The Global Election
Latest Episodes

What President Clinton (or Trump) will mean for the Middle East
Is there anything the US can do in Syria? Will the diplomatic success of the Iran deal be built upon? Will stability be prioritised over democracy (if that ever actually works)? And will the US still be engaged in the Middle East at a time when many Americans would rather…

Isolationism
Is the US isolating itself from the rest of the world? There’s more to this story than Donald Trump and his ‘America First’ rhetoric. There appears to be a growing unease in the US about its engagement with the rest of the world. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have damaged…

Climate Change
Despite being an issue on which both candidates have very different views, climate change hasn’t played much of a role in this year’s election – in fact, there wasn’t a single mention of it in any of the three presidential debates. Hillary Clinton is likely to continue many of the…

Terrorism and the US election
For 15 years, American foreign policy has been dominated by a single word: terrorism. Barack Obama may not use the phrase “global war on terror”, America’s main enemy may have shifted from al-Qaeda to Isis and the tools used in the fight may have changed dramatically but terrorism – that…

Will the US election lead to a global financial crisis?
Of all the issues raised by this election that could have an impact on the rest of the world, the economy is the biggest – and the scariest. Economic decisions in the US can have an outsized influence elsewhere: if the US is motoring along nicely, so are the rest…

Europe’s hopes and fears – mainly fears – for the US election
Europe doesn’t always like to admit this but it needs the US. The US economy has an outsized effect on Europe’s, while Europe often needs the diplomatic and (sometimes) military heft of the US. All of which means that those of us in Europe are keenly watching what happens in…

What does Trump versus Clinton mean for the US versus China?
At some stage in the near future China is likely to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. The nations are clashing diplomatically too – over what the US sees as Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and what China sees as American interference in “their” region. What…

Is the US still the world’s policeman?
Donald Trump has refused to say that he’d back a Nato ally if they were under attack, suggested that South Korea and Japan should not be protected by the US and defended Russia’s annexing of Crimea. Under his presidency would the US still be the world’s policeman? We discuss this…