Donald Trump. WHAT NEXT The neighbours and the world watch and wait

Posted on 11/09/2016 | About United States

Donald Trump's election win sent shockwaves around the world, jolting markets and stunning political leaders around the globe. Governments will now have to deal with a man who has cozied up to Vladimir Putin, told NATO allies they would have to pay for their own protection and famously vowed to make the Mexican government pay for a multibillion-dollar border wall. So, while the world reels at the unthinkable, it is Mexico and Canada, America's closest neighbours, who could feel the effects more than most.

Here are some ways Canada could be affected by the Trump win:
• Climate policy: Trump promises to pull the US from international climate agreements. He says he'll shred President Barack Obama's greenhouse-gas policies, and gut the US Environmental Protection Agency. Canada has numerous climate projects with the US.
• Trade: Trump has repeatedly demanded a renegotiation of NAFTA - or he says he'll cancel it. That may cause jitters to the north, given that Canada sends three-quarters of its exports south.
• Keystone XL: Trump has said several times he favours construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta. A campaign document suggested he'd invite TransCanada Corp. to reapply. If he's serious about proceeding, it could be a bit of welcome news for the Canadian government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had supported the pipeline, and now faces political dilemmas at home related to new pipelines.
• Syrian refugees: Trudeau went to the airport to welcome Syrian refugees. Trump refers to the refugees as a Trojan horse. His son tweeted a comparison to a bowl of Skittles, where only one bad one can kill you. Canada works closely with the US on intelligence and screening of foreigners. It's an integral part of ongoing plans to thin the Canada-US border and facilitate trade. It's far from certain a Trump administration would be keen on more refugees next door.
• Brain-poaching possibilities: Even before Tuesday's election, CNBC reported that the number of Americans searching for jobs in Canada had increased a whopping 58 percent since last year on the jobs-posting platform Monster Worldwide.
• Defence: Trump has threatened to leave allies to their own devices if they fail to meet the agreed-upon NATO target of spending two percent of GDP on the military. Canada is nowhere close and recently said it had no current plans to get there.
• Bad bromance: Trudeau's affection for the current president was obvious during their meetings. He'll soon face a less-predictable interlocutor. Trudeau bit his tongue, mostly, during the campaign but he did make clear his displeasure with Trump's talk of a Muslim ban. Trump claims that despite being only in the job for less than year, Trudeau is “easily Canada’s worst president yet.”
He also questioned Trudeau’s immigration policy, calling him the “founder of Canadian ISIS.”
“Honestly I think he’s done a terrible job so far,” Trump tweeted, “He should be ashamed to call himself the President of Canada.”
“Well as I’m sure you know, I’ve followed Canadian politics closely all my life,” Trump noted, then belied that by adding, “And I think he’s done such damage to the Canadian presidency that they should rename it to like, prime minister or something more Canadian-sounding, like emir or emperor.”
Well, okay then. We'll take that under advisement.
Mexico
Trump's win was particularly startling South of the US border, where his remarks calling Mexican immigrants criminals and “rapists” were a deep insult to national pride. Financial analysts have predicted a Trump win would threaten billions of dollars in cross-border trade, and government officials say they have drawn up a contingency plan for such a scenario, though without releasing details.
“It's DEFCON 2*,” Mexican analyst Alejandro Hope said. “Probably something as close to a national emergency as Mexico has faced in many decades.”
“It depends if he means what he says and if he can do what he claims he wants to do,” Hope said.
“A massive deportation campaign could really put some stress on Mexican border communities. A renegotiation of NAFTA could seriously hobble the Mexican economy. It could create a lot of uncertainty. ... Financial markets could suffer.”
The Mexican peso, which has tracked the US election closely, fell sharply to 20.45 to the dollar late Tuesday before recovering somewhat. The Bank of Mexico's interbank rate had stood at 18.42 at the end of the day's trading.
Global
The prospect of a Trump presidency jolted markets around the world Wednesday, sending Dow futures and Asian stock prices sharply lower as investors panicked over uncertainties on trade, immigration and geopolitical tensions.
At one point, Dow futures plunged more than 4 percent and Japan’s major index nosedived more than 6.1 percent, its largest drop in years.
The lack of clear policy details has left many worldwide uneasy over the future direction of the US economy. Share prices began tumbling as soon as Trump first gained the lead in the electoral vote count. By the time Trump was confirmed to have taken 276 electoral votes, passing the crucial 270 mark, financial markets appeared to have steadied.
“Markets are in all out panic mode that President Trump could become a reality,” said Kathleen Brooks, a research director at the foreign exchange trading firm City Index in London. “A win for Trump is riling financial markets that had not expected this outcome a mere 12 hours ago.”
However, most market watchers predicted the turmoil would be brief, partly because Trump will face more limits while in office than during his campaign.
*The United States' DEFCON (short for "defense readiness condition") scale is a measure of the level of alertness of the nation's defense forces. The DEFCON scale uses a minimum of 5 (for normal peacetime status) and a maximum of 1 (for situations of global severity, like nuclear war).