Donald Trump has been proclaimed President of the United States after obtaining 277 electoral votes in the recent electoral contest, according to official data released this early Wednesday morning.
The result reaffirms its influence on the country’s political landscape and marks the beginning of a new era in the American administration.
With a focus on the economy and national security, Trump has promised to implement policies that he says will revitalize the nation and strengthen its standing in the world.
The Republican Party candidate will become – for the second time – the president of the United States. The former president obtained the majority of votes in the fundamental and close-fought “hinge states” that defined the national elections over his rival, current Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump celebrated his victory at the Palm Beach Convention Center, in southern Florida, surrounded by family, advisors, businessmen, political leaders and supporters of his party. To achieve his resounding victory – and exceed the 270 necessary electors – the former North American president between 2017 and 2021 won – as expected – or leads with marked trends in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the famous “swing states”, considered key to achieving the majority of votes.
The Democratic Party considerably lowered its performance compared to the 2020 general elections. In that already distant November, Joe Biden – who renounced his candidacy to be re-elected after his poor performance in the televised debate on June 28 with Trump – had left victorious in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, which on this occasion eluded his vice president. Biden had only lost in North Carolina, a stronghold that the Republicans held four years later.
But the good news continued during “Super Tuesday” for the Republican Party, which also won the majority in the Senate, a fact that will give greater power to the future administration. The crucial victories in gaining control of the upper house came from Bernie Moreno in Ohio, Jim Justice in West Virginia and Deb Fischer, who kept her seat in Nebraska.
And not only that. Donald Trump achieved unprecedented popular support for a Republican candidate, accustomed in recent races to guaranteeing his arrival at the White House only with the votes of the Electoral College. This time, in addition to obtaining the voters necessary to reach the top of the Executive Branch, Trump added more than 69 million votes against the 64 million that Kamala Harris received, who awaited the bitter results at Howard University, her alma mater. “We won a historic political victory,” he said, proclaiming himself victorious from Palm Beach and before a crowd.
Challenges for Trump
Trump will replace Biden, the 46th president in American history. He will have ahead of him a very different nation than the one he left in January 2021 when he left Washington DC to move to Palm Beach to begin rebuilding his return, amid trials, accusations and complaints of all kinds. But not only that: above all, the world appears completely different from what it was four years ago.
When Trump left power, he did so in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic that paralyzed global economies except that of the United States, which remained thriving although with some health restrictions and a high cost in lives. And although its disputes with China – a regime that hid the start of the coronavirus from the world – increased due to commercial and economic issues, at that time Beijing did not harass Taiwan weekly with military maneuvers and drills of maritime and air blockades, endangering the regional and international security.
During his campaign he promised tariffs on Chinese products and other imports; lower taxes and attack inflation, one of the factors that prevented Harris from continuing in Biden’s footsteps. Some emerging economies should take note.
Currently, Asia is experiencing moments of anxiety due to the growing military activity promoted by Xi Jinping. Japan, South Korea and the Philippines – added to the democratic government in Taipei – are strategic partners in the Pacific Ocean of the United States. Trump will possibly sponsor – following his style of direct diplomacy – a summit with the head of the Chinese autocracy to try to contain the warmongering impulse that he has expressed in recent years. But these negotiations will be intertwined with others that are of interest to the Chinese Communist Party (PCC): the restrictions that Washington imposed on Beijing on the purchase of microprocessors, key to military technological development and hegemony in the coming decades.
Another scenario that Trump promised to solve in a short time is the bloody invasion of Ukraine ordered by Vladimir Putin. Who will you sit with first? Or rather: who will he convince first? It will be difficult for Putin to leave the occupied territory unconditionally. Much less now that he got the invaluable help of his friend, the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, an old acquaintance of the president-elect. The Russian will not want to remain an international pariah either. Orders accumulate. Putin will surely ask for more than Volodimir Zelensky is willing to negotiate or give up. The war has been going on for an eternal and bloody 987 days. The deaths and casualties are high, but the Ukrainian troops – and its economy – are exhausted. The Russian head of state knows this. What will Europe do in this new scenario? Early to know. Just in case, Emmanuel Macron, president of France, was among the first to greet him.
The other sand in which he will have to dip his feet will be the Middle East. Israel has been waging a war since October 7, 2023 to end Hamas and Hezbollah, in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, respectively. Both terrorist groups are targets of Tel Aviv, after they began their attacks against Israeli territory and people. They massacred women, children and innocents. Iran, the theocratic regime that sheltered them for years, also entered the fray. Trump knows how Tehran moves. He confirmed this when he ordered on January 3, 2020 the elimination in Iraq of Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian general, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
Donald Trump will discover a completely different world than the one he left in 2021. He has three very delicate war fronts that could lead to a world warthis time, with nuclear powers in front. “I’m going to end wars, I’m not going to start wars,” he said in his proclamation speech from the Palm Beach Convention Center. He will be, after a long time in history, a wartime president. Although he has not delivered any.
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