Stormy times: Trump victory, coalition collapse in Berlin

Article by Carsten Klude

Contrary to the pre-election polls, the Republicans under Trump have clearly won the US elections. Not only will the next president be a Republican, the party also gained four seats in the Senate and now has a majority of 53 to 47 senators. Trump's electoral success is rounded off by a majority in the House of Representatives, where the Republicans also won a majority of 218 seats. 

On the same day that Trump was confirmed as the new US president, the traffic light coalition in Germany collapsed. This will hopefully spare Germany a political vacuum that would have threatened until September 2025. Chancellor Scholz intends to call a vote of confidence in the Bundestag on December 16. Even if it is very likely that Scholz will lose the vote of confidence, there is a certain “residual risk” that there are MPs who have no interest in a premature dissolution of parliament. They could vote for Scholz and thus prevent a premature dissolution of the Bundestag. Should such an admittedly unlikely scenario occur, political chaos would be inevitable. 

In the current issue of “Economic Situation and Strategy”, we look at the expected economic impact of these events.