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Americans — and the world — wakened on Wednesday to an election battle that was nonetheless being fiercely fought by either side.
With tens of millions of votes left to be counted in a number of key battleground states, President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory in an early-morning handle on the White House.
“This is a fraud on the American public,” Trump mentioned, threatening to take the battle to the Supreme Court. “We will win this. As far as I’m concerned, we already have won.”
Trump has refused to substantiate whether or not he’ll settle for the outcomes of the election, and claims the huge variety of mail-in ballots — many nonetheless to be counted, and which some analysts have mentioned might considerably increase the Democratic Party — might be used to rig the outcomes towards him.
The marketing campaign of Democratic challenger Joe Biden has slammed Trump’s try to cease the depend, calling it a “naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens.”
“It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare the winner of this election. It’s the voters’ place,” Biden wrote on Twitter. But the previous vp remained assured of victory, saying he believed the Democrats had been “on track to win this election.”
EU must take cost of its future
Across the Atlantic, EU leaders additionally spent the day following the vote tallies. Most of the key gamers have to this point declined to touch upon the developments, although Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa prematurely congratulated Trump on his potential reelection.
The German authorities has mentioned it won’t remark earlier than closing outcomes are introduced, however Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer expressed concern in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF.
“This is a very explosive situation. This is a situation that can lead to a constitutional crisis in the US, as experts are rightly saying. And it is something that must cause us great concern,” she mentioned.
Ian Bond, director of overseas coverage on the Centre for European Reform, mentioned the US was nonetheless “a long way from a constitutional crisis.” But, he instructed DW, irrespective of the end result of the 2020 election, the EU was going to have to begin relying much less on US management on the world stage within the years to return.
“Europe is going to have to work out how to do more things for itself,” he mentioned, mentioning that even when Biden does find yourself successful the presidency he’ll inherit a bunch of home points that can demand his consideration, amongst them the “rampaging coronavirus epidemic” and a possible Republican-controlled Senate that can block him at each flip. “The amount of bandwidth that he is going to have to devote to Europe is probably going to be quite limited,” he mentioned.
That message appears to have hit dwelling for some observers within the European Parliament, together with liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt. “Whatever the outcome, the EU needs to take its destiny into its own hands,” he wrote on Twitter.
Franziska Brantner, the German Green social gathering’s main parliamentarian on European affairs and Verhofstadt’s former colleague in Brussels, instructed DW that the EU would discover widespread floor with a Biden administration on points such as local weather safety and honest competitors within the digital trade. But she additionally careworn that it was necessary for Europe to chart its personal course.
“We as Europeans are better advised to take care of our own sovereignty and invest in this, [regardless of] who win[s],” she mentioned. “We as Europeans have to watch for ourselves and also watch that we defend the basis of our democracy, which is social cohesion and equality.”
Bond agreed, saying the EU needed to “start thinking in more geopolitical terms” when it got here to investing and making coverage. “Europe has profound interests at stake in the rise of China, in what happens in Africa, and what happens in the Middle East,” he mentioned.
That recommendation is much more necessary in a potential second Trump time period. The present president has not hidden his disdain for the European Union, arguing that the EU had been set as much as “take advantage of the US” and that the bloc was “worse than China, only smaller,” in line with former nationwide safety adviser John Bolton.
‘Germany has to be willing to take on more responsibility’
Bond mentioned a second Trump administration — particularly if the president resorts to the Supreme Court to settle a disputed election by invalidating votes for his opponent — had the potential to additional entrench current divisions inside the EU.
“It would send the message to autocrats and would-be autocrats in Europe and elsewhere that if you can get the court system in your favor, then you can pretty much do what you like and there will be no consequences,” he mentioned. And, though Trump has by no means loved a lot recognition within the European Union he has discovered admirers amongst populist leaders, together with in Poland and Hungary.
Four extra years of Trump would additionally additional erode the NATO protection alliance, Bond mentioned. “NATO’s deterrent value will diminish because America’s president is clearly unwilling to defend all treaty allies,” he identified in an evaluation forward of the election.
“At best, Trump would defend countries like Poland that he perceives as sharing his world view. Many European states will have no choice but to curry favour with him, as long as the EU itself remains an ineffective defence player,” he wrote.
To counter this risk, Bond referred to as on Berlin to tackle a better position in world affairs. “Germany has to be willing to take on more responsibility for Europe in the world,” he instructed DW. “It’s no longer possible just to be the economic powerhouse of Europe and to leave the defense of the world to the Americans, because they may not be able or willing to take that on.”
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