US President-elect Donald Trump is on track to win the popular vote after winning the electoral college, with provisional counts showing him ahead of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris by nearly five million ballots.
World leaders rushed to congratulate Trump, who is celebrating his victory with his family and friends in Florida, and is already starting to shape his next government.
Harris, the US vice president, has conceded the presidential election but promised to keep fighting for democracy and the rule of law.
US President Joe Biden, who praised Harris as a “champion for all Americans”, is set to address the country on Thursday, the White House says.10m ago (08:45 GMT).
Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, will be returning to the White House amid blistering conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon and renewed tensions with Iran.
Al Jazeera’s Senior Political Analyst Marwan Bishara said Trump “is not an interventionist” and will not seek to rearrange regional affairs on behalf of Israel.
In terms of American policy in the Middle East, Trump “doesn’t have much to reverse because Biden followed on Trump’s footsteps”. While Trump reversed former President Barack Obama’s policies after the 2016 election, this time he will not have to do the same.
“The Golan Heights is still annexed and that’s recognised by the US, the embassy in Jerusalem is still recognised by the US, so Biden did not reverse any of Trump’s policies, but Trump reversed Obama’s,” Bishara said.
What will happen next in the region will also depend on who will be appointed secretary of state and secretary of defence.
Nominating someone like Senator Tom Cotton would ensure that the US will be “bullying Iran”, while Senator Lindsey Graham would bring rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and less confrontation with Iran, he added.
Many believed support from women for Harris over issues like reproductive rights could decide the election in her favour.
So, what happened? And what does Trump’s comeback mean for women’s rights in the US?
We understand that meetings are already underway at Mar-a-Lago for potential nominees and appointments for the new administration.
What we are looking at though is how the contradictory statements that Trump often makes about policy will translate into the new administration. Because although the Republican Party has united behind Trump, it is still very factionalised.
You have that traditional Republican wing, which is neoconservative, neoliberal, and advocates a muscular interventionist American foreign policy, endless war, de-regulation, austerity, cutting social spending and so on. But then you have the populist wing, now embodied by none other than the Vice President-elect JD Vance, but also Don Jr, Trump’s son, as well as Tucker Carlson, a very influential media personality here, who all have Trump’s ear. They say, look, we don’t want endless war, we don’t want Wall Street deregulated, we want to protect the working classes, we want to look at industry, etc.
So, it will be interesting to see how this tussle will shape up.
We do have a sense of how the foreign policy side of things may go. Because we now know that Brian Hook has been put in charge of the transition at the State Department and he is the neo-con’s neo-con. He’s tough on Russia, China, Iran, a hawkish guy from George W Bush era and then the first term of Trump’s. And Trump himself has been talking about how much he loves Mike Pompeo, another neocon.
In the domestic policy realm, we are hearing Elon Musk’s name being mentioned. And he’s talking about deep austerity, deep cuts in government spending, pain for the working classes, normally that’s exactly what JD Vance says shouldn’t be done.
So it’s going to be very interesting to see how all the rhetoric translates into government.