US election live: Trump prepares to choose top team as Harris tells supporters ‘do not despair’ | US elections 2024

Asian equities mostly rose on Thursday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP), while the dollar held gains and bitcoin hit a fresh record as markets try to ascertain the consequences of a second Donald Trump presidency after he pledged to cut taxes and ramp up tariffs with an eye on China.

According to AFP, bitcoin touched a new high just above $76,475 on optimism about the outlook for cryptocurrencies after the president-elect said on the campaign trail that he would make the US the “bitcoin and cryptocurrency capital of the world”.

Iran on Thursday called Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election an opportunity for the United States to reassess past mistakes, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We have very bitter experiences with the policies and approaches of different US governments in the past,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA, adding Trump’s win was a chance “to review previous wrong policies”.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spoken by phone with US president-elect Donald Trump to discuss cooperation between the two countries, the presidency said on Thursday.

Erdoğan “congratulated Trump on his election victory” and “expressed his desire to develop cooperation between Turkey and the United States in the period ahead”, it said in a statement, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Erdoğan was twice hosted at the White House by Trump during his first term, but has never been received there by current President Joe Biden.

Donald Trump has won the election, with 295 electoral college votes, out of 270 needed for victory, and some states – the swing states of Nevada and Arizona – still to be called. Every swing state called so far has gone to Trump. Trump is also ahead in the popular vote, with 51% to Harris’s 48%.

The Republicans also have control over the senate, after picking up three members.

The House is still in play, with neither the Republicans nor the Democrats holding the 218 members needed to gain control of the chamber. The Republicans are however ahead, with 206 House representatives.

The full results are here:

China’s outbound shipments grew at the fastest pace in over two years in October, Reuters reports, as factories rushed inventory to major export markets in anticipation of further tariffs from the US and the European Union, as the threat of a two-front trade war looms.

Trump’s pre-election pledge to impose tariffs on Chinese imports in excess of 60% is likely to spur a shift in stocks to warehouses in China’s number one export market.

Trump’s tariff threat is rattling Chinese factory owners and officials, with $500bn worth of shipments annually on the line, while trade tensions with the EU, which last year took $466bn worth of Chinese goods, have intensified.

Export momentum has been one bright spot for a struggling economy as household and business confidence has been dented by a prolonged property market debt crisis.

Outbound shipments from China grew 12.7% year-on-year last month, customs data showed on Thursday, blowing past a forecast 5.2% increase in a Reuters poll of economists and a 2.4% rise in September.

Imports fell 2.3%, compared with expectations for a drop of 1.5%, turning negative for the first time in four months.

“We can anticipate a lot of front-loading going into the fourth quarter, before the pressure kicks in come 2025,” Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Reuters.

“I think it is mainly down to Trump. The threat is becoming more real.”

The Guardian’s Kate Lamb has taken a look at this morning’s front pages:

Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in the US presidential election saw the former president securing an unexpected majority in the popular vote, control of the Senate, and at least 295 electoral college votes – defeating vice-president Kamala Harris in a contest that dominated UK front pages on Thursday.

The Guardian led with two words: “American Dread”, a play on the American dream, alongside a close up portrait of the president-elect.

Americans awoke to a “transformed country and a rattled world” as the realisation of Trump’s stunning return to power started to sink in, wrote the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington, summing up the mood.

The Mirror highlighted a question lingering on many minds around the world about what Trump 2.0 might bring, with the headline: “What have they done…Again?

Trump’s victory, it said, had ushered in fears the Republican leader would be even “more divisive and brutal than in his first spell in the White House”.

See the full list here:

Libby Brooks

The sun is pressing through the low grey clouds above Turnberry beach in Ayrshire where Alan Ringrose is walking his dog. He shakes his head at the emerging news from across the Atlantic.

“I think America’s gone mad,” he says. “How can you elect a criminal as president?”

Disbelief is his overriding emotion as the reality of a second Trump presidency sinks in. “I don’t get it. Perhaps people were afraid to elect a black woman?”

Ringrose, who cares for the local bowling green in his retirement, gestures across the dunes to the terraced lawns of the five-star Trump Turnberry hotel. It is one of two luxury golfing resorts owned by the president-elect in Scotland; the other is in Aberdeenshire. “He has done a lot for the area, but as a politician …” Ringrose trails off.

