As shock waves went global over Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, world leaders on Wednesday offered their takes on the outcome, which has the potential to “upend the international order.”
While offering his congratulations, French President François Hollande said the result “opens a period of uncertainty.” He said that “certain positions taken by Donald Trump during the American campaign must be confronted with the values and interests we share with the United States.” He added that “what is at stake is peace, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East. It is economic relations and the preservation of the planet.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Agence France-Presse reports,
Merkel added, “I think we have to face it that American foreign policy will be less predictable for us, and we must be sure that America will be inclined more often to decide alone.”
Her remarks, Huffington Post writes, “are likely issued as a pointed warning to Trump, who has called for all 1.6 billion members of a religion to be banned from the U.S. to prevent terror attacks.”
In the U.K., “where Trump’s victory had echoes of last June’s referendum in which voters showed dissatisfaction with the political establishment by voting to leave European Union,” Reuters writes, Prime Minister Theresa May, who shuttered her government’s climate change office, stated that she looks forward to working with the Republican and that their two countries will “remain strong and close partners on trade, security, and defense.”
As for reaction in Greece, AFP reports: “A source close to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitted to being ‘worried about the questions of respect for human rights and minority rights’ in the U.S..”
Addressing the fate of the nuclear deal Iran and world powers agreed to in 2015, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the accord “cannot be overturned by one government’s decision.” Trump previously said his “number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.”
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