Expert: Taxi drivers to tech giants expect change from incoming Trump administration

Support for the second administration of President Donald Trump, due to take office January 20, differs substantively from that of 2016, political consultant Andreas Kaju said.
The expectation for change is held by a wide cross-section of American society, from taxi drivers to giant tech firms, he said; on some issues this crosses the party divide, Kaju went on in an interview given to Vikerraadio last Friday, which follows in its entirety.
On January 20, new President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony will take place in Washington. From that moment on, a completely new U.S. government, commonly referred to as an administration, will take office. Let us start with the ceremony on January 20 itself. What should the ordinary person, who hasn't been paying much attention to U.S. domestic politics, history, or traditions, be looking for during this event?
One thing that even people distant from politics usually notice — even if they don't watch it live, which I believe few people in Estonia would do — is the presence or absence of famous and notable individuals at the event
Trump provokes this type of coverage, thanks to his choices.
In the same way, his opponents, especially in the U.S. media but also globally, will try to provoke news coverage of their own by refusing to attend the inauguration — even as their position would require and expect them to do so — or by ignoring it by other ways.
We will certainly see people do that now; just as some Trump supporters in the Senate and Congress may not have attended Biden's inauguration, some Democrats planning to boycott Trump's inauguration.
In these situations, both sides tend to act quite symmetrically.
Nonetheless it is a grand spectacle, with large parties, balls, and receptions taking place across the U.S. capital.
Historically, it has always been a major event in America.
To get to attend the inauguration, people of old used to have to travel for days or weeks with horses, carriages, and with their belongings, and in some ways, the event still carries that historical weight thanks to its ceremonial nature today.
Regardless of the weather, it is generally held outdoors.
That's always one potential twist that the weather can throw into the mix.
The speeches are given outdoors.
The president gives a speech.
The president does give a speech, and of course, the organizing committee plays a significant role behind the scenes.
Typically, these are the president's closest people. For Trump, these are Steve Witkoff and Kelly Loeffler, both of whom are very close to him and are helping to set up everything.
There are always some performers at this event, and in Trump's case, we can for sure expect to see some prominent country artists.
Lee Greenwood, who sings the 1980s song "God Bless the USA" and who also performed at Trump's previous inauguration ceremony. But this time, there will likely be more artists willing to perform at Trump's inauguration than in 2016.
The Trump of 2024 is definitely a different animal from the Trump of 2016.
For a start, he won the election most decisively, securing a majority of the votes cast. His mandate is entirely different, while there are no questions hanging over the election outcome.
Second, there are no direct questions about how he got to achieve this result.
The majority of Americans, including the political establishment on both sides, accept that the election result was fair and legitimate — not only from a technical standpoint but also in substance.
There were substantive reasons why America clearly preferred the Republicans and Trump, this time around — relating to inflation, the economy, and immigration.
These issues had gone unresolved.
The American public accepts this election result as legitimate in many aspects, which leaves very few reasons to traduce a democratic election outcome by not attending the inauguration, if you have been invited. Or by acting petulantly around it.
A significant change has occurred mostly among entrepreneurs and representatives of capital.
There has been plenty of of talk about tech entrepreneurs, but the expectation for change in the economy, business sector, and business regulations has spread across the country, even reaching what we would consider as sole proprietors.
The desire for change ranges from taxi drivers to major tech firms.
This latter group is a good example of those who certainly support and eagerly await the new president.
The inauguration event has its own organizing committee, which, as odd as it may seem from an Estonian perspective, collects donations from all those who want to participate. And the list of donors is at least as significant as the list of artists performing at the event and its related festivities. This time, it was known early on that those same tech billionaires, leaders, and owners of large companies, each found a million dollars to be a suitable donation sum.
Yes, and this has already been widely covered and analyzed, with several podcasts and interviews featuring these businesspeople, to get honest and clear answers — asking why they now find it appropriate to support Trump when they held different views in 2016.
There are two ways to interpret that . One is to take things at face value — that entrepreneurs are supporting the new president's inauguration and policies that support right-leaning businesses, as we would understand them.
And why not support the president's inauguration party in a society where it is customary for companies and individuals to financially support political parties — especially when that support is requested.
A second, more cynical view is that business chiefs are trying to position themselves with the future administration in mind, considering possible policies.
Personally, I think it depends — there are entrepreneurs who have historically supported the Republicans, some who have previously backed Trump, but definitely some who are now positioning themselves on the president's "right side" simply because many of the administration's policy plans directly affect their interests.

