A t the start of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the world saw no reason to take him seriously. “His excesses make you want to retch,” said French President François Hollande. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa called his discourse “so dumb, so basic". China’s ex-Finance Minister Lou Jiwei accused him of being “an irrational type”, and former London Mayor Boris Johnson, in response to Mr. Trump’s claims that Muslims have made some parts of London ‘no-go zones’ said “the only reason I wouldn't visit some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump”.

Just like many Americans though - who once joked about moving to Canada if Donald Trump became president and have now crashed Canada’s immigration website - leaders around the world must now accept reality. Mr. Trump, vulgar, uncouth, unpredictable, xenophobic and misogynist as he is, has against all the odds won the election and will become the most powerful man on the planet in a few short months.

American liberals will be spending months and years picking over their crushing defeat and what it means for the nation. But what does it mean for the world? Foreign policy is the arena is which the president traditionally has the freest rein, less restricted by the checks and balances of Congress and the Supreme Court than at home. What can we expect?

“He rarely, if ever, offered anything resembling even a coherent overarching framework for American foreign policy in the early 21st century,” Gary Grappo, a former US ambassador, told The World Weekly. “This is unprecedented for the presidential candidate of a major American political party, much less the president-elect.” 

Mr. Trump has, however, stressed a strong America First ethos, stating “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo" in his victory speech. Through the attitudes he’s displayed, the relationships he’s begun to form and the few policies he has outlined, we can begin to look ahead to how Donald Trump will shape the world and the US’ standing in it once he assumes office in January.

One area in which Mr. Trump’s views have been quite clear is international trade. He has been unequivocal in his derision of America’s current trade deals, calling NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) “the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country”, and describing the proposed TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) deal as “the biggest betrayal in a long line of betrayals where politicians have sold out US workers”.

NAFTA’s future is uncertain. Mr Trump has pledged to renegotiate more favourable terms for the US and if he doesn’t get them, to withdraw completely from the pact. Doing so would not destroy the agreement completely; it would remain in force between Canada and Mexico. However, a withdrawal would harm relations between Mexico and the US, and could even spark a trade war. Mr. Trump would, it appears, have “the power to levy tariffs on Mexico and Canada without Congressional approval” thanks to the NAFTA implementation law, trade lawyer Gary Horlick told CNN. This would be avoided if a renegotiation were to occur, though doing so would be difficult; Mr. Obama has talked previously of altering NAFTA to improve labour standards, but his efforts fizzled out due to how disruptive the process would have been.

TPP, though, looks dead in the water. Withdrawing from the deal, which has not yet been ratified in Congress, was number one on Mr. Trump’s seven point free trade plan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear that Congress will not pass it before President Obama leaves office. “It’s certainly not going to be brought up this year,” he told a news conference.

"Nothing that has the label TPP — or in the near term, the content of TPP — will be put into place by the US," Alan Wolf, chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council, told POLITICO. Thus, Mr. Obama’s ambitious project will be consigned to the dustbin of history, and the significance of this stretches beyond the loss of any economic benefits it could have brought the US and the other countries involved. “The pact has been one of the cornerstones of President Barack Obama's strategic ‘pivot’ towards Asia and his bid to reassert US economic hegemony over China,” argues Mehreen Khan in the Telegraph, with a government document calling TPP “a concrete manifestation of our strategy of rebalancing toward Asia”. 

The deal was heavily criticised, but the fact that the world’s biggest trade deal in over 20 years, one which would have involved countries accounting for 40% of the world’s economic output, is now dead in the water marks a significant blow to the push for trade integration.

While Mr. Obama’s ‘pivot’ strategy for managing Chinese influence in Asia will take a hit from the loss of TPP, America’s direct relations with China also look set to shift markedly. Donald Trump has an odd sort of respect for China, stating “China is wonderful, but they are getting away with murder”. He says this will end under his leadership. "I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind," said Mr. Trump, making it clear that he intends to use the same hardball negotiating style he used for his private business ventures in his talks with the rising Asian superpower.

Big talk on the campaign trail is one thing, but putting that talk into practice and bending Beijing to his will not be easy, to say the least. Mr. Trump has pledged specifically to label China a ‘currency manipulator’ in an effort to pressure it to end practices to control the value of the yuan, and to introduce a 45% tariff on Chinese imports, but experts are sceptical of him succeeding in either of these.

