Quick-to-anger US President Donald Trump may have suffered a humiliating defeat, but he’s still got two years before he leaves the White House – and anything could happen in that time
Donald Trump was humiliated by voters this week – but still has two more years to cause chaos(Image: Getty Images)
If Donald Trump was volatile and unpredictable before, we might need to buckle up for the next two years.
Such was the humiliation he suffered in the US midterms that the White House’s official X account even had to remind Americans that he is still President. Now a lame duck leader having lost Republican control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, who knows what he might do next.
Even his closest UK pal, Nigel Farage, is worried. Mr Farage, who campaigned to get the quick-to-anger tycoon back into power in 2024, now fears the 80-year-old could ramp up his war in Iran.
Mr Farage previously argued Keir Starmer should have the UK join when the war was it launched, but now armed with the benefit of hindsight, says: “I suppose I worry that the president will continue aggressively attacking Iran.”
The world is anxiously waiting for the wounded Trump’s next move. Former ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, summed up the precariousness we find ourselves in.
He wrote: “No one knows which way he will jump – least of all perhaps Trump himself.”
And it’s no less clear what will happen next in Ukraine. Mr Darroch said he expects Trump to keep pushing for a peace settlement that would force Volodymyr Zelensky to give up the Donbas region and agree to never join NATO.
The Ukrainian president won’t agree to this, so unless Putin bends, the deadlock is unlikely to end.
So, how should Andy Burnham handle the badly-wounded President? Be careful about appearing to distance from Trump, Mr Darroch said.
“Power is already draining away from him: the vultures are circling. But this is not a man who will settle for just raging at the dying of the light; he will light bonfires to ward it off,” he said.
Ben Judah, a former advisor to ex-Foreign Secretary David Lammy, told an Institute for Government podcast on Friday: “If you look at history, I’d be a little bit concerned about how Trump will behave as a lame duck.
“So lame-duck presidents tend to flee into foreign policy. They tend to flee into foreign policy unconstrained by their old concerns about domestic politics.”
He said it will be difficult for Mr Burnham if Trump decides to ease sanctions on Russia to drive down oil prices – largely caused by the war in Iran.
“Trump has shown time and time again he believes the way to do that is by putting pressure on Zelenskyy and not putting pressure on Putin.”
Mr Burnham himself told the Economist the result of the midterms could be a harbinger for Britain and other countries. He said: “The pendulum has swung away from populism in other parts of the world.”
But until he leaves the White House in January 2029 no world leader will be able to take too much comfort in the results.
Looking forward, Mr Burnham said: “ President Trump has accepted the results, and I feel the world has an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that’s the cost of living.
“That has been the issue that I have put front and centre in my first three months in Downing Street, and we’ve made moves.
“But I can’t get people’s cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved. The conflict in Ukraine started by Russia.
“These are the things we have to focus on now, and I hope the world has a moment to do that.”
Will a period of reflection follow the results? And how will the so-called Special Relationship play out in the next two years?
One senior backbencher predicted little change, beyond the Government taking President Trump less seriously.
They said: “There won’t be any impact from the midterms directly, and it won’t have any major impact on UK-US relationship. I think what you might see is two things happening simultaneously: Donald Trump’s rhetoric going higher and higher, but ironically, his power draining away and people just not listening to him.
“If you look at his last diplomatic forays and you strip out the rhetoric, you can already see the power draining away. You go right back to Denmark: he tried to bully Europe on Greenland and failed. He’s tried to bully Ukraine and Europe on Ukraine and failed. He launched a conflict in Iran and failed. He tried to pressure China with tariffs and failed.
“I think the diplomatic relationship will be in some ways easier to deal with because you can kind of go, ‘Ah, it’s just rhetoric, it’s just nonsense.’”
