World media reaction to businessman Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidential election has varied from region to region.
Latin American writers were disappointed by what they saw as the “racist” content of his address whilst Middle East journalists said they saw nothing new.
Mexican daily El Universal found “the only surprise” was that the speech did not contain the same amount of “barbarities” as before.
“Xenophobia, racism and egocentrism” formed the key points of the speech, according to Venezuelan-based news channel TeleSur which noted that Mr Trump blamed immigrants for the economic crisis whilst ignoring the millions of dollars spent on “unjustified military invasions”.
“Demagogic, populist and racist” was Brazilian news portal Ultimo Segundo‘s view of the speech and it quoted a pundit who suggested that Mr Trump’s rhetoric was effective because of the “incessant search by the Republican electorate for a common enemy”.
‘Lavish promises’
In the Middle East, pan-Arab Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera TV channels highlighted Mr Trump’s pledges on security and terrorism but said he gave no detail of future policy.
An Al-Jazeera TV reporter said “Trump lavished Americans with promises but, as usual, he forgot to tell them how he would achieve them”.
Al-Arabiya TV said Mr Trump vowed to defeat the so-called Islamic State but added that he continued to blame his rival, Hillary Clinton, for its rise. Al-Arabiya’s correspondent complained she heard “nothing new” in his remarks and no alternatives to current policy.
In China, national state TV also focused on Mr Trump’s speech with Shanghai’sDragon TV correspondent saying the two key points were “security” and “prosperity”, with a mention of China “three times”.
But Chinese government mouthpiece People’s Daily accused Mr Trump of making “groundless accusations against China on currency manipulations and the theft of US intellectual property.”
Independent financial news website Caixin, however, noted that Mr Trump’s motto of “Americanism” has struck a chord with online readers. It said he plans “to put US interests first, with the US creed of ‘Americanism’ instead of ‘Globalism'”.
‘Apocalyptic’ vision
Some European papers were disturbed by Mr Trump’s “apocalyptic message on America’s decline” as German broadsheet Die Welt put it.
While acknowledging that Mr Trump “delivered an effective and well-calculated speech” – which it described as his “most coherent” for a long time – the daily said that he painted “a bleak picture of America”.
“‘Crime, violence, poverty’ was his negative message”, it added.
Munich-based daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung agreed, saying that Mr Trump used the right-wing media’s image of the USA being “a post-apocalyptic wasteland”. His main message was that “America is ruined and he is the solution”, the paper said.
German-language news website Spiegel Online said the acceptance speech showed a different man. “No repulsive macho, no shameless narcissist”, it noted, but added that his subject matter remained unchanged.
SPIEGEL ONLINE..Germany’s Spiegel Online dubbed Trump’s speech ‘Festival of lies’
“Lies, paranoid visions, abstruse promises, uncomplicated appeals to white America. The USA destroyed, threatened from within (crime) and outside (terrorism)… Everything is still there, just packaged differently,” it observed.
French newspaper Le Monde pointed out that Mr Trump had departed from the party line over the LGBTQ community, which he now promised to protect, despite the GOP’s plan to revisit the issue of gay marriage.
However in Russia, Mr Trump’s departure from party policy apparently went unnoticed as state-owned Rossiya 1 TV reported that “no political sensation took place” and Gazprom-owned NTV noted that “there was no mention of Russia” in his acceptance speech.
But a correspondent for Russian state-run news channel, Rossiya 24, said: “No matter how the election campaign pans out, it is the main speech of his life.”
