Given the enormous significance of the US election result, not only for America itself but for us in the UK and the rest of the world, we are devoting a number of articles this week to the implications of Trump’s victory.
We asked our regular writers to write a brief piece sharing their reactions to the election outcome, and we have compiled their responses into three articles, covering, broadly, the implications for the UK; for the politics of climate change and the environment; and for immigrant communities and Ukraine.
This is the third in the series.
Immigrants are under threat – Viv Griffiths
Trump’s re-election in the US is bad news for immigrants and has repercussions for the UK and beyond.
One of the cornerstones of Trump’s election strategy was his threat to deport thousands – if not millions – of undocumented migrants and clamp down on legal migration. He continued to spread false rumours about immigrants coming from “insane asylums”, leading to “plunder, rape, slaughter” in American cities.
Alarmingly, Trump’s hate speech and deportation promises gained widespread support among Republicans, with signs at his rallies saying “Mass deportations now!” The plans would involve the use of US troops and would cost billions of dollars.
These inhumane threats are spreading fear among undocumented communities, especially as Trump’s first term was marked by harsh migration policies and family separation at the Mexican border.
But the xenophobic fearmongering will have wider implications for the UK and beyond, emboldening far-right populists like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson, who will try to use Trump’s success to ‘legitimise’ similar approaches to immigrants. And we’ve already seen the potential scale of disruption and danger in the violent anti-immigrant riots that took place in Britain in August.
It’s easy to laugh off Trump’s rhetoric as over-blown and unrealistic, but the singling out of particular groups for hate-speech is akin to what happened in Nazi Germany, and the threat is very real.
What are the implications for Ukraine of Trump’s victory? – Vic Ient
Last week European leaders gathered in Hungary. NATO and Ukraine were high on the agenda following Trump’s victory in the Presidential elections in the USA.
The future doesn’t look good for President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people. Euro News reports that “Trump has openly threatened to revise, or even cut off, Washington’s financial and military assistance to the war-torn country and bragged he would “encourage” Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” with NATO members that fail to meet spending targets. His promise to strike a deal to end the war in “24 hours” is stoking fears that he could impose painful territorial concessions on Kyiv to Moscow’s benefit.”
Despite Ukraine’s courageous efforts, Russia is inching westward on the eastern front. Putin seems to have the cruel ability to completely ignore the tremendous losses of his armed forces in order to gain territorial advantage. Meanwhile, Ukraine is hamstrung by the conditions placed upon the Ukrainian armed forces in the use of weapons, such as the American-made F-16 supersonic multirole fighter aircraft. The USA and western countries restrict the use of aircraft and long-range missiles, making it difficult for Ukraine to attack air force spaces and ammunition dumps deep inside Russia.
With Trump coming to power, the situation could get dramatically worse since most of the anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapons are manufactured in the USA.
Meanwhile, the EU is in a mess. Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister, has become the mouthpiece for Putin from within the EU by constantly regurgitating Russian propaganda and disrupting progress in the EU on Ukrainian support. The Russian-leaning far-right ‘Alternative for Germany’ party is gaining ground in German state elections. Now, to cap it all, the German national government coalition has collapsed.
Putin took Crimea in 2014 when everybody was looking the other way. In 2025, Trump could force through a peace deal by cutting off weapons. That means to say another huge chunk of Ukraine would become part of Putin’s Empire. But don’t think it ends there. If this were to happen, there would be a pause allowing Russia to regroup, and then in a few years’ time we would no doubt find there was a new attack on the poor people of Ukraine.
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