Viewpoints: What the World Thinks About Clinton vs. Trump
Just a few months ago Hillary Clinton battling Donald Trump in the general election was unthinkable. Now it seems that anything is possible. To many Americans, Clinton vs. Trump is a choice between a government insider vs. an outsider. And nobody loves an underdog more than the American people. But what does the rest of the world think?
Worldpress.org has gathered a sampling of recent news coverage from around the globe to give you the international perspective on Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump.
Argentina – Buenos Aires Herald, March 2: Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton took big steps toward securing their parties' presidential nominations yesterday with a series of state-by-state victories, but their rivals…aim to knock them off their pedestals in contests ahead in Michigan, Florida and Illinois.…"The stakes in this election have never been higher and the rhetoric we’re hearing on the other side has never been lower," Clinton told supporters in Miami. "Trying to divide America between us and them is wrong, and we’re not going to let it work." …At a news conference in a chandeliered ballroom at his seaside Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump, who has never held public office, dismissed furious criticism aimed at him by establishment Republicans.…"I’m going to get along with Congress, okay? Paul Ryan, I don’t know him well, but I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him. And if I don’t, he’s going to have to pay a big price, okay?" Trump said in remarks that could further inflame party tensions.
China – Xinhua, March 3: "The big victories by Clinton and Trump mean in all likelihood that each will be their party's nominees for the general election," Brookings Institution's senior fellow Darrell West told Xinhua."These individuals have substantial leads over opponents and are in a great position to wrap things up by the end of March. Unless someone else runs as an independent candidate, this is likely to be the voter choice for this fall." …Trump has beaten analysts' predictions again and again. While just six months ago, no one expected him to clinch the Republican nomination, that scenario now looks increasingly possible. And while just a couple of months ago analysts thought he could never beat Clinton in the general election, now analysts say he can.
Lebanon – The Daily Star, March 3: One evening last June, some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors gathered for a cocktail party at an exclusive resort in Deer Valley, Utah, during a three-day retreat hosted by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.They had just heard from six presidential hopefuls. Tom Duncan, the CEO of tool-maker Positec Tool Corp, chatted with a few attendees about a fantasy ticket to secure the White House in November 2016: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, with Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his running mate. ...No one mentioned Donald Trump, even though he had been signaling for months that he planned to run. Four days later, the New York property magnate declared his candidacy and within weeks had shot to the top of the polls, eclipsing all of his Republican rivals. … Republican donors, strategists and campaign operatives interviewed by Reuters admitted they had misjudged the mood of voters who have thrown their support behind Trump after he promised to build a wall on the Mexican border, temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States and block Syrian refugees because they might be militants.
France – France 24, March 2: Senior Republicans are running out of options in their race to stop the Donald Trump bandwagon. Whether or not they succeed, the battle is likely to prove costly for the Grand Old Party. … Josh Kraushaar, a political editor at the National Journal… noted that while Trump’s poll ratings are on the upswing, surveys also show that a quarter of the Republican electorate “won’t vote for him under any circumstances,” while some would even cross over to the Democrats, provided they pick a moderate like Clinton. … “The emerging scenario in Washington is that the Republicans are going to take this to a contested convention,” Kraushaar said, suggesting an ugly showdown between the pro- and anti-Trump camps was a likely outcome. “If Trump doesn’t come out as the nominee his supporters are going to be furious, but if he does then you have about a quarter of Republicans who won’t vote for him,” he said, describing the conundrum as a “no-win situation.”
Germany – Deutsche Welle, March 2: Political Berlin hasn’t really come to grips with the possibility that Donald Trump’s next visit here could be in his capacity as US president because it’s a scenario no one wants to contemplate, says DW’s Jens Thurau. … The idea of Russia and the United States cozying up to one another with Germany caught in the middle is enough to make anyone afraid. …For months now, German politicians have been looking across the Atlantic with a mixture of fascination and horror. The hair! The aggression! The crude rhetoric! … And doesn't all this with Trump seem surreal, like something dreamed up in Hollywood? And if it should become real, what then? But no, that's not something anyone really wants to consider just yet.