“It will be difficult for him to impose high tariffs on China within the framework of the WTO, as the US has a commitment to maintaining low tariffs. Trump will also have to pass the act through Congress, which is now Republican dominated, with representatives who are both pro-free trade and anti-free trade,” Professor Sara Hsu, Research Director at the Asia Financial Risk Think Tank in Hong Kong told The World Weekly. She is unconvinced, too, that Mr. Trump will be able to force China’s hand on currency manipulation: “President-elect Trump cannot force an appreciation of the RMB… it is not set to appreciate its currency soon unless there are sharp upward swings in currencies in the basket the RMB tracks.”

If Donald Trump were to spark a trade war with China in his attempts to strong-arm the eastern giant into submission (which he’s said he’d love to do) the results would be disastrous. “A trade war with China doesn't make sense. While some companies have successfully reshored to the US, they have often failed to create jobs because the systems are so automated now, and US labour too expensive relative to capital (such as robotics). A trade war with China would simply make goods for Americans more expensive, while harming China's export regime,” said Professor Hsu.

While China may be concerned about a breakdown in relations with the US, Beijing also has cause for optimism. “Compared with Democratic presidents' terms in office, most Republican presidents have been in good relations with the Chinese leadership even if the rhetorics during the presidential campaign were harsh,” Yu Jie, research fellow at LSE IDEAS, told The World Weekly. 

President Xi may even be eyeing up a chance to expand China’s international influence at a time when the US is turning in on itself. “China's geostrategists will now hope that a Trump presidency plays into their ambitious plans to diminish American power and remake the map of Asia. They may well be right,” writes Carrie Gracie, the BBC’s China editor. 

“[Donald Trump] must find a way to cooperate with China - which will put him in a better position on a global stage,” said Dr. Yu. To do so though, Mr. Trump must choose the rational path for American prosperity, a path which would require him to back down from the uncompromising stance he portrayed in his campaign.

Rationality, though, has not proven a hallmark of the Trump campaign so far. On the issue of climate change, Mr. Trump has either been conned by misinformation, or he is attempting to con his voters with misinformation. In his own words: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”

Despite the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that climate change exists, that it poses a threat to humanity, and that action must be taken now, Donald Trump is not convinced. He has pledged to pull America out of the recently signed Paris Accords as far as he can, though the exact nature of how this will happen is uncertain. Under the terms of the deal, notice of a withdrawal could only be given three years after it came into force, after which it would take a further year for the withdrawal to be complete. Alternatively, Mr. Trump could choose to simply ignore America’s commitment to reduce emissions; the Paris Accords do not outline any kind of sanctions for those who don’t comply.

The withdrawal of the world’s largest per capita polluter from this deal, and any other potential deals which may be drawn up in the next four years, would be a significant blow to international efforts to combat climate change and could imperil the future of the planet.

If a Trump presidency might make us more likely to burn up on a warming planet, though, is it ironically possible it might save us from burning in the nuclear fires of World War III?

US relations with Russia stand today at a post-Cold War low. The road here may have started out with good intentions, but has been paved largely with unfulfilled and broken promises, lined with NATO expansionism, sanctions and a resurgence in Russian belligerence. Now, in Syria and Ukraine, the US and Russia find themselves once again on opposing sides of conflicts to which there are no easy answers. Vladimir Putin is not going anywhere - in many ways he is precisely a product of the West’s rejection of post-Soviet Russia. But could a change at the top in America offer new hope for a thaw? In all likelihood, had Hillary Clinton won the election, relations with Russia would have continued to deteriorate. Donald Trump is far from a great diplomat. One might expect his shoot-off-his-mouth-first-and-see-if-there’s-anyone-left-alive-to-answer-questions-later approach to start more fires around the world than extinguish them. But amid all the international disputes and conflicts Mr. Trump is likely to start, is there a silver lining? Could he be the man to end Cold War II before it truly begins?

It is no secret that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have expressed their admiration for each other. Mr. Putin warmly and swiftly welcomed the new US-president elect in a way one could scarcely imagine had his rival prevailed.

“We heard [Mr. Trump's] campaign rhetoric while still a candidate for the US presidency, which was focused on restoring the relations between Russia and the United States,” President Putin said. “We understand and are aware that it will be a difficult path in the light of the degradation in which, unfortunately, the relationship between Russia and the US are at the moment.”

