As far as America’s allies are concerned, the election of Donald Trump is a case of Apocalypse Now. Whatever they say publicly, for the governments of countries such as Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain and the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, it is simply horrifying to have a man such as Mr Trump as “leader of the free world”.
The fear of Mr Trump is linked both to his personality and to his policies. For people around the world who have looked to the US as the leading democracy, it is astonishing that the country has elected a president who has displayed such little respect for basic democratic norms, such as the legitimacy of political opposition, the rights of minorities and the independence of the judiciary. Some even fear that the US has just elected a quasi-fascist as its next leader. The thought that Mr Trump will soon be in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal is also alarming to many American allies.
Mr Trump’s proposed policies threaten to take an axe to the liberal world order that the US has supported and sustained since 1945. In particular, he has challenged two of the main bipartisan principles that underpin America’s approach to the world. The first is support for an open, international trading system. The second is the commitment to the US-led alliances that underpin global security.