On 15 November, despite a poor showing in the US midterm elections for the candidates he had backed, Donald Trump surprised no one in announcing his second run for the presidency. What does his official return to the political stage mean for the Republican Party – and for America, Russia and China?

In this essay, the New Statesman’s China and global affairs editor Katie Stallard reflects on the ugly civil war on the right of the Republican party between supporters of the Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Trump loyalists, as well as looking ahead to the international challenges facing America’s next president. 

Meanwhile, Stallard writes, in Russia  has reached what the scholar Andrei Kolesnikov calls his “Stalin phase”: isolated, paranoid, and convinced of his own omnipotence. And in China, Xi Jinping has removed his rivals and ordered the military to “prepare for war” as he reasserts the country's claim on Taiwan. Tensions with the Biden White House have escalated, and both Putin and Xi will be counting on political dysfunction in the US – maybe even Trumpism – to consolidate their power.

This article was originally published on newstatesman.com on 16 November and in the 18 November edition of the magazine. You can read the text version here.

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