Some in the liberal US press suspect Mr. Putin is rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect not only of an inexperienced American leader who is soft on a resurgent Russia and lukewarm on NATO, but at the chaos the victory of a rabidly anti-establishment candidate has sown at the heart of the decades-old hegemonic order. It has long been charged that Russia’s state-owned international broadcasting outlets such as RT and Sputnik favoured Mr. Trump just as they favoured Brexit for precisely this reason.

“If Europe was important, however, finding the means to sow doubt and insecurity about the political system in the United States, the last remaining superpower, was the big prize,” writes Moscow-based journalist Neil MacFarquhar for the New York Times. Security officials in Washington have even linked Russia far more directly in sowing chaos by implicating its hackers in attacks on the Democratic Party headquarters that led to leaked emails that dogged Ms. Clinton’s campaign and underscored the view in the eyes of many voters that she, and by proxy the liberal establishment she represented, was up to her neck in corruption. 

But beyond the accusations of a shadowy Russian agenda, could a Trump presidency dial down the tensions between Washington and Moscow?

“It looks like a defrosting of this new Cold War that has emerged,” Bill Dod, lead news anchor of RT UK, told The World Weekly. “Trump is inconsistent, but Putin has been immediately positive. According to the Russian media Trump had the backing of the people.”

Writing in the Guardian, Mary Dejevsky of the Valdai Group and Chatham House, suggests Mr. Trump’s profile could lend itself to forging stronger relations with Russia. Like Mr. Putin, she says, he is a self-made autocrat used to exercising power. His nakedly nationalistic leanings, and “two Slavonic wives” might also help him see the world from Russia’s point of view. And a pragmatic businessman might have more luck than old cold warrior defence specialists in bringing Russia to the table. Some of these things might seem far-fetched to anyone used to watching Mr. Trump’s volatile behaviour during the presidential campaign, but stranger things have happened - like him winning it.

And yet Marina Prentoulis, senior lecturer in media and politics at the University of East Anglia, is far less optimistic about Mr. Trump’s chances of bringing about more harmonious international relations. 

“The aggressive agenda of Donald Trump against human rights, minorities and refugees promises nothing positive in terms of the world scene and it may have a disastrous impact on our already fragile world stability,” Dr. Prentoulis told The World Weekly. 

One of Russia’s greatest fears is the expansion of NATO to its borders and old spheres of influence, and Mr. Trump has shown a distinct lack of commitment to assisting Eastern European allies in the event of Russian aggression, but Dr. Prentoulis is not convinced Mr. Trump will be the man to put an end to the Cold War paradigm. 

“These arguments may prove misleading for pragmatic and discursive reasons,” she said. “First, Trump may have a less decisive impact in terms of foreign policy, as even US presidents are limited by the political apparatus. And we know that the State Department is closer to Hillary Clinton’s position.” 

“Second, we should not necessarily expect Trump’s electoral campaign rhetoric to translate into a coherent, rational foreign policy plan,” Dr. Prentoulis added. “What we know so far is that Trump is unpredictable, a loose cannon. His conservative, nationalist capitalist vision is nothing to celebrate and it can slip into aggressive foreign policy against any ‘other’ at a flip of a coin.”

Predicting the course of a presidency’s foreign policy from campaign statements is always a risky business, not least when it comes to the most unpredictable candidate in the most unpredictable election America has seen in living memory. But one thing is clear, if the US is to see better relations with Russia under Donald Trump, the key question will be Syria.

The Middle Eastern country, devastated by over five years of war, has become one of the key battlegrounds between Washington and Moscow. Russia bolstered the position of Bashar al-Assad with an extensive air campaign, the Obama administration, while shifting its focus towards the fight against Islamic State, has called for the Syrian president to step down and supports the opposition. Secretary Clinton has been adamant about a more robust approach, including safe and no-fly zones, whereas Mr. Trump has voiced incoherent positions over the course of the campaign. 

In an interview with Reuters weeks before the election, the then-candidate heavily criticised Ms. Clinton’s plans for Syria, saying they would “lead to World War Three”. Instead, he said, “what we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria”. This fits in with his America First principle, wary of (large-scale) engagements abroad. But what will this translate into after Mr. Trump takes the oath of office on January 20? 

