Election win for Trump: A more turbulent future for Taiwan

By Gerrit van der Wees

It was a nail-biting campaign, putting two very opposite personalities and very different policy choices against each other. Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Waltz crisscrossed the so-called Swing States – where a win or lose in even one or two states could determine the Electoral College outcome – while former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance did the same. The campaign was closely contested, with immigration, abortion, and the economy dominating the headlines, while foreign policy received minimal attention. 

Through the evening of 05 November, election night, it became increasingly clear that Donald Trump would regain the White House. The early lead that Kamala Harris had built up in the swing states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan evaporated when the returns from the pro-Trump rural areas came in. At the time of this writing, Trump had passed the 270 Electoral College threshold with 301 votes, while Harris remained at 226, while for the popular vote Trump stood at 51% versus Harris’ 47.5%. 

In the Senate, the Republicans regained a majority with 52 against 46 for the Democrats, with two seats still to be called, while in the U.S. House of Representatives, the majority was still up in the air: Republicans had 213 wins, while the democrats were at 208, with 218 being the necessary number for a majority. 

The results are highly consequential for Taiwan, its safety and security, and its future. In this essay we analyse what we can glean from the two camps by looking at the past pronouncements of the candidates and discuss how this can be seen as indicative of future policies.

Download the policy paper by Gerrit van der Wees (PDF)