Donald Trump’s team say he will start appointing top jobs in days as he prepares to re-enter the White House – and the Kremlin has not ruled out a call with Vladimir Putin before then. President Joe Biden will address the American people for the first time since Trump’s historic win today.
Thursday 7 November 2024 14:55, UK
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Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and referred to oil as “liquid gold”.
While his election victory may spell bad news for the environment, one expert has drawn up some reasons why it may not be as bad as some fear.
Professor Chris Hilson, director of the Centre for Climate and Justice at the University of Reading, offers his perspective:
US impact ‘priced in’
Trump said he plans to withdraw the US from the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement at the start of his second presidency, but Hilson believes it’s not likely to have much impact.
“It’s already more or less priced in. Other countries will carry on without the US,” he said.
Trade power
That doesn’t mean what the US does around emissions isn’t important.
Trump may be tempted to cut back on methane rules, Hilson said, but new EU law will not allow imports from countries with weak methane controls.
“Trade is one of Trump’s favourite policy tools, but it can also be used against him if he tries to engage in a climate race to the bottom,” he said.
Carrot over stick
Domestically, US climate policy has largely moved from stick to carrots in the shape of subsidies for climate-friendly industries, Hilson said.
“These will be harder to dismantle than rule-based sticks because industries like freebies and many of them go to Republican states,” he added.
Temporary Trump
Markets also invest with periods beyond presidential terms in mind, Hilson pointed out.
“So, US industry will be positioning itself for a decarbonised economy. It won’t be investing in coal. And demand for oil and gas will fall as electrification proceeds,” Hilson said.
Musk influence
The real question, Hilson argued, is whether that decarbonisation and electrification will take place despite Trump or because of him
With Elon Musk’s role in the election, Hilson said we may see a push to position the US as a new energy powerhouse.
“Trump is a businessman. And he likes to win. Sticking to a fossil fuel economy is not likely to position the US economy for the win. So that may yet be the surprise on climate in a Trump presidency. This is not climate, this is business,” Hilson added.
Australia’s former prime minister and current ambassador to the US has deleted old social media posts referring to Donald Trump as “the most destructive president in history”.
In a series of 2020 posts on X, Kevin Rudd reportedly also accused Trump of being “a traitor to the West” and a man who “drags America and democracy through the mud”.
But “out of respect” for the office of the US president, he said today he has deleted those posts.
“Ambassador Rudd has now removed these past commentaries from his personal website and social media channels,” added a statement on his website.
“This has been done to eliminate the possibility of such comments being misconstrued as reflecting his positions as ambassador and, by extension, the views of the Australian government.”
He “looks forward” to working with Trump, according to the statement, to “continue strengthening the US-Australia alliance”.
Shootings, court cases, a candidate swap and many celebrity appearances marked a fraught election campaign in the US.
Documenting the many twists and turns over the campaign trail in pictures, here’s how the race to the White House unfolded…
There’s a “stone-cold certainty” that Donald Trump will try to resume American relations with North Korea when he becomes president, says the former UK ambassador to the US.
One of the central pillars of Trump’s first presidency was his penchant for spending time with world leaders that other countries were less keen to meet with, such as North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.
Trump and Kim held three unprecedented meetings in Singapore, Hanoi and at the border between North and South Korea in 2018 and 2019.
President Joe Biden has been unable to entice or pressure Pyongyang back to talks since he became president in 2020, with the country expanding its arsenal of both long and short-range missiles in that time.
Asked by presenter Gareth Barlow whether Trump will look to resume relations with Kim during his second term in office, Lord Kim Darroch says: “I think it’s a stone-cold certainty that he will do that.
“I think, to be fair to Trump, no one else had really tackled the issue of the North Korean nuclear program. He made a genuine attempt to persuade the North Koreans to back down from that program, with promises of lots of US aid if they did so.
“It didn’t work, but he almost certainly will have another go.”
On Trump’s relations with Vladimir Putin, Darroch says he’s sceptical that the new US president will be able to have any sway over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Trump has previously claimed he would be able to end the war within 24 hours of taking office, but Putin has recently described relations between Washington and Moscow as being at “an unprecedented historic low”.
“Trump claims a particular relationship, a sort of friendship based on respect, with Vladimir Putin,” adds Darroch.
