An old car passes by a house decorated with the flags of the US and Cuba in Havana, ahead of Obamas visit last month. Photograph: Orlando Barria/EPA I see this with great concern, he said. Its a factor of uncertainty in the world. He has not made explicit what he plans to do. And the things that he has made explicit are awful, particularly in relation to Latin America and the Mexicans.
From the Republican hopefuls plans to build a wall across the border with Mexico to his belligerency over immigration and Isis, the Brazilian statesman said Trumps views were bigoted and risky. I think its dangerous. Just formulating these issues in this way is very dangerous.
The threat posed by a Trump presidency is not limited to its neighbours. He has a backwards world view, Cardoso said. In sum, not just for Brazil but for the whole world the election of Trump would be a disaster.
A Washington-based diplomat from Latin America, who did not wish to be named, said he found the ascent of Trump worrisome, explaining: Hes changed the political landscape, the terms of debate. What was extreme and beyond the pale is now in the media mainstream.
Warning that Trump would create more enemies in the Middle East, the diplomat added dryly: He would make an important contribution to anti-American sentiment around the world.
Trumps rhetoric has caused particular disquiet in neighbouring Mexico, which has steadfastly stated it would not put a peso toward the billionaires proposed border wall. Former president Vicente Fox memorably declared : Im not going to pay for that fucking wall! He should pay for it. Hes got the money.
In March, current president Enrique Pea Nieto lashed out, comparing Trumps talk to that of fascists in Germany and Italy prior to the second world war. It was a sign the Mexican government was taking a proactive approach on Trump. Pea Nieto appointed a new ambassador to the US and diplomats are promising a pre-election public relations campaign.
On Americas other border, Canada is also watching closely. Tim Barber of Canada 2020, a thinktank with close ties to the countrys governing Liberal party, said: Its gone from funny to, wow, this is really scary. We really need the US and the US markets. Were hugely dependent from a trade perspective.
If Europeans had a vote, Clinton would win by a landslide: 46% of people polled in seven European countries by YouGov would choose Clinton, compared to only 6% who want to see President Trump sitting in the oval office. Elmar Brok, a veteran German MEP, who chairs the European parliaments foreign affairs committee, said: He is not predictable and this unpredictability is a danger. And therefore it is not in the common interest, nor in the interest of the west, that we have President Donald Trump.
This preference is reflected in the EU institutions. If we have to deal with a clown like Donald Trump it will seriously affect the relationship between the EU and US, said one European source. But nobody is losing too much sleep: others said Trump was unelectable, and would be forced to moderate his views in the unlikely event of taking office.
Reacting to Trumps speech on how he planned to reform Americas foreign policy, Germanys foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said: I can only hope that the election campaign in the USA does not ignore an appreciation of reality.
He said that any future US president had to accept that the architecture of global security had changed, and as such, American First is no proper answer to that.
Nicholas Dungan, a senior adviser at the Paris-based Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratgiques (IRIS) told the Guardian that France was in danger of underestimating Trump.
First of all nobody can really believe Donald Trump can become president of the United States because he is not at all the sort of American they recognise … The French relationship with other countries has traditionally been between elites because since the Hugenots until now, there have not been large French populations abroad … What I have been trying to explain to the French media is that Trump is an authentic American and he represents the face of authentic America and it would be wrong and makes no sense to write him off.
Central and eastern European leaders may be particularly wary after Trump declared Nato was obsolete. Judy Dempsey, senior associate at Carnegie Europe, said: What Trump has said about Nato is music to the Kremlins ears. If that is what an American thinks of Nato, the bedrock about the transatlantic alliance, which Russia is always trying to divide and split and weaken, well, Trump is handing them a silver platter.
Russian president Vladimir Putin. Photograph: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images Last December Putin called Trump a very colourful and talented man and the absolute leader in the US presidential race, and since then Russia has remained just about the only place on the planet outside the US where the idea of a Trump presidency is viewed positively. In a YouGov poll of all G20 countries, Russia was the only one where a majority of people backed Trump over Clinton.
In an interview with Izvestia newspaper earlier this week, the top foreign policy official in the Russian parliament, Alexei Pushkov, said Moscow would welcome the pragmatic approach of Trump to international affairs.
He has expressed his willingness to negotiate with the Russian president and not be in conflict with us like the current administration. He looks much less ideologically biased than Obama. Hes a businessman and he looks at everything like a succession of business deals. This isnt the worst approach, if you compare it with the fundamentalist approach of the Bush and Obama administrations who have destroyed who regions and peoples in the name of liberal chimeras and pseudo-values.
Yury Melnik, press secretary at the Russian embassy in Washington, said: We see that Donald Trump is one of the few candidates here current or former who does not throw punches at Russia. It does not mean we favour him; its just an observation that he is different from the pack.
Trump earned widespread mockery during his foreign policy speech when he mispronounced Tanzania as Tan-ZAY-nee-uh, contrary to the countrys actual name, pronounced Tan-zu-KNEE-uh. Indeed, Africa has rarely figured in his pronouncements. David Coltart, a former government minister in Zimbabwe, said: I think that most democrats in Zimbabwe are appalled by some of his statements.
Ironically I think that some of the more authoritarian figures in Zimbabwe quite admire the stance that hes taken, but most Zimbabweans would be very worried about the foreign policy that Donald Trump would implement. The last thing we need is an aggressive foreign policy, a trigger happy American president whos not going to allow the evolution of democratic forces to hold sway.
Reporting team: Kate Connolly in Berlin, Kim Willsher in Paris, Jennifer Rankin in Brussels, Tom Phillips in Beijing, Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro, Ian Black in London, Ashifa Kassam in Toronto, Shaun Walker in Moscow, Saeed Kamali Dehghan in London, Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem and David Agren in Mexico City.
