Journalist, Mrutyuanjai Mishra from THE GLOBAL The elections in the United States will create winners and losers on the global stage.

The source where the article was first published and from which it was taken: The Global https://online.fliphtml5.com/sltol/bjyv/#p=4





Donald J. Trump says he is fond of strong men. Who could that be in the global context? Vladimir Putin from Russia, Narendra Modi from India, Xi Jinping from China, and Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel? Men who have managed to stay long in power and are actually still in power. So the equation goes that he will be able to forge good relationship with them.

In the list of strong men we also have to include Donald Trump. He has won a landslide victory. After the votes have been counted, even the last swing state Arizona, went to the Republicans. So today the Republican party has 312 seats and the Democrats have been reduced to 226 seats.
Undoubtedly, Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States, with a majority in the Senate and probably heading for the majority in the House as well. Historically speaking, a tremendous achievement for any president to achieve the above-given figures after having suffered a defeat in 2020. He is only the second Republican president to win the popular vote in 36 years. Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump but won the popular vote, Kamala Harris has lost the popular vote as well.
Hillary Clinton won approximately 66 million votes compared to Donald Trump’s 63 million votes. The year was 2016. In 2024, Trump triumphantly reversed this trend and has now won the popular vote winning 74.5 million votes compared with Kamala Harris, who has received four million fewer votes. It is a bigger defeat if we compare her statistics with Joe Biden who had garnered support of 81 million votes. Nevertheless, Trump’s victory can easily be described as a landslide victory with an overwhelming number of voters from both the rural and urban areas voting in favor of him.
Now the million-dollar question is if he wins the House, then he has literally control of all the three branches of government, namely, the Senate, the House and winning the post of President as well. In short, Trump now has the mandate to make the changes and keep his promises. He has made many promises to his voters, and in his victory speech he did mention two things that are worth noting. Firstly, „Promises made, promises kept”. Secondly, he said that, „I am not going to start wars. I am going to stop wars”.
The world can heave a sigh of relief. The endless military wars might end, but then what about trade wars? By putting America first, the domestic policy of increasing tariffs on goods from China to 60% would immediately spark a rise in inflation, but we have not heard anything specific yet. The President elect is yet to form his team and we will soon get to know what those policies are.
A few things have been indicated, though. The former CIA director, Mike Pompeo, and former presidential candidate who fought against Trump, Nikki Haley, are not going to be included in his new team. Internationally speaking, the strong men from abroad will be able to forge good relations with Trump and hence the new global order will see some changes.
Let us start with Vladimir Putin, who had earlier indicated that he will not congratulate the winner of the American election, finally changed his mind. He offered his congratulations to Donald Trump and gave a major speech in Sochi, Russia, indicating that cooperation with the Western countries is still possible. He praised the western culture for having achieved a lot and the tone was definitely reconciliatory. I am not sure that if Kamala Harris had won, then this reconciliatory tone would have been made public. Trump may not be able to end the war in 24 hours as he has promised, but it is likely that both Russia and Ukraine might get a face-saving solution. Not easily acceptable to both but forcing both parties to compromise.
In other words, he will cut short the supply of weapons and economic funds to Ukraine and thereby force Ukraine to accept the deal. If Russia denies the deal he offers, then he can indicate that he will start supplying more weapons to Ukraine. Time will tell if this pressure tactics will work.
But it is sure though, that unlike Joe Biden, Donald Trump is able to talk to Vladimir Putin, and the chemistry seems to work between these two public figures.
Another international figure, Narendra Modi, also heaves a sigh of relief seeing his good old friend Donald Trump winning the presidential race. Narendra Modi was the one of the first international leaders to have called Donald Trump, congratulating him on his victory. Modi’s tweet says all about the warm relationship between these two social-media stars. Both have a huge following on social media platforms.
Narendra Modi wrote on X, „Heartiest congratulations my friend @real Donald Trump on your historic election victory. As you build on the successes of your previous term, I look forward to renewing our collaboration to further strenthen the India-US Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership. Together, let’s work for the betterment of our people and to promote global peace, stability and prosperity.”
We have to remember why Modi is delighted while the European leaders are disenchanted and disappointed with the US election results. Let’s start with Modi. Modi had difficulties establishing good relations with Joe Biden despite the fact that his team included a person of Indian origin as the vice-president. The United States had been warning India and the Modi administration for having indulged in some ugly affairs in Canada. As a result India and Canada each expelled six diplomats just before the American elections were held. The Americans said that they too had a proof and were about to impose sanctions on the Indian government, and were waiting for the elections to be over. So, even though Modi was in America during the elections and Trump had annouced that they had a meeting while Modi was in USA, but Modi returned home swiftly without participating in the meeting. Modi feared Biden and Harris, while with Trump he has held two rallies with thousands of specatators. With spectators numbering 50,000 both in USA and India both men stood in the crowd hugging each other. Biden didn’t make it to India. But Trump did during his first tenure as a president.
