TWTW: The World This Week #116 + Elections 2024

Election impact …ducks line up in Europe, Asia, Mideast & beyond… hope & fears in Ukraine … and for our paid: the bells of Notre Dame, with Steve Scully on Sirius & cartoonists tremble for Trump

In this weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, we continue to explore how the media of other nations are reporting and commenting on the United States, and how they are viewing the rest of the world.

This week, still in Paris….but heading Monday to Romania, Moldova and beyond…..

Elections 2024: America’s ‘new look’

Panic has already erupted in some quarters, delight in others. But without question the world has already begun toting up accounts—time, perhaps in so many cases, far past the time in others. And very little of Donald Trump’s victory seems very good at all for most of the world, even some of the autocracies who should be basking in the Maga universe’s victory dance.

The reality is that every country and each leader will have to prove their strategic importance and loyalty to Trump personally—kiss the ring or some other part of his anatomy. And so many are already rushing forward. This was always true, but now all checks are off—and no one can be counted on to restrain him and his ambitions or for that matter be a reliable and direct path to the solutions they are seeking.

At the same time, his victory has given aid and comfort to a host of forces—largely the far right—genies that many societies had hoped were back in their bottle or could be restrained from release, now newly encouraged that their time has come. 

So the front page of France’s leading  Sunday paper, Journal du Dimanche—long a liberal bastion turned suddenly to the right after a blatant takeover nearly two years ago—blasts a cover devoted to the darling of France’s far right:

Jordan Bardella: ‘My values for France”

Exclusive Interview: His landmark book: ‘to resolve all doubts”

Doctrine: “Work, merit, defense of identity, authority…”

Ambition: He defines his line while reaffirming his loyalty to Marine Le Pen

An Offer !!

Above all, around the globe, red lines are about to be redrawn as never before in history, back to the days of Genghis Khan & before —red lines whose DNA I explored in my last book, A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen … a free inscribed copy to be dispatched forthwith to every new annual paid subscriber to Andelman Unleashed.

But Egyptian cartoonist Sherif Arafa may have best captured this metaphor of the world hovering on the brink of a very deep, black hole.                                    

In an article for The Atlantic, David Frum wrote that under Trump, the United States will become a different kind of country. I would go a lot further. Ours will become a very much different sort of world.

Just what form that world might be taking is even now already coming into a degree of focus—a world without America, or even the American spirit, rather a world ruled by the will of certain individuals caring for themselves alone and those closest to him or her.

I was asked Friday on Steve Scully’s The Briefing show on Sirius POTUS channel what happens to NATO—especially now that most countries have by now met Trump’s demand from his first term to devote 2% of their GDP to defense. The answer may well be that this will never be enough, so long as NATO itself is in direct opposition to whatever ambition Vladimir Putin may entertain at any given moment. NATO’s principal mission is to maintain a credible defense and retaliatory capacity to deter any effort at offense from an opponent. But if Trump’s objective is to maintain America’s hands-off attitude toward any conceivable engagement in any sort of armed conflict abroad, NATO’s deterrent capacities are likely to diminish geometrically—and dangerously.

A link to our full 20-minute conversation will be found below for our paid subscribers.

All this and more were very high on the agenda of a landmark and brilliantly (perhaps maliciously?) timed summit of the entire European Union convened in Budapest under the long shadow of Donald Trump. The host? Viktor Orban—European stalking horse, bff of Vladimir Putin and Trump, and whose six-month rotation as leader of the EU is drawing to an end. These two days of most fraught meetings may have effectively been his swan song. But our SubStack colleagues David Carretta and Christian Spillmann summed up impeccably the atmosphere and the stakes in their La Matinale Européenne:

Atlanticism died on November 6, 2024, with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The political current that regulated relations between the two sides of the Atlantic for seven decades based on the principles of individual freedom, liberal democracy and open markets has given way to a relationship based on nationalism, nativism and identity politics. The new Atlanticism took its first steps yesterday in Budapest during the European meetings hosted by Viktor Orban, one of its ideologues on the old continent.

