The election of Donald Trump caused a certain degree of unease in Nicosia, especially after the government’s unrelenting talking up of President Nikos Christodoulides’ ‘official’ meeting with the outgoing president Joe Biden in the White House, a week earlier. It would have been wiser for the government to have exercised a little restraint in the way it marketed the meeting to the public. It might have given some thought to the possibility of a Trump victory, which would inevitably have undermined its narrative.

For the government, the problem was not so much how the new US administration would view the meeting – it was too inconsequential for anyone in the Trump camp to have even noticed it took place, especially six days before a presidential election – but how it would be perceived by Cyprus public opinion. Many would question Christodoulides’ judgment in visiting an outgoing president when there was a strong possibility he would be replaced by his bitter rival. Even the praise that, according to the government, Biden heaped on Cyprus “for the role it is playing in the region,” was thrown into question by the election result.

This was perhaps the reason Christodoulides felt obliged to tell a CyBC interviewer that he had a meeting in Nicosia, which was not made public, with a “close associate of Mr Trump, with whom we discussed the possibility of the election of Mr Trump and how we would develop our relations.” He added: “Therefore we had obviously moved before the elections so as to secure certain things and I am pleased with the discussion I had and what emerged through this discussion.”

The revelation about the “close associate of Mr Trump” was reported by the CyBC and the relevant clip shown before the broadcasting of the full interview. It was used as an answer to the president’s critics who had argued that he had been politically naive in associating himself so publicly with the Democrats just a few days before the elections. The claim that the close associate was here to discuss with Christodoulides how the cooperation between the two countries would continue after the elections has to be taken with a big pinch of salt.

There are questions about much bigger issues than US relations with Cyprus raised by Trump’s election win and if Christodoulides was not so obsessed with public opinion, he would have recognised this and said so, instead of claiming he had sorted out Cyprus’ relations with a so-called “close associate of Mr Trump”. Would it have hurt the president to have said that nobody was in a position to say whether Donald Trump’s election would have any effect on Cyprus-US relations, which are currently on a very healthy footing, and that he hoped there would be no change?

He could also have said that there are much more important concerns for the world raised by Trump’s election. Would he give the green light to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (or even urge him) to wage war on Iran so it can, in his words, “finish the job”? Does our president have no qualms about the possibly devastating consequences of the expansion of the war in the Middle East in our region? 

In Brussels, meanwhile, there are major concerns about Trump’s stance on the war in Ukraine. If he decides to abandon Ukraine and allows Russian President Vladimir Putin to emerge victorious, this would pose an existential threat to Europe. For Brussels, Ukraine’s security is part of Europe’s security, and if Ukraine falls, Moldova and the Baltic states could be next. There are also fears that he might pull the United States out of Nato, which he was very critical of during his first term – he does not share its core principle of mutual defence – complaining that the US was in effect funding Europe’s defence.

Trump does not see Europe as an ally in the way that all other US administrations have done and this could create great difficulties in relations with the continent, something Brussels is deeply aware of, and probably preparing for. Apart from the vital issue of security, the new president could also pursue protectionism, which he believes would safeguard jobs in the US and create new ones. He has been threatening to impose across the board tariffs on all American imports of up to 20 per cent, a move that is of such concern it was raised by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen at the informal meeting of EU leaders in Budapest. Then there is Trump’s openly hostile approach to the fight against climate change, which could cause an additional rift with the supporters of clean energy in the EU.

In short, there are much bigger issues and concerns raised by the victory of Donald Trump whose decisions in his second term could bring about drastic changes, to the world as we know it, particularly in Europe. Whether his election would affect US-Cyprus relations and the strategic dialogue should be the least of our worries.