The US is heavily engaged in the fight against Daesh in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq. As election night passed, US soldiers were on the ground, involved in the planning and execution of various campaigns against the militant group. In a speech in August, the president-elect vowed that his administration would “aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS” and “take on the ideology of ‘Radical Islam’”. A drawback in the anti-IS campaign thus seems unlikely, while continued support for the Syrian opposition as a whole seems shakier than before. Nevertheless, a clean divorce between the campaign against the militant group and the wider war in Syria - which enabled IS to rise to prominence - is unrealistic given how entangled the situation is on the ground.

A rapprochement with Moscow could significantly change the dynamic of the war in Syria and severely impact longstanding ties between Washington and Middle Eastern capitals. If Mr. Trump’s comments about President Assad not being a priority are put to the extreme and the US were to withdraw support for the Syrian opposition, relations with leaders in the Gulf, first and foremost Saudi Arabia, and Turkey would be severely strained. Deciphering Mr. Trump’s Syria policy in his first months in office will be key to understanding where US foreign policy is headed. Turning a blind eye towards a further Russian military buildup could herald even darker times for Syrians living in opposition-held areas, especially besieged eastern Aleppo.

“With no experience in government and little-to-no background in foreign policy, other than what he may have learned during the campaign, Donald Trump starts with an effective blank slate,” former US ambassador Gary Grappo, who long served in the Middle East, told The World Weekly. 

As elsewhere around the world, Middle Eastern leaders wasted no time in reacting to the biggest election upset in recent US history. In one of the earliest congratulatory messages, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said his country “is looking forward to the period of Donald Trump's presidency to imbue new spirit into the path of Egyptian-American ties.” Mr. Trump named the Egyptian strongman as one of the partners in the fight against radical Islam. 

Not far from Cairo, positive tones could be heard from Israel, which Mr. Trump, sticking to traditional US Middle East policy, labelled “our greatest ally”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the president-elect a “true friend of Israel”. Going one step further, Israel’s pro-settler education minister called the US election result “an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the centre of the country”. While he moved to a more pro-Israel stance throughout the campaign, details of Mr. Trump’s policy position on the Middle East peace process remain hard to discern, but indications so far hint at continuously strong or even closer ties with Israel. The Obama administration tried unsuccessfully to mediate between the two sides until talks broke down two years ago.

Further east, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged the president-elect not to “renegotiate” the Iran nuclear deal, one of the legacy foreign policy moments of the Obama administration. Mr. Trump, who has no experience in public office or the military, has criticised the deal throughout the campaign, calling it a “disaster”, but also delivered contradictory statements, making it difficult to make out what’s in store for the agreement, which saw the partial lifting of sanctions in return for Iran curbing its nuclear programme. For Richard Nephew, a former US negotiator with Iran, the situation was more clear-cut. “Say goodbye to the Iran deal,” he told Reuters, stating that there was “very little likelihood that it stays”. Renegotiating a deal, however, won’t be an easy feat, as the deal involved various stakeholders and only came about after years of on and off talks. 

Somewhat ironically, some of those chastised by Mr. Trump might actually benefit from his election victory. “The big winner in the aftermath of a Trump victory is Iran’s supreme leader,” Brooking Institution foreign policy expert Suzanne Maloney told the news agency, arguing that this would enable Ayatollah Khamenei to shed Iran’s obligations under the deal “while pinning the responsibility on Washington”. The nuclear deal has been heavily disputed amongst parts of Iran’s conservative clerical establishment. US-Iranian relations are likely to get more contentious after January 20.

In the end, much of what an America First foreign policy will exactly mean for this conflict-ridden region is anyone’s guess at this point, but if he follows through on his rhetoric, we should prepare ourselves for the likelihood of some drastic changes. Some experts caution, however, that no immediate effects are to be expected in various areas for the first several months.

“One clue to the direction he may head is his appointments to major foreign policy positions as well as selection of close White House advisers,” Ambassador Grappo said. “Mr. Trump will need to rely heavily on well-informed, experienced advisers if he is to steer America on a proper course forward through the dangerous shoals of international relations.” 

“But,” the ambassador concluded, “he starts from a position dead in the water.” 

Can he swiftly learn to swim? Or will America sink with him on the world stage?