With Donald J. Trump’s sweeping election victory on Tuesday, the world is now preparing for another four years of unpredictability and “America first” protectionism that could reset the ground rules of the global economy, empower autocrats and erase the assurance of American protection for democratic partners.
Despite a lack of substantive foreign policy debate in the campaign, Mr. Trump has made several statements that — if turned into policy — would transform America’s relationship with both allies and adversaries. He has pledged to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, a promise many assume amounts to the withdrawal of American aid for Ukraine, which would benefit Russia.
More broadly, he has made clear that he intends to make the world’s most powerful country more isolationist, more combative with tariffs, more openly hostile to immigrants, more demanding of its security partners, and less engaged on global challenges such as climate change.
Many believe the impacts could be greater than anything seen since the start of the Cold War.
“It accelerates the already deep trend of an America looking inward,” said James Curran, a professor of modern history at the University of Sydney. “Allies are going to have to save the multilateral furniture while it’s still around — they have to hope that America buys back in.”
By now, after witnessing his first term, the world already knows that the only certainty with Mr. Trump is uncertainty. He has often said that keeping the world guessing is his ideal foreign policy. And as the votes were counted, some officials around the world responded with public reassurances, stressing that elements of their relationships with the United States would not likely change.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani of Italy told Sky News that he believed Trump had “a natural sympathy for Italy” and that he was “convinced that we will work well with the tycoon’s new administration.”
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum emphasized this week that there would be “good relations” with the United States because of the need to work together to address immigration and drugs, just days after Mr. Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico of between 25 percent and 100 percent.
In Kenya, Ndindi Nyoro, a lawmaker with President William Ruto’s governing coalition, said he thought Mr. Trump’s economic policies would be better for African countries, many of which are struggling with growing inflation and crushing debt.
“Republican policies have always been better for Africa & the Global South,” Mr. Nyoro wrote on Facebook.
India has also been watching the American contest with interest and little concern, trusting that as the world’s most populous nation and fifth largest economy, it would still be courted as a counterweight to China.
Bracing for a Return to Transactional Diplomacy
The extremes of what Mr. Trump campaigned on — from sky-high tariffs against foreign products, to mass deportations and stiff resistance to wars and alliances deemed too messy or costly — have already put many nations on edge.
China, with its own economy in the doldrums, faces the likelihood of much broader, and higher tariffs than those already applied during Mr. Trump’s first term and continued by President Biden. Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said a second Trump presidency would “inevitably diminish global trust and respect for the United States.”
Few of China’s neighbors, wary of Beijing, see cause for celebration in Trump’s victory.
South Korea and Japan expect to be pressured into paying more to have American troops based in their countries. Mr. Trump has pledged to make South Korea pay $10 billion annually. South Korea currently pays a little over $1 billion.
Vietnam, which has seen its trade imbalance with the United States surge as manufacturers move from China to avoid tariffs, could face retaliatory tariffs like those Mr. Trump has threatened to impose on Mexico.
Fears of a Less Secure World
Some diplomats in Asia have said that with Trump in power, they also expect China to intensify pressure on Taiwan, if not invade the self-governing island it claims as its territory. In their view, China may calculate that former President Trump would not go to war for a democracy that he has accused of “stealing” the microchip industry from the United States.
People on the island, where Mr. Trump was well-regarded in his first term, have become less sure that he can be trusted.
“With Donald Trump, there are large amounts of uncertainty,” said Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University in Taipei. “And it’s a matter of uncertainty that comes with great risk for Taiwan.”
For Ukraine in particular, Mr. Trump’s return means a fog of additional danger. His claim that he will be able to broker an end to the war immediately along with his warm relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia have fueled worries that he would force the Ukrainians into a bad deal by cutting off American military support.
In Russia, there were hints of glee over Mr. Trump’s victory, even as the Kremlin held off on offering immediate congratulations. One of Mr. Putin’s top lieutenants, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said Wednesday that Mr. Trump was preferable for his cold, corporate acumen.
Mr. Trump, Mr. Medvedev said, “dislikes spending money on various hangers-on,” referring to Ukraine’s president.
Anxiety and Unease Among Democratic Partners
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said last week that he “understands all the risks” of a Trump victory. But on Wednesday he wrote on X that he appreciated “President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs.”
But many of Ukraine’s supporters in the region are “woefully unprepared for a return of Trump,” said Georgina Wright, a European politics expert at the Montaigne Institute in Paris. Analysts and officials on the continent expect a trade war, a bigger bill for NATO and military aid from Washington, the Trump-encouraged spread of anti-democratic populism, and a greater risk of Russia widening its territorial ambitions.
