International media reacts to Trump's false claim of victory as presidential election wait goes on

As the world waits for a definitive result of the 2020 US presidential election, Donald Trump has already claimed victory – albeit it prematurely.

Trump threatened to take legal action and go to the Supreme Court to stop the rest of the votes being counted, although failed to back up his claims that he had won.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, he said: “This is a fraud on the American public. Frankly, we did win the election.”

Here’s how the world’s media reacted to Trump’s false claims of winning the presidential election.

Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald accused Trump of jumping the gun by saying he has already won.

The paper added that the president’s claims were false and that votes were still being counted.

The New Zealand Herald nicknames the US the “divided states of America” as it explains that Trump has threatened to go to the Supreme Court about so-called election fraud.

The paper explains the impact the election result will have on New Zealand’s political leadership.

Meanwhile, German newspaper Bild had a striking front page that read: “Trump: 'We've won the election.' 'The US election now depends on these 3 states’.”

Quoting Trump’s claim to victory, the paper estimates that just three US states control the election’s outcome.

CNN’s website said that the election result is down to just a few states, and that Trump has called for a halt in vote counting, calling it a “brazen swipe at democracy”.

As votes continue to be counted, CNN said the contest between Biden and Trump was narrowing.

The front page of the Danish newspaper Politiken read: “Trump mistakenly claims he's won and is being cheated”.

The paper states that US democracy is being “pressure tested like never before”.

Here in the UK, Metro had a frontpage splash arguing that Trump had wrongly claimed the election win.

It explained that the president had threatened to go to the Supreme Court to confirm his alleged win.

The BBC’s frontpage headline said the US election was going to the wire as Trump incorrectly stated he had already won the election.

It added that Trump has outperformed predictions but that it remains to be seen whether he has outperformed them enough to walk away with the presidency.