“We are alone”: The world reacts to Trump’s victory

A thunderstruck world accepted Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election as ordinary people and political giants expressed celebration, dismay or astonishment on Wednesday as allies and opponents struggled to recreate their vision of a vastly changed American landscape to align.

On the frigid battlefields of Ukraine, in busy urban cafes in Europe and Asia, on street corners in the Middle East, there were gasps and wide-eyed eyes as the news flashed on televisions and smartphone screens – but in some circles there was also a sense of the Distancing yourself from this distant political issue of earthquakes.

World leaders were quick to speak out, ranging from enthusiastic congratulations to darker and more reserved assurances of continuity in the relationship with Trump, whose mercurial first presidency upended many longstanding diplomatic norms.

“The greatest comeback in history!” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on the platform

Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a long-time Trump ally, called his election “a beautiful victory.”

While most Americans woke up to the news of Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris or watched the numbers into the bleary-eyed early hours of the morning, people across much of the world were in daytime mode when the race was called.

“By and large, the war is going nowhere,” said Serhiy, a Ukrainian Marine sergeant serving on the southern front. According to Ukrainian military protocol, only his first name was disclosed.

At a cafe in Seoul with sweeping river views, the 35-year-old owner of a South Korean media production company, Jeon Ji, said she had never seen such a polarized political climate.

“I’m starting to wonder if the U.S. could actually break out into a civil war,” she said.

In Europe, where several dozen heads of state were scheduled to meet on Thursday for a summit in Budapest, Hungary, Trump’s victory was seen as having serious implications for security, the economy and climate change.

The former and future president’s promise to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours,” coupled with his friendly attitude toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, cast a shadow over the overarching common goal of Ukraine that has existed for nearly three years to support them in their fight against Russia.

Still, Mark Rutte, the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, expressed optimism, saying Trump’s leadership would again be “key to keeping our alliance strong.” Along the same lines, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she looked forward to working with Trump again on a “strong transatlantic agenda.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a far-right leader who shares Trump’s aggressive stance against illegal immigration, vowed to work with Trump to strengthen their nations’ “strategic bond.”

But Europe’s left was horrified. Raphaël Glucksmann, a leading French socialist in the European Parliament, said Trump’s return to the White House would jeopardize Europe’s alliance with the United States.

“We will now be alone in Europe,” he said. “Alone in the face of the war on our continent, alone in the face of Putin, alone in the face of the wave of right-wing authoritarianism sweeping our nations and the world, alone in the face of climate catastrophe.” Alone.”

In an editorial, Le Monde, the leading French newspaper, lamented the return of a U.S. leader who “saves his harshest words for his allies but spares the autocrats who are seen as partners rather than adversaries.”

Joey Chao, a 32-year-old English teacher in Taipei, checked his phone throughout the day on Wednesday for the latest election updates before Trump’s victory was sealed.

“There is a bit of a shock,” he said. “People couldn’t imagine Trump winning again.”

With his criminal convictions and his defense of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, the former president has played a major role as a divisive political figure in Taiwan, Chao said. In contrast, few of his friends knew much at all about Harris.

“We feel that US-Taiwan relations will become more unpredictable in the event of a Trump victory,” he said. “But on the other hand, we are not worried about him abandoning his tough stance on China.”

In the Middle East, where the Biden administration has been struggling to contain escalating hostilities for at least a year, news of Trump’s victory shocked many.

Israel is fighting on multiple fronts against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which launched a shock attack on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip more than a year ago that killed about 1,200 people, and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which began the attack shortly after Israel began.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies of Iran, which has also traded rocket fire with Israel, raising fears of a wider regional conflict. In Tehran, a 25-year-old theater major named Hoda, who did not want her full name used for security reasons, said she could not imagine a positive outcome from Trump’s presidency.

“Nothing looks like it’s going to work out in our favor,” she said.

The catastrophic war in Gaza, which killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, was seen by young voters and Arab Americans in key swing states as one of the factors hurting Harris. In Lebanon, where health officials say Israeli strikes killed more than 3,000 people last year, most of them in the past two months, there was an air of fatalism about the outcome.

Sanaa, a 26-year-old who was walking her dog on Beirut’s waterfront and who declined to give her name for privacy reasons, said she expects little to change under a new U.S. administration, regardless of which candidate wins have .

“It’s the same thing either way,” she said. “Both Trump and Harris don’t care about us.”

King reported from Washington, Kim from Seoul, special correspondent Finnegan from Paris, Bulos from Beirut, Yang from Taipei and special correspondent Mostaghim from Tehran.