Global Trump effect: Countries and companies are already making moves
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
President-elect Trump will be a private citizen for another two months, but his impending presidential arrival is already changing the world in ways big and small.
The big picture: Trump portends more protectionism, less U.S. spending and intervention overseas, and a new pecking order in which ideological alliances between leaders can matter more than treaty alliances between countries. For PMs and CEOs all over the world, there is no time to waste.
Driving the news: Their immediate post-election actions have run the gamut.
- On one end: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is taking his golf clubs out of storage so he'll be ready if Trump wants to play.
- On the other: Taiwanese officials are considering massive arms deals to show Trump — who has said the self-governing island should "pay us" if it wants protection from China — they're serious about their own defense.
In the private sector, companies are scrambling to shift production out of China, bolster inventory and weigh price increases, Axios' Nathan Bomey reports.
- Fashion company Steve Madden revealed that it plans to slash China-made products by 40% to 45% in a shift toward other countries — though not the U.S. — to avoid coming tariff hikes.
- "I've already started to see some volume from China shifted to Vietnam," one freight industry executive told Axios.
Yes, but: Trump's tariffs threats don't apply only to China, but also to allies.
- European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has suggested one way to appease him: buying more American natural gas, per Politico.
Leaders in multiple European countries, including Germany, have also spoken about the need to increase defense spending over the past week.
- European defense stocks shot up after Trump's win.
- Arms are on the agenda both because Trump is fixated on NATO's 2% target, and because allies expect the U.S. under Trump to be less committed to European security in general and Ukraine in particular.
- There's a cautious shift underway in Kyiv, where officials are preparing to take part in potential peace talks, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.
Zoom in: It was appropriate that EU leaders gathered in Budapest hours after Trump's victory was declared: Hungary's populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a pariah in Biden's Washington, now has a direct line to the Oval Office.
- Italy's right-wing PM, Giorgia Meloni, is also trying to position herself as a bridge between Trump's Washington and Europe.
- The first foreign leader to get a meeting with the president-elect was Argentina President Javier Milei — a self-declared "anarcho-capitalist" and one of Trump's biggest overseas boosters.
The intrigue: A more surprising meeting reportedly took place between Iranian diplomats and Elon Musk.
- Tehran is attempting a diplomatic hairpin turn from allegedly plotting to kill Trump to floating direct talks with his government.
- Iran has also yet to carry out a retaliatory strike on Israel that U.S. and Israeli officials believed was imminent prior to Election Day.
- "This is the Trump effect. The Iranians put this on hold after he won the election," a senior Israeli official told Axios.
Meanwhile in Israel, Trump's victory — and his selection of Mike Huckabee as ambassador — is spurring a new push for annexations in the occupied West Bank, a step that would generate global outrage but fulfill one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long-held ambitions.
- Netanyahu would also like to reach a ceasefire with Hezbollah to end the fighting in Lebanon before Trump comes in, Israeli sources tell Axios.
The bottom line: The world that greets Trump on Jan. 20 will already be markedly different than the one that existed prior to Nov. 5.
Go deeper: Trump's "I'm f***ing crazy" foreign policy
