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The American Presidential Election
The quadrennial American Presidential election was held on the 8th November 2016. With the candidate of both the Democratic party Hilary Clinton and the Republican Party Donald Trump fiercely competing for the top job in the United States of America.
Choosing between the two candidates caused heads to throb. With the reputation of ‘Trump of Doom’, Trump is being criticized for his brash personality. Alternatively, Hilary has a rather sketchy public persona due to the shocking scandal of her using private email server for official communications.
The competition between the two candidates was vicious. With Hilary obtaining 60,840 thousand votes and Trump obtaining 60,270 votes respectively on the Election Day. However, due to Electoral College of the United States, Trump won with 306 votes.
According to the American constitution, Trump has been elected as the President of the United States by obtaining more than 270 votes. The inauguration of Donald Trump on 20th January 2017 as the 45th President of the United States marked commencement of the four-year term of him as President.
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From the above, it can be seen that Trump won the election due to him earning sufficient votes in the electoral college. We would like to take this opportunity to introduce the United States Electoral College System to our students:
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The United States Electoral College system has the vote of the people represented through "electors". To simply put it, there are 50 states in America, with the addition of Washington, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors in total. This current voting system is to ensure that small states with a smaller population would not be neglected by presidential candidates as a majority of 270 electoral votes is required in order to win the election.
Yet this system allows an awkward phenomenon to happen: a presidential candidate who earns the most popular vote can lose the election owing to insufficient electoral votes. Hilary, along with 5 other presidential candidates in American history, has sadly fallen victim to this unfortunate circumstance.
With the complex social circumstances among countries and arising complications in global trends, Trump is foreseen to put a strain on international relations with Russia and China. Even the long-term allies of the US, such as the Philippines, are gradually distancing itself from the States.
Even with the slowly improving European economy, the European continents are bracing themselves and maintain cautious as they are forced to go face to face with political adversities such as Brexit, Terrorist attacks, and the refugee crisis; while Middle Eastern countries are still facing constant political instability. Governments and its citizens are bewildered as terrorism and immigration complications continue to pose a threat to the diplomatic atmosphere in the international community.
Trump has spoken about the adversities faced in April. He claims that the improvement in Russian- American relations are completely possible, showing his strong ambitions and confidence with the country's external affairs. It is stated that if Trump indeed forms an alliance with Russia, alleviation may be brought to the Syrian conflict.
Trump never ceases to baffle the American public as he frequently expresses contradicting opinions of the Russian-American relations. He also has a wavering stance on whether to protect and maintain good relations with Asian countries.
In addition to the above, Trump has expressed disappointment towards Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel's " refugees welcome " policy and has criticized Eastern European countries for lacking measures to combat terrorism. He declared that the passive attitude of Eastern European countries inevitably forces the United States to waste more resources and effort on security in and out of America.
Trump's radical and unstable approach to global issues, may pose challenges to international relations with the States and may directly influence the America's external affairs in the future.
During his political rallies, Trump has continuously opined China as a country which manipulates the RMB multiple times and believes the value of RMB is currently being underestimated by at least 15% to 40%.
It is predicted that if the United States does indeed raise tariffs towards China, the Sino-American trade will be greatly impacted. At the same time it gives pressure to RMB to depreciate in the long-run. Trump’s support of enforcing a strict protectionist measures towards China in terms of trade will undoubtedly put the Chinese shipping and export industries in hot waters.
But all that we can do for the time being is to sit back and brace ourselves, for better or for worse, as the future unfolds.
The source of picture
Picture 1：http://m.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/1880959
Picture 2：http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/24/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-cnn-poll-2016-election/
Picture 3：https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/what-the-trump-win-means-for-tech-science-and-beyond/
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Editor |
11B CHAN Isabella |
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Translator |
10C LAN Xi Hung |