Snapshots from the new Trump world: Reaction from around the globe

Donald Trump's shocking victory in the U.S. presidential election brought congratulations, confusion and consternation from leaders and nations around the world. Here's what they're saying

CANADA

Trudeau: 'We look forward to working very closely with president-elect Trump'

by Evan Annett

Here's what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had to say Wednesday on the U.S. election results:

The election result also got warm praise from Kellie Leitch, one of the candidates for leadership of Canada's Conservative Party. In a fundraising e-mail to supporters, she suggested Canadians follow Mr. Trump's lead:

With a report from Laura Stone

LATIN AMERICA

Latin America alarmed as Trump spells doom for TPP

by Stephanie Nolen in Rio de Janeiro

Mr. Trump's election is being greeted with alarm in Latin America. Countries including Peru, Chile and Colombia are enthusiastic signatories of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is now presumably dead.

Brazil, its economy in tatters, was counting on increased trade and investment from the U.S.; while Mr. Trump never mentioned Brazil during the campaign, the key agribusiness sector here is alarmed by his promises to expand trade protections for U.S. farmers. That threatens not only Brazilian access to the markets of the United States, its second-largest trade partner, but also international prices for key commodities including soy, cotton and sugar cane.

For Brazilians, who have lived through political upheaval of their own this year, there are parallels in this election: with the impeachment of ex-president Dilma Rousseff, a progressive government was swept from office. She was replaced by an elderly white man who immediately installed an all-white, all-male government.

Prominent far-right politicians here, already emboldened by the political changes of recent months, were quick to herald Mr. Trump's election on social media, saying Brazil would soon follow a similar path.

Across South America, news outlets note that predictions about the key role to be played by Latino voters backing Ms. Clinton proved erroneous. Colombia's major newspaper headlines the election story "With Trump, the white American giant rises."

The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional warns that a Trump government is likely to promulgate policy that will "undermine Latinos' progress towards a better life in the U.S."

MEXICO

Peso plunges after Trump's victory

by Associated Press

Mexico was pitched into deep uncertainty by Donald Trump's U.S. election victory on Tuesday after a bitterly divisive campaign, raising the prospect of major clashes over trade, immigration and security.

The peso currency suffered its biggest fall in 22 years on fears Mr. Trump will stick to a campaign pledge to rewrite or dump a free trade treaty he says is loaded in Mexico's favour. Investors worry a trade fight could tip Mexico's economy into recession.

The Republican candidate has threatened to deport millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, many of whom he described as rapists and drug runners, and to keep others out by building a massive border wall he says Mexico will pay for.

ASIA

In Asia, markets are roiling as strongmen quietly rejoice

by Nathan VanderKlippe in Beijing

In Seoul and Tokyo, authorities attended urgent meetings of security councils and financial regulators. In Hong Kong and Taipei, investors shed stocks in the shadow of a new cloud of uncertainty.

And in Manila and Beijing, a pair of strongman leaders brushed aside economic qualms over an unpredictable new American president as they gleefully prepared for a world in which the U.S. electorate has steered itself into the political unknown.

The election of Donald Trump raised sudden new fears – and cheers – that his presidency will profoundly reshape an Asian landscape already grappling with the ascent of Chinese might and its disdain for Western values of governance and expression.

Now, "the United States may become the 'Banana States of America,'" with Trump "tearing apart the reputation and decency of the U.S.," said Victor Gao, a director at the China National Association of International Studies. A more stable China, in comparison, "may actually enjoy a greater level of trust and respect."

China's relatively steady stock markets Wednesday stood in contrast to market panic elsewhere, while shares in Chinese arms giant Norinco rose amid expectations of new instability.

Traditional U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, were plunged into difficult questions about their futures.

In Seoul, the government set up a special team to cope with the change. "Trump has been vowing to seek isolationism. This will bring changes to the global economy as well as the security environment," said Democratic Party Rep. Park Kyung-mee, Yonhap reported.

