Many countries go into shock on Trump victory

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and many countries of the world including even traditional strong allies of America are in shock and sacred over the miracle that has happened with the victory of billionaire business and new entrant in politics Donald Trump.

As results were announced showing Trump gaining a clear edge over Hillary Clinton, fear kept intensifying among Pakistanis, Muslims, Mexicans and several other nationalities around the globe that Trump had badmouthed during his election campaign. Certainly, his tone and tenor will be different from the one he adopted in the canvassing.

The Muslims were rightly frightened to watch Trump as the next American president because he consistently poured venom and spite on them although he had some prominent Muslim supporters as well.

There was hardly any Pakistani who wanted Trump to win, but obviously this was just a deep desire that remained unfulfilled in the face of the majority Americans voting for the business magnet. The world has no option but to live with Trump as the most powerful man of the world for the next four years.

Pakistanis were generally disposed to see Hillary Clinton as the first-ever woman president of the United States. As the first lady, she had come to Pakistan and freely interacted with a group of Pakistanis. Accompanied by her daughter, she had also paid a visit to the Faisal Mosque.

There was hardly any presidential aspirant in the US history, who was so much demonized by the media, analysts and political pundits, who universally predicted his rout. Even several Republican giants publicly announced not to vote for Trump. But at the end, he defeated everyone hands down.

  “The Empire Strikes Back! White America has reacted to Black Presidency, despite Trump's racism, sexism, Islamophobia; post-9/11 era begins,” is how leading international relations expert and political figure Syed Mushahid Hussain summed up the electoral result in a tweet.

“Trump victory symptomatic of decline of America & degeneration of its political culture, with low level of debate seen in election campaign; only silver lining of Trump triumph: marks end of 9/11 era of US using military might for 'regime change' in Muslim World, less intrusive! American aggressive policies post-9/11 have been disastrous for the Muslim World, for US too, cost nearly $3 trillion, bankrupted US economy; Trump was only prominent American politician critical of 'regime change' in Iraq & Libya, who did not demonise Putin, good he looks inwards,” Mushahid Hussain said in more posts.

Trump’s convincing victory proved that even a novice in the political arena can beat a most eminent, proven, time-tested politician, who has held top offices for years and understands and has become part of the American establishment, which stands miserably defeated.

If Trump behaves and acts as he has been during his election campaign, the world is going to see lots of problems and certain nations and communities would face untold hardships. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has congratulated Trump on his historic win. However, it is noteworthy that he had developed a remarkable personal rapport with Bill Clinton when the latter was the president. It was Clinton, who had averted another full-scale armed conflict between Pakistan and India when, on the repeated requests and urgings of the then Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif had rushed to Washington to persuade Clinton to put a halt to the spread of hostilities due to the Kargil adventure. The dash to Washington and the prime minister’s meeting with the US president on the American Independence Day, a Sunday, had finally prevented another war between the two South Asian neighbours.

In fact, Clinton had also played a role in pressurizing and putting some sense in Musharraf to release Nawaz Sharif from the dungeon and let him go to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in conjunction with Clinton, had worked to achieve this result.

However, in his felicitation message the prime minister reaffirmed his government’s commitment to further strengthening and deepening of our relations, in a manner truly reflective of the aspirations of the two nations.

Under the Democrat president, Islamabad’s relations with Washington have tremendously dipped for quite some time as Barrack Obama was fully supportive of India vis-à-vis Pakistan. But Trump has announced in his campaign that he would unprecedentedly reinforce American relations with India.

In view of Trump’s aggressive line against the Muslims in particular during his campaign, it is unlikely that under his presidency Pakistan’s ties with the United States will see any radical improvement in the near future. Even otherwise, such policies hardly undergo any major transformation with the change of government.

Already, Pakistan is more inclined to China and is strengthening its strategic and defence relations. The game-changer $51 billion China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects will result in less reliance on America and take the Pak-China ties to new heights. It is an open secret that many influential countries of the world are strongly opposed to CPEC and are engaged in conspiracies to sabotage it.