For example, if we talk about tech giants, they are likely to face several major disputes with the EU in the coming years, including issues that will affect Estonia, concerning EU plans regarding their tax practices, market share and anti-trust aspects.
But these companies definitely want strong support from the president's administration in their battles with the EU.
If Trump presents a new trade policy program, he could use it as leverage in negotiations with the EU, as well as to achieve outcomes favorable to tech giants on issues that concern them.
The most well-known names, at least from a public perspective, who have shifted from being Trump opponents to supporters are two figures: Mark Zuckerberg (owner and founder of Meta) and Jeff Bezos (owner and founder of Amazon and several other companies). What is important about both of them is that they are not just big business owners and very wealthy individuals, but they have previously been critical of Trump — even as "critical" might be a somewhat restrained term — plus since 2016, they have been opposition figures in respect of Trump and his administration. Second, both have significant influence and roles in shaping the media landscape in the U.S. and globally.
Indeed. And beyond their societal influence, they also have very specific business interests.
To the average person, Amazon is known as an online store, but its real cash cow is its cloud services, and servicing large public sector and Pentagon contracts.
We're talking about hundreds of billions here...
This is their business interest, where they compete with companies like Microsoft and Google. And to even have an equal starting point with others, you need to maintain at least normal working relationships with the administration — something that certainly wasn't the case during Trump's first term.
As a result, Amazon missed out on some major contracts, and contracts with Amazon were canceled under various disputes, either explicitly or implicitly.
But they also definitely have media influence — Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, and Meta, of course, owns Facebook, with its vast influence.
Along with financially supporting the inauguration, Zuckerberg also announced a significant change of heart. Notably, to use poker parlance, he went all in; issuing both a video post and a written statement explaining his shift in position on Facebook's content moderation policies.
Facebook has done plenty to moderate, measure, and monitor posts for disinformation, possible false claims, or content that they — and society more broadly — consider inconsistent with societal moral expectations, whether it involves violence, children, inappropriate material, certain types of political speech, and so on.
Naturally, this has been a major point of contention in recent years, especially between Republicans, Trump, and the online platforms of media companies which have carried out these moderation efforts.
Before Elon Musk took over, Twitter was heavily involved in practices like these.
Now, Zuckerberg has announced that he will be winding up Facebook's fact-checking service for online content moderation as it has been conducted so far, with the help of external partners.
In Estonia, they also had journalists assisting in certain partnership formats to help carry out the fact-checking.
The same was true in other countries.
Instead, Zuckerberg is introducing community notes on Facebook, similar to those on Twitter, or X.
Feedback from the users themselves
User feedback that goes into written posts.
But it is worth dwelling on Zuckerberg's statement or change of heart for a moment, as it's certainly something with broader global implications. It has been truly astonishing how Mark Zuckerberg unexpectedly posted a video statement, where he not only announced the end of fact-checking as it currently exists, but also likened fact-checking to censorship — something right-leaning public figures and critics have pointed out over the past decade. Second, he announced that he is repositioning Facebook on the political landscape. How should we interpret this? Without a doubt, this is a significant change for the entire global media environment, as well as the political environment, particularly in the U.S. When looking at Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, is this a cynical, rational, and economic calculation that things are being done differently now? Or can we see it as a personal transformation or a change in beliefs, as has happened with some entrepreneurs in recent years? Which is it? How should we interpret this?
I certainly wouldn't venture to speculate on exactly what's going on inside that head of his.
From an external perspective, there are a number of different arguments that may all be partially or entirely true.
The first is, I think, economic — that's the easiest to evaluate.
It's certainly cheaper not to do any additional work at your own expense to oversee the content that other parties post on your platforms and channels — this is a costly activity that requires significant human intervention.
And it costs money, so cutting this expense is certainly good for a publicly traded company.
That's one side of the coin.
Second, one must consider that not only is there a change in administration, but control of the Senate and House of Representatives has also shifted to the Republicans, which helps to avoid regulatory intervention.
In recent months, there has been a lot of discussion in the U.S. about whether a media regulator could start certifying large media platforms and companies in a way that would require them to obtain a certificate proving they are democratic institutions that do not censor public speech — a quality certificate, so to speak, with the absence of such a certificate potentially resulting in certain consequences...

That all sounds a bit dystopian.
But that's precisely the reaction.
The current situation is that Republicans feel they are constantly being treated unfairly, so it seems to them that they have no choice but to take such a step — especially now that they hold power.
With his move, Zuckerberg is certainly trying to reduce the likelihood that they would actually have to start complying with additional regulators, oversight, showing their procedures, and applying for quality certificates.
