Trump stuns the world in shock result
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REPUBLICAN Donald Trump stunned the world by defeating heavily favored rival Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s presidential election, ending eight years of Democratic control of the White House and sending the United States on a new, uncertain path.
A wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win the White House race against Clinton, the Democratic candidate whose gold-plated establishment resume included stints as a first lady, US senator and secretary of state.
President Barack Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, phoned Trump to congratulate him on his victory and invite him to the White House for a meeting today, the White House said in a statement.
“Ensuring a smooth transition of power is one of the top priorities the resident identified at the beginning of the year and a meeting with the president-elect is the next step,” the White House said.
Worried that a Trump victory could cause economic and global uncertainty, investors were in full flight from risky assets.
The US dollar, Mexican peso and world stocks fell yesterday but fears of the kind of shock that wiped trillions of dollars off global markets after Britain’s Brexit vote in June have failed to materialize so far.
US stocks opened slightly lower but then moved into positive territory, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 0.30 percent.
Trailing in public opinion polls for months, Trump pulled off a major surprise when he collected the 270 electoral votes needed to win, taking battleground states where presidential elections are traditionally decided.
His four-year term begins on January 20 and he will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the US Congress. Trump appeared with his family early yesterday before cheering supporters in a New York hotel ballroom, saying it was time to heal the divisions caused by the campaign and find common ground after a campaign that exposed deep differences among Americans.
“It is time for us to come together as one united people,” Trump said. “I will be president for all Americans.”
He said he had received a call from Clinton to congratulate him on the win and praised her for her service and for a hard-fought campaign.
His comments were an abrupt departure from his campaign trail rhetoric in which he repeatedly slammed Clinton as “crooked” amid supporters’ chants to “lock her up.”
But Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, did not rule out the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton’s past conduct, a threat Trump made in an election debate last month.
Despite losing the state-by-state electoral battle that determines the US presidency, Clinton narrowly led Trump in the nationwide popular vote, according to US media tallies.
It would mark the second time in 16 years that a Democratic candidate lost the presidency despite winning more votes than the victor. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore got more votes than Republican George W. Bush.
Trump’s victory marked a frustrating end to the presidential aspirations of Clinton, 69, who also launched an unsuccessful White House bid in 2008.
At Clinton’s election event a mile away from Trump’s victory party, an electric atmosphere among supporters expecting to see her become America’s first woman president dissipated as results came in.
Supporters, some in tears, milled around the convention center in Manhattan where they had expected Clinton to give a victory address.
Clinton did not make a concession speech overnight, instead sending campaign chairman John Podesta out to tell her supporters they should go home.
Prevailing in a cliffhanger race that opinion polls had clearly forecast as favoring a Clinton victory, Trump won avid support among a core base of white non-college educated workers with his promise to be the “greatest jobs president that God ever created.” He did well in “Rust Belt” states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.
“Such a beautiful and important evening. The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before,” Trump wrote on Twitter early yesterday.
In his victory speech, he said he had a great economic plan, would embark on a project to rebuild American infrastructure and would double US economic growth. Trump, who at 70 will be the oldest first-term US president, came out on top after a bitter and divisive campaign that focused largely on the character of the candidates and whether they could be trusted in the Oval Office.
The presidency will be Trump’s first elected office, and it remains to be seen how he will work with Congress.
During the campaign Trump was the target of sharp disapproval, not just from Democrats but from many in his own party.
Trump wants to rewrite international trade deals to reduce trade deficits and has taken positions that raise the possibility of damaging relations with America’s most trusted allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The Mexican peso plunged more than 13 percent before recovering some ground. The peso had become a touchstone for sentiment on the election as Trump threatened to rip up a free trade agreement with Mexico.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to take the country on a more isolationist, protectionist “America First” path. He has vowed to impose a 35 percent tariff on goods exported to the United States by US companies that went abroad.
Trump survived a series of seemingly crippling blows on the campaign, many of them self-inflicted, including the emergence in October of a 2005 video in which he boasted about making unwanted sexual advances on women.
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