Yet Another President And What the News Media Make of It.
Have you observed the news in any form, lately? Many, many title pages and websites are outright flooded with articles related to the election and its outcome in the United States. “Trump Is Going To Fail Eventually,” “Fear of Donald Trump Helps Democrats Mobilize Hispanics,” Trump this, Clinton that. Every four years, when the U.S.A. elects a new president, it is in the news all over the world. This time, however, I feel that it has become much more intensive than usual — and let me be honest, I have grown quite sick of reading about this year’s U.S. election on the media. Seeing how much this election interests people all over the world, however, I started ask myself a two questions.
Why are media in other countries dealing with this election to this extent?
Obviously, ‘the States’ are one of the most influential countries in the world. As a major member of the NATO, the USA has troops stationed in many countries. Also, American companies have a large, global market share and thus have a great impact on global economy.
I think, however, that looking at the very articles from U.S. media as well as non-U.S. media that I tried to avoid will help answer the question in regard to the election.
A certain name that always pops up is Donald Trump, especially after he has become the president-elect. Prophecies, expressing concerns, and other forms of thinking about the consequences of a Trump presidency are scattered across global news media.
Die Welt had a play of thoughts about what might happen if Trump became the next president in April. It speculated that global economy will be at a new low after 100 days of Trump presidency as the U.S. government would be deemed unpredictable. Even further, the article’s author speculated that Trump might be stepping back on free trade agreements with many parts of the world.
Focus had reported of an interview with Fritz Stern who openly said that Trump being a candidate for presidency was undeniable proof for the U.S. citizens degenerating. Eva Schlosser, who was also presented in the article, had compared Trump to another Adolf Hitler even. In regard to the global refugee crisis, a politician like Trump would be causing more issues if you go by the press.
To put the long story short: If the news media were right, the United States could be at the verge of a really destructive crisis that might have the power to pull the rest of the world down with it.
Now that Trump is actually becoming the new president, what does the press say now?
Now, after the election, some of Trump’s promises vanished from his web site. Points such as building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico have become rather silent before the election was decided. While media were predicting the end of the world during the election campaigns in the (for them impossible) case that Trump was going to win, some of them have changed their tone towards a slightly less grim way. Some other media have resorted to disappointment, some haven’t changed their tone at all.
During the election, Trump voiced plans to impose a tariff on goods from China as high as 45% and a tariff as high as 35% on imports from Mexico. Some news articles didn’t hesitate to announce trade wars, and China announcing that they might block iPhone sales if these tariffs become reality.
The problem wouldn’t be trade wars alone, but the prices the U.S. Americans would have to pay would rocket on top of that.
Furthermore, renegotiating NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or even dropping out of it, might cause the stock markets to fall and thus shatter the local economy by itself — and might even cause a global recession, the Chicago Tribune says. Therefore, Trump’s government will most probably have no interest in enforcing this part of its “America First” promise, the article suggests.
The interesting part is that there are voices coming up now that suggest that Trump might not actually be carelessly ruining the world as previously proclaimed.
In fact, instead of a recession and tumbling stock markets, investors do not seem to be influenced by the election a lot, so far. There are now people saying that the crash is yet to come but also that the new government can help fix the economy.
It is as if the news can’t decide which side to take. But there still seems to be a common consensus that Trump is definitely not the candidate journalists all over the world have dreamed about. It is as if some parts of the media have realised that people obviously wish for a less uniformal view on certain events but most news outlets still have to cope with a slap in their faces. The predictions start to develop into diverse directions and I’m afraid that we will have to actually wait and see how Trump’s presidency will develop. This is mostly because “experts” and journalists will have to take their time adapting to the new circumstances of the impossible becoming reality over night.
