Now that former President Donald Trump is set to reprise his role as commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military and economy — and he’s not wasting any time claim victory on Tuesday US presidential election – leaders around the world on Wednesday began reacting to the reality of a second term in the White House for the businessman turned politician.
From the Israeli leader’s enthusiasm as he wages a widening war on multiple fronts to the anxiety of some of America’s closest, generations-old European allies, the backlash over Trump’s election performance began long before the final votes were counted in the US to flow in.
Below is how some foreign leaders and others around the world have taken the news of the American electorate’s apparent rebuke of Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party at the ballot box.
Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump on Wednesday, calling his election performance “the greatest comeback in history!”
“Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a strong renewed commitment to the great alliance between Israel and America,” Netanyahu said. “This is a huge win!”
Despite Trump’s criticism of the Israeli leader’s handling of the ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu was widely seen as favoring the former US leader in the US elections as tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv sharpened over the past year has risen as a result of Israel’s tactics in its multi-front war with Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East.
The war in Gaza, sparked by the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, in which the militants killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others, has now killed more than 43,000 people in the Palestinian territory, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry. . Israel has also significantly stepped up its attack on Hezbollah, Hamas’ Iran-backed ally in Lebanon. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the Israeli offensive has killed more than 3,000 people there.
The Biden administration has continued to push in vain for a ceasefire on both fronts and has demanded that Israel do more to ease the devastating impact of the wars on civilians.
The Hungarian Viktor Orban
One of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Trump on Wednesday was one of the few to do so openly supported him Long before the last votes were cast in the US, Hungary’s far-right President Viktor Orbán, accused during his decades of leadership of the Eastern European nation of eroding its democratic institutions by giving himself more power and those of limit the courts and the country. civil society institutions called Trump’s apparent success “a much-needed victory for the world!”
In a post on social media, Orbán said Trump had pulled off “the greatest comeback in American political history” and congratulated him on his “huge victory.”
Orban has made himself an outsider among European Union leaders by endorsing anti-immigrant policies and maintaining close ties with President Vladimir Putin amid the crisis. Russia’s continued invasion of neighboring Ukraine – while touting his close ties to Trump.
In a speech last summer, Orbán suggested that he had even helped shape Trump’s future statesmanship, claiming to have “entered the policy writing system of President Donald Trump’s team,” with “deep involvement there.”
Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Parliament
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the International Affairs Committee in Russia’s State Duma, or parliament, was quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti on Wednesday as saying that a Trump victory “provided an opportunity for a more constructive approach to the Ukrainian conflict.” “
“Trump was and remains a big businessman in big politics. Can we expect changes in the approach to the US role in the Ukrainian conflict, which has been fueled by the Democratic administration since 2014? Judging by the election rhetoric (if it still can Believe it), the Republican team will not send more and more American taxpayers’ money into the furnace of a proxy war against Russia,” Slutsky said. “Maybe there is an opportunity for a more constructive approach here.”
Slutsky did not comment on Trump’s repeated promises to quickly end the war in Ukraine if he is re-elected – something European and Ukrainian leaders fear he could do that by cutting off America’s massive military support to Kiev and forcing Ukraine to accept Russia’s takeover of significant Ukrainian territory.
However, Slutsky did predict that if the next US administration were to cut that support, the US-backed Ukrainian government of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would fall “within months, if not days”.
There was no immediate response from President Vladimir Putin, who never spoke in favor of either candidate during the U.S. election campaign process, but whose leadership Trump has praised earlier.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did his best on Wednesday, despite a clear demarcation between them its own policy and those expected from another Trump administration to maintain the decorum of the legendary “special friendship” between the two nations.
In a post on social media, Starmer congratulated Trump “on your historic election victory”, adding that he looked forward to “working with you in the years to come”.
“As the closest allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of our shared values of freedom, democracy and entrepreneurship,” said Starmer, who only came to power months ago when Britain’s left-wing Labor Party won national elections in a landslide. a decade and a half of Conservative Party rule.
“I know the special relationship between the US and Britain will continue to flourish on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come,” Starmer added.
French President Emmanuel Macron
“Congratulations, President @realDonaldTrump,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a short statement on social media on Wednesday. He declared that his administration is “ready to work together again,” as it did during Trump’s first term, “with your beliefs and mine. With respect and ambition. For more peace and prosperity.”
But an hour later, the French president issued another statement hinting at the concerns he and many of his European colleagues are likely to share about Trump’s commitment to the transatlantic NATO allianceAmerica’s future support for Ukraine in the war with Russia, and his own position on foreign import tariffs.
In his second tweet, Macron said he had just spoken to German Chancellor Olaf Sholz and that the leaders of the EU’s two largest economies had agreed to “work towards a more united, stronger and more sovereign Europe in this new context.” the United States of America and defending our interests and values.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
“I just congratulated @realDonaldTrump on his election as President of the United States,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday, adding in his social media post that Trump’s “leadership will once again be key to to keep the alliance strong. I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through #NATO.”
Trump has criticized many European members of the NATO alliance for failing to spend at least 2% of their national GDP on their defense budgets.
Trump shocked many of America’s closest allies during and after his first term openly criticize their funding commitments, and during the 2024 presidential campaign he said that calling on allies to increase their defense spending would be a policy he would aggressively pursue if re-elected.
In May, Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that “Trump has pushed our allies to increase their NATO spending by demanding they pay up,” and that if re-elected, “he will restore peace and will rebuild strength and deterrence on the world stage.”
Palestinian response
Basem Naim, a longtime senior figure in the Hamas regime that ruled the Palestinian Gaza Strip for nearly two decades before the group sparked the ongoing war with Israel with its unprecedented terrorist attack more than a year ago, called Trump’s reelection “a private matter for the Americans,” but said in a statement Wednesday that “Palestinians look forward to an immediate cessation of aggression against our people, especially in Gaza, and seek assistance in realizing their legitimate rights to freedom, independence and the establishment . of their independent, self-sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
International diplomatic efforts toward a so-called “two-state solution,” which would create a sovereign nation of Palestine alongside Israel after no such country existed for decades, have all but disappeared amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
American governments from both sides of the political spectrum have pushed for such a solution to the nearly seventy-year crisis at the heart of the Middle East, but with the current Israeli government firmly opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state, the most Palestinians have little reason to do so. for hope, regardless of who won the US elections.
While nearly two-thirds of Israelis surveyed by the Israel Democracy Institute before Election Day in the US said they believed Trump would be a better American leader for Israel’s interests, sentiment in Gaza was less focused on who would winning and more on surviving the war. .
A woman living among the rubble in Gaza told CBS News this week that they just want the bombs to stop falling, and many doubted that a change in U.S. leadership could hasten this.
“For me, Republicans or Democrats are the same,” Firas Abu Firas, a Gaza resident, said before election day. “They are two faces of the same coin.”
Ursula von der Leyen of the European Union
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union bloc’s governing body, the European Commission, congratulated Trump on Wednesday and reiterated in a short post on social media her hope that the US and EU “could work together on a strong transatlantic agenda that continues to deliver results’. ” for citizens on both sides of the Atlantic.
“I sincerely congratulate Donald J. Trump. The EU and the US are more than just allies,” said Von der Leyen. “We are connected by a true partnership between our people, uniting 800 million citizens. So let’s work together on a strong transatlantic agenda that continues to deliver for them.”
