European newspapers sought Wednesday to explain what Donald Trump's return to the White House means for Europe, with many warning Trump's second term in office will be an even greater challenge than his first.
From Britain to Poland, editorialists agreed his victory was "seismic" and "historic", with others focusing on the reluctance of Americans to elect a woman president.
The Financial Times said "Trump has a mandate to overhaul the US in unimaginably disruptive ways. There will be no going back from the seismic outcome of America's 2024 election."
The newspaper's US national editor and columnist Edward Luce wrote that "to elect him once may have been an accident; to do so twice came with eyes wide open. Trump is legitimately the next president of the United States."
Corriere della Sera was among many papers warning that Europe was ill-prepared to confront Trump's aggressive isolationism.
Federico Fubini, a commentator for the centrist Milan paper wrote that "Donald Trump's triumph comes at the European Union's moment of greatest weakness. Two-and-a-half years of warfare on its border have not been enough for the continent's governments to assemble a credible embryo of common defence. As for economic growth, we are barely above zero."
"It's against this background that Trump returns to the White House with his promises of tariffs and an even greater reluctance to guarantee the security of the continent," he said.
Germany's Der Spiegel warned that "massive changes in American foreign and security policy are to be expected, which are likely to have negative repercussions, especially for Europeans."
"Trump sees the world as a jungle in which only the law of the strongest applies. Allies are only interesting to him, if they are at all, if they fully submit to American interests," it said.
Poland's centrist newspaper Rzeczpospolita wrote that "Europe is completely unprepared for Trump. There is no leader in Europe at the moment who is able to take the lead of the Western community.'
"France and Germany are going through a serious political crisis. Europe must do its homework on Western leadership very quickly, before someone like Viktor Orban or Vladimir Putin himself seizes it," it wrote.
'Risky gamble'
France's centre-left afternoon newspaper Le Monde was among many media outlets expressing surprise at Trump's ability to overcome hurdles.
It described Trump's win as "a comeback driven by his political instinct and his desire for revenge", judging that "the Republican billionaire has succeeded at 78 in a historic return to business, despite his legal setbacks and his off-the-cuff proposals".
Swiss papers focused on Trump II likely being more radical than his first term in office.
"From now on, this conservative 'populism' will no longer be a test bench or a laboratory, but a presidency prepared and refined over a long period of time. With a much more powerful potential for exercising executive power," wrote Geneva's French language newspaper La Tribune.
German-language newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung said "the Americans took a risky gamble" and that "the future 47th president is unpredictable. The checks and balances provided for in the American Constitution certainly also apply to Mr. Trump. But it is possible that the Republican will not care and cause chaos in Washington and on the international stage."
Spanish newspapers mentioned that Harris' loss was the second for a female candidate after Hillary Clinton in 2016.
"Will the day not come when a woman in the United States can occupy the White House and be as outstanding, normal or horrible as the men who have occupied that residence? It seems not. The ceiling must be made of steel, not glass. What a bitter deja vu," the conservative El Mundo daily regretted in an opinion piece.
The left-leaning El Pais daily said Trump's victory was a victory of "an aggressive, masculinised, uninhibited way of interacting with others, where coarse insults or hurtful monikers replace arguments and reasons".
'Dreadful campaign'
But British conservative papers zeroed in on what they said were Harris' shortcomings as a candidate.
Camilla Tominey, writing in The Telegraph, said "Harris ran the most dreadful campaign in modern presidential history".
"Between giggling fits and comedy skits, her offer to the American people was completely lacking in substance -- amounting to little more than an 'anyone but Trump' overture."
In The Times, columnist Daniel Finkelstein said the Democrats had failed to counter the "time for a change" sentiment among voters.
"They couldn't run a 'country is on the right track' campaign. So they tried the tack of 'better the devil you know' and it looks like this has proven weaker than the change message."