“I have to say, there wasn’t much evidence in Trump’s first term of that producing anything useful in terms of global security and peace.
“He says he’s going to solve Ukraine in 24 hours. I don’t think that’s realistic. I think he will do something. He will try to make an effort to try to persuade Putin to do some sort of deal with [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy.
“I think it’s a real stretch to see him delivering. I suppose you can’t say it’s a bad thing if he has a go, because we don’t want this war to go on forever. But I’m sceptical that actually will be able to do very much on Putin, on Ukraine.”
Press freedom organisations have warned Donald Trump to change his attitude towards journalists – with one tallying dozens of threats during the campaign trail alone.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation described the president-elect as “an anti-press extremist obsessed with punishing journalists and news outlets who criticise him”.
“Trump has spent the last year on the campaign trail calling for more leak investigations, imprisoning journalists, and censoring news outlets he doesn’t like,” the group said in a statement.
“Lawmakers and President Biden must act before it’s too late,” it added, calling on Congress to pass a bill preventing Trump from “spying on journalists” as he “repeatedly did in his first term”.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) claimed Trump insulted, attacked or threatened the media at least 108 times over an eight-week period in the run-up to the election – a figure that does not include posts on social media.
Trump sued CBS just a week ago after an interview of his rival Kamala Harris aired on its 60 Minutes news program in early October, alleging the broadcaster manipulated answers to flatter her.
He said CBS should lose its licence and warned “we’re going to subpoena their records” – and that Comcast, the parent company of NBC News, MSNBC and Sky News, will be investigated for “treason” if he is elected.
“Rather than doubling down on the hostility he has espoused towards the media so far, Trump should take the opportunity instead to repair the domestic press freedom climate and reposition the United States as a global leader in press freedom,” RSF said.
The group added Trump said the term “fake news” – which he uses against media critical of him – publicly as many as 2,000 times during his first term in office, which roughly amounts to once every 18 hours.
As the world prepares to adapt to ties with a Donald Trump-led America, Europe’s leaders are meeting to discuss security and “transatlantic relations” today.
The European Political Community – which was formed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – holds these summits every six months, but Trump’s victory is certain to dominate conversations today.
Trump has been critical of US aid to Ukraine and has repeatedly claimed he would end the war there quickly – raising fears he will try to force Kyiv to cede territory for a peace plan.
Tonight, EU leaders have been invited to an “informal meeting” to discuss “transatlantic relations” – and Trump will without doubt come up.
In a sign of the already changed atmosphere, the German defence minister, who met his French counterpart yesterday, said after Trump’s victory: “They’ll be able to do less in Europe. We need to fill this gap to be more credible in terms of deterrence.”
The council’s president, Charles Michel, said the EU wants to be a respected partner and deepen its ties with the US, although it acknowledges views may diverge on certain topics.
“I trust the American society,” he added, as he and others urged Trump to continue to support Ukraine.
“They know it is in their interest to show firmness when we engage with authoritarian regimes. If the United States were weak with Russia, what would it mean for China?”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is attending, as is Sir Keir Starmer, with the summit hosted by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had said he would be opening “several bottles of champagne” if Trump wins.
Elon Musk says Donald Trump won the presidential election because he went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and was “a normal person”.
Trump spoke for three hours on The Joe Rogan Experience, which aired in the penultimate week of his election campaign and has been viewed by more than 46 million people on YouTube.
Musk said the interview “really [made] a difference” for Trump with the electorate, who were able to see the president-elect in a different light.
“They just listen to someone talk for a few hours and that’s how they decide whether you’re, you know, a good person, whether they like you,” he told Tucker Carlson in a live broadcast yesterday.
By comparison, Musk said if Kamala Harris had appeared on Rogan’s podcast, it “would have been game over”.
“Nothing would do more damage to Kamala’s campaign than going on Joe Rogan because she’d run out of nonsequiturs after about 45 minutes,” he said.
“Hour two and three would be a complete melted puddle of nonsense, so it would just be absolute game over.
“But on the [other] hand Trump is… he’s there and there’s no talking points, he’s just being a normal person, he’s having a conversation.”
The former UK ambassador to the US says Donald Trump won’t care too much about negative comments made about him by British politicians.