The Hungarian Prime Minister was triumphant. As was his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni, the first EU leader to speak on the phone with Donald Trump.

Viktor Orban also announced that he had been called by the American president and announced: “we have big plans for the future.”

The new Atlanticism is based on a completely different ideology: nationalism and nativism are the main binders. Everything else follows from them. Orban considers the Hungarian "Nation" to be much larger than the one defined by its current borders….The "Nation" is defined not only by borders and rules, but also by the group of people who have a common origin, language and history. Immigrants are excluded from this. These are the "Aliens" that Trump wants to deport en masse…

The New Atlanticists are also united by their rejection of the principles of liberal democracy, which include the checks and balances of the rule of law…an independent judiciary, a free press and a critical civil society. Their democracy provides that "he who wins takes all…."

The New Atlanticists view international relations as a zero-sum game. Supranational structures are acceptable only if they do not entail financial or political costs. Trump considers NATO a scam because America takes care of the security of others…

The implications for the EU are profound. In Budapest, [EU] President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated that unity is the EU’s strength.

The strength of the new Atlanticists is the result of the weakness of the old Atlanticists. “In Budapest, a Germany whose government has just collapsed and a French government dependent on Marine Le Pen will get a lesson from Orban on the virtues of the newly elected Trump,” lamented Timothy Garton Ash.

Germany indeed….

Which brings us to the first big fallout in Europe from the Trump triumph—and an ominous note for the future. Though the link with the American election appears only tenuous, its roots and its future are profound and frightening: the collapse of the three-party ruling coalition (known as the Traffic Light coalition) means Germany could be forced into a snap election in the not-too-distant future.

Already, Friedrich Merz, the conservative (though not far-right) head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party began demanding snap early elections in its effort to seize power while it still can, as Germany’s Deutsche Welle [DW] reported:

The reason this is no bed of roses is the result of recent state elections, as Andelman Unleashed reported in September, which have only highlighted the growing power of the extreme right across what has long been Europe’s most powerful nation—at least in economic terms:

The forces of Europe's far right scored perhaps their most stunning and important victory; some are suggesting since the end of the Nazi era in Europe more than three quarters of a century ago. The victory of the far-right German party, Alternative für Deutschland [Alternative for Germany], was undeniable in two key states of what was once known as East Germany and still are home to key industrial and trading centers of Leipzig and Dresden.

The AfD leader, Björn Höcke, has already twice been convicted for knowingly using a Nazi slogan at a political event. But his $18,000 fine has hardly put a crimp in his style, dented his overwhelming popularity nor that of the party he has led for more than a decade.

Now they are hoping for a much larger prize—if not succeeding incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz, at least some quite important and visible portfolios in a new right-wing cabinet. As European Conservative magazine examined how things all fell apart so quickly for Scholz:

Scholz sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) party. The growing rift between Chancellor Scholz and the fiscally conservative Lindner has been obvious for months, but the final straw was….his recommendations [that] included slashing taxes for companies, rolling back climate regulations, and further reducing welfare benefits—in other words, everything that Scholz’s social democrats (SPD) stand against.

Sound familiar?

Now with Trump threatening broadening tariffs, all bets are off, especially for Germany, as London’s The Guardian reported:

The US president-elect’s promise of imposing baseline tariffs of 10% on all goods imports has already sent shivers around the world’s manufacturers. Few industries are more exposed than Germany’s carmakers: Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche….If a 10% tariff were then passed on to American buyers, Audi’s US bestseller would cost about $3,500 extra on top of its $45,400 starting price.

But just when German industry needs a strong advocate, its government has fallen into turmoil. The coalition led by the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, collapsed on Wednesday after three years in power, casting doubt over who will lead Europe’s largest economy as the EU prepares for trade negotiations with Trump.

And then there’s Ukraine

As if Europe didn’t have enough headaches preparing for the arrival of Trump, now there’s Zelensky, who happened to be a very much invited guest at the Budapest gathering of the group that he’d love to join and is now counting on more than ever for his very survival.

