How will the populist pushback in recent elections impact nicotine alternatives?

Last November, the feeling was that the election of US president Donald Trump represented a major indicator of the general shift to the right in global politics and that it would provide the impetus to inspire further far-right victories elsewhere in the world – a potential positive for nicotine alternatives, given Trump’s claim he would be the man who would save flavoured vaping.

The results did not quite pan out that way. In both Australia and Canada, centre-left parties won re-election despite trailing in polls earlier in the year. In both cases, rather than inspiring movements similar to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) one in their respective countries, Trump’s win has been directly attributed to a backlash against the far right that bled over to lead to victories for the central-left status quo. This led to mixed but mostly negative results for future strictness of regulation for nicotine alternatives.