New Tory leader Kemi Badenoch urged Sir Keir Starmer to apologise to Trump for “derogatory” remarks made about him by Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
Lammy called the president-elect a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” in a magazine article in 2018.
Kim Darroch quit his role as ambassador to the US in 2019 after it emerged he had described Trump’s government as “dysfunctional”, “inept” and “divided” in private letters.
But he’s told Sky News the new president will likely rather focus on having positive relations with the Labour government instead of being engaged in squabbles.
“I think [Trump] will know about comments made by some British politicians,” says Darroch.
“But the other thing about Trump is that he respects power, and he knows that the likelihood is that for all of his second term as president, Keir Starmer will be British prime minister, and this will be the British government that he deals with.”
Darroch adds: “So I think he has an interest in having a good relationship with Starmer personally, and with his government in general.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about what’s been said in the past. Boris Johnson said some very, very critical things about Trump when he was mayor of London, but it didn’t stop him having a good relationship with Trump when he was prime minister.”
Darroch says he thinks Starmer has “made a good start” with Trump by calling him after his assassination attempt, having dinner with him on his last trip to the US and calling him yesterday.
“He’s doing all the things that you should do.”
Donald Trump’s second term could lead to a shake-up of US diplomacy which moves it more toward populist, authoritarian leaders, political observers have said.
Nearly half of US voters told an AP VoteCast survey they were “very concerned” that another Trump presidency would bring the country closer to authoritarianism.
Hungary – Prime Minister Viktor Orban
Viktor Orban is Trump’s biggest cheerleader in Europe.
Regarded with suspicion by the rest of the EU because of his ties to Vladimir Putin, the Hungarian leader celebrated Trump’s victory and the pair have already spoken over the phone.
Orban has been accused by the EU of burying Hungary’s democracy by dominating media and building a network of loyal oligarchs.
His government has also come under fire for its record on political freedom, women’s equality and LGBT rights.
Russia – President Vladimir Putin
Trump has avoided publicly criticising Putin and has sometimes spoken warmly about him, in contrast to most Western leaders.
He once called the Russian president “genius” and “savvy” for his campaign against Ukraine – though he later publicly condemned the invasion.
Trump has also claimed he would end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” if re-elected – a vow welcomed by the Kremlin, which currently holds an advantage on the battlefield and about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Nigel Gould-Davies, of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, said “there is clearly that sort of authoritarian-minded chemistry,” between the two leaders.
He said Putin and other authoritarian leaders will be pleased about Trump’s re-election, which will mean “much less emphasis in American foreign policy on the importance and value of human rights”.
India – Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Narendra Modi sent the “heartiest of congratulations” to his “friend” Donald Trump after it was announced he would return to the White House.
Modi is a popular but polarising leader whose politics have divided India, especially along religious lines.
He has presided over a fast-growing economy while advancing Hindu nationalism in his country.
Modi has been accused of using hate speech against the country’s minority Muslim community, especially in the last phase of election campaigning this year.
His supporters think he has improved India’s standing in the world, but his critics say he has eroded the country’s democracy.
Turkey – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed Trump’s win as a “new era” for America after a “great battle” by the president-elect.
Like Trump, Erdogan projects an image of strength that prioritises national interests and relies on messages that present him as a leader for the people.
The US has been intent on keeping Turkey at arms-length due to its stance on a range of issues, most recently its support for Hamas in the Gaza war.
However, Trump and Erdogan have cultivated a cordial relationship despite a series of differences between their countries.
In case you missed it, Barack and Michelle Obama issued a statement last night following Donald Trump’s election victory.
The pair said that although they have “profound disagreements with the Republican ticket”, they wanted to congratulate Trump and his running mate JD Vance.
“Living in a democracy is about recognising that our point of view won’t always win out, and being willing to accept the peaceful transfer of power,” they said.
They said the pandemic and price hikes are conditions that have “created headwinds for democratic incumbents around the world, and last night showed that America is not immune”.
“The good news is that these problems are solvable – but only if we listen to each other, and only if we abide by the core constitutional principles and democratic norms that made this country great.
“In a country as big and diverse as ours, we won’t always see eye to eye on everything. But progress requires us to extend good faith and grace – even to people with whom we deeply disagree.”
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