WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama invited President-elect Donald Trump to meet with him at the White House on Thursday.
The president plans to address Trump’s victory in a statement from the White House on Wednesday.
The White House said Obama called Trump from his residence in the White House early Wednesday to congratulate him. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Thursday meeting is to discuss the presidential transition.
Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Obama called early Wednesday while Trump was speaking to his supporters in New York, and Trump called him back after he left the stage.
She said the two had a “warm conversation.”
Obama also called Hillary Clinton. The White House said Obama conveyed admiration for the “strong campaign she waged throughout the country.”
PUTIN SEE ‘DIFFICULT PATH’
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent Trump a telegram Wednesday morning congratulating him on his victory, and expressed “his hope to work together for removing Russian-American relations from their crisis state.”
Putin also said he has confidence that building a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington – one based on principles of equality, mutual respect and a real accounting each other’s positions – is in the interest of both nations and the world.
He said in a televised statement that Russia is ready to “do everything” to restore Russian-U.S. relations. Later, at a ceremony accepting the credentials of new ambassadors, he said “it is not our fault that Russian-American relations are in such a state,” and added, “we aware that it is a difficult path, in view of the unfortunate degradation of relations between the Russian Federation and the United States.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin was unusually prominent in the U.S. presidential race. Trump made complimentary remarks about Putin, and the ties of some of his advisers and former campaign officials to Russia raised suspicions. Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin pool photo via AP
MEXICO BRACES FOR WORST
Elsewhere around the globe, Trump’s election was welcomed in some countries while others saw it as a big shock.
Trump’s win was particularly startling in Mexico, where his remarks calling Mexican immigrants criminals and “rapists” were a deep insult to national pride. Financial analysts have predicted a Trump win would threaten billions of dollars in cross-border trade, and government officials say they have drawn up a contingency plan for such a scenario, though without releasing details.
“It’s DEFCON 2,” Mexican analyst Alejandro Hope said. “Probably something as close to a national emergency as Mexico has faced in many decades.”
The impact of his unexpected electoral triumph is also being felt strongly in the volatile Middle East, where multiple crises are unfolding.
IRAN WORRIES ABOUT NUCLEAR DEAL
Iran’s foreign minister said the United States must respect the commitments it made as part of last year’s historic nuclear deal. Trump had criticized the accord during the campaign and said he would try to renegotiate it.
Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke Wednesday during a visit to Romania after Trump’s win was clear. The foreign minister said that it’s important “that whoever is elected president of America should fully understand current realities of the world and conform their policies with those realities.”
He says the incoming U.S. president “should respect the commitments that the American government has accepted, not as a bilateral deal, but as a multilateral one.”
NETANYAHU SEES ‘EVER GREATER’ COOPERATION
In congratulating Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him a “true friend of the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu said Wednesday he believes the two leaders “will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between our two countries and bring it to ever greater heights.”
Earlier, a key ally in Netanyahu’s center-right coalition, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, said Trump’s victory means that “the era of a Palestinian state is over.” The Palestinians want a state in lands Israel captured in 1967.
Netanyahu has said he is willing to negotiate a border deal, but has retracted offers made by his predecessors while pressing ahead with Jewish settlement expansion on war-won land.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that he hopes “peace will be achieved during his term.”
CHINA COUNSELS ‘MATURE’ APPROACH
Without commenting directly on Trump’s election, China’s government says Beijing hopes to work with the new U.S. administration to build sustainable ties and expressed confidence the two countries can handle trade disputes maturely.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that China is “looking forward to making concerted efforts with the new U.S. government to ensure the sustainable, steady and sound development of bilateral relations” to benefit both countries’ people and the world.
Asked about U.S. voters’ anger about economic losses blamed on Chinese exports, Lu said only that the two countries had established ways to deal with trade disputes. He says “as mature, large countries, China and the U.S. are able to handle such issues.”
CUBA LAUNCHES MILITARY EXERCISES
News of Trump’s victory hit hard among ordinary people and experts in U.S. relations with Cuba, which has spent the last two years negotiating normalization after more than 50 years of Cold War hostility.
Cuba on Wednesday announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare troops to confront what the government calls “a range of enemy actions.”
The government did not link the exercises to Trump’s victory but the announcement of maneuvers and tactical exercises across the country came nearly simultaneously with Trump’s surprise win.
It is the seventh time Cuba has held what it calls the Bastion Strategic Exercise, often in response to points of high tension with the United States.
Trump has promised to reverse Obama’s reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the ongoing normalization of the relationship between the two countries.
FOR EUROPE IT’S WAIT-AND-SEE
In Europe, NATO allies now wait to see if Trump follows through on suggestions that the U.S. will look at whether they have paid their proper share in considering whether to come to their defense.
Trump’s rhetoric has challenged the strategic underpinning of the NATO alliance, rattling its leaders at a time when Russia has been increasingly aggressive.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen called the vote “a big shock” and “a vote against Washington, against the establishment.”
Von der Leyen said on German public television Wednesday that while many questions remain open, “We Europeans obviously know that as partners in NATO, Donald Trump will naturally ask what ‘are you achieving for the alliance,’ but we will also ask ‘what’s your stand toward the alliance.’”
Trump’s victory pleased leaders of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party who said it will have a ripple effect and help change the balance of political power in Germany and the rest of Europe. The party has campaigned strongly against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy of letting hundreds of thousands of migrants into the country.
“It was high time that people disenfranchised by the political establishment get their voice back in the United States of America too,” party co-leader Frauke Petry said.
The French populist, anti-immigrant politician Marine Le Pen was also pleased. She congratulated Trump even before the final results were known, tweeting her support to the “American people, free!”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said European politicians should heed the message from Trump votes.
“There is a part of our electorate that feels … abandoned,” including people who feel “left behind by globalization,” he said.
Trump’s victory is being viewed with shock and revulsion in Ireland, a country close to the Clintons and fearful of Trump’s campaign pledge to confront U.S. companies using Ireland as a tax shelter.
The Irish Times branded the New York businessman a “misogynistic racist liar.”
Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole wrote Wednesday: “The republic of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt is now the United Hates of America.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May issued a statement saying she looks forward to working with Trump and building on the two countries’ longstanding “special relationship.”
ELSEWHERE AROUND THE GLOBE
In Asia, security issues and trade will top the agenda for the new administration, from North Korea and the South China Sea to the contentious and yet-unratified Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, social media was abuzz with speculation about whether Trump would follow through on campaign rhetoric calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Some said they fear they would be prevented from visiting relatives and friends who live in America or traveling there as tourists.
The Vatican’s first reaction to Trump’s victory focused on its wish for global peace.
Pope Francis pope did not mention the U.S. elections during his Wednesday audience, but secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin offered Trump congratulations in a statement to Vatican Radio that “his government can be truly fruitful.”
He added the Vatican offered its prayers “that the Lord illuminates and sustains him in service of his country, naturally, but also in service of the well-being and peace of the world.”
Parolin concluded by noting that “there is need for everyone to work to change the global situation, which is in a situation of severe lacerations and great conflict.”
Peter Orsi reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writers Christopher Sherman in Mexico City; Michael Weissenstein and Andrea Rodriguez in Havana; Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin; Angela Charlton in Paris; Jim Heintz in Moscow; Christopher Bodeen and Gillian Wong in Beijing; Kristen Gelineau in Sydney; Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia and Amir Vahdat in Iran contributed to this report.
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