Författare: Jonathan Este Senior International Affairs Editor Associate

In an ever-more uncertain world, one thing you can say with a degree of confidence is that, right now in global affairs, all roads lead to Donald Trump. Trump’s re-election to the US presidency – while widely anticipated (especially by the bookmakers) – has kicked off something of a chain reaction.

Whether it’s his track record in his first term in office from 2017 to 2021, comments he made on the campaign trail, comments he has made since the election, his cabinet picks or comments his cabinet picks have made, the prospect of Trump assuming arguably the most powerful office in world politics in just a few weeks time is making its own weather around the globe.

In Ukraine, where the war has just passed its 1,000th day and Russia continued to advance slowly but steadily, the prospect that next year will see a ceasefire brokered by the Trump administration, followed by negotiations at which Vladimir Putin would hold many of the cards, looks to be the new reality.

The idea, cherished by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that Ukraine’s defenders would be able to force Russian troops back beyond the borders as established at the end of the cold war in 1991 – a notion in which he was wholeheartedly supported by his western allies – now appears to be a non-starter. All indications point to a frozen conflict, with each side holding the territory it now occupies (although one can imagine Ukraine will have more of a problem holding on to the 600 or so square kilometres of Russian soil it presently controls in the Kursk region).

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But, of course, there was already a frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine after Russia’s incursions in 2014. And – as Stefan Wolff, an international security expert from the University of Birmingham, points out – the Minsk accords on Ukraine of September 2014 and February 2015, which were supposed to maintain some degree, at least, of security and stop the fighting in the region turned out not to be worth the paper they were written on.

There’s very little chance that Trump will allow US troops to be sent to Ukraine as peacekeepers or combatants. So, Wolff surmises, it’ll be down to Europe to step up. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said as much before the US election and Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister, has explicitly said this week that Europe must be prepared to underpin a peace deal.

Europe must ensure it is intimately involved in any peace negotiations, Wolff concludes: “In negotiations involving Trump, Putin and Zelensky alone, Ukraine would be the weakest link and European interests would probably be completely ignored… After 1,000 days of the most devastating military confrontation on European soil since the second world war, it is time to accept that nothing about Europe should be without Europe.”

Read more:
Ukraine: after 1,000 days of war, Europe must prepare for a Trump-brokered peace deal by asserting its own interests

As you might expect, Trump’s victory has also been focusing the mind of the man who is currently sitting behind the Resolute desk. And on day 998 of the conflict, Joe Biden, gave Zelensky the go-ahead to use US-supplied long-range Atacms (army tactical missile system) against targets inside Russia, something the Ukrainian president has been begging for over pretty much the duration of the war.

Ukraine immediately took Biden at his word, launching eight missiles at targets in Bryansk, a Russian region bordering Ukraine. The following day the UK government formally signed off on Ukraine using its Storm Shadow long-range missiles in the same way, and Ukraine used them to attack targets in the Kursk region.

Many commentators believe that one of the epitaphs for Biden’s handling of the war in Ukraine will be too little, too late. This week he also gave permission for Ukraine to deploy anti-personnel mines (APLs) in Ukraine, of the sort that are shunned by 164 countries that are signatories to the Ottawa convention banning such ordnance. Which, of course, means he might have another epitaph as the US leader willing to use weapons almost universally condemned as a horrific scourge “already contaminating more than 70 countries”.

It’s worth noting, though, that neither the US nor Russia is a signatory to the convention. Ukraine is – but that hasn’t prevented it becoming one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world.

The reason that Ukraine is so keen to get their hands on these APLs, writes David Galbreath of the University of Bath, an expert in military technology, is that it needs to find a way to stall Russian infantry as they continue to advance.

Galbreath describes how the success of Ukrainian drones at targeting Russian armoured vehicles had forced the Russians to change tactics and advance on foot. Ukraine had been finding their anti-tank weapons ineffective for forcing enemy infantry into their lines of fire, hence the need for anti-personnel mines, no matter how dirty a weapon they might be.

Read more:
US decision to supply Kyiv with hated anti-personnel mines is both controversial and a depressing sign of the way the war is going

On Putin’s side of the ledger, meanwhile, the main issue is that Russia’s advantage in the field has always depended on the asymmetric advantage provided by the imbalance in troops numbers. Put simply, the Russian military has always been able to call on more bodies to throw into battle than Ukraine.

But there are suggestions that Putin’s reservoir of manpower might be shallower than he’d like. His decision to deploy North Korean troops in the Kursk region, the emptying of prisons to send convicts to the frontline and, more recently, the recruitment and training of troops from the occupied parts of Ukraine all hint that filling Russia’s quota of 20,000 new troops each month has not been plain sailing.

Russia is now pressing along much of the frontline in eastern Ukraine and is making daily advances.
Institute for the Study of War

Natasha Lindsteadt, an expert in authoritarian regimes from the University of Essex, gives us an in-depth look at how Russia fills its ranks. She surmises that, just quietly, Putin might be as keen as Donald Trump to bring this conflict to a speedy conclusion: as long as it favours his side, of course. Because Putin is quickly running out of people he can send to the front lines.

Read more:
Russia needs a peace deal soon as it is running out of soldiers

The view from Israel

Back in Washington, Trump’s senior foreign policy choices are coming in for a degree of bemused scrutiny. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be considerably buoyed by the news that Trump wants former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as his ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee, whose CV also acknowledges his stint as a talk-show host, an evangelical Baptist minister and contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016 (when Huckabee called the president-elect a “car wreck”), is known for his outspoken views on Palestine. Namely that it doesn’t exist.

Huckabee is on the record for saying, after witnessing the inauguration of n illegal settlement on the West Bank, that: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria [the territory’s biblical name]. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

Clive Jones, a professor of regional security at Durham University with a particular interest in the Middle East, believes that Trump could take the brakes off Israel’s campaign in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and even against Iran.

While Joe Biden has maintained steadfast support for Israel and the government of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, he has privately urged caution. He recently attempted to put a deadline on Israel ensuring more food and humanitarian supplies get into Gaza where people are starving.

But, as Jones notes here, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, while mainly known as a China hawk, is on the record as being against a ceasefire in Gaza. He told journalists recently that: “I want them [Israel] to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes.”

With elements of Netanyhu’s government urging the annexation of the West Bank and signs that they might also have designs on northern Gaza and a US administration that looks set to back Israel to the hilt, things are looking bleak for the Palestinian people, concludes Jones.

Read more:
Gaza: outlook for Palestinians bleak under a Trump presidency that looks set to go ’all the way’ with Netanyahu

There has been a major personnel change in Netanyahu’s cabinet, too. Earlier this month he unceremoniously dumped his defence minister, Yoav Gallant. If Biden attempted to be a brake on Netanyahu from the White House, perhaps Gallant was the nearest thing to someone attempting to moderate the behaviour of the prime minister from within his own government.

