Asian media focus on economic impact of Trump’s comeback

Newspapers and other media across Asia reacting to Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election victory are focusing on the expected economic impact of his second term in the White House.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency quoted President Xi Jinping, while extending congratulations to Trump, as saying: “History teaches that China and the United States gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.”

Xi emphasized the importance of dialogue and cooperation in order to achieve what he sees as a peaceful coexistence and win-win relationship between the two superpowers.

The China Daily, citing a foreign ministry spokesperson, reiterated that the presidential election was an internal U.S. affair and quoted several analysts as saying that the U.S. and China “must pay attention to stabilizing their relationship” and that climate change would remain a key issue between them. The two countries need to find common ground in technology innovation, industrial policy and climate finance, said two scholars from the Brookings Institution, an American think tank.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency cited experts as saying Donald Trump’s return to the White House was expected to have a significant impact on the export-driven South Korean economy and increase market volatility, warning of protectionist policies, decoupling from China and other drastic policy shifts across the board.

The most popular report in Malaysia’s New Straits Times early on Thursday was on its business pages predicting near-term weakness in the ringgit currency as Trump’s tariff policies push U.S. inflation higher and potentially delay the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate cut campaign.

Vietnam’s media also paid great attention to Trump’s economic policies, especially his pledges on increasing tariffs on imports and domestic market protection.

The influential Tuoi Tre newspaper said as the U.S. is Vietnam’s biggest export market, should Trump decide to impose new restrictions on imports, Vietnamese businesses would suffer. Financial analyst Trinh Viet Hoang Minh told the paper that Vietnam’s steel production may become the first victim of the U.S. trade barriers and domestic industry protection.

The VietnamNet news portal reported that shares of a joint venture between Vietnamese firm Kinh Bac Urban Development and the Trump Organization to develop a residential and golf complex in northern Vietnam had rocketed overnight.

Trump a unifier?

Singapore’s Straits Times focused its main election report, titled “The great unifier? Trump’s ‘rainbow’ coalition reshapes American politics,” on Trump’s success in winning votes in America’s ethnic minority communities.

The newspaper cited Professor Daniel HoSang at Yale University as saying the strength of Trump’s reach into the traditional democratic coalition of voters of color was nothing less than startling with the most aggressive tones of the Trump campaign around gender, immigration and crime seeming to broaden his base, especially among men.

The election result challenged the “foundations of racial liberalism” dominant since the civil rights movement, the professor said.

“The question for Trump now is whether he can carry the millions of voters who did not choose him,” the Straits Times said.

Myanmar’s pro-democracy media did not publish much coverage of the U.S. election but The Irrawaddy website ran a story about Trump’s criminal cases that have now been halted as he returns to the White House.

The website also carried a cartoon titled “America Great Again,” in which a celebratory Donald Trump is applauded by the leaders of Russia, North Korea and China, with Myanmar’s junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, a junior partner apparently keen to join the congratulations.

Clever baby

Newspapers in Thailand trumpeted how its zoo sensation Moo Deng – a baby pygmy hippo – predicted Trump’s victory.

The forecast was made on Monday, according to the Bangkok Post, when Moo Deng’s caretaker set out two pumpkin halves, each filled with pieces of dragon fruit, apples and carrots. One pumpkin had the name of Donald Trump carved in Thai on a watermelon rind, and the other that of Kamala Harris.

“The almost-four-month-old calf ate the one with the name of the Republican candidate,” the newspaper reported.

Edited by Mike Firn.

Kiana Duncan in Mae Sot and Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok contributed to this report.