PARIS: Leaders from around the world reacted to Donald Trump’s return Monday to the White House, offering congratulations and urging good relations with the mercurial leader.
Here are some of the first reactions after Trump took the oath of office for a second term:
“President Trump is always decisive, and the peace through strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace, which is the top priority,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
NATO chief Mark Rutte said Trump’s return “will turbo-charge defense spending and production” at the alliance.
“I believe that working together again we will raise the US-Israel alliance to even greater heights,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding “the “best days of our alliance are yet to come.”
“I am certain that the friendship between our nations and the values that unite us will continue to strengthen the collaboration between Italy and the USA, together facing global challenges and building a future of prosperity and security for our peoples,” Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote on social media.
She also cited a role for Italy in “consolidating the dialogue between the United States and Europe.”
Panama reacted sharply to Trump’s pledge that the United States would be “taking back” the Panama Canal, saying the key interoceanic waterway would remain under its control.
“The canal is and will remain Panama’s,” President Jose Raul Mulino said in a statement published on social media.
“The EU looks forward to working closely with you to tackle global challenges,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. “Together, our societies can achieve greater prosperity and strengthen their common security.”
“I look forward to working closely together once again, to benefit both our countries, and to shape a better future for the world,” said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, congratulating his “dear friend” Trump.
“We are strongest when we work together, and I look forward to working with President Trump,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, adding — after Trump threatened to impose 25-percent tariffs on Canadian imports — that “Canada and the United States have the world’s most successful economic partnership.”
“The US is our closest ally and the aim of our policy is always a good transatlantic relationship,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
‘Dear friend’: Nations react to Trump inauguration
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‘Dear friend’: Nations react to Trump inauguration
- Panama reacted sharply to Trump’s pledge that the US would be “taking back” the Panama Canal, saying the key interoceanic waterway would remain under its control
Russia says foreign forces in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’
- Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries
MOSCOW: Russia would regard the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as foreign intervention and treat those forces as legitimate targets, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday, citing Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The ministry’s comment, one of many it said were in response to questions put to Lavrov, also praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts at working for a resolution of the war and said he understood the fundamental reasons behind the conflict.
“The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” the ministry said on its website.
It said Western countries — which have discussed a possible deployment to Ukraine to help secure any peace deal — had to understand “that all foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”
The United States has spearheaded efforts to hold talks aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine and a second three-sided meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives is to take place this week in the United Arab Emirates.
The issue of ceding internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to Russia remains a major stumbling block. Kyiv rejects Russian calls for it to give up all of its Donbas region, including territory Moscow’s forces have not captured.
Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries.
The ministry said Moscow valued the “purposeful efforts” of the Trump administration in working toward a resolution and understanding Russia’s long-running concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and its overtures to Ukraine.
It described Trump as “one of the few Western politicians who not only immediately refused to advance meaningless and destructive preconditions for starting a substantive dialogue with Moscow on the Ukrainian crisis, but also publicly spoke about its root causes.”
