Re­pub­li­can can­di­date Don­ald Trump tri­umphed in the 2024 Unit­ed States pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on Tues­day, mark­ing his his­toric re­turn to the White House. Count­ing of bal­lots at the close of polls showed that Trump, a con­vict­ed felon, wres­tled away bat­tle­ground states from Vice Pres­i­dent and De­mo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Ka­mala Har­ris’ clutch­es to cap­ture a clear ma­jor­i­ty of elec­toral col­lege votes.

Trump will now be­come the sec­ond-ever US pres­i­dent to serve two non-con­sec­u­tive terms.

In an ad­dress at Palm Beach Coun­ty Con­ven­tion Cen­ter short­ly af­ter 2.30 am yes­ter­day, Trump told sup­port­ers, “I’ll be fight­ing for you, and with every breath in my body.”

He al­so told the crowd, “We will make Amer­i­ca safe, strong, pros­per­ous, pow­er­ful and free again.”

Yes­ter­day, Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris called and con­grat­u­lat­ed Pres­i­dent-elect Trump on his vic­to­ry. She lat­er de­liv­ered her con­ces­sion speech at Howard Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton, DC, short­ly af­ter 5.30 pm, lo­cal time.

She urged sup­port­ers to ac­cept the elec­tion re­sults and en­gage in a peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er.

“On­ly when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know peo­ple feel like we are en­ter­ing a dark time,” Har­ris said. “I hope that is not the case. May that guide us to­ward the ex­tra­or­di­nary promise of the Unit­ed States.”

PM leads ap­plause

Lo­cal­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter led the Gov­ern­ment of T&T in con­grat­u­lat­ing Trump. The Op­po­si­tion Leader and stake­hold­er groups al­so sent mes­sages of con­grat­u­la­tions to the US Pres­i­dent-elect.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley stat­ed, “I look for­ward to en­gag­ing with you in the com­ing years to deep­en the di­a­logue be­tween the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, in fur­ther­ance of our com­mon goals and ideals.”

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne main­tained that the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca re­mained a most crit­i­cal part­ner for T&T.

“We con­grat­u­late Pres­i­dent Trump on his vic­to­ry and look for­ward to ex­cel­lent and pro­duc­tive re­la­tions with him and his team in 2025 and be­yond. The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs is pre­pared and ful­ly ca­pa­ble of do­ing every­thing that is re­quired for the ad­vance­ment of our re­la­tion­ship with the new US ad­min­is­tra­tion, al­ways with the best in­ter­ests of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty at heart.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a state­ment that Trump’s vic­to­ry spoke to what she de­scribed as his in­spir­ing re­silience and com­mit­ment to the Amer­i­can peo­ple.

“What tru­ly stands out about Pres­i­dent (elect) Trump’s vic­to­ry is the coali­tion of in­ter­ests that came to­geth­er, unit­ed by his vi­sion to re­store con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­can val­ues and ideals which have been un­der at­tack by pro­mot­ers of ex­treme far-left ide­ol­o­gy.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther not­ed the re­sults re­flect­ed the di­rec­tion Amer­i­cans had cho­sen to pur­sue.

“Var­i­ous groups unit­ed across Amer­i­ca with a shared re­solve to strength­en their econ­o­my, en­hance pub­lic safe­ty, pro­tect re­li­gious free­doms, de­fend free speech and re­ject the woke lib­er­al agen­da.”

Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AM­CHAM) Stu­art Fran­co said over the past 32 years, AM­CHAM T&T has worked with White House ad­min­is­tra­tions from both of the ma­jor par­ties in the US, and the or­gan­i­sa­tion was com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing cor­dial and am­i­ca­ble re­la­tions.

“We are par­tic­u­lar­ly op­ti­mistic about the po­ten­tial for col­lab­o­ra­tion in crit­i­cal ar­eas such as trade, en­er­gy, in­vest­ment, and se­cu­ri­ty—is­sues vi­tal to the con­tin­ued suc­cess of both Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean re­gion.” Fran­co not­ed that his mem­ber­ship’s goal of in­creas­ing eco­nom­ic ties be­tween both coun­tries has not changed.

