The return of Donald Trump to the White House has been received with a mixture of both anticipation and trepidation over what lies in store during his second outing as the leader of the so-called Free World. He has started his second stint with the grandiose claim that the "golden age of America begins right now."

Hyperbole is what we have come to expect from him, part cartoon character but mostly political messiah of dubious import. As the forty-sixth president of the United States, Joe Biden undid some of the actions of the forty-fifth President, Donald Trump.

The first executive orders and pronouncements have sharpened the expectations in some quarters that he is set to run amok, with the numbers solidly behind him this time. The transition and the entry into the Oval Office, achieved with a lot less bloodshed than we have seen previously, adds solidity to this presumption. Thankfully, Trump's ability to fashion the world and America according to his wishes will be limited by, first and foremost, his age.

At 78, he is no spring chicken. Trump's bull run will also be curtailed by the shape Congress will take half-way through his presidency, which probably explains why he is such a man in a hurry. Two years of Trump's presidency could well change the view of more than a few of his electoral afficionados, affecting the composition of the Congress through which laws have to pass, thereby altering the American political landscape. That brings us to the executive orders that he is signing at a bewildering rate of speed.

Trump knows full well that some of them will not be passed by American lawmakers, and many of them will be derailed by litigation and court rulings. Some of the executive orders are plain grandstanding, good from afar but far from good, like the change of name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It is very unlikely, for example, that Mexican textbooks will reflect that change. It is mostly in the American mind. Take the decision to pull out, once again, from the World Health Organisation.

How many Americans can convincingly argue that the move has made the world a safer place for Americans to travel to? With Trump it is sometimes difficult to say when he is doing brinkmanship to drive a better business bargain. In this case, to reduce the American contribution to the WHO funds. Executive orders by the President of America can be overturned, as they have been by Trump himself, by the kilo, almost. Not known for consistency or that other `c' word, cautiousness, Trump is far more likely to make the Guinness Book of World Records for his recklessness and erratic presidential behaviour.

Take the case of George Bush Jr. era Neocon John Bolton, Trump's third National Security Adviser, who practically drove American policy on Iran to the point where he persuaded Trump to break the solemn understanding America had reached with Iran. Just a day ago, Trump removed Bolton's security cover and called him, in one of his outbursts, a "very dumb person" and a "stupid guy," both not exactly the qualities you would look for in a National Security Adviser of a man who advertises himself as capable of changing the world order. It is Trump's fits of pique that send legitimate shivers down the world's capitals now buckling up for a hard and bumpy ride ahead. Not all of them, however, are trembling. While Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Denmark, Panama may be in for some nail-biting times, Russia is sitting pretty, knowing full well that the next American troops are more likely to be deployed along the border with Mexico, not in Ukraine. The few, who must have put money aligning with Trump's promise to end the Ukraine war even before he entered the White House, have already lost their money.

Grandiloquent pronouncements don't often make for great or even good policy. But people like Trump tend to be slow learners, and people like Putin tend to stick around and are patient. Trump is spewing the word tariff like machine gun fire in every direction: Canada, China, Russia, Mexico, the European Union, and BRICS nations that include India. Does he think that they will play possum and not retaliate if Trump carries through his threats? Can he take on the whole world? China is no pushover, and frankly, it is difficult to say sometimes if Trump is playing footsie or American style football with the Chinese, as evidenced with a lower tariff rate (10 per cent) he has prescribed for the Chinese or how he gave Tik Tok a fresh lease of life.

Lines between allies and adversaries are likely to be blurred now and then as Trump rampages through his remaining days in office as he by turns, blows hot and cold and special relationships, like the one with the United Kingdom, swings from cordiality to sniping and back again. We are entering an era of big questions, some pertaining to American geography: Will Canada become a part of America? Will Greenland? Others are more mundane: Will peace reign in West Asia? Will NATO stop pushing eastward? Trump is not so much about the ends but the means that he suggests to get there. We have to wait for the 48th President to turn up to see where Trump's actions end up.