and he will work with them. In the background are US allies - Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where major US military bases are deployed. With regard to other countries, Trump has no policy, at least for the first year. Nobody knows whether he will have that kind of policy later.

As for Clinton, she possesses incomparably more knowledge about the South Caucasus. She is an experienced diplomat, and she dealt with foreign policy for many years. Clinton will view the South Caucasus as an important region in terms of influence on Russia and Turkey. A lot depends on what priorities she will have regarding Russia, but, to all appearances, Clinton will take a very aggressive stance toward Moscow. In which case, the South Caucasus could be considered a bridgehead for pressure on Russia. Given this, the South Caucasus will be of its own independent significance in US foreign policy, and, in particular, an attempt will be made via Azerbaijan to balance relations with Turkey.

- What impact could the US election have on prices at stock exchanges, especially global oil prices?

- I do not think that the election will have any impact on oil prices. The US stock market has also suffered from the fall in oil prices. The US stock market experienced the most unfortunate times in its history in the first two months of 2016. The United States has a major instrument of pressure on the global oil and gas market. The Americans are not interested in an increase in oil prices and seek to keep them within the range of 45-50 dollars per barrel, which is convenient for them. Shale oil and gas companies are closing down because they are not making any profits, but as soon as prices start to rise and reach a certain level, they will re-open and prices will go down again. It should be borne in mind that Obama made a decision towards export of gas and large investment in the oil and gas sector. This decision was backed by both Democrats and Republicans, and this policy will be continued regardless of who comes to power in the United States.

- May Donald Trump renew relations with Russia?

- No. I think that there are fundamental and systemic disagreements, rather than personal relations, in the relationship between the United States and Russia. Putin and Obama tried to change the nature of the relationship, and each time it led to a failure. This is not because of the presidents but because there are no coordinated national interests of the two countries. At the moment there is not yet one single problem that a US president could resolve by way of improving the relationship with Russia. On the contrary, improved relations with Moscow will lead to indignation on part of a certain segment of the US establishment. Therefore, for the time being the US-Russian relationship will develop in a negative way.