From the Editor-in-Chief

In one of the most spectacular comebacks in American history, Donald Trump returns for a second term in January 2025 as the 47th President of the United States. In choosing with no ambiguity, American voters turned their back on a possible future with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, whose bid to carve a notch in history as the first woman ever and only the second person of colour to be US president failed to enthuse even some of her core voters like women fully. The irony is that America’s macroeconomic indices are the envy of the developed world, with an annualised real GDP growth rate of 3.5 per cent in 2021-23, one of the lowest unemployment figures of recent times, and inflation cooling from the pandemic peak of 9 per cent in 2022 to just over 3 per cent. Group Editorial Director Raj Chengappa’s cover story surveys how a Trump presidency can impact our entire strategic and geoeconomic landscape “with his 3-D policy: disrupt, disengage, deglobalise”. Well, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sees him as a “friend”, and rightly recalls the bonhomie of the ‘Howdy Modi’ and ‘Namaste Trump’ events.