Gallant has long called for a ceasefire and a hostage deal. He also wanted universal conscription and an end to the exemption of ultra-Orthodox men from military service. And, perhaps, most significantly, his was a strong voice calling for an immediate state inquiry into the causes of the October 7 Hamas-led attacks – something his critics say he is desperate to avoid.

John Strawson, of the University of East London, who writes regularly about Israeli politics here, believes that Netanyahu might act against other powerful military voices in the weeks to come. He believes that the Israeli prime minister is “to reshape Israel in his own political image. That means not only diminishing the role of the judiciary, but also undermining the influence of the IDF and the security establishment.”

In what appears a sinister corollary to Gallant’s dismissal and the appointment of Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel, Netanyahu has nominated a far-right firebrand, Yechiel Leiter, as the new Israeli ambassador to Washington. Leichter, who came up via the now outlawed Kahanist movement in the US, is known to favour annexation of the West Bank.

He’ll soon be back in America sharing his vision with the Trump administration.

Read more:
Israel: Yoav Gallant’s sacking could have devastating consequences both for Palestinians and Israelis

World affairs briefing, from the UK
is available as a weekly email newsletter. Click here to get our updates directly in your inbox. Läs mer…

It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall in Volodymyr Zelensky’s office on the morning of November 6 when it became clear that Donald Trump had won the US election. You can’t imagine it would have been an upbeat gathering. A lot will hang on how the 47th US president approaches his foreign policy, and Trump made plenty of noise during the campaign about how he would bring the conflict to an end and force the two sides to sit down and talk “within 24 hours” of taking office. But the devil will be in the detail when it comes to forging a peace deal.

You’d have to imagine that Zelensky and his inner circle would have gamed a Trump victory, just as they would have worked out a plan to keep a Harris administration four-square behind their war effort. It has become clear in recent weeks that Russia now has the upper hand on the battlefield. And without vast new supplies of military aid and a free hand to use that aid effectively, most analysts believe Ukraine is likely to lose. Or at least be vulnerable to pressure to sign up to a peace deal that means giving up a great deal of territory as well as the freedom to make independent decisions about its security.

The Kremlin has wasted little time in ratcheting up the pressure, saying it won’t even consider peace talks until all western aid to Ukraine is halted. Trump, for his part, has reportedly signalled his intention to start peace talks before he is even sworn in. A peace plan being reportedly considered by Trump and his advisers would include an 800-mile buffer zone policed by troops from Europe and the UK as well as a commitment from UKraine not to join Nato for at least two decades.

It’s very much an “America first” plan, writes Robert Dover, an intelligence and national security expert at the University of Hull. For those who believe, as Trump does, that the US bears too much of the financial burden for Nato, particularly in Europe, it has the bonus that Nato’s European members would bar much of the cost of any peace deal.

Zelensky, meanwhile, is offering to contribute Ukrainian troops to help in the defence of Europe, perhaps to replace US troops now stationed there. He has also pledged to open up some of Ukraine’s considerable natural resources to the US and other allies. Dover believes Zelensky is being astute in trying to to relate to Trump, the transactional dealmaker. One can see the logic in Zelensky’s thinking: for Trump, a deal he could trumpet as a major foreign policy success so early on in his presidency may be something he would find irresistible.

Europe, meanwhile, continues to pledge “unwavering support” for Ukraine. But how long this will endure without the considerable US commitment remains to be seen.

Read more:
Ukraine war: following Donald Trump’s re-election, four likely scenarios are becoming clear

Now, more than ever, it’s vital to be informed about the important issues affecting global stability. Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs briefing from the UK newsletter. Every Thursday we’ll you expert analysis of the big stories making international headlines.

Foreign policy hawks

We’re getting an idea of what Trunp’s cabinet may look like and, on foreign policy at least, you’d be forgiven for thinking things looks pretty bleak for Ukraine – if not also for Nato itself. Trump has surrounded himself with foreign policy hawks. Many of these have China as their main focus. Trump’s vice-presidential running mate J.D. Vance famously said: “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” And Trump’s picks for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and secretary of defense, Peter Hegseth, are on the record as wanting to settle the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible. The signal seems fairly clear. European entanglements must not be allowed to hinder a US focus on China as the most important adversary.

Natasha Lindstaedt has been looking in detail at Rubio’s foreign policy positions and says that while he has in the past signalled his support for Nato, co-authoring a law which would make it impossible for a president to pull the US out of Nato without congressional approval, he has also voted against bills to supply military aid to Ukraine. It’s reasonable to assume that as part of Trump’s vetting for the job of secretary of state, Rubio would have indicated his support for Trump’s plan.

So, little comfort for Kyiv there.

Read more:
Marco Rubio: Trump’s foreign policy pick might be a hopeful sign for Nato

You can read about the rest of Trump’s cabinet here (or at least, those who have been identified thus far). Chris Featherstone, who teaches US politics at York University, says they have appear very much to have been chosen more for their loyalty to Trump than anything else.

That said, there are some notable China hawks among them, which again signals that a second Trump administration might have a different foreign policy focus which would turn Washington’s attention away from conflict in Europe.

Read more:
Loyalty trumps everything – what we know about the 47th president-elect’s cabinet

‘Love triangle’

The shifting dynamic between the US, Russia and China will be interesting to watch over the next four years. Trump told former Fox News host (turned campaign surrogate) Tucker Carlson during a campaign event that he would aim to “un-unite” China and Russia, adding that the two powers were “natural enemies” because of longstanding territorial disputes.

Mutual respect? Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet at the G20 summit, June 2019.
DACameron / Alamy Stock Photo

Trump’s not wrong about these and the two countries have come to blows in the past over disputed land in Siberia. But Putin and Xi have spent the past few years talking about their “no-limits friendship”, so it’s a matter for conjecture whether Trump can drive a wedge between the two of them, particularly given their close political alignment.

Xi and Putin also share a belief in America’s inevitable decline, writes Stefan Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham. Meanwhile China will want to keep the US from being able to pivot towards Asia in Trump’s second term and enjoys plenty of leverage over Russia.

Read more:
Trump, Xi and Putin: a dysfunctional love triangle with stakes of global significance

European boots on the ground?

So where does this all leave Europe? It faces the unwelcome prospect of an incoming US administration that wants to focus more on the perceived threat from China and is ambivalent about the future of the main alliance that provides for its defence. European economies are already stretched to the limit in supplying what aid they can to Kyiv and the possibility of US assistance to Ukraine drying up would only mean that they would have to shoulder more of the burden.

Meanwhile, Ukraine appears to be losing the war, and that won’t change without a rapid and considerable injection of military aid. But far from having plenty more to give, European countries have struggled to supply the military supplies they have already committed.

But a deal with Putin that handed Russia territory is the very last thing that European leaders want. The argument they (and outgoing US president Joe Biden) have been making all along is that Russia must not be rewarded for its aggression. Europe has been down that path before, remember, and it ended badly.

So now the time may be coming for European countries to consider sending troops to Ukraine, argues Viktoriia Lapa, a national security expert at Bocconi University. She notes that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said as much in May this year. In answer to a question over whether France and its European allies should put boots on the ground in Ukraine if Russia were to break through Ukrainian lines, he said: “I’m not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out.”