Further down the windswept beach, Elizabeth Cogan is taking her jack russell Molly for a stroll. She is also quick to acknowledge the investment Trump has made in the local economy. But as a world leader? “It’s a total disaster: he’s a fascist, he’s against women, he’s homophobic, he’s racist. It is a shock because I thought people would have come to their senses and realised what kind of man he is.

Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba hopes to meet US president-elect Donald Trump in the United States this month, four sources said, in an attempt to emulate then-prime minister Shinzo Abe’s close ties during Trump’s first term.

The US is Japan’s most important economic and security partner, while Tokyo is a key Washington ally in Asia, providing bases that allow it to keep a large military presence on China’s doorstep.

Ishiba told reporters he had held a five-minute phone call with Trump on Thursday morning Japan time and that they agreed to meet as soon as possible.

“I felt that he was very friendly. So from now on, I have the impression that we can talk frankly,” he said.

Three of the people familiar with the planning, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Japan was aiming to arrange a meeting between Ishiba and Trump just after a 18-19 November summit of the Group of 20 large economies in Brazil. The fourth source said Japan was aiming to arrange the stopover “around” the G20 meeting.

Trump’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is approaching 1am US Eastern Time. Here is where things stand on Thursday:

• Trump has won every key swing state that has been called – Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Nevada and Arizona haven’t been called yet but appeared to be leaning Republican.

• Republicans now have a Senate majority, which will give Trump far more leverage to enact his legislative agenda and, crucially, confirm judicial and executive nominees.

• Control of the US House of Representatives remains unclear, with many of the most competitive races still uncalled.

• Joe Biden, who ended his campaign for a second term in July and endorsed Kamala Harris, only to see her lose to Donald Trump yesterday, paid tribute to his vice-president in a just-released statement.

• Donald Trump’s campaign said the president-elect had spoken to Joe Biden, and accepted his invitation for a meeting to discuss transitioning between administrations at the White House.

• Initial analysis suggests that Black women remain the most reliable Democratic voters while Harris suffered significant losses among both Latino women and men.

• Special counsel prosecutors will shut down their criminal cases against Donald Trump before he takes office, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

• Abortion rights supporters celebrated a handful of victories on Tuesday night, as several states voted to enshrine protections for the procedure into their constitutions.

• Trump has received calls and congratulations from across the globe, including from Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Benjamin Netanyahu.

• The Obamas, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other high-profile Democrats and progressives have released statements addressing the stunning loss.

• The former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, who is now ambassador to the US, has deleted social media posts critical of president-elect Donald Trump to avoid the comments “being misconstrued”, officials confirmed.

• The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is running for re-election, he announced in a letter late on Wednesday, and the House majority leader, Steve Scalise, is running for his position again. In his own letter, Scalise outlined the Republicans’ plans for their first 100 days in government. The priorities include, “lock in the Trump tax cuts”, “unleash American energy” and “surge resources to the southern border”, among other measures, Scalise writes.

• Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday said Beijing and Washington must find a way to “get along” in a message to Trump, state media said.

• Taiwan will help companies relocate production from China given the likely large impact on them from tariffs Trump has promised to impose on the country, Economy Minister Kuo Jyh-huei said on Thursday.

Pippa Crerar

Back to how the UK government has prepared for Trump’s win: in opposition, several senior Labour MPs had vociferously criticised Trump, including David Lammy, now the foreign secretary, who labelled him a “neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath” and “a racist KKK and Nazi sympathizer”. Many of them also opposed the then president addressing parliament while in the UK on a state visit.

But when it became clear that Trump was going to run again, Starmer instructed his aides to start repairing relations. “We all knew this election was coming and there was only one of two outcomes. The courting of both sides has been going on for a long time,” one insider said.

The civil service had also maintained relationships. Karen Pierce, the British ambassador in Washington, was in post last time Trump was in the White House and she and her team had stayed in close contact with Mar-a-Lago.

Whitehall also had four years of experience and contacts from that time, all there for Starmer to draw on when he arrived at No 10. “We feel far better prepared this time than last time round,” one official said.

It was Pierce who set up the call between the prime minister and Trump after the first assassination attempt on the Republican candidate during the election campaign. Officials had suggested writing a note, but Starmer wanted to speak to Trump in person.

She was also instrumental in arranging the dinner between the two men at Trump Tower in New York when the prime minister was at the UN in September. Trump was particularly interested in Labour’s election success in the “red wall”, perhaps seeing parallels with the US rust belt states.