Since the 2016 elections, Donald Trump said unequivocally that he is the best president India can have as he is willing do everything to improve relations with India. When Modi called him congratulating him on his election victory, he replied that „everyone loves Modi”. Here again one should notice how Trump’s election strategy worked.
Despite the fact that Indians now make up the second-largest immigrant group after Mexican Americans, very few voted for Kamala Harris. A few days before the elections on November 5th, the Indians celebrated Diwali, the most important festival, an equivalent of Christmas for the Christians. While both candidates congratulated the Indians on Diwali Eve, Kamala Harris just mentioned Diwali, saying that it is an auspicious day, when a billion people celebrate the festival of lights. But Donald Trump assured the Hindu community of America that he will do everything to stop persecution of Hindus around the world. Hindus have been persecuted in Pakistan and recently in Bangladesh and have had to flee the country. This argument resonated heavily and some of the undecided Hindu voters voted in favor of Donald Trump.
The same argument can be applied to the Latino men, the black men and other working-class men, who came out in huge numbers in support of Donald Trump. Almost feeling disenfranchised and disappointed by Biden’s four years in office, they felt that unhindered mass migration was affecting their job prospects. They were inclined to vote for a tougher migration policy demanding that undocumented immigrants be sent home.
Men working in low-paid jobs, men without a college education and men in general, irrespective of ethnic and national origin have come out in big numbers to vote for Donald Trump. His economic policies combined with tougher immigration laws had a bigger appeal than supporting abortion rights.
The Democrats have to do a lot of soul-searching in order to figure out what went wrong. Meanwhile, we can find yet another internationally known figure, Benjamin Netanyahu who didn’t listen to Joe Biden. He kept the war going in Gaza and Libanon and Trump’s relentless appeal of unchecked support to Israel made even young Jewish women support him. Those who had Jewish roots felt that their country of origin was fighting a battle of survival against terrorism and hence they were willing to trust Trump and not Kamala Harris, who was insisting on a cease-fire.
The last international figure is the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. He has a strong economy. China has created the base for economic growth all over Asia. Here I would like to mention that in 2030, it is estimated that 3.5 billion people in Asia are expected to reach the category of middle class having the capacity to buy as much as the middle class can afford in Europe. This is a huge figure and a huge potential. Donald Trump sees this as an oppurtunity and wants to reverse the game. He wants to export to these countries, and instead of creating favorable conditions for them to export in America, he wants America to be able to export to them, creating jobs in America.
Comparitively speaking, America is not that rich, and the days of American exceptionalism are over. Biden did not see this coming and kept neglecting the working-class people who punished the Democrats decisively. Biden did not do anything to clamp down on undocumented migrants, whose figures, according to some sources, are as high as 20 million. The swing states that suffered as a result have all favored Trump over Harris.
The Democrats have suffered because of a self-inflicted wound. They could have controlled migration better. They could have listened to the working class and especially the male voters. It is too late now. And it is too early to predict what the next four years will mean for the rest of the world.
One thing is sure: India, Israel, Russia, and China might emerge as winners. China and India have themselves resolved their border conflict and even though some might say this is a temporary gain, imagine if we could achieve that between Russia and Ukraine. Ceasefire and cessation of conflict. India and China have also decided to increase trade between them. And if Trump imposes tariffs on China, then investment from US will benefit India.
The dejected and disheartened continent is Europe. They were hoping against hope to see Kamala Harris in power. That would have continued the resistance against Russia, and the war would have continued. But look at the election results in Europe as well. And notice the immediate effect of the US elections in Germany. The political crisis in the Scholz government will probably result in early elections in January 2025. People in Germany and other countries equally are voting the incumbent governments out and voting for change. The Germans want cheap energy for their industries and want to keep their jobs, and similarly want fewer immigrants. The far-right surge is supposed to continue on the European continent, as well.
Europe will have to invite the confident Trump for a dance and a drink. Maybe a good burger could work as well. Trump wants the Europeans to take responsibility and stop expecting much from America. They too will find difficulty in selling easily to America, and might have to lower their expectations. No other continent covers the American elections so enthusiastically, and no other continent now fears the results of the American elections like Europe. Europe is in shock and devastated.
The Democrats kept demonizing Trump and all those court cases against him made Americans assume that he was a victim and not a criminal. Weaponizing the judicial system against Trump was a blunder and an eye-opener, and even though the Europeans thought that the Americans will not choose a criminal to the world’s highest office, the contrary happened. He became a victim and an attempt to take his life converted him to a hero, and the elections gave him a historical win. Luckily, until now the European tradition has been to fight political differences through elections and debates and not in courts. It backfires as we saw in USA.
As a matter of consolation, one could say, if all wars end and if the whole world starts trading with each other, then at least for a period of a few years it would give us a reason for a cautious optimism.