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The US presidential election is one day away and on Tuesday, as tens of millions of Americans head to the polls, there's a general sense of unease around the world as global leaders brace themselves for the uncertainty of what comes next.
There was always a sort of a sense, at least in the West, that as long as the US got it right, the world order would be okay. And I think what the likes of the UK and France and Italy and Germany have seen is that the process the elections have become increasingly unhinged.
Flavia Kraus Jackson is an executive editor at Bloomberg who oversees our coverage of economics and politics in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, and in the run up to election day in the US, she gave an assignment to some of Bloomberg's twenty seven hundred reporters and analysts based all over the world.
We really canvassed all the capitals from Brasilia via Dubai, Beijing by way of Berlin, etc. And we didn't want b role. We wanted them to speak to some of the smartest people in government speak openly or on background about how they were wargaming the scenarios.
The scenarios being either a Kamala Harris presidency or another Donald Trump term. I'm David Gura, and this is the big take from Bloomberg News Today on the show the global stakes of the US election and how world leaders are bracing and preparing for the impact it'll have beyond America's borders. The next US president will come into office at a time when there are major conflicts taking place
in several parts of the world. The war in Ukraine is well into its third year, there's concerned about a wider war in the Middle East, and tensions high between China and Taiwan. I began by asking Bloomberg's Flavia Kraus Jackson how the course of the Israel Hamas war could change depending on who wins the election, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. She started with the vice president.
Kamala Harris has something going for her, which is essentially the kind of credibility that comes also with who she's married to. She can speak to the Jewish community with a degree of authority, and she also brings a fresh perspective. She in her words, still believes in the two state solution,
something that Natanyahu has essentially taken off the table. So the big challenge for her is how she translates that rhetoric into practice, because what we have actually seen to a degree, or at least how the Middle East perceives it, is that the US is having a bit of an emperor without close moment right they can't quite understand why the US is the biggest supplier to Israel and why
it's incapable or unwilling to use this leverage. Now when it comes to Donald Trump, it's an entirely different scenario. He often likes to say that when he was president, there were no wars, and that just like he would in Ukraine, he would fix it overnight, Similarly he would do the same in the Middle East. And there has been some reporting out there that he is essentially told natanyahuould know on certain terms that he wants this conflict to end in January before he's sworn in, if indeed
he is elected. So I think there there is a sense that the approach is much more transactional. Of course, he is seen to enjoy very good relations with the Gulf countries, specifically with MBS in Saudi Arabia. They want a deal, they want arms, and there's nothing that Donald Trump would like more than to be able to say that normalization happened under him.
When it comes to Ukraine, as Flavia mentioned, Donald Trump has also said he would bring a speedy end to the war. There Limberg's conversations with officials around the globe, there's great concern that Trump will make good on his promise by pushing for a deal with Russia's president Vladimir Putin.
It's very hard to predict how Ukraine will play out. So how do you appeal to Trump's transactional nature? And one idea that sort has been talented by some at NATO is to say, well, you know, mister president, if you do that, you will look weak in the eyes of China, and they might exploit it in a different way. You don't want to look weak next to Shishi Ping. So the strategy there is really to appeal to his sense of ego and the sense that he is standing
head and shoulders above some of these other rivals. So that would be the playbook, if you will, of how to sort of deal with the potential that when he comes in. Putin has waited long enough pretending that he wants Harris to be in power. I think he's quite looking forward to having Trump. I mean they've clearly had a relationship. That much was made clear by the Bob Woodward book. So I think the big question is, come twenty twenty five, will Ukraine be sold up the river
or not? And what can Europe do about it?
And if Harris wins, it's not.
Particularly promising for or it's pretty dispariting for Zelenski in the Harris scenario because it's quite clear that Woar fatigue has dug in right. So a few years ago, when Zelensky went to Washington, he was greeted as a war hero. Everyone in Congress was supportive that the money was flowing. It's just a lot harder three four years down the line to get Americans to care about a conflict that's far away from home.
And to make that ask for money as well.
And to ask for money. So she's going to have to guss it up with lots of pretty words. But I think the message, even though not as brutally delivered, will be the same. It'll be massaged in a certain way, but it'll be listen. Even the fifty billion asset that has been sort of put forward in terms of a loon, the well has run dry, and the pressure to bring Zelenskip to the negotiating table is big.
So the third conflict I want to touch on is a potential conflict. So that's China and Taiwan. I imagine there's a lot of anxiety in Taipei about who wins this election. We've kind of gotten a variety of answers for a President Trump about how he might approach Chinese invasion of the Taiwan. Do we have a clear sense of what he would do, how he would approach that potential conflict, and then how would a President Harris approach it.
The one thing has become very clear both from Harris and Trump is that whilst they are essentially turning their back on other conflicts and prioritizing one thing, that thing is China, and that thing is containing its biggest economic rival. So the big question then becomes will the US come
to Taiwan's defense should Taiwan come under attack? And there the answer also is uncertain because at the heart of all this is the world's chip making in this street Taiwan is sitting on something extremely valuable that everyone wants a piece of. It's obviously not able to defend itself, and the question then becomes to what extent either side
would get itself involved militarily. And we're looking at a scenario that may honestly be decades from actually materializing, and so a lot of what you're going to see is posturing and everyone trying to sort of unpick different sides.
