Vitaly Portnikov, a Ukrainian political expert, has evaluated the results of the U.S. presidential election and its possible impact on the situation in Ukraine.
He says that Donald Trump’s victory gives Ukraine both risks and new opportunities. In particular, the Ukrainian journalist, political observer, and blogger writes that after Donald Trump unexpectedly won the election, the entire political world was slightly shocked and uncertain how to react to this unexpected event.
While European leaders are congratulating President-Elect Trump on his victory reluctantly, through clenched teeth, respected international media sources are publishing doomsday scenarios. The thing is that the entire world was almost sure that Hillary Clinton would become the 45th President of the United States. That’s why they used to get ready to build diplomatic relations with her. She has been in the political world for years, and world leaders knew what to expect from here even though some of them might disagree with her. Donald Tram is another story. He is said to be a rather emotional and unpredictable person. Basically, that’s why mass media are busy sharing their doomsday scenarios with the world. They simply don’t know what to expect from the President-Elect and therefore are getting ready for the worst.
However, Vitaly Portnikov disagrees with those gloomy forecasts made by foreign colleagues. He says that the American society has really changed dramatically over the last few years. The thing is, he assumes that the entire world is seeing an unprecedented contemporary revolution, with the USA being in the vanguard of it. The revolution gave birth to new successful people, simultaneously creating a whole lot of outsiders, including former representatives of the middle class. They simply cannot find a place for themselves in the new reality, they don’t belong to the new reality, he says.
The American elite, as well as any political establishment in any country around the world, has to react to those radical changes. This is something both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been aware of. That’s why they got almost equal amount of votes of the American people. As for Donald Trump, he managed to win the election just because he succeeded in talking Obama’s former supporters into taking his side this time. Back then, they voted for President Obama but failed to see him make his promises come true. That’s why they started looking for an alternative and found it the form of Mr. Trump.
Under the current circumstances, only a populistic and eccentric candidate who doesn’t belong to the political elite could have won the election, and that’s exactly what happened. Apparently, no other Republican candidate could have competed with Hillary Clinton. By pretending to be a rebel, Mr. Trump made the right political choice.
At the same time, we cannot say that Mr. Trump has a political background. His is a brilliant businessmen and investor, that’s why he is a billionaire. But he will have to let the Republican establishment help him rule the country.
What does it mean for Ukraine and its people?
Vitaly Portnikov believes that Mr. Trump’s victory is not a bad thing for Ukraine in general. He also believes that the Ukrainian society is moving forward while some parts of the world are moving back in time.
Mr. Trump wants to make America great again, but he promotes protectionism, which means that his policies may make the USA less open to the rest of the world. As the result of such policies, the USA, China and the Eurozone may fall into an economic recession, which will lead to lower oil prices, especially as the President-Elect is determined to support the U.S. shale oil revolution despite multiple warnings made by scientists and start exporting the oil to the world.
Apparently, low oil prices are not a good thing for Russia and other oil nations. This may lead to the crash of Putin’s regime, which in it’s turn will allow Ukraine to breathe a sigh of relief and end the civil war for a better and peaceful future, the Ukrainian blogger says.
Well, they say that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin may find a common language and create an entire foundation for tighter US-Russian relations. But the blogger says this is not going to happen because the 2 leaders are egocentric and have totally different sets of values.
At the same time, he says that Washington is still going to support Ukraine since supporting other countries makes America great in the eyes of the entire world, and the Republican establishment may well try to fix the mistakes made by Obama’s administration. However, at this point, Ukraine is a subject of global geopolitics rather than its object, which escalates risks for Ukraine, Mr. Portnikov assumes.