At the same time, Malaysian prime minister Najib Tun Razak, newly friendly with China, cheered U.S. voters' support for a White House "less embroiled in foreign interventions."

But in China there were hints of worry, too, that Mr. Trump's vows of punitive tariffs would undermine the system of global trade that has lubricated the country's rise.

"The whole world is about to enter a third world war – a commercial world war," warned one commenter on Chinese social media.

AFRICA

Trump's stands on trade, climate change leave Africans nervous

by Geoffrey York in Pretoria

Donald Trump has uttered barely a word about Africa since he began running for president, but his stunning U.S. election victory has provoked worry among Africans that he will slash the trade and aid deals that have helped many countries on the continent.

Mr. Trump's isolationist and protectionist leanings, along with his role as a climate-change denialist, have alarmed many Africans. Polls before the election in the two biggest African economies, Nigeria and South Africa, found that a strong majority in both countries favoured Hillary Clinton over Mr. Trump.

African analysts are concerned that Mr. Trump could cut foreign aid, rip up trade agreements such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and withdraw U.S. support for a climate treaty at a time when climate change is causing environmental havoc in many African countries.

South Africa is one of the few African countries to have caught Mr. Trump's attention. Shortly after the death of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela in 2013, Mr. Trump tweeted that South Africa was "a crime-ridden mess that is just waiting to explode."

Many South African commentators had scathing reactions on Wednesday when they heard that Mr. Trump had won the election. South African journalist Ranjeni Munusamy described Mr. Trump's election promises as "hateful" and "an assault on human decency."

RUSSIA

Putin wants Trump to bring Moscow in from the cold

by Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow is ready to try to restore good relations with the United States.

Mr. Putin said Wednesday that "we aware that it is a difficult path, in view of the unfortunate degradation of relations between the Russian Federation and the United States." Mr. Putin says "it is not our fault that Russian-American relations are in such a state."

Earlier, the Kremlin said Mr. Putin sent Trump congratulations, expressing "his hope to work together for removing Russian-American relations from their crisis state."

IRAQ

Baghdad hopeful Trump will stay the course on Islamic State

by Associated Press

The Iraqi government says relations with the United States have a "solid base" and this is not expected to change after Mr. Trump's election as president.

Government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi, told Associated Press on Wednesday that Iraq is keen to develop its relations with the U.S. and "boost co-operation in the fight against terrorism."

He noted the leading U.S. role in the current battle to push back Islamic State extremists in Iraq's north. Last month, a U.S.-led military coalition launched an operation to retake Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, from Islamic State extremists.

BRITAIN

For Britons, Brexit déjà vu

by Paul Waldie in London

When Donald Trump invoked Brexit in his campaign speeches many pundits scoffed, saying there was little similarity between the U.S. election and Britain's referendum on the European Union.

But the two campaigns now look strikingly similar. Like the stunning Vote Leave victory in Britain, pollsters, pundits and investors in the United States got the outcome largely wrong, misreading the growing anger toward the establishment and the importance of social issues such as immigration.

"In the same way that British voters rejected the government's message that Brexit would be a huge economic risk, Americans have looked at an economy that's actually doing reasonably well for most of them and said, 'Well, that's not the most important thing to me, the most important things are these social and these culture issues,'" said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. "I think it's the rise of social and cultural politics above and beyond the politics of the economy."

How The Guardian saw it

Full view here of their Wednesday front page

Prof. Bale said many of those backing Vote Leave and Mr. Trump came from similar backgrounds and most were not easily tracked by pollsters.

"It's proving increasingly difficult for pollsters to be able to pick up respondents who come from the kind of backgrounds that vote for Brexit and vote for Donald Trump. In other words, voters who are more culturally conservative, less well educated and some of them living in rather more strained economic circumstances," he said. "It's less easy getting hold of people who are not interested generally in politics, who aren't particularly well educated and aren't particularly well heeled."

Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent, agreed, saying, "Once again pundits and pollsters have failed to accurately identify the depth of frustration and anger among white, working class, less well educated and left-behind voters who feel under threat from global markets and rising levels of ethnic and cultural diversity."

Investors also badly misread both campaigns, putting too much faith in polls and making wildly wrong predictions. Markets gave Hillary Clinton an 80 per cent chance of winning, similar to the reading for the Remain side before the Brexit vote.

"It looks like no lessons were learned from Brexit," said currency strategist Craig Erlam. "Hillary Clinton had a small lead in the polls and markets took that for gospel by the looks of it…Another tough lesson for markets getting a bit ahead of themselves."

Mr. Erlam said investors bought into the idea that people wouldn't vote for Mr. Trump because he was too divisive. They didn't understand "that a vote for Trump wasn't necessarily a vote for Trump's policies or an agreement that he was the best man for the job, I think it was very much an anti-establishment, protest vote we've already seen in the U.K. And I think people underestimated the power of that."

Nigel Farage, the interim leader of the UK Independence Party, which led the campaign to pull Britain out of the EU, said Mr. Trump continued a revolution started by Brexit. He said both the Vote Leave and Trump campaigns drew people who had rarely voted before and who were unhappy with the status quo.

"It's anger at the establishment, but it's latching on to what people see as policy solutions," he said. "You can't win elections just on a protest vote. It has to be more than that," he added. "He offered policy solutions; building walls, ending endless military intervention in other countries, cutting taxes. There was quite a lot of red meat there."

Brexit was a key part of Mr. Trump's message, added Mr. Farage, "and that's why Trump had me out there talking about it in August and that's why he's talked about it every single night of the campaign."

Mr. Farage also had this warning for politicians in Canada and Europe: "Just watch out because you could be next."

THE VATICAN

Pope's top envoy prays for 'enlightened' Trump

by Reuters News Agency

Mr. Trump's well-wishers included the Catholic Church's top diplomat, Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin, told the papal state's radio station he would pray for the new incumbent to be "enlightened."

ITALY

With Trump in charge, Italian PM changes his tune

by Eric Reguly in Rome

Only a few months ago, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was not hedging on the diplomatic front. Hillary Clinton was his preferred candidate and Donald Trump was just plain scary. "I consider Donald Trump a man who invests a lot in the policy of fear," he said in a CNN interview.

On Wednesday morning, after Mr. Trump's near landslide victory, Mr. Renzi scrambled to find the diplomacy handbook. "The world is saluting Trump's election," he said. "In Italy's name, I congratulate him and wish him well for his work."

While Mr. Renzi's comments reeked of insincerity, and may cause him discomfort at the Group of Seven summit in Sicily in May when he meets Mr. Trump possibly for the first time, a few other Italian political bosses were thrilled that the Orange One had snatched the prize away from Ms. Clinton.

One was Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing, anti-establishment and anti-euro opposition Northern League party. He called Mr. Trump's victory the "revenge of the people … a win for courage, pride, labour and security issues against the banks, speculators, journalists and pollsters."

A voice of concern and realpolitik came from Italian Foreign Ministry undersecretary Benedetto Della Vedova. He noted that Mr. Trump's protectionist and isolationist policies might, in turn, isolate Europe "at a time in which we will be called on to play a crucial role for democracy, tolerance, multilateralism and international trade."

EUROPE

EU invites Trump to help build ties across the Atlantic

by Associated Press

European Union leaders have invited U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to come visit the 28-nation bloc as possible to assess transatlantic ties.

With "sincere congratulations," EU Council President Donald Tusk and his Commission counterpart Jean-Claude Juncker said that, despite Trump's campaign talk of protectionism and isolationism, both sides "should consolidate the bridges we have been building across the Atlantic."

Mr. Tusk famously quoted his wife during the U.S. election campaign, saying that "One Donald is more than enough!"

After Wednesday's shock election result, Mr. Tusk and Mr. Juncker said that "it is more important than ever to strengthen transatlantic relations."

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