Donald J. Trump is going to hold the highest office in all the land. Come January, he is going to be the one in charge of the free world. That fact scares a lot of people, myself included, because it scares other leaders of the free world. It also terrifies the markets, having someone so unpredictable in such a position of influence.

On the night of the election, if you had an eye on the markets you would have noticed a negative reaction. The Dow dropped about 900 points leading up to Trump’s victory. For those that don’t know, the Dow is a price weighted average of roughly 30 huge stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. It is a projection for the overall state of the market. For the Dow to drop that significantly in so little time should be a cause  for concern. By the end of the next day, the markets were able to stabilize, proving the projections wrong, but it is very concerning to both firms and investors. In a way, the markets mirror the volatility of the president-elect. We do not know what to expect from him, and the rapid gains and losses reflect this.

Of course, American markets were not the only ones affected by a Trump victory. The Peso dropped 10% in value and the Euro markets had a slight decline. In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei dropped 5.4% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 2.2% (The Nikkei and the Hang Seng are like the Dow for their respective countries). Most of the countries affected were able to rebound but were still slightly in the red by the end of Nov. 9. Ironically, markets in Russia grew roughly 1.5% with the news, as Vladimir Putin also made statements voicing his pleasure with the results.

Putin isn’t the only one to comment on the results of the election, though he was one of the few world leaders with something positive to say. The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he would be willing to cooperate with the new President, as did President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, but whether he is going to pay for a wall or not is still up in the air. Europe’s responses have been a bit more concerning. Angela Merkel, prime minister of Germany, said she has no problem with Trump in office as long as he upholds  “democracy, freedom, respect for the rule of law and dignity of men, regardless of origin, skin colour, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.” This statement acts almost as a warning, saying that Trump had better do these things or there may be problems. Francois Hollande, president of France, agreed with Merkel’s stance. Prime Minister Theresa May of the UK seems hesitant to work with Trump, and we already know that British parliament hates our president-elect. These are some of our biggest allies, and they now hesitate to work with us because of the man we are putting into office.

The world hasn’t been in its best state for over a decade. We need allies on this deranged planet we’re all stuck on. President Trump is going to burn more bridges than he can make. He is an unpredictable man with no clear plan and his unpredictability scares the markets. Now some may say that we are Americans and we don’t need anybody else, but we are human first. The last thing we want is the world to be against us. We also do not want our president making a very large unpredicted blunder that could harm not only our economy, but the economy of the rest of the world.

Of course this is the worst case scenario. He could use the business know-how he allegedly has and fix the economy without breaking treaties. He could clean up our streets by deporting illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds. Whatever he does, good or bad, this is where we stand as a nation. I know most of you reading did not have a say in this, but this is the hand we were dealt and we are going to have to make the best of it. As long as we are unified, as long as we stand as one, we are going to make it through this.