Iran – Fars News Agency, March 3: The number of Google searches on how to immigrate to Canada from the United States spiked several times on Wednesday as presidential candidate Donald Trump swept the US Republican primaries. According to a tweet by Google's data editor Simon Rogers, Google searches for "how can I move to Canada?" increased by 350 percent over four hours after Trump's victory in seven states was announced. Most of the searches were detected in Massachusetts, where Trump won 49 percent of the vote, Sputnik reported. Analysis by tech website Mashable revealed that by midnight the "Canada-moving" search had increased by 1,150 percent.
Israel – The Jerusalem Post, March 4: A letter posted Wednesday by some 60 influential conservatives in think tanks and alumni of Republican administrations lists the ways they say the billionaire real estate magnate would “make America less safe,” including “hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric” that “undercuts the seriousness of combating Islamic radicalism.” It also accuses him of contempt for neighbors such as Mexico and allies like Japan while admiring dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The letter says Trump is feckless. “He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence,” it said.
United Kingdom – The Guardian, March 5: Barring an unforeseen disaster on either side, Clinton and Trump are now on a collision course for the presidential election on 8 November 2016. The bombastic, swaggering, sometimes vulgar billionaire has stunned the political world, plunged the Republican Party into civil war and, among the pundit class, relegated the prospect of the 240-year-old republic’s first female president to a footnote. … The outside world, overjoyed by the election of America’s first black president just eight years ago, is asking: how did it come to this? …One chilling statistic for Clinton stands out: more than 8 million voters took part in the Republican Super Tuesday contests, while the Democratic turnout was around 5.5 million. … Clinton is compared to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; Trump is compared to everyone from Benito Mussolini to Juan Perón to Silvio Berlusconi.
Canada – The Star, March 5: Let the righteous hand wringing stop. Let the sanctimonious hypocrites of America’s political and media class cease. And, above all, let us not delude ourselves about why a vulgar, bullying and racist Donald Trump has come to dominate U.S. politics. The answer is simple. The allure of easy money is what now drives America’s corrupt democracy, perhaps irreparably. It takes the form of an unholy alliance linking many American politicians, the billionaires who own them and the U.S. broadcast news media that has sold its soul for the massive profits they are reaping. … A key lesson of the past hundred years is that democracies do die. On behalf of our American friends, and the rest of us, let’s hope the Trump reality show soon comes to an end.
Australia – The Age, March 3: For about a quarter of a century, she has been vilified as loudly as she has been lionized, told that her talents pale beside her husband's, called "likable enough" but seldom lovable, and cast in supporting roles: the first lady, the secretary of state. She never retreated. Never gave up. … Let's give her this moment, because she fought her way here. She tuned out the naysayers. She turned a blind eye to all her scars. Her ability to do that may reflect unrestrained ambition, a sturdy confidence in her mission or - more likely - an intricate cat's cradle of both. Whichever the case, it demonstrates a grit that could be her greatest asset in a general election. Clinton has the toughness to engage in - and survive - a brutally ugly contest. She also has the smarts to know the cost of it. Has she honed the character and nimbleness to prevail in a more inspiring, unifying way? As well as we know her, this is yet to be revealed.
Pakistan – Dawn, March 5: Last week, former CIA director Michael Hayden said in an interview to a US media outlet that the American military would refuse to obey Mr. Trump if he gets elected and orders them to torture prisoners or kill the families of terrorists. … At the [Thursday] debate, a moderator, Bret Baier, asked Mr. Trump to comment on Gen Hayden’s statement. Mr. Trump rejected the suggestion that the US military would defy their president. … “What would these animals over in the Middle East, that chopped off heads think of a hesitation to commit war crimes?” Mr. Trump asked. “We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding.” … The remarks earned him a wild applause from the audience.
Taiwan – China Post, March 3: Increasingly, leading Republicans talk of a contested convention in July as their best remaining option for stopping Trump, whose divisive rhetoric about immigrants and ethnic and religious groups has some fearing a Republican wipeout in November. … Speaking from his gold-flecked Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump asserted that his candidacy is a "movement" and he claimed he would unify the party by training his fire on Clinton.worldpress
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