The world reacts to President-elect Donald Trump — VIDEO
MEXICO CITY — Despite being worried about an increased Russian military presence, the Baltic nations are still congratulating America’s new leader, Donald Trump.
Tensions grew during the U.S. presidential election campaign when Trump floated the idea that NATO members’ defense spending targets would be a prerequisite for the U.S. to defend a NATO ally. That is an abrupt break from longstanding American policy.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite says “the people of the U.S. have made a decision, we will respect their choice… we trust the United States, as it is our strongest and closest ally.”
In neighboring Latvia, President Raimonds Vejonis’s office says he is looking forward “to close relations with the new U.S. administration,” and that the U.S. would remain a strategic partner and important NATO ally.
The new Estonian president, Kersti Kaljulaid, congratulated Trump, saying the United States “has been, and will also continue to be one of Estonia’s most important allies.”
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1:40 p.m.
The leaders of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which campaigns against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, have welcomed Donald Trump’s presidential victory.
Party co-leader Frauke Petry says “it was high time that people disenfranchised by the political establishment get their voice back in the United States of America too.”
Petry said Trump’s victory offered the chance to “readjust the trans-Atlantic relationship and end the big conflicts in Ukraine and Syria jointly with Russia” and “replace America’s hegemonic claims in Europe with co-operation among equals.”
Fellow party leader Joerg Meuthen says “the establishment now has to recognize that you can’t rule past the population for long … Trump has rightly been rewarded for his bravery in standing up against the system and speaking uncomfortable truths.”
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1:30 p.m.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach is offering his congratulations to Donald Trump after his victory in the U.S. presidential election and wishes him “all the best” for his term in office.
Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton comes as Los Angeles is bidding to host the 2024 Olympics. Trump’s statements during the campaign about Mexicans, Muslims and building a wall along the Mexican border may not help the California city’s Olympic case with some IOC members, who come from all over the world.
Los Angeles is competing against Paris and Budapest, Hungary. The IOC will select the host city in September 2017.
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1:20 p.m.
Italy’s premier has offered his congratulations to Donald Trump, brushing aside political differences, following his repeated public endorsements of Hillary Clinton.
Premier Matteo Renzi says Wednesday “in the name of Italy, I congratulate the president of the United States and wish him well in his work, convinced that the Italian-American friendship remains strong and solid.”
Renzi faces his own political reckoning next month with a constitutional referendum that has mobilized opposition as well as party dissidents against him. A no vote is likely to force at least a government shuffling in Italy, if not new elections.
Renzi was in Washington last month for a state visit with President Barack Obama.
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1:10 p.m.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he hopes Donald Trump’s election as president marks a new era in the United States that he hopes will lead to “beneficial” steps for fundamental rights, liberties and democracy in the world.
Addressing a business group in Istanbul on Wednesday, Erdogan also said he hopes the election result would also be auspicious for the region.
Erdogan said: “Personally and on behalf of the nation, I wish to consider this decision by the American people a positive sign and wish them a successful future.”
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1:05 p.m.
A spokesman for the Polish president says Poland cares a lot whether U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will implement NATO decisions to deploy military deterrence forces in Poland and the Baltic states.
Marek Magierowski says on state Radio 1 Wednesday that it is a priority for Poland to see the implementation of NATO decision to base for battalions in the region, including a U.S. armored brigade to be stationed in Poland, and also the construction of a U.S. missile defense base.
The region is concerned for its security amid Russia’s rising military assertiveness.
Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz says he expects ties to be even better under Trump as president.
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12:50 p.m.
Environmentalists and climate scientists are alarmed over the election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a “hoax.”
Donald Trump’s win has raised questions about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal. Many said it’s now up to the rest of the world to lead efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, while others held out hope that Trump would change his stance on climate change and honor U.S. commitments under last year’s landmark Paris Agreement.
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine says Wednesday that as “the realities of leadership settle in, I expect he will realize that climate change is a threat to his people and to whole countries which share seas with the U.S.”
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12:45 p.m.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says his country will work “as closely as ever” with the United States under Donald Trump’s new administration.
He says “politicians and governments, congressmen, senators, prime ministers, presidents come and go according to the will of the people of Australia and the United States, but the bond between our two nations, our shared common interests, our shared national interests are so strong, are so committed that we will continue to work with our friends in the United States.”
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12:40 p.m.
