DEEP DIVE — It was, as Axios reporter Zachary Basu put it, “the most astonishing, gravity-defying comeback in the history of American politics.” But Donald Trump’s victory was also a thunderbolt felt well beyond U.S. shores. From the Middle East to Ukraine, the halls of NATO to those in the Kremlin, and in China and other parts of East Asia, Trump’s return to the presidency brings a blend of hope, fear and uncertainty.
World leaders congratulated Trump on Wednesday – some more warmly than others. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime ally of the president-elect, called Trump’s win “history’s greatest comeback”; India’s Narendra Modi cheered the victory of his “friend”; and Hungary’s President Viktor Orban, the leader Trump singled out for praise in his September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, congratulated Trump for “his enormous win…a much needed victory for the world!”
Other European leaders offered less effusive congratulations. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he hoped for continued close ties with the U.S., even if “surely many things will be different under a Donald Trump-led administration.” Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Sky News that he was “convinced that we will work well with the tycoon’s new administration.” And in Kyiv, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a statement that was both congratulatory and wishful: “Congratulations to @realDonaldTrump on his impressive election victory!” Zelensky posted on X. “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach.”
Some interpreted that as a veiled expression of hope that the president-elect might not be quick to cut off aid to Ukraine, or end the war on terms that cede territory to Russia. NATO’s new Secretary General, Mark Rutte, used Zelensky’s same “peace through strength” formulation in his message for Trump, who has been a frequent critic of NATO.
“His leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong,” Rutte said in a post on X. “I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through NATO.”
Despite Trump’s relatively close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, there were no official congratulations from the Kremlin. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia-U.S. relations were at the “lowest point in history,” and he poured cold water on Trump’s pledge to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine.
It cannot end “overnight,” Peskov said. “Let’s not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country [the U.S.], which is both directly and indirectly involved in the war against our state.”
Cipher Brief expert and former CIA acting director John McLaughlin said that his overseas contacts were less concerned with specific bilateral issues, and more with the potential for unpredictability in a second Trump term.
“The world is really worried about Trump,” McLaughlin said, in an interview just days before the election. “I can't say that that's 99% of the world, but most people you intersect with say, 'Well, we'd work with him', but they're really worried about unpredictability and volatility and all of the consequences of that. America has to be predictable in the world. That doesn't mean easy or soft or a pushover, but countries have to know where we stand and where we are likely to come out on issues so they can formulate their own positions.”
Three cheers from Bibi
Of the many global leaders who offered their congratulations Wednesday, Netanyahu may be as pleased as any by the outcome. He had a warm relationship with President Trump during his first term, and a decidedly chilly relationship with Presidents Obama and Biden. The Biden Administration has been increasingly critical of Israel’s prosecution of the Gaza war, and has tried for months to press Netanyahu to make concessions for a peace deal. Vice President Kamala Harris was expected to continue to pressure the Israelis to wind down their wars.
Trump has been more supportive of Netanyahu’s war (though he told an Israeli newspaper in March, that Israel should “finish up” the war in Gaza, “because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support”) For Netanyahu, Trump’s victory will likely mean less criticism from Washington, and thus a freer hand in the two-front war.
“He clearly is friendly toward Netanyahu,” McLaughlin said. “He clearly would be less inclined to put pressure on Netanyahu.”
It’s one more piece of good news for the Israeli leader, coming on the heels of a string of military successes against both Hamas and Hezbollah.
“This is a huge victory!” Netanyahu wrote on social media about Trump’s win. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
One of Netanyahu’s ultranationalist cabinet partners, the minister of security Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultranationalist minister of national security, posted a one-word cheer to the news of Trump’s victory: “Yesssss.”
High anxiety in Kyiv
As Brian Bonner reported for The Cipher Brief Tuesday, Trump’s return brings grave concerns for Ukrainian officials – primarily because he has vowed to cut off aid to Kyiv and to end the war in a rapid fashion that Ukrainians fear would leave Russia in control of territory captured since its unprovoked February 2022 invasion. Trump has praised Putin as a strong and smart leader; Harris called him “a murderous dictator.”
One week before the U.S. election, Zelensky said that he “understands all the risks” of a Trump victory. But in his statement Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader said that Trump’s “peace through strength” approach to foreign affairs was “exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer.”
That could be read as an elegant way of doing two things: on the one hand, praising and congratulating the president-elect; while making Ukraine’s case for a “just peace,” one that presumably would use “strength” to ensure that the terms of any Trump-brokered peace deal were fair for the Ukrainians.
“I am hopeful that we will put it into action together,” Zelensky said. “We look forward to an era of a strong United States of America under President Trump’s decisive leadership.”
Ukraine is already facing a raft of challenges – battlefield setbacks in the east, a steady barrage of Russian strikes against its energy infrastructure, and a winter that is forecast to be colder than normal. Trump’s election adds a profound worry over the flow of American aid.
As Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Cipher Brief just prior to the election, “The fate of Ukraine depends on U.S. support.”
In Russia, while the government offered no immediate congratulations, the former President and outspoken Kremlin propagandist Dmitri Medvedev took a general swipe at Washington Wednesday but then added a comment that both praised Trump and – indirectly – took aim at Ukraine:
“Trump has one quality that is useful for us,” Medvedev said. “As a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on and freeloaders – on idiotic allies, [and] on bad charity projects.”
The “charity project,” to Medvedev, is the Ukrainian resistance.
From the “Axis of Authoritarians,” a muted response
Hungary’s Orban, an outlier in NATO as a leader who stands firmly with Putin, is an example of Trump’s relatively good relations with illiberal leaders. Trump has boasted about his close ties with Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and – thanks to a pair of summits held during his first term – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Those three leaders represent nations in the so-called “Axis of Authoritarians” (the fourth is Iran), a quartet of countries that have partnered in various ways to undermine American interests.
The government in Beijing was characteristically muted in its reaction Wednesday – not surprising, given that a pillar of Trump’s campaign was his pledge to impose record-high tariffs against Chinese exports.
“We will continue to approach and handle China-U.S. relations based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation," Mao Ning, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a briefing for reporters Wednesday. "Our policy toward the United States has been consistent." Asked to comment specifically on Trump's re-election, Mao said only that "the United States presidential election is an internal affair of the United States.”
As for North Korea and Iran, the smaller but powerful anti-American spokes in that “Axis,” the North offered no reaction to Trump’s win, and Iran issued a statement that said, effectively, We don’t care.
"The U.S. elections are not really our business,” said Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokesman. “Our policies are steady and don't change based on individuals.” The frosty reaction from Tehran was to be expected: One of Trump’s major acts in his last year as president was to order the killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani; and during this year’s campaign, U.S. intelligence services said they had uncovered Iranian plots to assassinate Trump.
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