Donald Trump’s “Transactional Politics,” Unlikely a Blessing for Democracy in Vietnam (or Taiwan)

Donald Trump’s return to the presidency deeply divides America, yet the mood in Vietnam is vastly lopsided. Since political surveys are practically prohibited in the country, people often look to social media to assess public opinion. On Facebook, the most popular social media platform in Vietnam, most Vietnamese users are jubilant and hopeful about the future.

Vietnamese expressed the same sentiment when Trump first came to power eight years ago. [1] Now, little has changed. In a recent poll by VnExpress, one of the biggest online newspapers in Vietnam, 80% of the respondents chose Donald Trump over Kamala Harris (note the question was about prediction: “According to you, who will win the presidency?” This wording was presumably a way to skirt around the sensitive fact that the Vietnamese have no say in electing their own leaders).[2]

Most Vietnamese Americans shared the same sentiment with their countrymen. Within the Asian community in the U.S., ethnic Vietnamese stood with the base leaning Republicans.[3] Another outlier Asian group in support of Trump was Taiwanese.[4]

One group of people lived under Communist rule for half of a century, the other has for the last three decades been transformed into one of the most vibrant democracies in the world. What they share in common is the threat from China, though in very different dynamics.

While Taiwan faces an existential threat of an invasion by China, many Vietnamese who aspire to democratization believe the biggest obstacle is the Communist regime in China and their backing of their Communist comrades in Vietnam. Thus, whoever can “fix” China is obviously their favorite choice. And China, as one Republican political strategist put it, “is foundational to Trump’s brand.” [5] To the Vietnamese and Taiwanese, Donald Trump’s constant anti-China rhetoric has been music to the ears.

But will his brand of “transactional politics” help bring about the democratization of Vietnam and protect Taiwan’s democracy?[6]

It depends on what Trump’s “transactional politics” actually are.

For the record, the idea of transaction in politics is nothing new, nor is it bad. Reciprocity is one of the basic foundations of human interaction and many animal societies. The question here is not whether one does it, but how and to what extent it’s done.  

The origin of Trump’s style of quid pro quo can be traced back to before he was born, to the story of his father Fred Trump as reported by the Atlantic.[7]

For decades, Fred Trump made giant political donations, forging closed ties with local administrations in New York in return for help with his housing projects. He became one of the biggest winners in the loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration.

In 1954, Fred Trump was subpoenaed and questioned by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on whether he got an outsized portion of the loans by inflating the value of his land. The committee found that Fred and other developers had engaged in “outright misrepresentation.” He suffered no consequences.

The lessons were passed on to Donald Trump, who honed them into practice. He hired lobbyists, lawyers, and people who worked in government to work for him. Trump bragged about his ability to play the system. One example was the deal to buy Commodore hotel from the Penn Central Railroad in the 1970s, where he lied to the bank about the status of state approvals and to the state about his “exclusive” option on the property.

In 2010, customers sued Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Don Jr., for “an ongoing pattern of fraudulent misrepresentations and deceptive sales practices.” [8] Among the false claims was Ivanka’s proclamations in 2008 that 60% of the Trump SoHo condo and hotel had been sold, while documents later showed, in fact, that the percentages were less than 15%. The Trumps later settled the lawsuit.

That same year, the Manhattan District Attorney’s prosecutors opened an investigation into the Trumps for misleading prospective buyers in the building project. [9] The case went on for two years until 2012 when one of Trump’s lawyers met with the district attorney. The lawyer happened to be one of the most generous donors to the district attorney. Three months later, the investigation was dropped.

To people who have done business in countries like Vietnam and China, what the Trumps do is nothing novel. The intertwining between government officials and business leaders in Vietnam and China is a well-known fact. [10, 11]

Behind-the-scene transactions, including under-the-table fees, have long become a standard practice in the business culture. [12] This could partly explain why most Vietnamese don’t find Trump’s practices outrageous or unethical. Same with many Taiwanese, who are too familiar with the way business works in China.

Trump’s transactional politics is in a nutshell “money politics”: no money no talk, money makes the world go round, and what can not be bought with money can be bought with a lot of money. The late journalist Wayne Barrett was quoted in a 1992 interview when talking about Trump: “This is a guy who learned to turn politics into money.” [13] Trump’s politics is “rich man politics.”

Obviously, Trump is not the first nor the only practitioner of “money politics.” But he has revived and pushed such a practice to arguably the highest level in modern history.

It is thus hard to see how advocates for democratic improvement in Vietnam can win when the authoritarian regime has almost unlimited resources to offer “better deals” for Trump in order to maintain power, without fearing a backlash from the silenced citizens.

Similarly, while Taiwan can spend billions buying U.S. weapons and try to please Trump, its resources are far too limited compared with China, who not only have superior natural advantages, but also do not have to answer to its suppressed citizens. In fact, China has been winning this rich man game by outspending Taiwan to “buy” its few remaining diplomatic allies.[14]

Trump’s brand of “transactional politics” is likely a losing game for poorer countries and minorities. It is also unlikely to benefit those who advocate for human rights and democracy. Those are the things that Trump and like-minded authoritarians think they can trade, as long as the price is right.

There is a story commonly attributed to the Cherokee Indians. [15] It tells of the constant presence of two wolves inside each of us, one is filled with lies, hatred and anger, the other carries truth, love and kindness. Whichever we choose to feed will win the day.

Pinning hope on Trump would be like feeding the wrong wolf.

There are values that money can not buy. There are worlds in which rich men do not always win. And there is always the other wolf to be fed.