What a Trump victory could mean for the world

During the recent presidential election, some hardliners accused their opponents of pedalling “Trump-o-phobia” – trying to scare voters into backing the moderate candidate out of fear how Trump would react to a conservative.

But things are not so clear-cut. Yes, Trump is close to the Israeli Right and might buy into its idea of an all-out bombing raid on its nuclear and oil infrastructure in the hope of bringing down the regime.

Then again, he might not. Both he and Ms Harris have swung wildly between calling for tougher policies and demanding a return to talks, said Dr Sanam Vakil, an Iran watcher at Chatham House.

“I would frame it more that Iran doesn’t want to start on an even worse footing than it already is with the next US president – whoever it is,” said Dr Vakil. “Over the past few days even the supreme leader’s security advisor indicated there would be pragmatism in future relations with Washington. That is a very interesting development out of the current crisis.”

“Economic prospects are quite bleak. Sanctions relief is an objective of the new president. Those are the priorities.”

China

In China, as elsewhere, coverage and discussion of the US election is saturating both the tightly controlled state-controlled media and social networks.

Much of the reporting has recently focused on the potential instability inside the US around the election, citing domestic American reporting about the potential for political violence.

And yet there is little in the way of a discernable preference for one candidate over the other. And that’s because in material terms, Beijing has not seen much difference.

Trump in his last term ignited a trade war, blamed China for Covid-19, and launched a controversial FBI-led crackdown on Chinese economic espionage. He’s promised to wildly expand anti-Chinese tariffs if he gets back in White House.

But while Mr Biden has cooled the rhetoric, he has not really changed course: he has maintained and, in some cases tightened, some of Trump’s tariffs (in September he slapped 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and this month his administration reduced the types of semiconductors that American companies can sell to China). Most significantly, he has explicitly pledged to go to war to defend Taiwan if it is attacked.

Speaking to Joe Rogan last week, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” America’s chip industry and implied it should pay for protection – themes he has raised in previous interviews.

Zhu Fenglian, the spokesman for China’s Taiwan affairs office, this week said such remarks cast doubt on Trump’s commitment to the island.

“Whether the United States is trying to protect or harm Taiwan, I believe most of our Taiwan compatriots have already made a rational judgment and know very clearly that what the United States pursues is always ‘America First’,” she said at a news briefing. Taiwan’s people know that “Taiwan at any time may turn from a pawn to a discarded child”, Ms Zhu added, without directly referring to Trump.

Mexico

It’s not just in the world’s war zones that Tuesday’s election will be watched nervously.

Mexico, America’s southern neighbour, is also its second largest trading partner (bettered only by Canada), the biggest source of its imports, and within the top four trade partners of 45 of the 50 states.

It is also the object of much of Trump’s fiery rhetoric about border security, immigration, and drug cartels.

Earlier this year it was reported that he had mused about sending special forces hit squads across the border to assassinate cartel leaders. Some hot-headed Republicans have talked about an Iraq-style invasion.

“I was deputy minister of finance last time Trump was a candidate and president,” said Vanessa Rubio-Marquez, a long-serving Mexican politician and diplomat now teaching at LSE.

“At the beginning like in any other electoral cycle, we had to wait for things to calm down from narrative to policy. Once things were settled, we engaged in a very open frank dialogue including on trade, migration, organised crime.”

Despite the tariff talk, Mexico, Canada and the US are bound by a free-trade deal that Trump himself negotiated in his last term, Ms Rubio-Marquez pointed out.

Loose talk about cross-border hit squads is unhelpful, she said. But there’s always a distinction between rhetoric and reality.

Elsewhere 

There are dozens of other areas and regions that could be affected by the election.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which pitches itself as a plan for the next Republican administration but which Trump has tried to distance himself from, calls for a radical overhaul of the United States Agency for International Development that would have significant consequences for United Nations and NGO-led aid and assistance programmes around the world.

The European Council of Foreign Relations warned in a paper published on Thursday that Trump’s policy preferences could destabilise the Western Balkans – potentially sparking new wars in Bosnia and between Serbia and Kosovo.

But both Trump and Ms Harris have been vague about the specifics of their foreign policy.

That is deliberate, said Dr Vakil – it gives them latitude on the knotty questions in the Middle East and elsewhere.

But it also makes it difficult for both friends and foes to plan ahead.

Ms Rubio Marquez, who helped the Mexican government deal with the first Trump presidency, is relatively sanguine.

“I think in general I would say the first thing you have to do after a very heated election is to wait until the general environment of intensity and polarisation calms down a bit, and it passes from campaign to policy,” she said when asked how she would advise other governments to deal with the uncertainty.

“Understand the difference between noise in a campaign and actual policy. You need to be ready for many scenarios.”