French President Francois Hollande says the election of Donald Trump “opens a period of uncertainty. It must be faced with lucidity and clarity.”
In brief remarks after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Hollande congratulated Trump “as is natural between two heads of state,” but showed little enthusiasm. Hollande had openly endorsed Hillary Clinton and said Wednesday he was thinking of her.
Hollande said “certain positions taken by Donald Trump during the American campaign must be confronted with the values and interests we share with the United States.”
He says “what is at stake is peace, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East. It is economic relations and the preservation of the planet.”
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12:30 p.m.
The Taliban have called on Donald Trump to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan once he takes office as president.
In a statement sent to The Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Wednesday that a Trump administration “should allow Afghans to become a free nation and have relationships with other countries based on non-interference in each other’s affairs.”
The Afghan conflict is in its 16th year. The Taliban have spread their footprint across Afghanistan in the two years since most international combat troops withdrew.
President Barack Obama expanded U.S. troops’ mandate to enable them to work more closely on the battlefield with their Afghan counterparts, and to conduct counter-terrorism operations against Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group and the Taliban.
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12:25 p.m.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has conveyed his congratulations to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, saying he looked forward to working with Trump on promoting ties in a “constructive” way that avoids conflict and confrontation.
During his campaign, Trump accused China of illegally subsidizing exports, manipulating its currency and stealing intellectual property.
State broadcaster CCTV reported Wednesday that Xi said the two biggest economies in the world shared common interests and shouldered a “special and important responsibility in upholding world peace.”
Xi says: “I highly value China-U.S. relations and am looking forward to working with you to expand cooperation in all fields, including in bilateral, regional and global aspects.” He says he expects they would “manage differences in a constructive way, in the spirit of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, cooperation and win-win.”
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12:15 p.m.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has sent a message of congratulations to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, saying “the American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.”
Kenyatta says Wednesday that “the ties that bind Kenya and the United States of America are close and strong. They are old, and based in the values that we hold dear: in democracy, in the rule of law, and in the equality of peoples.”
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12:05 p.m.
The president of Slovenia — small Alpine nation that is the home country of future U.S. First Lady Melania Trump — says he hopes relations with the U.S. will further improve during Donald Trump’s presidency.
President Boris Pahor says Wednesday “we are allied as part of NATO and I will strive for the friendship and the alliance to deepen further.”
Pahor also says “American people have the right to decide on their leader.” Prime Minister Miro Cerar has also congratulated the Trumps in a Twitter message.
Melania Trump was born as Melanija Knavs in the industrial Slovenian town of Sevnica before working internationally as a model.
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12:01 p.m.
The Vatican’s first reaction to the election of Donald Trump has focused on its wish for global peace.
Pope Francis pope did not mention the U.S. elections during his Wednesday audience, but secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, offered Trump congratulations in a statement to Vatican Radio that “his government can be truly fruitful.”
He added the Vatican offered its prayers “that the Lord illuminates and sustains him in service of his country, naturally, but also in service of the well-being and peace of the world.”
Parolin concluded by noting that “there is need for everyone to work to change the global situation, which is in a situation of severe lacerations and great conflict.”
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11:55 a.m.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow is ready to try to restore good relations with the United States in the wake of the election of Donald Trump.
Putin said Wednesday at a ceremony accepting the credentials of new ambassadors that “we aware that it is a difficult path, in view of the unfortunate degradation of relations between the Russian Federation and the United States.”
Putin says “it is not our fault that Russian-American relations are in such a state.”
Earlier, the Kremlin said Putin sent Trump a telegram of congratulation, expressing “his hope to work together for removing Russian-American relations from their crisis state.”
Putin also says ties between Moscow and Washington must be “based on principles of equality, mutual respect and a real accounting each other’s positions.”
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11:45 a.m.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has congratulated Donald Trump, calling him a “true friend of the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu said Wednesday he believes the two leaders “will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between our two countries and bring it to ever greater heights.”
Earlier, a key ally in Netanyahu’s center-right coalition, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, said Tump’s victory means that “the era of a Palestinian state is over.” The Palestinians want a state in lands Israel captured in 1967.
Netanyahu has said he is willing to negotiate a border deal, but has retracted offers made by his predecessors while pressing ahead with Jewish settlement expansion on war-won land.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that he hopes “peace will be achieved during his term.
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11:40 a.m.
