Trump’s Third Year: Ideological Polarization and International Conflicts

The article is aimed at analyzing the main trends in domestic, economic and foreign policy of the USA in 2019. All the political life of the year was organized around the long-lasting confrontation of the democratically controlled House and Trump. In the core of this opposition are values and institutional balance of power. Historical ideological polarization brings a new wave of institutional rebalancing: both the President and the Congress fight to extend their constitutional powers. At the same time the Democratic House aims to force out Trump from political process by any means. All through the year, the House was concentrated on investigating Presidential activity, which culminated in a vote to impeach Trump. But the legislative results of the Congress turned out to be the poorest for the decade.

Besides the institutional powers, at the center of the confrontation between the President and the Democrats are values. Both sides represent two different Americas with opposing views on the present and the future of the country. This ideological confrontation showed up perfectly during the longest shutdown at the beginning of the year and then during the impeachment process.

The domestic polarization went in parallel with conflicts on the global stage. America's search for a new format of global leadership brought a whole year of trade confrontation with China, which finally resulted in a highly controversial agreement, the new trade agreement with Japan, the new wave of tensions with European allies about collective defense costs and technological leadership, comeback of the conflict with Iran, the rising competition on the energy markets and the enduring confrontation with Russia.

2019 year made it clear that while it is still difficult to predict the vector of the fundamental transformations, which the USA is now going through, these changes have already influenced American leadership style.