Last month, Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis recalled Macron’s statement in a message on X (formerly Twitter): “At the beginning of the year @EmmanuelMacron hinted at putting boots on the ground. At the end of the year North Korea actually did it. We are still on the back foot, reacting to escalation instead of reversing it. Macron’s ideas should now be revisited, better late than never.”

Read more:
Why Europe should consider putting boots on the ground in Ukraine

There is clearly mounting concern in Europe. Elections in former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova, were both marred by Russian interference. Amy Eaglestone, a political scientist based at Leiden University, believes that Moscow is clearly pulling out all the stops to realise Putin’s imperialist dreams in eastern Europe. She says they will do so by stealth if not on the battlefield, “regaining control over currently free nations that used to be Russia’s obedient satellites”.

Read more:
Russia is meddling in politics in Georgia and Moldova – trying to do by stealth what it is doing by war in Ukraine

World affairs briefing, from the UK
is available as a weekly email newsletter. Click here to get our updates directly in your inbox. Läs mer…

This is a rolling guide to articles and audio published by The Conversation in the immediate run-up to and aftermath of the election, with some explainers about the process. This page is updated from the top, so older references are moved down the page.

The United States has made its choice. At just before 8am GMT (3am Florida time) Donald Trump took to the stage at the West Palm Beach convention center and claimed victory for the Republican Party. His declaration came minutes after it was announced he was going to win in the key state of Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral college votes.

He thanked a large crowd of his adoring supporters, saying: “This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond.”

It’s been a turbulent four months since outgoing president Joe Biden announced he was terminating his bid for a second term and the battlelines between the two candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were drawn. Soon we will know who will lead the US for the next four years.

From here, with the help of some of the sharpest analysts of US politics, we’ll keep you updated and informed as the situation develops.

Dafydd Townley, teaching fellow in international security at University of Portsmouth, has written an overview of how the election went down, with turnout looking high and no major incidents of violence, despite what look like numerous bomb hoaxes with possible Russian origins.

Turnout has been impressive and initial speculation is that Trump has surpassed his rural support from 2020 while Democrat Kamala Harris only matched the suburban numbers that Biden achieved four years ago. NBC exit polls also showed Trump had more support from voters under 30 than any Republican candidate since 2008.

Read more:
Trump takes first swing states after voting passes peacefully

The US has moved to the right

Natasha Lindstaedt says that academics and pundits got the polls badly wrong in 2024.

The polls were right – he had a lot more strength [than we all thought]. We thought the polls were seriously underestimating Kamala Harris and that she was doing far better than they were predicting, when they said it was a knife edge. But it turns out they were underestimating Trump.

The US has moved to the right. The abortion bill wasn’t overturned in Florida, Ted Cruz won by ten points in Texas, a state that we thought might be competitive. We thought with this Iowa poll that Harris might be more competitive with white voters. It’s been a great night for Trump and an absolute disaster for the Democrats.

She said that many people following the campaign thought that women were going to turn out and that would make the difference. But in fact it didn’t.

Trump gained a lot more than he had in 2020 – probably due to nostalgia of what his administration was like, looking at it through rose-coloured glasses, forgetting the chaos and all the upheaval he created himself. Now he’s going to inherit a great economy – and he’s going to take credit for it.

Trump wins Pennsylvania, declares victory

Donald Trump claimed victory in the 2024 presidential election. It followed hot on the heels of the networks announcing he had won the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Richard Hargy says the state has played an important part in the whole campaign, he says.

It was in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July, where Trump survived an assassination attempt during a campaign rally after a gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop.

The Trump victory in Pennsylvania was greatly helped by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk’s intercession into the presidential election. He financed a multi-billion dollar door-knocking operation across the state and held events in support of Donald Trump.

On Monday a Pennsylvania judge had ruled that a $1-million-a-day voter sweepstake organised by Musk was legal and could continue into Tuesday’s election.

When will we know the result?

To get an idea of the scale of the task of counting votes, take a look at the below map of the US colour-coded by poll closing times. How long the count could take is anyone’s guess at this stage. Each state has its own rules.

Ahead of the polls closing Richard Hargy, an expert in US politics from Queen’s University Belfast, wrote a guide to the process, when the votes are counted and when we might start to see results.

Read more:
US election: what time do the polls close and when will the results be known? An expert explains

Delays are baked into the process, such as Pennsylvania, which doesn’t allow votes cast before election day or ballots posted in to be counted until polls close, which was at 8pm (1am GMT).

So we’ll just have to be patient. In the mean time, you can also read Hargy’s explainer on the “electoral college” system, which can mean that the candidate with the most votes may not win the presidency.

Read more:
US election: how does the electoral college voting system work?

Early voting and what it might mean

Scott Lucas, professor of international politics at University College Dublin, believes that in a cliffhanger election, a clue to the outcome may be in the size of turnout. More than 80 million Americans voted early – around half of the total turnout in 2020 and around one-third of the eligible electorate.

The 80 million figure takes on added significance with the recognition that it is not that distant from the 104 million who participated early in the “pandemic” election four years ago. And that 2020 ballot, with 158.4 million votes and almost 67% participation, was the largest turnout since 1900.

Who does that favour? Probably Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Trumpists will turn out for their man come hell or high water. The large question mark has been whether potential Harris voters would sit on their hands, whether from lack of enthusiasm or dissatisfaction on issues such as Israel’s open-ended war on Gaza.

Any prediction in this election is a risk. But it might be worth setting a marker: if turnout matches or exceeds the record set in 2020, Kamala Harris could be on the way to the White House.

Tense moment for the US

During the campaign there have been two assassination attempts on former president Trump as well as arson attacks on ballot boxes and ballots damaged. In Arizona the Democratic party was forced to close one of its offices after it had been shot at three times.

Dafydd Townley, a fellow in international security at Portsmouth University, believes that there could be a reluctance to accept the result and that this could result in further disturbances. He has written about how much violence there has been during this campaign.

Read more:
US election: officials are issued with panic buttons as attacks on ballot boxes continue

Dafyyd Townley comments on post-election violence.

How race has played into the campaign

Rhianna Garrett, PhD researcher and global coordinator of the critical mixed race studies executive board at Loughborough University, says that Trump’s campaign has been “littered with attempts to weaponise” the multiracial heritage of his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.

Much of this has been a dog-whistle attempt to stir up his own base, partly with fairly blatant appeals to latent feelings of racism, but also as a tool to position Harris as deceiving and untrustworthy by apparently blurring and shifting her own background.

In August, not long after Harris took over the Democrat ticket from Biden, Trump appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists conference when he wrongfully claimed that Harris was changing her identity, stating: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black, So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?”.

For her part, Harris’s campaign has also used her multiracial heritage to further their political agendas. On the White House website, she is described as “the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American” to hold a vice-presidential position, which has effectively attempted to position her as a winner. Harris herself has also foregrounded “race” on her campaign website. In attempt to attack Trump’s campaign, she strategically aims to promote Black and Latino men specifically, as well as women’s rights. These are key voter groups she has aimed to mobilise through identity politics.

