World averts gaze from news of Trump’s impeachment
LONDON – The 45th U.S. president may have become just the third White House occupant in American history to be impeached late Wednesday, but the tone of the global reaction from Mexico to Iran was notable for another reason: there wasn’t any.
World leaders and senior diplomatic figures appear to be staying out of it.
President Donald Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on charges he abused his power by applying pressure on Ukraine for political gain and then obstructed an investigation by Congress.
The move now sets up a trial in the Senate, where the Republicans have a majority.
While Trump is unlikely to be removed from office, it threatens to define his tenure. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were also impeached. Both were later acquitted by the Senate, while Richard Nixon resigned before a vote by the full House.
Yet there was little immediate international reaction to Trump’s impeachment for a U.S. leader who has already upended the U.S.’s relationship with much of the world by casting doubt on longstanding alliances from the G-7 to NATO, pulled out of global climate and nuclear accords and generally treated foes like friends, and vice versa.
On the day of the vote, Iran’s state media noted it was happening and that the debate was sharply drawn along politically partisan lines, but has not commented since.
Speaking during a meeting with Iranian expatriates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday that his country’s nuclear experts are testing a new type of advanced centrifuges. He didn’t mention Trump’s impeachment.
There was no official mention of it in North Korea or China, where state media often look for opportunities to bash American officials and leaders. However, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post noted Beijing officials may be concerned impeachment will be a distraction from Trump’s China trade talks. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, fresh from a spat with Trump at a NATO meeting in London where he was recorded apparently making fun of the U.S. president, has not brought it up.
Nor has Brazil’s leader controversial leader Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing firebrand who has wooed Trump with excessive flattery and the promise of U.S. military bases.
“Brazil is deeply polarized and seized with the daily dramas of their own president,” said Robert Muggah, cofounder of the Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based think tank. “A majority of Brazilians shrug their shoulders when asked about Trump’s impeachment.”
Officials in Ukraine, which is at the center of the impeachment proceedings, have been avoiding talking about what’s unfolding in Washington for weeks, fearful of being seen as a pawn in a U.S. political process. They maintained their silence Thursday.
Markets barely moved after the three-month inquiry by the House ended.
There was also no word from Saudi Arabia, where the government is close to Trump.
“Trump is Saudi Arabia’s biggest defender. Authorities there will view impeachment as betting on the wrong horse,” said Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi-born scholar and expert on the kingdom’s political affairs who runs the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, a think tank. “Domestically, they will seem foolish,” he added.
Still, while Trump is not the first American leader to show deference to Saudi Arabia, he has arguably done more for Riyadh than other U.S. administrations, including aggressively siding with it as a bulwark against Iran and overlooking its poor record on human rights, not least its killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-resident journalist and Saudi critic, in its consulate in Turkey.
Britain stayed silent. So did France. And the European Union. There were few media hot takes out of India or South Korea or other places where Trump is closely watched.
Peter Bayer, a German politician who is a close associate of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a member of her ruling Christian Democratic Union party, said that Germans have been closely watching the impeachment proceedings in Washington.
But Michael Wohlgemuth, a German-born expert on European political affairs at the Foundation for Economic Governance and Public Law in nearby Lichtenstein, said he believes most Germans will be happy to see Trump impeached.