1 year ago
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Already braced for uncertainty about the U.S. election, countries in Europe and Asia are now even more unclear about the future of American diplomacy.
The world does not vote in American presidential elections. Nor do its jurors play a part in the American judicial system. Nevertheless, the conviction of Donald J. Trump on all 34 felony counts in a hush-money trial in a New York court on Thursday has again made clear how consequential what happens in the United States is for the rest of the planet.
Many America-watchers are grappling with the same questions posed by people in the United States: Can Mr. Trump still run for president? (Yes.) And if so, will the guilty verdicts cut into the support from his political base? (Unclear.)
Foreign observers also began wondering if Mr. Trump, already a volatile force, would become even less likely to stay within the guardrails of normal politics and diplomacy if he won the presidency again in November.
Mr. Trump’s supporters in anti-immigrant, right-wing nationalist circles abroad quickly jumped to his defense. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly prime minister, called Mr. Trump “a man of honor” in a post on X and said the American people should deliver their own verdict in November.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and the leader of the hard-right League party, expressed “solidarity and full support,” and called Mr. Trump a “victim of judicial harassment.”
“This verdict is a disgrace,” Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit campaigner and Trump supporter, who is honorary president of Reform UK, a small right-wing party in Britain, wrote on social media. “Trump will now win big.”
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