Trump and winning male voters

Donald Trump widened his appeal to male voters in this election, with polling indicating that he was picking up more support from Black and Latino men, as well as more young men more widely.

One reason for this may be that in 2024 young men are more conservative than any other group in the US. Another reason why gender has become a divisive issue is the overturning of Roe v Wade, the legal case that gave American women abortion rights.

Read more on the gender divide in this article from Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at Essex University.

Read more:
US election: why more men and fewer white women say they will vote for Trump

A free speech campaign?

Julie Posetti, professor of journalism at City St George’s, University of London, and global director of research at the International Center for Journalists, recently conducted a survey of more than 1,000 Americans on their attitudes to the press.

Breaking down the results, they were able to build a picture of what people in the US think of targeting journalists for criticism and even abuse. You can read all about the study here.

Read more:
New survey finds an alarming tolerance for attacks on the press in the US – particularly among white, Republican men

When Trump speaks – his supporters hear him loud and clear

Channel 4 is showing pictures of the Trump party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, where the Maga faithful are celebrating the news that it appears that Trump has retaken Georgia in his second swing-state victory. Their idol is expected to join them soon.

While we wait for him to speak, here’s a fascinating piece on Trump’s rhetorical style by Loren D. Marsh of the Humboldt University of Berlin. His speeches have been ridiculed by his opponents during the campaign. They say he’s unfocused, rambling and at times nonsensical. He calls it the “weave” and says it’s genius. Marsh says that whatever you may think, it seems to work for his supporters.

Far from being a liability or an indication he is incapable of staying on message, Trump’s “weave” may well be his intuitive rhetorical strategy, a way of taking control of the media narrative.

Read more:
Trump’s speeches are chaotic, rambling, and extremely effective. Aristotle can explain why Läs mer…

This is a rolling guide to articles and audio published by The Conversation in the immediate run-up to and aftermath of the election, with some explainers about the process. This page is updated from the top, so older references are moved down the page.

5.00am: Good morning world. The United States has made its choice. And, as of 5am Donald Trump and the Republican Party will be the happier contenders.

It’s been a turbulent four months since outgoing president Joe Biden announced he was terminating his bid for a second term and the battlelines between the two candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were drawn. Soon we will know who will lead the US for the next four years.

From here, with the help of some of the sharpest analysts of US politics, we’ll keep you updated and informed as the situation develops.

To get an idea of the scale of the task of counting votes, take a look at the below map of the US colour-coded by poll closing times. How long the count could take is anyone’s guess at this stage. Each state has its own rules.

Ahead of the polls closing Richard Hargy, an expert in US politics from Queen’s University Belfast, wrote a guide to the process, when the votes are counted and when we might start to see results.

Read more:
US election: what time do the polls close and when will the results be known? An expert explains

Delays are baked into the process, such as Pennsylvania, which doesn’t allow votes cast before election day or ballots posted in to be counted until polls close, which was at 8pm (1am GMT).

So we’ll just have to be patient. In the mean time, you can also read Hargy’s explainer on the “electoral college” system, which can mean that the candidate with the most votes may not win the presidency.

Read more:
US election: how does the electoral college voting system work?

Early voting and what it might mean

Scott Lucas, professor of international politics at University College Dublin, believes that in a cliffhanger election, a clue to the outcome may be in the size of turnout. More than 80 million Americans voted early – around half of the total turnout in 2020 and around one-third of the eligible electorate.

The 80 million figure takes on added significance with the recognition that it is not that distant from the 104 million who participated early in the “pandemic” election four years ago. And that 2020 ballot, with 158.4 million votes and almost 67% participation, was the largest turnout since 1900.

Who does that favour? Probably Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Trumpists will turn out for their man come hell or high water. The large question mark has been whether potential Harris voters would sit on their hands, whether from lack of enthusiasm or dissatisfaction on issues such as Israel’s open-ended war on Gaza.

Any prediction in this election is a risk. But it might be worth setting a marker: if turnout matches or exceeds the record set in 2020, Kamala Harris could be on the way to the White House.

Tense moment for the US

During the campaign there have been two assassination attempts on former president Trump as well as arson attacks on ballot boxes and ballots damaged. In Arizona the Democratic party was forced to close one of its offices after it had been shot at three times.

Dafydd Townley, a fellow in international security at Portsmouth University, believes that there could be a reluctance to accept the result and that this could result in further disturbances. He has written about how much violence there has been during this campaign.

Read more:
US election: officials are issued with panic buttons as attacks on ballot boxes continue

Dafyyd Townley comments on post-election violence.

How race has played into the campaign

Rhianna Garrett, PhD researcher and global coordinator of the critical mixed race studies executive board at Loughborough University, says that Trump’s campaign has been “littered with attempts to weaponise” the multiracial heritage of his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.

Much of this has been a dog-whistle attempt to stir up his own base, partly with fairly blatant appeals to latent feelings of racism, but also as a tool to position Harris as deceiving and untrustworthy by apparently blurring and shifting her own background.

In August, not long after Harris took over the Democrat ticket from Biden, Trump appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists conference when he wrongfully claimed that Harris was changing her identity, stating: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black, So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?”.

For her part, Harris’s campaign has also used her multiracial heritage to further their political agendas. On the White House website, she is described as “the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American” to hold a vice-presidential position, which has effectively attempted to position her as a winner. Harris herself has also foregrounded “race” on her campaign website. In attempt to attack Trump’s campaign, she strategically aims to promote Black and Latino men specifically, as well as women’s rights. These are key voter groups she has aimed to mobilise through identity politics.

Trump and winning male voters

Donald Trump widened his appeal to male voters in this election, with polling indicating that he was picking up more support from Black and Latino men, as well as more young men more widely.

One reason for this may be that in 2024 young men are more conservative than any other group in the US. Another reason why gender has become a divisive issue is the overturning of Roe v Wade, the legal case that gave American women abortion rights.

Read more on the gender divide in this article from Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at Essex University.

Read more:
US election: why more men and fewer white women say they will vote for Trump

A free speech campaign?

Julie Posetti, professor of journalism at City St George’s, University of London, and global director of research at the International Center for Journalists, recently conducted a survey of more than 1,000 Americans on their attitudes to the press.

Breaking down the results, they were able to build a picture of what people in the US think of targeting journalists for criticism and even abuse. You can read all about the study here.

Read more:
New survey finds an alarming tolerance for attacks on the press in the US – particularly among white, Republican men Läs mer…

This is a rolling guide to articles and audio published by The Conversation in the immediate run-up to and aftermath of the election, with some explainers about the process. This page is updated from the top, so older references are moved down the page.

Good morning world. The United States has made its choice. And, as of 5am Donald Trump and the Republican Party will be the happier contenders, having so far won the most electoral college votes and the first swing states of North Carolina and Georgia, as well as regaining control of the Senate.