Mr. Trump has implied that he would not abide by the NATO article requiring collective defense, which kept Europe mostly peaceful and democratic for decades. At one point during his run for office, he said he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that had not paid sufficient money to the alliance.
Gérard Araud, the French ambassador to Washington from 2014 to 2019 under the first Trump presidency, said that even if a second Trump presidency didn’t attempt to destroy NATO outright, his reticence about complying with its dictates had already made the alliance more fragile.
“It’s a question of credibility,” he said. “If you are Putin and on Jan. 22 you are wondering whether Trump will go to war to defend Estonia, of course he won’t. In a sense, it means that NATO will be hollowed from within.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, who has suppressed dissent to create an ethnocentric, illiberal democracy in his country, was already a hero to the Make America Great Again constituency. On Wednesday, he congratulated Mr. Trump for “his enormous win” that he called “a much needed victory for the world!”
Despair about such bedfellows could be easily found in many Asian, African and European capitals. In nations that leaned on the United States to defeat fascism during World War II, there’s still a sense of shock at what American voters have done: Electing a felon who has promoted threats of violence against journalists, and said he would use the courts and the military against domestic enemies.
“I don’t see a great future for European democracies, if there is not a strong democratic America as a rock to lean on,” said Nicole Bacharan, a political scientist in Paris.
Frank Mugisha, a prominent Ugandan gay rights activist, said another Trump presidency caused him anxiety.
“I worry that Trump will do less to protect L.G.B.T.Q. human rights, and when we are under attack, he will look the other way,” Mr. Mugisha, who is among the petitioners appealing in the Ugandan Supreme Court the draconian anti-gay law that President Yoweri Museveni signed last year.
For Some, a Welcome Change
And yet, in less democratic corners of the globe, Mr. Trump’s testosterone-fueled approach has led to a measure of hope. In the Middle East, the United States has largely been seen as ineffective — unable to end the cycle of conflict or even forge a solid cease-fire. Mr. Trump, to some, represents the potential for a new way forward.
He is seen by many in the region as strongly pro-Israel but also as a deal maker.
The far right in Israel was fist-pumping a Trump victory even before the last polls had closed, figuring that he could be persuaded to side with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in any attempt to end the wars in Gaza and against Iran’s proxies in the region. With Trump’s win looking inevitable early Wednesday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultranationalist minister of national security, posted a festive “Yesssss” on social media, above an earlier “God Bless Trump” post from July.
Palestinians condemned America’s support for Israel’s war, expressing a mix of fear and desperate dreams for what a new administration might bring. Hamas issued a statement that said: “Palestinians look forward to an immediate cessation of the aggression against our people.”
In Lebanon and among some of its Arab neighbors, a second Trump term seemed to be cautiously welcomed.
“He’s crazy, but at least he’s strong,” said Anthony Samrani, the editor in chief of the Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour, summing up what he called the prevailing mind-set toward Mr. Trump in the Middle East.
But the widest-ranging and perhaps most immediate impact of Mr. Trump’s victory on the world may involve immigration.
He has promised that mass deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States would be among his first acts in office — and critics worry that within weeks of taking office, that could mean daily planeloads of returnees to not just Mexico, but also India, El Salvador and the Philippines.
In Cox’s Bazar, a strip of Bangladesh with refugee camps for more than a million Rohingya Muslims who fled their native Myanmar just across the border, refugees worried about Mr. Trump’s antipathy toward immigration and what it could mean for all.
Yusuf Abdulrahman, 26, a Rohingya refugee, said Mr. Trump’s nativist sentiment reminded him of Myanmar’s military rulers.
“Trump likes to get popularity by turning people against each other,” he said. “He says, ‘you people, those people,’ and that creates hate.”
Reporting was contributed by Amy Chang Chien in Taipei, Taiwan; Paulina Villegas in Mexico City; David Pierson in Hong Kong; Isabel Kershner in Jerusalem; Motoko Rich in Tokyo; Sui-Lee Wee in Bangkok; Hannah Beech in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; Choe Sang-Hun in Seoul; Mujib Mashal in New Delhi; Maria Abi-Habib and Euan Ward in Beirut, Lebanon; Ismaeel Naar in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Ivan Nechepurenko in Tbilisi, Georgia; Elisabetha Provoledo in Rome; Anton Troianovski, Steven Erlanger and Christopher F. Schuetze in Berlin; Natalia Vasilyeva, Ben Hubbard and Safak Timur in Istanbul; Marc Santora in Kyiv, Ukraine; Jenny Gross in Brussels; Farnaz Fassihi from New York; Abdi Latif Dahir in Nairobi, Kenya; John Eligon in Johannesburg; and Elian Peltier in Dakar, Senegal.