So how happy are these two to see each other?

As the Kyiv Independent put it:

Europe must show unity and adopt a "peace through strength" approach to face aggression from Russia and its allies, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the European Political Community Summit in Budapest.

European leaders have gathered in Budapest amid growing uncertainty about what Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. election will mean for allied support for Ukraine and European security. There are fears the new U.S. president might reduce support for Ukraine and seek a deal with the Kremlin at the cost of Ukraine's concessions.

Zelensky admitted uncertainty about the U.S.'s future actions but voiced hope for a "stronger America" that Europe needs. "There should be no illusions that a just peace can be bought by showing weakness," Zelensky said. "Peace is a reward only for the strong."

Still, things are not going well in on the war front.  As the Kyiv Independent concluded:

Ukraine finds itself in an increasingly precarious situation in the war as Russian forces keep advancing in Donetsk Oblast while the future of Western support under Trump's presidency looks increasingly uncertain.

The Institute for the Study of War [ISW], however, was somewhat more (globally) upbeat:

Russian forces reportedly lost almost 200 tanks, over 650 armored vehicles, and suffered an estimated 80,000 casualties in taking roughly 1,500 square kilometers during a period of intensified Russian offensive operations in September and October 2024….UK defense intelligence estimates that Russian casualties "reached a new high" in October 2024 and that Russian forces suffered an average daily casualty rate of 1,345 troops per day or about 41,980 casualties in October 2024….an estimated 80,110 casualties over the last two months—roughly 20,000 more casualties than US forces suffered during almost 20 years of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan….Russian forces seized and recaptured a total of 1,517 square kilometers—an area less than a third the size of Delaware—throughout Ukraine and Kursk Oblast over the last two months in exchange for these losses.

So, there are all sorts of caveats from ISW:

Russian forces will eventually make operationally significant gains if Ukrainian forces do not stop ongoing Russian offensive operations, but the Russian military cannot sustain such loss rates indefinitely, especially not for such limited gains.

In the end, Europeans keep returning to this same subject, as Carretta and Spillmann reported:

According to Orban, "the citizens of Europe are less and less inclined to finance a war they do not understand," while "the American elections have closed a chapter and opened a new path." [Thursday]  Donald Trump said he was ready to talk with Vladimir Putin, who congratulated the president-elect by saying he was willing to discuss a ceasefire based on the conditions on the ground.

Shortly after Orban’s press conference, Zelensky took to the stage to call his ceasefire proposals “dangerous” and “irresponsible.” “Whose children are dying? Are they being killed here? Are your homes being destroyed? What are you talking about? Who are you?”

And hardly alone, especially when it comes to finances—and most immediately this all comes down to …...

….Tariffs. So, what about China?

And not only China but across Asia nations are beginning to position themselves for a New Trump Order. As Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post explained:

China added 6 trillion yuan [$835.7 billion] in hidden debt relief and pledges more. China’s top legislative body approved additional debt relief for local governments and promised more support next year… concluding a week-long session days after Donald Trump was confirmed as the next president of the United States.

The SCMP added that “the size of China’s stimulus package was increased to accommodate the likely tariff hikes in store during Trump’s second term.” The paper also reported Xi Jinping’s congratulatory phone call:

….setting the tone for a geopolitical rematch between the two most powerful leaders in the world. Xi told Trump that China and the US would “benefit from cooperation and lose from confrontation. A stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship is in the common interests of the two countries and the international community’s expectations,” Xi said. “It is hoped that the two sides will uphold the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and find a correct way for China and the United States to get along.”

Xi and Trump are no strangers. They met four times between 2016 and 2020 during the American leader’s first term in the White House. Trump is the last US president to visit China and likes to tout his strong relationship with the Chinese leader. Incumbent US President Joe Biden is the only American president who has not visited China while in office.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s taking no chances. As NHK reported:

The Japanese government has begun making arrangements to set up a meeting between Japan's Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru and Donald Trump. He appears eager to nurture personal ties with Trump….Options for a meeting, include making a stopover in the US when he attends international conferences to be held in Peru and Brazil in mid-November.