It’s been a turbulent four months since outgoing president Joe Biden announced he was terminating his bid for a second term and the battlelines between the two candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were drawn. Soon we will know who will lead the US for the next four years.

From here, with the help of some of the sharpest analysts of US politics, we’ll keep you updated and informed as the situation develops.

To get an idea of the scale of the task of counting votes, take a look at the below map of the US colour-coded by poll closing times. How long the count could take is anyone’s guess at this stage. Each state has its own rules.

Ahead of the polls closing Richard Hargy, an expert in US politics from Queen’s University Belfast, wrote a guide to the process, when the votes are counted and when we might start to see results.

Read more:
US election: what time do the polls close and when will the results be known? An expert explains

Delays are baked into the process, such as Pennsylvania, which doesn’t allow votes cast before election day or ballots posted in to be counted until polls close, which was at 8pm (1am GMT).

So we’ll just have to be patient. In the mean time, you can also read Hargy’s explainer on the “electoral college” system, which can mean that the candidate with the most votes may not win the presidency.

Read more:
US election: how does the electoral college voting system work?

Early voting and what it might mean

Scott Lucas, professor of international politics at University College Dublin, believes that in a cliffhanger election, a clue to the outcome may be in the size of turnout. More than 80 million Americans voted early – around half of the total turnout in 2020 and around one-third of the eligible electorate.

The 80 million figure takes on added significance with the recognition that it is not that distant from the 104 million who participated early in the “pandemic” election four years ago. And that 2020 ballot, with 158.4 million votes and almost 67% participation, was the largest turnout since 1900.

Who does that favour? Probably Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Trumpists will turn out for their man come hell or high water. The large question mark has been whether potential Harris voters would sit on their hands, whether from lack of enthusiasm or dissatisfaction on issues such as Israel’s open-ended war on Gaza.

Any prediction in this election is a risk. But it might be worth setting a marker: if turnout matches or exceeds the record set in 2020, Kamala Harris could be on the way to the White House.

Tense moment for the US

During the campaign there have been two assassination attempts on former president Trump as well as arson attacks on ballot boxes and ballots damaged. In Arizona the Democratic party was forced to close one of its offices after it had been shot at three times.

Dafydd Townley, a fellow in international security at Portsmouth University, believes that there could be a reluctance to accept the result and that this could result in further disturbances. He has written about how much violence there has been during this campaign.

Read more:
US election: officials are issued with panic buttons as attacks on ballot boxes continue

Dafyyd Townley comments on post-election violence.

How race has played into the campaign

Rhianna Garrett, PhD researcher and global coordinator of the critical mixed race studies executive board at Loughborough University, says that Trump’s campaign has been “littered with attempts to weaponise” the multiracial heritage of his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.

Much of this has been a dog-whistle attempt to stir up his own base, partly with fairly blatant appeals to latent feelings of racism, but also as a tool to position Harris as deceiving and untrustworthy by apparently blurring and shifting her own background.

In August, not long after Harris took over the Democrat ticket from Biden, Trump appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists conference when he wrongfully claimed that Harris was changing her identity, stating: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black, So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?”.

For her part, Harris’s campaign has also used her multiracial heritage to further their political agendas. On the White House website, she is described as “the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American” to hold a vice-presidential position, which has effectively attempted to position her as a winner. Harris herself has also foregrounded “race” on her campaign website. In attempt to attack Trump’s campaign, she strategically aims to promote Black and Latino men specifically, as well as women’s rights. These are key voter groups she has aimed to mobilise through identity politics.

Trump and winning male voters

Donald Trump widened his appeal to male voters in this election, with polling indicating that he was picking up more support from Black and Latino men, as well as more young men more widely.

One reason for this may be that in 2024 young men are more conservative than any other group in the US. Another reason why gender has become a divisive issue is the overturning of Roe v Wade, the legal case that gave American women abortion rights.

Read more on the gender divide in this article from Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at Essex University.

Read more:
US election: why more men and fewer white women say they will vote for Trump

A free speech campaign?

Julie Posetti, professor of journalism at City St George’s, University of London, and global director of research at the International Center for Journalists, recently conducted a survey of more than 1,000 Americans on their attitudes to the press.

Breaking down the results, they were able to build a picture of what people in the US think of targeting journalists for criticism and even abuse. You can read all about the study here.

Read more:
New survey finds an alarming tolerance for attacks on the press in the US – particularly among white, Republican men

When Trump speaks – his supporters hear him loud and clear

Channel 4 is showing pictures of the Trump party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, where the Maga faithful are celebrating the news that it appears that Trump has retaken Georgia in his second swing-state victory. Their idol is expected to join them soon.

While we wait for him to speak, here’s a fascinating piece on Trump’s rhetorical style by Loren D. Marsh of the Humboldt University of Berlin. His speeches have been ridiculed by his opponents during the campaign. They say he’s unfocused, rambling and at times nonsensical. He calls it the “weave” and says it’s genius. Marsh says that whatever you may think, it seems to work for his supporters.

Far from being a liability or an indication he is incapable of staying on message, Trump’s “weave” may well be his intuitive rhetorical strategy, a way of taking control of the media narrative.

Read more:
Trump’s speeches are chaotic, rambling, and extremely effective. Aristotle can explain why

A bad night for the pollsters

Natasha Läs mer…

This is a rolling guide to articles and audio published by The Conversation in the aftermath of the US presidential election.

The United States has made its choice. At just before 8am GMT (3am Florida time) Donald Trump took to the stage at the West Palm Beach convention center and claimed victory for the Republican Party. His declaration came minutes after it was announced he was going to win in the key state of Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral college votes.

He thanked a large crowd of his adoring supporters, saying: “This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond.”

It’s been a turbulent four months since outgoing president Joe Biden announced he was terminating his bid for a second term and the battlelines between the two candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were drawn. Soon we will know who will lead the US for the next four years.

From here, with the help of some of the sharpest analysts of US politics, we’ll keep you updated and informed as the situation develops.

The US has moved to the right

Natasha Lindstaedt says that academics and pundits read the polls (which were broadly right) badly.

The polls were right – he had a lot more strength [than we all thought]. We thought the polls were seriously underestimating Kamala Harris and that she was doing far better than they were predicting, when they said it was a knife edge. But it turns out they were underestimating Trump.

The US has moved to the right. The abortion bill wasn’t overturned in Florida, Ted Cruz won by ten points in Texas, a state that we thought might be competitive. We thought with this Iowa poll that Harris might be more competitive with white voters. It’s been a great night for Trump and an absolute disaster for the Democrats.

She said that many people following the campaign thought that women were going to turn out and that would make the difference. But in fact it didn’t.

Trump gained a lot more than he had in 2020 – probably due to nostalgia of what his administration was like, looking at it through rose-coloured glasses, forgetting the chaos and all the upheaval he created himself. Now he’s going to inherit a great economy – and he’s going to take credit for it.

Trump’s ground game in Georgia

Donald Trump declared victory after a string of wins in the crucial swing states of North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Katie Pruszynski of the University of Sheffield believes that Trump was given the edge in this state by promoting early voting.