The third point is the one you mentioned — a substantive or ideological shift.
Perhaps it's not a change of heart in that sense. Maybe when they implemented fact-checking, they were simply responding to what they perceived as the zeitgeist.
To the new leftist narrative.
I assume that the owners of media platforms, at least in Western societies, are generally free speech purists.
Mark Zuckerberg has not demonstrated much of that in his actions over the past decade.
Yes, but one could speculate that, as the controlling shareholder of a large publicly traded company…
So, was he bluffing before, and now we're seeing the real Mark Zuckerberg?
Or is he simply always considering the zeitgeist and trying to anticipate the wishes of those in power?
For Europe, there are a number of indirect implications here. For Facebook and other large American media giants, the EU's Digital Services Act is certainly a contentious issue between the European Union and the new U.S. administration.
It's quite clear that, in every respect, it is beneficial for Meta, X, Amazon, and many other American companies to be on the side of the U.S. administration.
Yes, of course, we don't yet know exactly how these steps will affect or influence the operations of these platforms and large companies in Europe.
For example, Meta has initially stated that the change will affect their operations in North America.
This indicates that Europe has different regulations.
Europe has different regulations, and as we mentioned earlier, this could become an issue in trade and other negotiations between the Trump administration and the EU.
Tech companies may want Trump to use his leverage to pressure the EU, for example, to ease or adjust their policies on content moderation or so-called censorship, if not change them outright.
Returning briefly to the inauguration ceremony, I vaguely remember Trump's speech at the 2017 inauguration — it was pretty angry.
But in hindsight, it clearly telegraphed what became the historical narrative of his first term as president.
Are there any hints of what we might expect from Trump's speech in a week and a half?
It's hard to say because, in his case, predicting what he will say and emphasize has proven almost impossible in the past.
How he even prepares for these speeches is still somewhat of a mystery.
He still improvises on the hoof a lot.
Yes.
However, his 2017 speech was pre-written. He did add some bits and pieces to it, but it was still a prepared text.
Nowadays, he is undoubtedly more comfortable in his role and likely more positive, knowing he has strong backing — the House of Representatives and the Senate are under his control, so he doesn't need to chastise anyone directly and can focus more on his agenda.
He will be somewhat influenced by the week leading up to the inauguration, as some of his potential team members will be undergoing hearings in the Senate, including some controversial ones.
How these hearings go — whether the Senate will strongly exercise its advisory and confirmation role against him, perhaps blocking some candidates — will be a factor.
This could definitely have an impact, but overall, I would expect the speech to be positive, emphasizing the restoration of America's economic power and geopolitical strength.
The central themes will certainly be the economy and immigration, with the overarching motifs being America's prosperity and strength.
We could continue discussing the potential priorities of the Trump administration. If I had to name a few, I would say that immigration is a major priority, followed by America's trade relations with other major industrialized countries, and likely also the well-being of Americans — particularly inflation, which was probably one of the factors that secured Trump's victory. What can we infer from the current signs about what the administration will tackle most vigorously and in-depth? Or did I leave something out?
National defense is also certainly a priority in some sense.

Based on Trump's previous actions, statements, and personnel choices, one could conclude that he is taking a more Reagan-esque approach to the military defense budget, emphasizing the need for a strong military defense and trying to increase that budget.
Because both veterans and active-duty military personnel have been a very large and important voter segment.
He is definitely the type of politician who, as they say, respects the uniform, and he holds this voter segment in very high regard.
When discussing national defense, of course, from an Estonian or European perspective, one might immediately think of NATO and Russia. But in reality, in America, they are primarily thinking about China.
Yes, but that's the funny thing — it has actually been this way for the past 15 years.
But we're still talking about it in the same way.
We look at it from our perspective, but it actually started during Barack Obama's time.
It's a matter of resources. The U.S. spends twice as little on military defense today compared to the end of the Cold War when it allocated 5 to 6 percent of its GDP, whereas today it's around 3 percent.
American defense planners say that with that budget, it is possible to fight one near-peer or almost equal adversary at a time, but not two, especially if they are geographically distant, like Europe and Asia.
While the threat from Russia is acute today, the only strategic challenge is China.
This is a very clear consensus throughout the entire American security apparatus, regardless of the war in Ukraine, whether we like it or not.
Preventing a potential war over Taiwan and strengthening American deterrence means additional investments, especially in the U.S. Navy.
Currently, they have enough ship defense missiles for just a day and a half of war in the Pacific Ocean.
There are many more examples like that.
