"America will not isolate itself", said political scientist Vladimir Shopov, quoted by the Bulgarian National Radio. "Over the past 10 years, Trump has made one of the most significant, generational, reinterpretations of the way America has built its influence and structured relations in the global system in recent decades. He did it partly due to domestic political considerations. But he also did it as a result of some broader changes that we have witnessed in the last decade".
According to him, in the coming years we will again witness the implementation of this new reinterpretation of America's place.
According to him, however, there is also a longer-term problem:
"America is currently looking for a new logic, reason and reasons for continuing to be a superpower. If we look historically, to a very large extent, the global and international engagement of the United States is largely a function of world conflicts and wars. The more natural state, purely historically, of America has been to be turned inward towards itself".
Currently, the American political elite is in the process of finding this new basis for international engagement - what it should look like, what its goals should be, to what extent, the political scientist pointed out and explained that this is the broader context of Trump's upcoming presidency.
"In the coming years, we will most likely witness the renegotiation of many bilateral and multilateral commitments of America, but we will not witness a complete withdrawal of the country from world affairs, nor will we witness a complete collapse of this global liberal system that was built in recent decades, regardless of the many tensions it is currently subjected to", Vladimir Shopov expressed his opinion in an interview for the program "Saturday 150".
According to him, the main prism through which European leaders should approach the next 4 years is the prism of renegotiation.
He believes that now in Europe we will see a much different and more rational reaction than what we witnessed 8 years ago. It is even somewhat visible in the behavior of some of the political leaders in Europe, the political scientist added, giving the example of Meloni in Italy and the expected future Chancellor of Germany - Merz.
"The economic policy of the outgoing Biden administration has largely preserved the protectionist dynamics that existed since Trump's first term," Shopov also commented.
"The EU has discussed this very topic several times over the past 4 years - how to create its own toolkit with which to oppose this process. In the current situation, European leaders must first be much more active, and secondly, they must not wait for the initiative to come from the American administration, to accept that a renegotiation of relations is imminent both within NATO and within the EU, to develop their own preferences for what this renegotiation should look like, to build this toolkit, a system of policies and initiatives that will allow the EU to reinvigorate its economy and to a much greater extent ensure its own security. This is a long-term trend that we have been witnessing for at least a decade, and to which the EU has largely refused to react, except in situations where it is under pressure".
According to him, the parameters of the renegotiation are easier to outline within NATO than in relations between the US and the EU. According to him, there is no obstacle for the European NATO member states to start formulating them now and gradually making political commitments to their implementation.
Shopov noted that Trump has a very different attitude towards international politics compared to other presidents. "He does not like to communicate and engage with international organizations, with multilateral diplomacy. He has a revisionist attitude towards the global order, but in no way does this attitude have the same depth, goals and perspective as that shared by China and Russia", he noted.
When Trump re-enters the White House, he becomes the guardian of this entire inherited gigantic system of national interests of the country, the political scientist emphasized and added his opinion that Trump cannot simply afford to ignore the protection of this system of national interests of the country.
He assumes that leaders such as Putin or Xi Jinping will try to provoke Trump in the first months and thus provoke his sharper reaction.