Georgia had a record 4 million early voters in the state, which has really outstripped all previous early voting records here. It’s likely because of the really increased ground game that the Republicans were operating in Georgia, really encouraging their voters to get out and vote early using mail-in ballots, which they previously said were not trustworthy.

How early voting in Georgia gave Trump the edge.

But that doesn’t mean the polls were quiet, says Katie, who was on the ground in Georgia over the election.

Polling stations had lines forming from 7am when the polls opened. It was a really bustling polling day. In Atlanta, the big news was that several polling stations had to be evacuated throughout the course of the day because of bomb threats that also hit states like Arizona as well. Those bomb threats turned out to be not credible.

Katie Pruszynski of the University of Sheffield reports from the polls in Georgia.

Turnout high and voting peaceful

Dafydd Townley, teaching fellow in international security at University of Portsmouth, has written an overview of how the election went down, with turnout looking high and no major incidents of violence, despite what look like numerous bomb hoaxes with possible Russian origins.

Turnout has been impressive and initial speculation is that Trump has surpassed his rural support from 2020 while Democrat Kamala Harris only matched the suburban numbers that Biden achieved four years ago. NBC exit polls also showed Trump had more support from voters under 30 than any Republican candidate since 2008.

…

The greatest threat to the smooth running of the election on polling day seemed not to come from domestic perpetrators but from foreign interference, particularly in the crucial swing state races.

Several polling stations in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin were the victims of hoax bomb threats that caused temporary closures of the sites. The threats were believed to be sent by emails that were traced back to Russian email domains.

Read more:
Trump regains US presidency – how the election played out

What it means for the rest of the world

Donald Trump is likely to put pressure on Nato members to support the end of the war in Ukraine, according to international security expert Stefan Wolff. He expects Trump to push Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement based on the current frontlines, meanwhile throwing support behind Israel.

Trump’s election will embolden Netanyahu to act. And this in turn would also strengthen Trump’s position towards Putin, who has come to depend on Iranian support for his war in Ukraine. Trump could offer to restrain Netanyahu in the future as a bargaining chip with Putin in his gamble to secure a deal on Ukraine.

Wolff adds that Trump may double down on his approach to China but also leave himself wiggle room.

A Trump White House is likely to increase import tariffs, and he has talked a great deal about using them to target China. But Trump is also just as likely to be open to pragmatic, transactional deals with Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Read more:
What Trump’s victory means for Ukraine, the Middle East, China and the rest of the world

Stefan Wolff on what Donald Trump may do over Ukraine war.

Questions for Europe

Amelia Hadfield, head of politics at the University of Surrey, sets out some of the other key issues for Europe following Trump’s victory.

European governments obviously are going to be tripping over themselves, either preparing for what the impact is going to be of a retribution-led Trump administration, or changing really quickly their approach to him to be able to try at least to get him on side.

One point, of course, is the previous tough talk in the first presidential administration on Nato. He threatened then, and I think he may very well threaten again to curtail American support and positioning for the military alliance because he has a completely different vision of what underpins European security as a whole, and a totally different vision of what encompasses allies and threats.

She also says that some countries, particularly big automotive export countries like Germany, are very vulnerable to Trump’s proposed economic policies.

He has, of course, proposed hitting China with 50% tariffs and then tariffs on all other imports of up to 20%, including for European countries. So they’re going to have to not only deal with that, but figure out whether they line up behind America on that, or whether they line up behind China on that as well.

I think there’s going to be desperate sadness across Europe. The heads of state, apart from maybe Orban, who seems to be gloating right now, are really going to have to get their ducks in a row.

Amelia Hadfield on the key issues for Europe.

How race has played into the campaign

Rhianna Garrett, PhD researcher and global coordinator of the critical mixed race studies executive board at Loughborough University, says that Trump’s campaign has been “littered with attempts to weaponise” the multiracial heritage of his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.

Much of this has been a dog-whistle attempt to stir up his own base, partly with fairly blatant appeals to latent feelings of racism, but also as a tool to position Harris as deceiving and untrustworthy by apparently blurring and shifting her own background.

In August, not long after Harris took over the Democrat ticket from Biden, Trump appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists conference when he wrongfully claimed that Harris was changing her identity, stating: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black, So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?”.

For her part, Harris’s campaign has also used her multiracial heritage to further their political agendas. On the White House website, she is described as “the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American” to hold a vice-presidential position, which has effectively attempted to position her as a winner. Harris herself has also foregrounded “race” on her campaign website. In attempt to attack Trump’s campaign, she strategically aims to promote Black and Latino men specifically, as well as women’s rights. These are key voter groups she has aimed to mobilise through identity politics.

Trump and winning male voters

Donald Trump widened his appeal to male voters in this election, with polling indicating that he was picking up more support from Black and Latino men, as well as more young men more widely.

One reason for this may be that in 2024 young men are more conservative than any other group in the US. Another reason why gender has become a divisive issue is the overturning of Roe v Wade, the legal case that gave American women abortion rights.

Read more on the gender divide in this article from Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at Essex University.

Read more:
US election: why more men and fewer white women say they will vote for Trump

A free speech campaign?

Julie Posetti, professor of journalism at City St George’s, University of London, and global director of research at the International Center for Journalists, recently conducted a survey of more than 1,000 Americans on their attitudes to the press.

Breaking down the results, they were able to build a picture of what people in the US think of targeting journalists for criticism and even abuse. You can read all about the study here.

Read more:
New survey finds an alarming tolerance for attacks on the press in the US – particularly among white, Republican men Läs mer…

This is a rolling guide to articles and audio published by The Conversation in the aftermath of the US presidential election.

The United States has made its choice. At just before 8am GMT (3am Florida time) Donald Trump took to the stage at the West Palm Beach convention center and claimed victory for the Republican Party. His declaration came minutes after it was announced he was going to win in the key state of Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral college votes.

He thanked a large crowd of his adoring supporters, saying: “This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond.”

It’s been a turbulent four months since outgoing president Joe Biden announced he was terminating his bid for a second term and the battlelines between the two candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were drawn. Soon we will know who will lead the US for the next four years.

From here, with the help of some of the sharpest analysts of US politics, we’ll keep you updated and informed as the situation develops.

The US has moved to the right

Natasha Lindstaedt says that academics and pundits read the polls (which were broadly right) badly.

The polls were right – he had a lot more strength [than we all thought]. We thought the polls were seriously underestimating Kamala Harris and that she was doing far better than they were predicting, when they said it was a knife edge. But it turns out they were underestimating Trump.

The US has moved to the right. The abortion bill wasn’t overturned in Florida, Ted Cruz won by ten points in Texas, a state that we thought might be competitive. We thought with this Iowa poll that Harris might be more competitive with white voters. It’s been a great night for Trump and an absolute disaster for the Democrats.

She said that many people following the campaign thought that women were going to turn out and that would make the difference. But in fact it didn’t.

