Trump an inkblot test for polarized world

MEXICO CITY – There was dismay in Britain, applause in Russia and silence in Japan. French populists found hope, Mexican leaders expressed concern and Germany’s vice chancellor offered an allusion to his country’s dark past.

In his first speech as president of the United States, Doncal ald Trump showed the world he could be as divisive abroad as he is at home. His vow to place America first – and his threat to upend long- standing alliances, trade deals and many other tenets of the liberal democratic order the nation has chosen for nearly 70 years – was received across the globe with fear, silence and glee, sometimes within the same country. In searching for a historianalogy, some in Britain reached back to the 1930s, when a bleaker vision of the world prevailed with the United States on the sidelines. China imposed unusually tight state control over coverage of the inaugural, though state media highlighted “violent” protests in the United States. In the Philippines, nationalists set fire to an effigy of Trump, while the country’s president welcomed his US counterpart’s apparent willingness to stop telling other leaders how to govern.

In Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May said she would tell a skeptical Trump how important NATO and the European Union are for European and world stability. “With the threats we face, it’s not the time for less cooperation,” May, who is supposed to travel to Washington soon, told The Financial Times.

Nationalist movements embraced Trump’s words as a validation. The far-right French politician Marine Le Pen, a serious candidate in presidential elections this spring, declared that Trump’s victory had opened “a new era in the cooperation between nations.”

The mixed reaction reflected the global uncertainty about what a Trump presidency would look like – and the divided world into which he steps. A fractured landscape of self-interest – whether from rising nationalist movements in many European countries, an emboldened Russia or longstanding allies such as Britain or Japan – underscored the confused, and often contradictory, responses. He is, in some ways, a Rorschach test for a polarized world.

“Time to buckle your seat belts and cross your fingers,” said Marcos Troyjo, a Brazilian economist and diplomat.