A lot of this is going to play out in the South China see, So to what extent China can lay claim and essentially bully its way in those waters, neutralizing and pushing back all sorts of rival claims from the likes of Vietnam, Philippines, etc. So it's a slow process, and even though the US keeps exercising its right of passage, the direction of travel there is that China is increasingly on the screws.
Bloomberg analysts recently forecasted what the fallout could be if China were to assume full control of Taiwan and Flavia says. They concluded it would be disastrous for the global economy after the break. So what would it cost to implement Donald Trump's plan to deport eleven million undocumented immigrants from the US, and what about those giant tariffs he's promising. We'll talk about what those plans could cost the US
and the rest of the world. One of the biggest issues in the US presidential campaign has been immigration, and the platform is put forward by former President Trump and Vice President Harris stand In. Stark contrast, Bloomberg's Flavia kraus Jackson says, the policies the next president puts in place will have massive implications.
There is the sort of the politics of it that are indistinguishable to degree from the economics. And I think when Trump calls for the deportation of eleven million undocumented immigrants and talks about creating the tension camps and deploying troops at the Mexican border, what is lost in all this is that this is extremely expensive.
According to Bloomberg Economics, if Donald Trump were to carry out that plan, if you were to reduce the flow of new immigrants to close to zero and deport those who have arrived since twenty twenty, that would put a three percent hole in US GDP by twenty twenty eight. But what about Kamala Harris's plans. Bloomberg Economics also took a close look at what she's proposed.
Harris, however, has been kind of advocating for title limits and undocumented inmigration and restrictions. But by blooming Economics calculations, that would be a lot less expensive. I mean. The other thing that's also, of course getting lost in this is that is the remittances. Right, So when there are people in the US earning money, the money that's being earned is going back to the country.
They're sending it at home.
They're sending it back home. Yeah, that has a net positive effect.
Something else world leaders are gaming out is how the winner of the US presidential election would reshape trade. Former President Trump has pledged to impose more highly punitive tariffs, which he says would compel companies that have moved operations overseas to come back to the US.
If he follows through on his promise of sixty percent tariffs on China and twenty percent on everyone else, that's a game changer. So here, what the figures are, and they're startling, is that our model shows that the US share of global trade would create it to eight point five percent by twenty twenty eight from the current twenty percent, and that would have a knock on effect on Mexico
and Canada. But world leaders and diplomats have sort of really stopped trying to sort of reason with Trump about the economics of tariffs, trying to sort of convince them they're not good days by conflation. So we're passing on that pas to consumers. You know, just because you erect these tariffs, you don't necessarily change behavior of a night. He's just not buying those arguments. And if you can't convince someone, then the question is adapting right. Racing for
impact is going to be ugly. No one comes out of a winner in trade wars. But at least this time, Europe, at least, which is kind of getting squeezed between China and the US and feeling like it has to pick sides, has at least something to show for it and can respond in kind love.
You talked about how a lot of high ranking officials world leaders look at Kamala Harrison feel like they don't know her policy positions. Well, when it comes to foreign affairs, do we know much about what would happen to trade if she were to be elected president? Is the assumption that it would be kind of status quo, a good one.
I think that would be correct. I mean, where Kamala Harris really shines and comes alive is when she talks about social issues, when she talks about abortion, when she talks about social justice, when she's able to draw on her background as a prosecutor, when she's able to talk about the legality or illegality of Trump's actions. But you know, when it comes to tariffs, I mean, she's essentially supported the Biden administration's decision to extend those Trump era tariffs
on China. She backs you know, the tens of billions and subsidies for clean energy and infrastructure, and she's embraced some trade deals. But this is by no means her area of expertise. So I think we would have to expect her to sort of really be delegating that to.
Others as government officials worldwide wait for the outcome of Tuesday's vote. No matter who the winner is, Flavia says, one thing is clear that the United States is standing has changed in recent years.
Think if I was to pull back the lens generationally, I would go back to a time both in the immediate post war. If you go to countries like Germany and Italy and the UK, there was a depth of gratitude for America's role and essentially saving Europe from the Nazis, and there was a sort of embrace of everything that was American culture, and that kind of spawned an economic revival in momenty of these countries and enthusiasm for American literature, culture, wealth, fashion,
and everything. And then Europe and the rest of the world fell out of love with the US and what it represented because it no longer represented these good values. What emerged from the wars in Iraq, for example, was oh, the US lies or it medals in other countries. It doesn't like a leader in a certain country, it will get involved and depose them. And so the narrative around the US started changing. There was a sense of like, hold on a second, we're getting scolded and America's wagging
its finger at us. But they also do bad things and we can point to those bad things. So somewhere over those decades, the US lost its moral high ground.
Flavia says, a British diplomat who spoke with Bloomberg, put it succinctly.
He made this parallel that empires rise and fall. They don't suddenly collapse overnight. It's a long process, it's a managed process. And so I think the long view is that America is still a very important, potent superpower. But what all comes down to is whether it will manage its decline in an elegant fashion or whether it will sort of go down and flames.
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. This episode was produced by David Fox and Adriana Tapia. It was edited by Caitlin Kenny and Greg White. This episode was mixed by Alex Sagura. It was fact checked by Andreana Tapia. Special thanks to Saks Shimoneses, Young Young, Dan Williams, and Maya Avrebuk. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole Beemster Bor Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
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