Politics October 10, 2016
When you first heard that Donald Trump was joining the running for President of the United States, you may have laughed. As months have passed and Trump transformed from a ridiculous impossibility to the Republican nominee, your laugh may have turned into a nervous chuckle. In fact, according to a survey reported by the LA Times, only 29 percent of polled Americans have a positive view of Trump.
Americans aren’t the only ones worried about – or at least disapproving of – a future with Trump as POTUS. Officials from all over the world have already explained their country’s reactions to Trump … and the possibility of his presidency. What are they saying? With some help from Time, ThinkProgress and The Guardian, here are a few predictions of how the world would react if Trump became President of the United States.
If you’ve been watching the news – or, at the very least, have access to Internet – then you’ve probably heard some of the comments made by Trump about Mexico. Some of Mexico’s reactions?
According to The Guardian, former Mexico president Vincent Fox responded, “I’m not going to pay for that f*cking [proposed border] wall! He should pay for it. He’s got the money.” Time reports that Mexico’s deputy minister for migration Humberto Roque Villanueva has stated, “The Mexican government is deep in analysis over how to face what we could call the Trump emergency.”
What would Mexico do if Trump won the presidency and built a wall? Apparently America and Mexico will have to wait and see.
If you’re still riding the river of denial over Trump’s presidential chances, you might feel right at home in Brussels. According to The Guardian, a European diplomat describes those in Brussels as “incredulous” over a future with Trump as President. In his mind, Trump’s presidency “would be incredibly damaging to transatlantic relations, I suppose, though we would hope that a President Trump would not be quite as extreme as presidential candidate Trump.” A less extreme Trump? Well, people can dream …
For one Vienna diplomat, worries revolve more about Trump’s impact on other countries rather than on Vienna itself. The main worry? “My big concern is that he has said he will tear up the nuclear deal with Iran. That would be catastrophic. It was the biggest step forward in decades towards peace and stability in the Middle East and in counter-proliferation,” explains one senior diplomat. “It is also deeply concerning in general that he is clearly not a multilateralist. He would be more single-minded in pursuing purely American interests.”
Remember that time your best friend took over the school group project and everyone ended up hating each other? Just replace her with Trump and school frenemies with international fallout.
Another risk from Trump’s presidency? According to The Guardian, Brazil’s former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso believes that Trump as President would harm Brazil and push Latin America towards China. As Cardoso put it, Trump “has not made explicit what he plans to do. And the things that he has made explicit are awful, particularly in relation to Latin America and the Mexicans.”
To sum it up: “Not just for Brazil but for the whole world – the election of Trump would be a disaster.”
You’ve probably heard the saying that every dog has its day … for Trump, his day occurred last December when Russia’s Putin praised Trump as being a “very colourful and talented man” and an “absolute leader.”
As The Guardian reports, Russia’s positive view towards Trump hasn’t changed since then. In fact, Alexei Pushkov, a top foreign policy official in the Russian parliament, explained Russia’s acceptance of Trump by saying, “He has expressed his willingness to negotiate with the Russian president and not be in conflict with us like the current administration. He looks much less ideologically biased than Obama. He’s a businessman and he looks at everything like a succession of business deals.”
Others, like Judy Dempsey, a senior associate at Carnegie Europe, offer alternate reasons for Russia’s support. “What Trump has said about Nato is music to the Kremlin’s ears. If this is what an American thinks of Nato, the bedrock about the transatlantic alliance, which Russian is always trying to divide and split and weaken, well, Trump is handing them a silver platter.”
Have you ever yelled at online “trolls” attacking your social media account? For South Africa’s newspaper, New Age, Trump is “arguably the most successful internet troll in today’s political spectrum.” Even if Trump loses the presidential race, he still holds quite a title.
In the case that Trump does win, however, South Africa’s City Press has predicted the national reaction. “It will be to bolster our diplomatic capabilities so as to penetrate sectors of American power and bypass the White House for most of our dealings.” As Thinkprogress suggests, if they can’t keep Trump out of the White House, international representatives may just keep themselves out of the White House instead!
You probably don’t just know Canada for its maple syrup anymore. If you’re like most Americans, you known Canada as the jokingly offered solace for “Americans feeling a Trump presidency.” Thinkprogress reports a variety of Canadian reactions such as one from the Toronto Star, which published articles calling Trump a “historically unpopular … epic illusion” whose rallies consisted of “testosterone rage.”
A top Canadian real estate executive commented that Trump’s success as a presidential candidate illustrates the “stark differences in opportunity and attitude” between Canada and the U.S. One columnist Vinay Menon described Trump’s political tactics as a “condominium development script” in which “you hook people on the idea of owning a piece of the sky.”
Even if Canada’s predicted reaction to a President Trump isn’t certain, their reaction to Trump himself is pretty clear.
Has your friend group ever watched a movie together, only for the majority to hate it while one friend becomes completely obsessed? Japan is experiencing something just like that. Although a few Japanese figures in the media have voiced their support of Trump – like writer Hidenori Sato who bleached his hair for a Trump-esque blond glow – most worry about Trump’s effect on Japan. An unnamed source tied to the Japanese government reportedly told Japanese Daily, “If [Trump] becomes the U.S. president, it would be a problem for the Japan-U.S. national security system.”
According to Time, writers of the state-controlled Global Daily prefers Trump’s attitude towards foreign relations compared to Clinton’s. As Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, explains, “Trump sticks to isolationism when it comes to foreign policy. He doesn’t want the US to bear so many global responsibilities.” The same article also quotes Wang Yiwei saying that, despite Trump’s entertaining role in the U.S. presidential race, he doubts that Trump will “bring any major structural changes to the bilateral relationship” between China and the U.S.
Basically? The global reactions to Trump’s possible presidency are about as clear as Trump’s chances at becoming President. Americans, and people all over the world, will just have to (nervously) wait and see.
