Donald Trump’s election as the 45th president of the United States or America presents some serious challenges and enduing uncertainties for the humanitarian sector in general, and refugees in particular.

If Trump actually does some of what he said he would during the most bitter and dirty election campaign in US history, the consequences for the world’s most vulnerable people could be dire with the creation of millions more refugees and the dissipation of any concerted global effort to find solutions to the current refugee crisis.

To recap: Trump has said he will build a wall on the border with Mexico while the US has accepted tens of thousands of largely child-age asylum seekers from Central America – most fleeing violence and gang related strife in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

If America physically closes its border with Mexico, countries such as Costa Rica and Mexico will be forced to accommodate more of these refugees despite a dire lack of capacity to do so.

Trump said he will prevent Muslims from entering America. Under the Obama administration, the US agreed to accepted 10,000 refugees a year from Syria – victims of a conflict which has driven much of the current global refugee crisis; the worst in history.

Since most of the people fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq are Muslims themselves, denying them any of 40,000-or-so resettlement places the US provides each year will put many more in vulnerable and near destitute circumstances.

Trump has indicated he may withdraw strategically from North Asia, Eastern Europe and the Baltic. This will encourage Russia and China to expand their influence in parts of the world that are already vulnerable to destabilisation.

When you consider what Russia’s meddling in Syria and the Ukraine has led to, it’s not hard to see situations where millions more refugees could be created by civil conflict ignited by proxy foreign powers.

But perhaps most concerning is the effect of a leadership vacuum that would come with America’s withdrawal from its international role in promoting human rights and the rule of law.

The US has been an exemplar in resettling refugees and advocating for human rights in other countries. It has wielded considerable persuasive ability through economic sanctions that have paid dividends in places like the former Yugoslavia, Argentina and Iran.

And the US has spent more than $5.6 billion assisting those fleeing the civil war in Syria, which began in 2011 as an uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The United Nations has urged the US to expand its refugee program. Countries with significantly smaller populations, such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, have taken millions.

Germany, Italy and Greece have also taken in more than a million people displaced by the Syrian conflict.

But Trump used the potential threat of terrorists entering the US under the guise of refugees to galvanise support against this.

So, the consequences of an insular Trump presidency for millions of people who are on the margins of, or at odds with, repressive regimes around the world do not bear contemplation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has hinted at this. In a briefing paper earlier this year, it spoke of “a gap at the global governance level”.

What is happening across the western world is the rejection of internationalism, and Trump’s rise is a symptom of this.

In western nations there seems to be a return to nationalism, borders and xenophobia and rejection of the liberal globalist consensus that has held sway since the end of WWII. We’ve already seen Brexit, the rise of Greece’s Syriza Party and France’s Front Nationale.

Introduce a populist nationalist like Trump and what you get is this week’s US election result.

Domestically, Trump’s victory will also be problematic for human rights, diversity and equity.

Commentators are already predicting a rise in racist incidents. People will be told to “go back to where you came from” because a racist white minority within the Trump camp will feel vindicated to do so.

But the truth is that neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton offer real solutions to the disaffected lower and middle class voters in the US who are feeling the economic pinch of globalisation and shifting global markets.

Neither did they provide a comprehensive plan for dealing with refugees fleeing conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere – nor the conflict themselves.

The language from both camps leading up to the election demonstrated two very different outlooks on the issue.

Clinton indicated her willingness to increase the number of refugees that the US accepts, Trump was refusing to admit any and used that rhetoric to mobilise his supporters.

So, in Trump’s path to actually doing what he said he would is Congress. It is dominated by Republicans but many rejected Trump’s views and policies and many publicly supported the other side.

There is also the 1951 Refugee Convention of which the US was an architect and is a signatory.

But in light of the more moderate and conciliatory language in his acceptance speech, and considering his past as a huckster who has always believed the end justifies the means, now he is elected just maybe he won’t even try to deliver on his populist, dog whistle promises.

Laurie Nowell
AMES Australia Senior Journalist