Without commenting directly on Donald Trump’s election, China’s government says Beijing hopes to work with the new U.S. administration to build sustainable ties and expressed confidence the two countries can handle trade disputes maturely.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that China is “looking forward to making concerted efforts with the new U.S. government to ensure the sustainable, steady and sound development of bilateral relations” to benefit both countries’ people and the world.
Asked about U.S. voters’ anger about economic losses blamed on Chinese exports, Lu said only that the two countries had established ways to deal with trade disputes. He says “as mature, large countries, China and the U.S. are able to handle such issues.”
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11:35 a.m.
Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim has quoted the country’s foreign minister as saying that the United States needs to implement its part of multilateral international commitments under last year’s historic nuclear deal.
The comments Wednesday by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif came after businessman Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president.
During the campaign, Trump has criticized the deal and suggested he would try to renegotiate it. Zarif was quoted as saying that any U.S. president “should have a correct understanding of realities of the world and our region and face them realistically.”
Zarif says that America has accepted multilateral international commitments and has to “implement the nuclear deal.”
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11:30 a.m.
The Iraqi government says relations with the United States have a “solid base” and this is not expected to change after Donald Trump’s election as president.
Government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Iraq is keen to develop its relations with the U.S. and “boost cooperation in the fight against terrorism.”
He noted the leading U.S. role in the current battle to push back Islamic State extremists in Iraq’s north. Last month, a U.S.-led military coalition launched an operation to retake Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, from Islamic State extremists.
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2:45 a.m.
Japan is sending a top official to Washington to try to meet with those who will be responsible for the next White House administration.
Katsuyuki Kawai, a political aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in charge of diplomacy, told reporters after meeting with Abe that he had been instructed to visit Washington as early as next week.
Abe’s instruction came before Republican candidate Donald Trump was declared the winner of the race against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said it was not because Japan was unprepared for Trump’s win.
He said: “We have been preparing so that we can respond to any situation because our stance is that our alliance with the U.S. remains to be the cornerstone of our diplomacy whoever becomes the next president.”
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2:35 a.m.
The leader of Russia’s nationalist Liberal Democratic party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has welcomed the presumed victory of Donald Trump.
According to the Interfax news agency, Zhirinovsky said: “We of course regard with satisfaction that the better candidate of the two presented to the American voters was victorious.”
He also said that he hopes the Trump victory means that U.S. Ambassador John Tefft departs. He says, “We hope that this ambassador leaves Russia … he hates Russia.”
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2:30 a.m.
Canada and the prospect of Americans moving there appears to have drawn so much online interest that it has knocked out the country’s immigration website.
Searches for “move to Canada” and “immigrate to Canada” spiked Tuesday night as election returns favored Republican nominee Donald Trump. “Canada” was a leading U.S. trend on Twitter, with more than 1 million tweets.
While much of the chatter was clearly tongue-in-cheek, the website for Citizenship and Immigration Canada was down at the same time. Agency officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
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2:25 a.m.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen calls the strong vote for Donald Trump “a big shock,” and the U.S. elections “a vote against Washington, against the establishment.”
Von der Leyen said on German public Television Wednesday that while many questions remain open, “We Europeans obviously know that as partners in the NATO, Donald Trump will naturally ask what ‘are you achieving for the alliance,’ but we will also ask ‘what’s your stand toward the alliance.’”
The defense minister said that behind the scenes the German government would try to make contacts on the working level to find out who are the new contact persons.
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2:10 a.m.
The first French presidential candidate to comment on the U.S. election was populist, anti-immigrant politician Marine Le Pen, congratulating Donald Trump even before the final results were known.
Le Pen, hoping to ride anti-establishment sentiment to victory in April-May French presidential elections, tweeted her support to the “American people, free!”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said France would continue to work with the new president whoever wins the final tally, though expressed concern about Trump’s lead and said it could hold a cautionary message for Europe.
“We don’t want a world where egoism triumphs,” Ayrault said on France-2 television Wednesday. France’s Socialist government had openly endorsed Clinton.
Ayrault said European politicians should pay attention to the message from Trump voters. “There is a part of our electorate that feels … abandoned,” including people who feel “left behind” by globalization, he said.
He said a Trump victory could bring “more incertitude” to French politics.
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1:50 a.m.
Indonesians on social media are questioning why Americans have voted in big numbers for billionaire Donald Trump, who many in the world’s most populous Muslim country perceive as intolerant and reactionary.
