Foreign Policies

Lajcak: Donald Trump Is President of Discontinuity

Bratislava, November 9 (TASR) – US voters have decided which person they want to see at the head of their country, and we respect this decision, said Slovak Foreign and European Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak on Wednesday in view of Donald Trump’s triumph in the presidential election.

“We congratulate the winner, and we’re ready to work with him. The issue that currently interests us the most is what the difference will be between Trump as candidate and Trump as president. Visions and promises are one thing; the practical barriers that every statesman is bound by are another,” noted Lajcak.

Lajcak didn’t want to go into speculation, but he thinks that there’s no need to dramatise or blow up what has been heard during the campaign because it’s normal for campaigns to feature elements that aren’t subsequently part of real politics.

“One thing that is beyond doubt and which has been confirmed by this election is that the feeling of frustration and discontent among voters is ever increasing in democratic countries and societies,” warned Lajcak, adding that this fact mustn’t be ignored.

“President-elect Trump isn’t a president of continuity in US domestic and foreign policies. The question is how big the discontinuity will be, or, rather, where he will find a place between the campaign and reality. People have great expectations from him based on what he was saying during the campaign, and the world, [the USA’s] partners, including Europe, also have some expectations. He will have to address this himself, but he isn’t a president of continuity but one of discontinuity,” emphasised Lajcak.

With respect to relations with NATO, Lajcak said that Trump will be looking at this via his entrepreneurial prism – that is, he’ll want to know what others are ready to do in order to preserve this relationship. “It would be naive for us to think that we could freeload from the USA,” added Lajcak.

Republican Donald Trump has become the 45th president of the United States of America by beating his opponent – Democrat Hillary Clinton. He’s set to replace the incumbent Barack Obama on January 20, 2017.

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