The presidential elections saw Republican Donald Trump being elected as the 45th President of the United States of America. The elections were not just covered by the US media but also by news outlets across the globe.
Here is how the media in different countries covered the US presidential elections:
China
The Chinese media has paid close attention to the criticism that Trump has been subjected to over the past few months as the most "reckless president", as pointed out by news aggregator QQ News.
Democrat Hillary Clinton was also criticised, especially by Xinhua news agency, which published an article arguing that the former first lady's campaign was more popular and leading because of the support and cooperation of the US media. The arguments put across by the agency were based on the Wikileaks documents.
Besides focusing on the weaknesses and controversies surrounding both Trump and Clinton, the Chinese media was especially interested in their views or stand on trade highlighting how the US could lose around five million jobs if Trump were to start a trade war with China.
The Global Times also published an editorial saying that most of China supported Clinton but several favoured Trump because Clinton disagreed with them on several human rights issues.
The Chinese media also highlighted the stand of political analysts that Clinton would win this time. However, Xinhua did say that the elections were "like [a] soap opera" and that "no matter who wins the general election," the US would anyway emerge as a loser.
Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first persons to call Trump and congratulate him on the win and has always been a strong supporter of the businessman.
A Russian politician had recently said that if Clinton was elected the president of the US, there could be a nuclear war between the two countries, while US policymakers believe that Russia was behind the DNC emails that were hacked.
Nevertheless, Russian media has favoured Trump and praised his abilities as a businessman.
Izvestia expressed dissatisfaction with Clinton and said that the US "purposefully bombs [and] wants to destroy many of the residents of Syria" while Gazeta, a daily newspaper, said that Clinton used "the anti-Russian card more often."
However, Trump was also criticised. For example, a newspaper in Moscow Komsomolets criticised the way the second presidential debate played out and said: "Never before have the American people seen such debates, when one candidate (Trump) threatened to put the opponent in jail." Itbalso pointed out that the candidates were busy "talking about the negative qualities of their [opponents'] failures and not presenting their vision for the development of the economy."
France
The French right-wing media is surprised how the US got overtaken by "xenophobia and protectionism" while the left-wing media is shocked as to how Trump was able to get the support of the "angry White men" of the country.
The newspaper Aujourd'hui En France had its doubts about the great "American Dream" still existing while Le Figaro, another newspaper, saw this election as a fight between two completely opposite sides of the US.
The Arab countries
The media in the Arab countries, like the United Arab Emirates and Egypt among others, had favoured Clinton as the next president of the US.
The media mostly reported the stand taken by the two candidates on the Gulf region and their views on Muslims besides having reported on the various controversies surrounding both Trump and Clinton. Clearly, Trump's remarks on "banning Muslims" in America did not go down well with the media in the region.
The media favoured Clinton's comments that Muslims were a part of America while Trump's rant against Muslims and immigrants did not go down well with them. In fact, Egyptian daily Al-Ahram wrote that "the Republican candidate's hatred of Islam is a shame." Al-Dustour, another daily, wrote that Trump was the "worst candidate [for] the presidency in the history of the United States."
Qatar's Al-Jazeera wrote that it was "a sad scenario" in the US with Trump being the Republican presidential candidate and that the US elections represented "the ineffectiveness of Western democracy."
The Arab media also supported Clinton's foreign policy of demarcating safe areas and probing Russia's war crimes in Syria.
Iran
Iranian media has very much paid attention to the US elections and also broadcast the debate live for the first time on television. They aired the debate on October 9 where Trump denied allegations of sexual assault and threatened to put Clinton behind bars if elected president.
However, both Trump and Hillary were projected as "manipulative, corrupt, and dishonest, engaging in unethical behaviour in both their personal and political lives."
Newspapers also published cartoons of both candidates shown accusing each other. Trump's video in which he bragged about groping and kissing women was front-page news in nearly 20 newspapers. "Is This the End of the Populist?" a headline in Jahan-e Eqtesad said.
Iranian media favoured Clinton since she would have continued the nuclear deal between the two countries and also supported Iran's fight for democracy.
Meanwhile, Trump was projected as a buffoon with caricatures highlighting his orange skin and hair published in several newspapers. Fars news agency superimposed the businessman's face on the Statue of Liberty and replaced the torched with an assault rifle in one of the cartoons.
Mexico
Trump had called Mexican immigrants rapists and robbers at the start of his campaign. He had also vowed to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it if he was elected president.
The elected president's promise to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement and impose tariffs on Mexican products have created chaos in business circles.
The Mexican media has mostly mocked Trump while the citizens have burned his effigies. The citizens criticised their own president for standing on the same platform as Trump at the presidential palace in August this year.
"I've never felt so third world as when I saw the gringos in crisis because things could happen there that already happened here," Esteban Illades, editor of the Mexican magazine Nexos, said in a tweet.
Israel
Israel has had a very important relationship with the US and, therefore, the Israeli media followed the elections closely.
For the Israeli media, the main question was whether Clinton would be more friendly than Barack Obama. However, free mass distribution paper Israel Hayom seemed to have had its sympathies for Trump more than the rest of the media in the country. But, Clinton is considered more in Israel's favour than Obama.
Trump has previously said that he "would be great for Israel" and has also spoken about his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner. But, the Israeli media is more focused on his comments about remaining neutral on the Israel-Palestine issue. Trump has not been favoured by several Israelis despite his statements supporting the country.
Trump's views on foreign policy are viewed as contradictory when compared to Clinton's experience of Israel. The 45th president's remarks that several members of the Republican Jewish Coalition wouldn't support him because he was rich was just a reinforcement of Jewish stereotypes, according to Israeli media.
His comments on immigration and Mexicans also did not go down well with the country's media outlets.
The liberal daily Haaretz asked in a headline: "Donald Trump an anti-Semite? Israel's Top GOP Supporter Insists Otherwise".