Twitter, Facebook and chatrooms in instant messaging apps are buzzing with speculation about whether Trump would follow through on campaign rhetoric that included a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
Some people say that under a Trump administration they fear they’ll be prevented from visiting relatives and friends who live in America or traveling there as tourists.
About 100,000 Indonesians live in the United States.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo says on national television that his government will work with whoever becomes president.
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1:45 a.m.
News of Trump’s widening lead hit hard in Cuba, which has spent the last two years negotiating normalization with the United States after more than 50 years of Cold War hostility.
Normalization has set off a tourism boom in Cuba and visits by hundreds of executives from the U.S. and dozens of other nations newly interested in doing business on the island. Trump has promised to reverse Obama’s opening with Cuba unless President Raul Castro agrees to more political freedom on the island, a concession considered a virtual impossibility.
Speaking of Cuba’s leaders, Communist Party member and noted economist and political scientist Esteban Morales told the Telesur network that “they must be worried because I think this represents a new chapter.”
Carlos Alzugaray, a political scientist and retired Cuban diplomat, said a Trump victory could, however, please some hard-liners in the Cuban leadership who worried that Cuba was moving too close to the United States too quickly.
While many Cubans were unaware of the state of the race early Wednesday morning, those watching state-run Telesur or listening to radio updates said they feared that a Trump victory would mean losing the few improvements they had seen in their lives thanks to the post-detente tourism boom.
“The little we’ve advanced, if he reverses it, it hurts us,” taxi driver Oriel Iglesias Garcia said. “You know tourism will go down. If Donald Trump wins and turns everything back it’s really bad for us.”
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1:10 a.m.
A couple of Chinese participants at a U.S. Embassy event in Beijing say they’d welcome a Trump presidency, while another says he thinks the Republican candidate projects a flawed image of the United States.
Blogger Wang Yiming says he hopes Trump will win because the Republican Party has been typically more willing to demonstrate American leadership globally, and he hoped a Republican president would do more to encourage freedom of speech in China.
Wang says: “I think America has stagnated and Trump represents justice, the rule of law and personal freedom.”
Lou Bin, a 43-year-old academic at a university in Beijing, says he didn’t support either candidate but Trump didn’t come across as much of a “gentleman.” He says: “As president you want someone who represents the country’s image.”
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1 a.m.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told reporters in Canberra, Australia’s capital, that her government is ready to work with whomever the American people, “in their wisdom,” choose to be their president.
She says a U.S. presidential election is always a momentous occasion, and in this instance, “it has been a particularly bruising, divisive and hard-fought campaign.”
She also says the new administration will face a number of challenges, including in Asia-Pacific, and Australia wants to work constructively with the new administration to ensure the continued presence and leadership of the United States in the region.
She calls the U.S. “our major security ally” and the largest foreign direct investor and the second-largest trading partner.
She says: “The United States is also the guarantor and defender of the rules-based international order that has underpinned so much of our economic and security issues. And interests.”
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11:45 p.m.
Watching the results of the U.S. election at a New Zealand bar, 22-year-old student Sarah Pereira says she is looking forward to working as an intern in the U.S. Congress, but dreads the prospect of Donald Trump winning the presidency.
Pereira, a master’s student in strategic studies, says she will leave for Washington this weekend after winning a scholarship to work for Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks.
She predicts the effects of a Trump on international relationships would be “catastrophic.”
Pereira commented while attending an event hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Wellington.
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11:20 p.m.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told an aide that “the competition is closer than expected” in the U.S. election.
Aide Takeo Kawamura tells Japan’s Kyodo News service that Abe is following the vote count in his office.
The Japanese government has remained neutral in public statements, but analysts on both sides of the Pacific have talked about a possible change in U.S. policy toward Japan and the rest of Asia if Republican candidate Donald Trump should win.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga is reaffirming his government’s commitment to the U.S.-Japan security alliance. He tells reporters that whoever is the next president, the Japan-U.S. alliance will remain the cornerstone of Japan-U.S. diplomacy.
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Chinese state media outlets are casting the U.S. election as the embodiment of America’s democracy in crisis in contrast to China’s perceived stability under authoritarian rule.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency says the campaign has highlighted that, in its words, “the majority of Americans are rebelling against the U.S.’s political class and financial elites.”
The official Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily says in a commentary that the presidential election reveals an “ill democracy.”
On Tuesday, the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV ran man-on-the-street interviews with unidentified American voters in which they expressed disgust with the system and dissatisfaction with both candidates.
