Toxic

American voters may not know what to do with the president they returned for a second term. But elsewhere, voters in large numbers reject candidates who even remotely sound like Donald Trump.

Australian voters are not in the habit of reelecting parties in power. Last week, however, the left-center Labor Party scored a stunning victory against the center-right Liberal-Nacional coalition. The vote keeps Labor leader Anthony Albanese for a second term.

So decisive was the vote Down Under that Liberal leader Peter Dutton lost his own seat he held for 24 years. Many of the themes and talk points of the Liberal-National coalition struck voters as echoing positions taken by the Republican Party under Trump.

Assessing the vote, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull thinks Dutton ran “a very Trumpian campaign.” That stoked voter fears that the center-right opposition could bring to Australia the same sort of chaos characterizing Trump’s presidency so far.

The results of the vote in Australia echoes the results of the voting in Canada a few days before.

Just months ago, Canadian Liberals were extremely unpopular. Because of his party’s unpopularity, Justin Trudeau found it necessary to resign as party leader. All the polling taken ahead of the campaign gave the opposition Conservative Party a substantial lead.

Mark Carney, participating in his first elections, was chosen to lead the Liberal Party. He faced veteran politician Pierre Polievre, leader of the Conservatives. It did seem that the Liberals were in for a trouncing – until Donald Trump came along.

When Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian exports, voters rallied around the Liberals. The party in power took a tough stance against Trump’s policies towards his northern neighbor. Carney himself delivered tough speeches denouncing Trump’s betrayal of a long-standing alliance. In contrast, Polievre seemed to waffle in the face of bullying.

In a stunning but not entirely surprising turn, the Conservatives lost the lead they once enjoyed. The Liberals were returned to power. As in the case of Dutton in Australia, Polievre himself lost his seat in what was considered a safe district for the Conservative Party.

Polievre thought he had the leadership in his grip. He took a softer line against Trump’s assault on Canadian trade – at times, echoing the conservative talking points of the American Republicans. He underestimated the strength of voter anger against Trump’s policies. The elections turned out to be as much a referendum on Trump’s policies.

Trump has undermined the American brand globally. As the recent elections show, the Trump brand itself has become toxic.

Singapore has always been effectively a one-party state. Predictably, the People’s Action Party (PAP), founded by Lee Kwan Yew, dominated every election since the city-state’s independence. PAP is associated with the benevolent authoritarianism that has made its population among the world’s wealthiest.

Lately, however, the ruling party has been facing increasing challenges from opposition parties. In elections held over the weekend, whatever additional seats the opposition parties may have been expecting vanished. All but 10 of the assembly’s 97-seat assembly went to the PAP.

Analysts of Singaporean politics conclude that the city-state’s voters chose to give the PAP a stronger hand in the face of all the uncertainties in the global economy. Those uncertainties derive largely from the trade wars launched by Trump. When the American president announced his baffling “reciprocal” tariffs early last month, Singaporean prime minister Lawrence Wong minced no words criticizing Trump.

The strong show of support for the ruling PAP is interpreted as a sign voters want a stronger hand for the leadership to navigate through all the uncertainties of this time. The vote is certainly an affirmation for the no-nonsense leadership of Lawrence Wong.

Trump, of course, refuses the see these recent elections as an indirect referendum on his policies. His narcissism would not allow that. But leaders in other countries are reading global voter sentiment more closely.

Among Americans, the polls show a rapidly growing majority disapproving Trump’s policies. Globally, there seems to be no constituency for Trump – especially on the unilateral trade war he unleashed. After the recent elections in Canada, Australia and Singapore, leaders everywhere else might find better political incentives in standing up to Trump. Voters are not approving cozying up to the insane policies of the American president.

In the US, Trump’s political capital is rapidly depleting. The same is true globally. The US is quickly losing the goodwill it once enjoyed with most other countries.

Trump’s diminishing political standing in global affairs is not helped by his withdrawal of support for such international institutions as the World Health Organization. During the campaign, Trump boasted he would end the fighting in Ukraine within 24 hours. After a hundred days in office, his ability to influence the course of events in this theater is increasingly becoming superfluous.

There is no area of US foreign policy concern where the Trump administration is making any headway. The US has no presence in the deadly wars going on in South Sudan. Relations with the European Union have soured. By withdrawing funding for agencies such as USAid, Washington has surrendered its instruments for soft power. The US, under Republican rule, is certainly not a force in the global fight against climate change.

Trump’s unilateralism does not reinforce confidence in US reliability as an ally.