The second term of US President Donald Trump is already a fact. What can Americans expect… Professor Ivan Dinev Ivanov, who teaches at the Faculty of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati in the US, spoke to FAKTI on the topic.
- Prof. Ivanov, is free speech already felt in the US, is there a whiff of the “golden years“ as promised by the new President Donald Trump?
- This was more of a part of the pre-election rhetoric, but we also heard it in his inauguration speech. To be honest, we must say that freedom of speech in the United States has never been restricted. It's only been a few days since Trump took office as president, and it's too early to say that there's a whiff of "golden years."
- But were the promises of "golden years" quite loud?
- We'll see how things turn out.
- In your opinion, what are the things that really excite Americans. What do they expect from Trump's second term?
- From my conversations with different people, I understand and see that they are excited about very, very ordinary things. For example, how to lower the prices of food products in stores, reduce the price of gasoline, energy resources, natural gas, electricity... In general, how their lives can become more affordable. These are the main desires of people. This was largely the agenda when they elected President Trump.
- He promises this willingly, that he will create programs so that people have lower expenses. But is it feasible…
- We also discuss these things with students - if there is no more inflation, prices will remain at the same levels, and if they decrease, this will lead to deflation, which is not good from an economic point of view, because deflation is an indicator that there are big problems in the economy. But most people say: “Look, don't spoil our momentary feeling that things are going to get better.“
- Greenland, the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico, sorry, the American Gulf now - are these just words of Donald Trump. And are these things important to the
ordinary American?
- Most Americans have heard of the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico, but many of them can't even find Greenland on a map. And that's why I talk to my students, who are studying international relations, political science, or social sciences, about what the problems are. But these things are definitely not on the public agenda. The truth is that American society generally doesn't focus on foreign policy issues. In the case of the Panama Canal, the serious concerns come from the economic competition with China, and in the case of Greenland - from the geopolitical rivalry with Russia. In this sense, the United States has strategic interests. Another question is to what extent these strategic interests can be adequately communicated to the American and global public with one or several messages on X or Truth Social.
- With one of the decrees that Trump signed on his first day as president, he pardoned those who stormed the Capitol in 2021. What a signal this is to society…
- Since January 6, 2021, the topic of the “Capitol” riot has been a deeply divisive political issue for American society. On the one hand, the impression prevails that these are American patriots who were undeservedly tried. On the other hand, people believe that this was an attempted coup. This issue was raised many times during Donald Trump’s campaign as part of the larger debate about the state of democracy in the country. What we saw is that the majority of American voters voted for Trump. In this sense, this issue was to some extent resolved at the ballot box with the votes of the people. Of course, today the other half of the country, namely those who did not vote for Trump, do not accept his decision to pardon the participants in the events of January 6, 2021. Now both the conviction and the pardon of these people represent a response by legal means on the part of American institutions to an issue that is in any case political. I hope that after the pardon, this issue will no longer be on the public agenda and that this decree will close the topic. Perhaps this is the path to reconciliation, to the healing of society.
- Trump threatens to expel millions of illegal immigrants from the United States and has also declared war on the cartels. He said this during his campaign. How big a problem are illegal immigrants for the United States?
- Since the end of the Cold War, between 7 and 12 million illegal immigrants have traditionally resided in the United States over the years. Of course, some of them stay, legalize their status, others leave the country, but there are also those who have been living illegally for many years. This issue has become deeply polarized in American society in recent years, and the impression has been created that these people are engaged in illegal or criminal activity. The truth is quite different. A large part of these alleged 12 million illegal immigrants work in two key sectors of the American economy, which without their labor would collapse.
- Which sectors are we talking about…
- Construction and agriculture. Specifically, in agricultural states like California, over half of the workers are undocumented. Milk processing in the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin (the largest producers in this sector) almost entirely depends on them, since about 90% of the workers in this sector are such. And there is no possibility to legally import labor from abroad, since the state programs for importing agricultural workers do not include this type of workers engaged in milk extraction and processing. And this is the main reason why people without documents work there. Construction and repair work is a huge sector that largely depends on the labor of immigrants. Housing prices in the United States have risen significantly in recent years. Without immigrants to build new buildings and repair and maintain the built ones, real estate prices will further increase, because the value of labor in the sector will increase significantly because there is a shortage of personnel in this area. Yes, there is also a group of illegal immigrants who commit crimes, participate in organized crime groups. And these people often fall under the blows of the law. But they do not represent a very large share of this mass of people without legal status in the United States. At the moment, there will simply be an easier procedure for finding and deporting them. This number will not be very large, nor will their deportation have much of an effect on society.
- One of the decrees that is not talked about much is that Trump brought back the death penalty. Since 2021, the US has had a moratorium on federal executions. Now Trump has ordered the death penalty to be carried out in all states. Will it happen?
- You are absolutely right that this thing is not being paid much attention. Unlike Europe, where, especially in the countries of the European Union, there is generally a consensus that the death penalty is unacceptable and that it should be replaced, in the US this is not the case. Let's just say that Bulgaria also replaced it in 1997 with life imprisonment without the right to replace it. In the United States, such a consensus does not exist. The situation here is interesting because we have two types of jurisdictions that issue death sentences – one is a state-level sentence, the other is a federal sentence. Federal law allows for the death penalty for about 60 serious crimes. In reality, the death penalty has never been abolished in the United States, but the previous Attorney General and Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium in 2021 because the Biden administration believed that this was the right approach at the moment. The bigger problem is that several states, such as Ohio, California, Pennsylvania, have imposed a moratorium on the execution of the death penalty. And the reason for this moratorium is that the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and supply the injections for the death penalty have refused to supply them for moral reasons. And this is the reason that there are currently no executions in these states. Now Trump has issued a presidential order with the presumption of helping these states find injections to solve this issue and end these moratoriums. The issue of the death penalty in the United States is a political and social one. People who support the Republican Party, as well as those who support more right-wing and center-right ideas, believe that the death penalty has its place in the judicial system as a preventive tool. This issue, of course, is primarily philosophical and moral.