The next two years of Trump will be turbulent. The UK must hold its nerve
5 min read
America's voters have passed judgment on Donald Trump's second term.
Democrats have swept Congress, flipping seats deep in Trump country, including even a senator and the governor in Texas. The president insists he wasn't on the ballot. His record was.
The next two years in Washington will see trench warfare. Congressional committees will investigate Administration conduct and allies such as Elon Musk. Trump himself is safe: the Democrats don’t have the 67 Senate votes for a successful impeachment. His cabinet is not. Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy Jr and Howard Lutnick are all in Democrat crosshairs. The Senate will stall his nominees for cabinet posts, embassies and the courts. Shutdowns are likely. Having voted for change with Trump in 2024, and now for change against him, the electorate will see stalemate.
Both parties are already reading the result for 2028. Democrats must decide whether they can win from the left: did voters endorse their agenda or simply reject Trump? Republicans face the harder task: keeping the loyalty of the MAGA base while putting distance between themselves and its architect.
The president will not mind as much as his opponents hope. He wants to protect his family and business interests. And he wants monuments with his name on them, such as the 250-foot triumphal arch planned across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial.
The midterms matter more for politics than for policy. Even with majorities in both chambers, Trump legislated little beyond the deficit-swelling One Big Beautiful Bill. He has governed by executive action, and will continue to do so on immigration, trade, economic, defence and foreign policy.
Trump is deliberately unpredictable. America’s interests are not.
Much of his “America First” agenda will outlast him. Any future president will put the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific ahead of Europe and the Middle East: facing a peer superpower in China, even America cannot be everything, everywhere, all at once. Having campaigned against foreign wars, Trump’s misadventure in Iran – the fourth Gulf war – will make future administrations of either party warier still of big military interventions. And of Israel. Arguably, the biggest loser from this election was Netanyahu.
And while its implementation will be less dramatic, the fundamentals of the Trump economic model will prevail too: protectionism, light-touch regulation (including of AI), energy sovereignty, state intervention and ownership, big deficits and the inflation they bring.
Some things will auto-correct. Trump’s “51st state” jibes at Canada and Greenland will not survive his presidency. Nor will his attitude to Russia: no successor will see Putin as a partner for peace. Ditto China, where Trump is the most conciliatory figure in the American system. Expect that relationship to become more contentious, although neither Washington nor Beijing wants it to descend into confrontation.
The conventional wisdom is that lame-duck second-term presidents turn abroad for a legacy. Clinton pursued an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Bush surged US forces to stabilise Iraq. Obama sealed the Iran nuclear deal and reopened relations with Cuba.
Trump covets a Nobel Peace Prize. He fears becoming Jimmy Carter, the president undone by Iran. He needs to end the Iran war on terms he can claim as success: Hormuz reopened and a nuclear deal, albeit likely weaker than the Obama agreement he tore up. Expect the cycle of bombings and talks to continue. The Iranian regime will believe they can outlast him and punish America elsewhere.
Might Trump try for a grand bargain with Putin and Xi, three leaders carving up spheres of influence over the heads of everyone else? Xi would be wary of this, as China quietly extends its reach via trade and tech throughout the non-aligned Global South. But Putin would welcome it. Kyiv and its European backers should prepare for that.
Cuba could still be on the agenda before Iran is settled. The US has squeezed the island hard since the successful Venezuela operation, and regime change is a personal cause for Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. Despite his denials, Washington is alive with speculation that he will leave the Administration within months to prepare a 2028 run. If so, he might want Cuba chalked off first.
What should allies like the UK do?
First, hold their nerve through the inevitable turbulence of the next two years. Trump is deliberately unpredictable. America’s interests are not.
Second, reach beyond the Oval Office to the rest of the American system: the new congressional majorities, the committees that control budgets and arms sales, governors, business and the 2028 contenders.
Third and most important, become collectively more self-reliant. That applies to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Canada’s Mark Carney wants middle powers to act in solidarity, because "if we're not at the table, we're on the menu." He’s right. But he left out three words: “as American allies”. Allies should be steadfast even – perhaps especially – when they disagree.
Trump is not America. America’s allies would do well to keep that in mind as the Trump era draws to a close.
Lord Sedwill is a crossbench peer and former UK national security adviser