This is a major debate that requires additional resources and has bipartisan consensus. However, the issue that resonates with Americans on a daily basis, even more so, is immigration.
Interestingly, the Senate is voting today on an immigration bill package that could be on Trump's desk by inauguration day. It has gained bipartisan support in recent weeks and would significantly strengthen the administration's ability to deport illegal immigrants who have been criminally convicted but are not yet in local or state custody.
This is a more complex topic that we won't be able to unpack today, but in America, there's a big issue with immigration policies — even if the federal government implements certain policies, people reside in the states.
The U.S. is a federation, where two-thirds of the legislation is enacted at the state level due to its federal structure. States have inherent rights, and Republicans have historically supported the idea that states should have the right to make their own laws in areas where the Constitution does not grant powers to the federal government.
What I mean is — this is another example of what we talked about at the beginning of the show, that Trump has different support this time around compared to 2016, for example, from the business sector.
And this is reflected in the votes on immigration issues in both the House of Representatives last week and now in the Senate.
When looking at the priorities of the Trump administration, is there any area where it can be assumed or expected that Trump will face insurmountable conflicts as president with Congress, the House of Representatives, or the Senate?
Well, I think that in most of these issues, reality will be much more complicated than drafting a party platform or an election program.
The immigration issue has already shown significant internal disagreements in recent weeks, both within Trump's team and more broadly in the House of Representatives and Senate. For example, there's the matter of work visas, H-1B visas, which have been a specific topic of discussion. Elon Musk and the tech gurus backing him, who supported Trump's campaign with US$250 million, have very specific interests, whereas some of the MAGA — Make America Great Again — politicians have completely different views.

But is this the kind of thing that could stall the immigration issue in the Senate?
I don't think it will stall, because there are compromises to be made. But what I'm trying to say is that it's one thing to have a razor-thin majority in the House and Senate, and it's another to develop compromises where you can actually gather votes on issues with vastly different perspectives.
Trump can certainly do a lot on immigration, and Biden could have done the same by enforcing existing laws at the federal level. By allocating additional resources to immigration agencies, the federal government can enforce existing laws, such as deporting illegal immigrants who have been criminal convictions.
I think this will be a major issue for him — where and how much he tests the legal limits of his authority by trying to rely on existing federal power without changing laws, and where he seeks major changes.
I believe immigration is one area where he will try to accomplish some things without changing laws.
What can we predict for the Trump administration regarding issues symbolized by Elon Musk — deregulation, reducing bureaucracy, and giving a new boost to the American economy? I imagine that much of it involves simply cutting staff and regulations. Is that even possible in the U.S.?
I don't know. Yesterday, I watched a video interview on the X platform where Musk was interviewed, and among other things, he was asked about the advisory agency outside the government.
"The Department of Government Efficiency"
It seems that won't be a true agency as such, but rather an advisory institution that will probably hand the president a few hundred pages of recommendations.
Musk was asked about his claim that he could achieve two trillion in savings over a certain period of time, to which he replied that, yes, after reviewing things a bit, it seems more realistic to talk about one trillion — and that would make him satisfied.
But he wasn't yet able or willing to say exactly where those savings would come from.
One thing I want to remind listeners of again is the federal nature of the U.S. — two-thirds of the legislation is local, regulated by the states. For example, most business-related planning, permits, and oversight fall under state jurisdiction.
Some of this can be influenced at the federal level, but states still have a lot of autonomy in deciding their energy policies and what activities they allow or restrict within their territories.
If we look at the Biden administration's actions, or previous administrations, we see that their most impactful measures on the local economy have typically involved grants or subsidies — deciding whether to support certain types of businesses more or not.
But since the Reagan administration, we haven't seen any major zero-bureaucracy drives.
Reagan was very successful, at least for a time, in reducing bureaucracy.
Exactly, which is why I'm saying that since him, we haven't seen projects on that scale...
Reagan was also very successful in controlling inflation — or rather, the U.S. Federal Reserve was, during his time in office.
I'm by no means an expert in economics, but I'd like to point out that expert opinions suggest it's rather difficult for presidents to directly influence the economy and inflation during their terms.
There is still debate over how much the accelerated global inflation cycle was influenced by the rapid suppression of demand due to Covid-19, followed by a sudden release, resulting in supply chain issues and price pressures. Or was it a combination of different factors?
But Musk has faced no shortage of criticism in Europe for flirting with far-right parties, or at least appearing to favor their leaders for one reason or another — we're talking about the interventions in British and German domestic politics.