Trump gained a lot more than he had in 2020 – probably due to nostalgia of what his administration was like, looking at it through rose-coloured glasses, forgetting the chaos and all the upheaval he created himself. Now he’s going to inherit a great economy – and he’s going to take credit for it.

Campaign strategy

Trump pursued a strategy that did not seek to expand support significantly beyond his traditional base, says Todd Landman, professor of political science at the University of Nottingham. Instead he successfully energised and mobilised new voters within his core demographic – especially young male voters, who turned out in huge numbers.

Delivered in Trump’s characteristically strong and idiosyncratic language, his campaign ranged across social and economic issues, such as the cost of living and immigration, as well as pressing foreign policy issues, including the future of Nato, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and international trade – especially with China.

For their part, Democrats will need a serious postmortem, Todd believes.

The party leadership will need to engage in some serious soul-searching on how they failed to appeal to the electorate and how bread and butter issues ultimately propelled Trump back into power. Harris had 107 days to forge a campaign.

Read more:
How Donald Trump won back the keys to the White House

Trump’s ground game in Georgia

Donald Trump declared victory after a string of wins in the crucial swing states of North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Katie Pruszynski of the University of Sheffield believes that Trump was given the edge in this state by promoting early voting.

Georgia had a record 4 million early voters in the state, which has really outstripped all previous early voting records here. It’s likely because of the really increased ground game that the Republicans were operating in Georgia, really encouraging their voters to get out and vote early using mail-in ballots, which they previously said were not trustworthy.

How early voting in Georgia gave Trump the edge.

But that doesn’t mean the polls were quiet, says Katie, who was on the ground in Georgia over the election.

Polling stations had lines forming from 7am when the polls opened. It was a really bustling polling day. In Atlanta, the big news was that several polling stations had to be evacuated throughout the course of the day because of bomb threats that also hit states like Arizona as well. Those bomb threats turned out to be not credible.

Katie Pruszynski of the University of Sheffield reports from the polls in Georgia.

Turnout high and voting peaceful

Dafydd Townley, teaching fellow in international security at University of Portsmouth, has written an overview of how the election went down, with turnout looking high and no major incidents of violence, despite what look like numerous bomb hoaxes with possible Russian origins.

Turnout has been impressive and initial speculation is that Trump has surpassed his rural support from 2020 while Democrat Kamala Harris only matched the suburban numbers that Biden achieved four years ago. NBC exit polls also showed Trump had more support from voters under 30 than any Republican candidate since 2008.

…

The greatest threat to the smooth running of the election on polling day seemed not to come from domestic perpetrators but from foreign interference, particularly in the crucial swing state races.

Several polling stations in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin were the victims of hoax bomb threats that caused temporary closures of the sites. The threats were believed to be sent by emails that were traced back to Russian email domains.

Read more:
Trump regains US presidency – how the election played out

What it means for the rest of the world

Donald Trump is likely to put pressure on Nato members to support the end of the war in Ukraine, according to international security expert Stefan Wolff. He expects Trump to push Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement based on the current frontlines, meanwhile throwing support behind Israel.

Trump’s election will embolden Netanyahu to act. And this in turn would also strengthen Trump’s position towards Putin, who has come to depend on Iranian support for his war in Ukraine. Trump could offer to restrain Netanyahu in the future as a bargaining chip with Putin in his gamble to secure a deal on Ukraine.

Wolff adds that Trump may double down on his approach to China but also leave himself wiggle room.

A Trump White House is likely to increase import tariffs, and he has talked a great deal about using them to target China. But Trump is also just as likely to be open to pragmatic, transactional deals with Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Read more:
What Trump’s victory means for Ukraine, the Middle East, China and the rest of the world

Stefan Wolff on what Donald Trump may do over Ukraine war.

Questions for Europe

Amelia Hadfield, head of politics at the University of Surrey, sets out some of the other key issues for Europe following Trump’s victory.

European governments obviously are going to be tripping over themselves, either preparing for what the impact is going to be of a retribution-led Trump administration, or changing really quickly their approach to him to be able to try at least to get him on side.

One point, of course, is the previous tough talk in the first presidential administration on Nato. He threatened then, and I think he may very well threaten again to curtail American support and positioning for the military alliance because he has a completely different vision of what underpins European security as a whole, and a totally different vision of what encompasses allies and threats.

She also says that some countries, particularly big automotive export countries like Germany, are very vulnerable to Trump’s proposed economic policies.

He has, of course, proposed hitting China with 50% tariffs and then tariffs on all other imports of up to 20%, including for European countries. So they’re going to have to not only deal with that, but figure out whether they line up behind America on that, or whether they line up behind China on that as well.

I think there’s going to be desperate sadness across Europe. The heads of state, apart from maybe Orban, who seems to be gloating right now, are really going to have to get their ducks in a row.

Amelia Hadfield on the key issues for Europe.

Economic consequences

Trump’s presidency could have economic ramifications beyond Europe, according to economist Conor O’Kane. He says prices for American consumers could be pushed up.

In very traditional Republican terms, he’s talking about tax breaks and reduced regulation. In terms of some of his specific pledges on the economy, he’s talking about getting rid of income taxation on tips and overtime. These things combined have the potential to be quite domestically inflationary, I would say.

If he was to carry through on his pledge to deport 15 million migrants, that’s also potentially an enormous cost – I saw some figures recently that said it will cost [the US economy] about US$65 billion for every 2 million people that are expelled out of the country.

He also said that Trump’s economic policies have the potential to be extremely disruptive for the world economy.

The other key thing, I think, is that Trump’s argument that the president should have a greater say on interest rate policy might spook capital markets. Many central banks around the world have independent control of monetary policy, and that has all been done to reassure capital markets and international investors. I would say that moving away from that is potentially quite risky.

What does a new Trump presidency mean for the economy?

How race has played into the campaign

Rhianna Garrett, PhD researcher and global coordinator of the critical mixed race studies executive board at Loughborough University, says that Trump’s campaign has been “littered with attempts to weaponise” the multiracial heritage of his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.

Much of this has been a dog-whistle attempt to stir up his own base, partly with fairly blatant appeals to latent feelings of racism, but also as a tool to position Harris as deceiving and untrustworthy by apparently blurring and shifting her own background.

In August, not long after Harris took over the Democrat ticket from Biden, Trump appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists conference when he wrongfully claimed that Harris was changing her identity, stating: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black, So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?”.

For her part, Harris’s campaign has also used her multiracial heritage to further their political agendas. On the White House website, she is described as “the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American” to hold a vice-presidential position, which has effectively attempted to position her as a winner. Harris herself has also foregrounded “race” on her campaign website. In attempt to attack Trump’s campaign, she strategically aims to promote Black and Latino men specifically, as well as women’s rights. These are key voter groups she has aimed to mobilise through identity politics.

Trump and winning male voters

Donald Trump widened his appeal to male voters in this election, with polling indicating that he was picking up more support from Black and Latino men, as well as more young men more widely.

One reason for this may be that in 2024 young men are more conservative than any other group in the US. Another reason why gender has become a divisive issue is the overturning of Roe v Wade, the legal case that gave American women abortion rights.

