The Trump Phenomenon and Russia’s Economy

Abstract

The present study discusses the two problems in Putin’s Russia, namely that of protective trade measures and that of social disparities, both of which have been attracting attention from a lot of researchers and journalists under the circumstance of the Trump phenomenon. Therefore it examines the problems in comparison with the situation of the two problems in the USA under the Trump administration. For the first problem, it argues that Russia is rather faithful to the rule of the game of international system, while the Trump administration has an inclination to destroy it. However, there is a kind of deception in this attitude of Russia because it applies double standards when it treats trade problems with the USA, Western Europe and Japan on the one hand and the problems with the former Soviet states on the other. It emphasizes that Trump’s trade policies would play a role that gives an indulgence to the double standards of Russia.

For the second problem, we argue that the residents in Russia are divided into small interest groups as a result of the survival of the “Soviet social system”. What ties together the people there is the patriotism of the citizens surrounded by “enemies”. Also in the United States, a specific income group does not support Trump’s regime, but a wider cross-hierarchical ideology, “anti-intellectualism” supports it. According to our view it is important to pay an attention to the relationship between the hierarchical structure and the patriotism or ideology in order to estimate the sustainability of the both regimes in the future.