In this context, he had an interview with the leader of the AfD, where one of the main topics was bureaucracy and regulation in the EU, particularly in Germany.
He gave examples that are also relevant in the United States. For instance, he claimed that to set up a Tesla giga-factory in Germany, Tesla had to fill out over 25,000 pages of applications and submit them in full.
But the same kind of thing happens in America. Some issues related to reducing bureaucracy are things we've already gotten used to, but elsewhere, they're still unresolved. For example, digitizing the public sector is likely one of the big topics.
One of the peculiarities of Trump's new administration seems to be that even before the president has taken office and before his appointed administration members have even been confirmed, a lot has already happened and is happening. It seems that from the second half of November, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, along with Elon Musk or [Vice President-elect] J.D. Vance, is already carrying out new domestic and foreign policies for the U.S. Is this some kind of sign we should be reading into? For example, the new U.S. ambassador to Estonia was announced even before anyone thought to ask any questions about it.
One reason is certainly that the preparations have been completely different from those in 2016. I think we both tend to believe that the 2016 election victory came as somewhat of a surprise, even to Trump himself.
This time out, it certainly wasn't a surprise. The major think tanks behind him, such as the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute, had been working on various policy areas and programs for a year, and many of the people involved in preparing key chapters at these think tanks are now moving into not top positions but deputy and senior advisor roles throughout the administration, providing a fast start.
Second, it seems that he made an early, principled decision this time to promote his campaign team members to many important positions, creating a different atmosphere of trust where people can start acting very quickly.
For ambassador positions, at least in key countries, all presidents have always appointed businesspeople, donors, or others connected to their campaigns or inner circles.
But this time, in staffing the White House and several potential ministries, Trump seems to be promoting people from his Florida circle and his campaign team. This creates trusting relationships.
So, should we expect this fast pace to continue, and should we be prepared for it?
Yes, but we must not forget that the U.S. is a nearly 250-year-old democracy where the Constitution is the alpha and omega, and the president cannot implement major changes without Congress and the Senate.
Even though we are currently talking about him seemingly having already appointed a lot of people, in reality, almost all of these thousands and thousands of individuals still require Senate approval.
Most of them will get it, no question, because the Senate, Congress, and House of Representatives are all controlled by the Republicans.
There likely won't be any major issues with the majority, but the Senate certainly has a plan.
The leading Republican in the Senate is John Thune, who is nobody's yes-man.
From an Estonian perspective, there seem to be very few yes-men in the U.S. Congress whatsoever.
There are more of them in the House of Representatives, but far fewer in the Senate. The Senate also has several veteran Republican senators who are in their final term so won't be running again.
So they have nothing to lose.
Yes, for example, Mitch McConnell.
Funnily enough, he's Trump's main so-called concern.
I don't think he's necessarily a concern, because he, like the entire Republican establishment, is very pleased that Trump won the election and that many of Trump's plans align with what they also want to achieve, meaning they certainly won't work against him.
To wrap things up, let's touch on U.S. foreign policy. I'm quoting a 2016 statement by Peter Thiel, one of Trump's business supporters. He said that the big problem with understanding Trump is that the media and other politicians take him literally but don't take him seriously, whereas his voters take him very seriously but never literally. This seems to be a key point in understanding the foreign policy of the next U.S. administration as well.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
This morning, I listened to a Foreign Affairs podcast where they used the exact same quote, and I was hoping I'd get a chance to say it — but you beat me to it.
I've felt exactly the same way myself.
Our interview today has taken place in an enthusiastic and expectant atmosphere. However, I do want to point out that, alongside all of this, the entire security policy concerning events outside of U.S. borders — especially beyond the Pacific Basin — remains a huge question mark.
The whole of European policy and what his attitude toward NATO will be. His games with the idea of raising the two percent defense spending requirement for allies to three, or from three to five percent. What is his purpose in doing this?
We haven't even talked about the Greenland issue, the Canadian questions.
Some of these things are likely trolling, but some are serious because they are genuinely tied to U.S. geopolitical interests — that is the whole Greenland question, the Arctic issue.
The Arctic is becoming more navigable. Our own Rail Baltica is based on the same hypothesis — that at some point, it will be possible to transport goods down all the way from northern Finland.
Here we see the same ability to distinguish between literal words and the underlying intent.
There are many uncertainties where we all need to think very carefully — I'm primarily thinking of Europe's common policy.
Estonia alone won't influence Trump's thinking.
How will we position ourselves in Europe in relation to Trump's plans? Where will we cooperate, and where do we have reasons to push back against him a little?
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