In the Philippines, where the U.S. is in the process of building or expanding four air and naval facilities to face down China, the SCMP reported:

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr was quick to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election and express optimism for a robust partnership between their countries. For Marcos to solidify his relationship with Trump, he must convince the incoming US president of the Philippines’ value in the Indo-Pacific.

And on to Africa

Where China is also taking no chances, the SCMP examined the state of play:

Chinese electric vehicle makers are opening flagship stores and assembly plants in Africa as they look to expand on the continent and circumvent tariffs and other import restrictions imposed by the US and Europe.

State-owned carmaker BAIC Group and Zeekr, Geely Auto’s premium EV maker, have both announced plans to enter Egypt—a key location for companies looking to tap into the Middle East and Africa.

By the end of next year, BAIC Group is expected to start producing 20,000 electric vehicles annually at an assembly plant it is establishing in Egypt. That will increase to 50,000 units by its fifth year in a deal with Alkan Auto, a subsidiary of Egyptian International Motors (EIM Group).

Besides meeting domestic demand, the plant will export to other African countries and to the Middle East, taking advantage of Egypt’s location at the junction of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Of course, we also have to ask what role Elon Musk might play in this whole equation.

Elsewhere in the Middle East

Qatar’s out of the mediation business and Hamas is out of Qatar, as Jacob Magid reported in The Times of Israel:

Qatar has decided to end its role as mediator between Israel and Hamas amid long-stalled negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, a diplomat familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.

The diplomat, who is not American, also confirmed Friday’s revelation by the US that Doha told Hamas officials to leave the country, but appeared to deny that the decision was taken in connection with a request from the Biden administration.

Qatar had made the decision to stop mediating on its own, determining that it could not continue if neither side was willing to negotiate in good faith. And if it is no longer mediating, there is no purpose for Qatar to allow Hamas to maintain its offices in the country….

One Israeli official asserted that Donald Trump’s election victory this week also contributed to the decision, suggesting that the Republican president-elect would not have supported Hamas’s continued presence in Doha.

None of which is likely to be very bad news for Trump who received an early congratulatory phone call from a clearly ebullient Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, or as Le Monde‘s Jerusalem correspondent Jean-Philippe Rémy reported:

Even though he has never faced serious opposition for the wars he launched in Gaza and Lebanon, neither domestically nor on the international stage, Benjamin Netanyahu is freer than ever to continue waging them as he sees fit.

Trump's victory clears the way for Netanyahu to do whatever he likes.

Incidentally, this coming Wednesday, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi will be visiting Iran “to address its contentious nuclear program and expressed hope for cooperative engagement with US President-elect Donald Trump,” as Iran International reported. Stand by.

And don’t forget those other autocrats

Argentina’s new heavily populist president Javier Milei lost no time praising a new would-be ally north of the border:

In Brazil, defeated far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, declared ineligible for future contests, apparently relegated to the dustbin of history after his resounding defeat by center-left stalwart Lulu da Silva seems to have found a new lease on life. As he told Folha de S.Paulo …

Trump’s election to the White House was an "extremely important step" for his "dream" of running in the 2026 election and returning to the Palácio do Planalto. "It’s like a thousand-step journey; you have to take the first one, then the tenth. And Trump is an extremely important step," the former president told Folha. For him, the Republican will send a message that his ineligibility was a scheme to remove him from the race.

Bolsonaro was convicted last year by the Superior Electoral Court for abuse of political and economic power and misuse of media. The former president is also under investigation in other cases, including one that investigates discussions about a coup attempt.

Again, sound familiar?

This is what our paid subs can enjoy!

The bells of Notre Dame rang out again Friday for the first time in five years. You can hear them here….My full Q&A with Sirius’ Steve Scully …  And cartoonists around the world mark the arrival of the new, deeply feared, TrumpWorld, in a unique portfolio....