International Geneva is nervous over Trump win

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Staff working at so-called International Geneva, the 30-plus international organisations, United Nations agencies and 250 NGOs based in the western Swiss city, seem to be uneasy about Donald Trump as president.  

“They are worried and very nervous,” said Daniel Warner, Assistant Director for International Relations at DCAF, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. 

For International Geneva his election would be a catastrophe, said Warner. 

“He’s an American first person, he doesn’t like Nato or the United Nations and he’s against the Trans-Pacific Partnership…He would cut budgets for certain things like foreign aid and the state department would be in trouble, no question about that.” 

A Geneva election party-goer working for a UN climate agency in the city, who preferred to remain anonymous, agreed: “We are afraid that our programmes would be cut as he’s a climate change sceptic.” 

Beyond the budgets for UN programmes, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, said the world would be in danger if Trump becomes president. 

He cited Trump’s views on vulnerable communities including minorities and his talk of authorising torture in interrogations, banned under international law. 

“If Donald Trump is elected on the basis of what he has said already – and unless that changes – I think it is without any doubt that he would be dangerous from an international point of view,” Zeid told a news briefing in Geneva in October. 

Trump has said he would immediately re-authorise the waterboarding of suspected militants if elected, contending that “torture works”.