Read more on the gender divide in this article from Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at Essex University.

Read more:
US election: why more men and fewer white women say they will vote for Trump

A free speech campaign?

Julie Posetti, professor of journalism at City St George’s, University of London, and global director of research at the International Center for Journalists, recently conducted a survey of more than 1,000 Americans on their attitudes to the press.

Breaking down the results, they were able to build a picture of what people in the US think of targeting journalists for criticism and even abuse. You can read all about the study here.

Read more:
New survey finds an alarming tolerance for attacks on the press in the US – particularly among white, Republican men Läs mer…

With the clock ticking down to November 5 and what just about everyone agrees is the most consequential US presidential election in living memory, various of the Biden administration’s top brass have jetted out to the Middle East for one last try to get a deal over the line.

The most likely area where progress could be made is the conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. The militant group announced the appointment of a new general secretary on October 29. Naim Qassem is, as the BBC puts it, “one of the few senior Hezbollah leaders who remains alive after Israel killed most of the group’s leadership in a series of attacks”. He is reportedly making noises about possible change in Hezbollah policy that would separate any negotiations over the conflict in Lebanon with any talks over Gaza.

If true, it’s a major shift from the policy of recently assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah, which previously indelibly linked a ceasefire in Gaza with the cessation of Lebanon’s rocket attacks on northern Israel. Full details of the deal remain under wraps, but a draft was leaked to Israel’s state broadcaster Kan.

Post on X by Kann reporter, Suleiman Maswadeh, with details of a proposed Middle East peace deal.
X

For Israel’s part, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the initial phase of Israel’s operation inside Lebanon is drawing to a close. As for what comes next, the New York Times reported on October 28 that Netanyahu is “waiting to see who will succeed President Biden before committing to a diplomatic trajectory”.

The diplomatic trajectory has been made more complicated of late by a big spat between Israel and the UN. The two have had a fractious relationship since the very start. But under the Netanyahu government, things have steadily deteriorated to the stage that Israel actually barred UN secretary general António Guterres from entering the country at the beginning of October.

This week Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a new law banning the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) from operating on any territory it controls. Unrwa was set up after the war of 1948 to help displaced Arabs and has since morphed into what an independent review this year said was an “indispensable lifeline” for civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The trouble is that the reason the independent review was reporting at all was that Israel was alleging Unrwa staff had taken part in the October 7 massacres alongside Hamas. Unwra subsequently fired nine staff members. But Israel’s contention that Unrwa is a “rotten tree entirely infected with terrorist operatives” remains unproved.

Lisa Strömbom of Sweden’s Lund University, who has been following the conflict for many years, has traced the deterioration of relations between Israel and Unrwa over several decades. She now believes that Israel’s ban will make it nigh on impossible for Unrwa to fulfil its mission in Gaza. This can only make things worse for a civilian population in Gaza which is already trying to survive in the most difficult circumstances possible.

Read more:
Israel’s relations with the UN hit a new low with Unrwa ban

The Netanyahu government’s decision to ban Unrwa has been roundly condemned on all sides. Some voices have even called for Israel’s membership of the UN to be suspended. That’s a complicated issue, writes Aidan Hehir, who has published widely on conflict resolution and treaty making.

For a start, it would need to get past the UN security council which means being subject to a veto from any one of the five permanent members (P5). We published an article on this issue some years ago with the help of UN expert Emma McClean, which looked at the issues which had prompted members of the P5 to wield their vetos. It found that Israel-Palestine was hands-down the most common issue that led to a veto – and all those vetoes had been instigated by the US.

UN security council vetoes.
UN security council

Read more:
Hard Evidence: who uses veto in the UN Security Council most often – and for what?

So suspending Israel from the UN would appear to be a non-starter. But Hehir tells the story of the way the UN managed to circumvent the P5 and suspend South Africa in 1974 over apartheid. Having failed to get the suspension past the security council after the UK and France vetoed the move, the credentials committee of the general assembly simply refused to renew South Africa’s credentials. It remained suspended for two decades until the end of apartheid in 1994.

Read more:
Gaza: can the UN suspend Israel over its treatment of Palestinians? It’s complicated, but yes

Meanwhile Israel’s assault on Gaza continues and the death toll continues to mount. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), supported by airstrikes, continue to bombard what the IDF says are Hamas positions in the towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia but which the Gaza health ministry say are residential buildings sheltering hundreds of civilians. On October 29, the health ministry said at least 93 people, including 25 children, were killed by an Israeli airstrike.

Now, more than ever, it’s vital to be informed about the important issues affecting global stability. Sign up to receive our weekly World Update newsletter. Every Thursday we’ll you expert analysis of the big stories making international headlines.

Much of the population of the north of Gaza has been evacuated south of what is known as the Netzarim corridor. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper claims that it’s part of an operation known as the “generals’ plan”, which calls for the north to be cleared of civilian residents and locked down as a military zone. This is presented as a national security measure, but Leonie Fleischmann reports that there are those who believe the military operation will be followed by an influx of Israeli settlers.

Fleischmann points to a conference held on the Israeli side of the border with north Gaza, attended by members of Netanyahu’s Likud party as well as by several government ministers, which actively promoted the idea of settling north Gaza. Memories and historical legend mingle with ideology that holds Gaza had a Jewish population from biblical times through to 1929, when an Arab revolt killed 133 Jewish people living there and drove the rest out.

The prospect of a land grab is clearly exercising minds at the UK foreign office. UK ambassador to the United Nations, Barbara Woodward said on October 29: “We reiterate that northern Gaza must not be cut off from the south. Palestinian civilians, including those evacuated from northern Gaza must be permitted to return. There must be no forcible transfer of Gazans from or within Gaza, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”

Read more:
Israel’s ’generals’ plan’ to clear Palestinians from north of Gaza could pave the way for settlers to return

Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, dancing with members of the settler movement at a conference about estalbishing settlements in Gaza, October 2024.
AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov

All eyes on Washington

It’s highly unlikely that we’ll know by this time next week who has prevailed in the US presidential election. But the Middle East will be one of the first big ticket items on the Resolute desk.

The issue has already proved to be a tricky one for Kamala Harris. Her support base is deeply divided on the issue, with large numbers of Democrats – particularly young people, as well as Muslims and black voters – unsettled by her perceived part in the Biden administration’s “steadfast” support for Israel over the past four years.

It’s hard to tell whether these voters consider that the people of Gaza would fare any better under a Trump White House. But Natasha Lindstaedt and Faten Ghosn believe that Netanyahu’s continuing aggression in Gaza may well play out in the Republican contender’s favour.

Read more:
How the Middle East conflict could influence the US election – and why Arab Americans in swing states might vote for Trump

Meanwhile, to guide us through how the two candidates are likely to approach the big foreign policy issues, we can turn to Garret Martin of the Transatlantic Policy Center at the American University in Washington.

Read more:
On foreign policy, Trump opts for disruption and Harris for engagement − but they share some of the same concerns

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