“As the new ad­min­is­tra­tion rolls out its Amer­i­c­as team and agen­da, we will en­gage to sup­port this goal. At this point, it is too ear­ly to say what, if any, pol­i­cy changes are like­ly to af­fect trade or even po­lit­i­cal re­la­tions be­tween our coun­tries. We stand by ready and will­ing to stay true to our mis­sion.” 

What went wrong for Har­ris?

Since the re­sults of the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed elec­tion, one ques­tion has emerged: Where did it go wrong for VP Ka­mala Har­ris?

The mat­ter has been on Be­hav­iour­al Strate­gist and Poll­ster Mwale Hen­ry’s radar. Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the chief strate­gist and con­sul­tant at The Lega­cy Project LLC, based in At­lanta, Geor­gia, said the elec­tion was his­toric for three rea­sons: his­tor­i­cal can­di­dates, his­tor­i­cal can­di­da­cy, and a his­tor­i­cal cam­paign; hence, it was des­tined to pro­duce his­tor­i­cal re­sults.

“In the end, this elec­tion came down to a sim­ple ques­tion, asked again and again: Are you bet­ter off now than you were four years ago? The an­swer by vot­ers was a re­sound­ing no! Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris found her war chest and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance was no match for a pub­lic hunger for eco­nom­ic change.”  

Hen­ry weighed in on the po­ten­tial im­pact of a Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion on T&T and the wider Caribbean. “As it re­lates to Pres­i­dent-elect Trump’s re­la­tions, he has proven in 2016 his pol­i­cy of peace through strength works. There­fore, our for­eign pol­i­cy as a re­gion and coun­try should be shaped around such a com­mon cause, com­mon peace and com­mon pros­per­i­ty. Trump’s mantra of en­er­gy dom­i­nance, non-in­ter­ven­tion, and peace mir­rors our pol­i­cy of the Caribbean be­ing a zone of peace and T&T’s stance of non-in­ter­ven­tion and non-in­ter­fer­ence. Trinidad and To­ba­go have the right tools to nav­i­gate and en­gage the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Mean­while, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Prof An­tho­ny Bryan in­ter­pret­ed what Trump’s vic­to­ry meant.

“There is an old say­ing that elec­tions re­veal the soul of the peo­ple. In this case, we see an elec­tion de­cid­ed by anger, by fear, by racism, by sex­ism. It’s one for the his­to­ry books.”

Prof Bryan not­ed that Trump man­aged to gain ground with black vot­ers in Penn­syl­va­nia and Wis­con­sin, as well as main­tain his na­tion­al ap­peal to white fe­male vot­ers.

“The De­moc­rats had ex­pect­ed that the white women would desert him based on his po­si­tion on abor­tions; they did not do that, and he cam­paigned on an au­thor­i­tar­i­an agen­da that he is prepar­ing to de­liv­er mass de­ten­tion, de­por­ta­tion of mi­grants, re­venge against po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies, and per­haps de­ploy­ing the mil­i­tary against its own cit­i­zens. How far he choos­es to go with that is a ques­tion that shapes the fate of this coun­try.”

Prof Bryan said he was sur­prised by the ex­tent of Trump’s vic­to­ry. And a vot­er in the US, De­ser­rie Perez, who has been based in Fort Laud­erdale for the last 20 years, said it was the third US elec­tion she had par­tic­i­pat­ed in.

Af­ter the re­sults, she said she was dis­ap­point­ed.

“Well, his­to­ry re­peat­ed it­self. I feel sad but func­tion­al, un­like in 2016, when I was dev­as­tat­ed. This is not our first Trump era. I did what’s in my con­trol: vot­ed, do­nat­ed, vol­un­teered.”

Trump will be sworn in at the pres­i­den­tial in­au­gu­ra­tion on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 20, 2025.