Where is America's foreign policy heading next? ​| The Global Story

What will Donald Trump's foreign policy look like now that he's lost control of Congress? It's been about a week since the Democrats' sweeping victories in the U.S. midterm elections, and one big question on our mind has been, What does this all mean for the rest of the world? On a whistle-stop tour of Iran, Israel, Russia, and China, we look at the global reactions to the election results And we also try to answer some of your questions. and the possible consequences. So stick with us. From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. And welcome to The Global Story on YouTube. I'm Edward Luce. The Financial Times is U.S. national editor, which basically means I'm a columnist here based in Washington, D.C., an editorial writer. Well, Edward, we have had a week now to digest these midterm results, which saw a huge swing towards the Democratic Party. How would you characterize the response around the world? And I realize that is a very big question because perhaps there's maybe some divergence of opinion. But if you could, could you briefly give us a sense of what the response has been from world leaders? I think, broadly speaking, people were as surprised around the world by the scale of the democratic wave, it being a so-called tsunami as opposed to a wave, as Americans were. Yeah. And therefore, amongst America's allies, chiefly other democracies, there was a lot of relief. I think it was probably a very good night for Mark Carney in Canada and probably an equally bad night for Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Mm-hmm. And as regards the sort of the other great powers, so to speak, China and Russia. Well, that's harder to read. We're going to see a... You know, a summit in a couple of weeks, less than a couple of weeks in Shenzhen, in China, the APEC trade summit, see how Putin and Xi Jinping interact with Donald Trump then. Well, Edward, I want to ask you about how we are seeing the President of the United States himself a week on digest these results. I know that you spoke with him on the phone. I believe it was just in the hours before the midterm results were announced. What did he say to you then? And how do you assess he is now thinking about what actually transpired? Well, I was a little bit surprised that, you know, he picked up. the call because he hadn't been taking calls for weeks from myself or other journalists for that matter and that all changed on Tuesday before the polls had closed. He took a number of calls including from me and I was pushing him on this speculation that had been building for weeks that immediately after the midterms he would strike Iran. Yes. And that this had been something that That, um, um Netanyahu, amongst others, had been pushing for. And that was certainly the rumblings, Edward, here in Washington. I felt like there was so much chatter about the idea that the Iran war could restart in a sort of more intense way, perhaps even on Election Day itself. There was some chatter about that. There was. And there was more than chatter. There was sort of, I think, corroborated reporting that this was something that Trump and he had come very close a few weeks before to striking and then and then back down. And he was... I pressed him for several minutes on this question, and he was completely uninterested in the topic and made it very clear that there were no imminent plans to strike Iran and kept stressing that, well, there's oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz, our blockade's working, we've got talks going via the Qataris, and let's see what happens. But of course, if we have to strike, I'm locked and loaded. So the impression I came away with was, was this was not about to happen, which I guess it wasn't, because it hasn't. But also, you know, when I talked to him on other issues, notably the elections, he sounded lower energy than I've ever heard him. He just sounded almost fatalistic. So I think he knew what was coming, even if, as others have reported, there were people around him saying, no, no, the polls are wrong. This is going to be a big surprise on the upside. I think he just me reading between the lines. I think he knew what was coming. Well, on the Iran war. You know, despite the reporting here in Washington that the president might consider escalating the war after the midterms, we've seen the president now in the subsequent days come out himself. There was an interview he gave that aired on CBS's 60 Minutes just on Sunday, in which he seemed to acknowledge that voters did not like the Iran war. They didn't like the war. They didn't like. The fact that gasoline went up. Is it your sense that the midterm results have now changed his view of the war? And is there now a priority to extract the United States from the war as quickly as possible? I think so. I mean, it's interesting to look at what the vice president, J.D. Vance, said the next day, posted on X. Thanks. Laying the blame for the midterms fairly and squarely on the Iran war. He had three other points, but Iran was clearly foremost. Almost. And then Trump's comments to CBS that you mentioned. He's looking for an off-ramp. And the Iranians could arguably provide some kind of face-saving way for him to take that off-ramp. So the focus is really about who has the upper hand in Tehran. Is it the hardliners who want to sort of really press their advantage? Or is it the pragmatists around the Iranian president, Pezeshkian, who would like to see an easing or a lifting of the American blockade? I suspect Trump would be very receptive to a face-saving exit if Tehran provided it. It would be some kind of way that enabled Trump to say that we didn't lose. This wasn't a strategic defeat. Even if in substance, that's what it would amount to be. Because loser, as you know, is the dirtiest word in Trump's vocabulary. But it's not clear that that's the mood in Iran. Well, I want to bring you a question from one of our listeners, Luke in France. He sent us a voice memo. My question is the following. Can the Democrats? Given that they now have the majority at the Congress, block President Trump's funding of the war in Iran. Edward, how do you respond to that? So they can, they don't have to wait till January. They could sort of attempt to link the continuation of spending, because it runs out in December, approval of that to defunding of the Iran war or some language equivalent and see whether enough Republicans join them. I mean, I don't think it would be easy, but the debt ceiling... which has to be lifted sometime in 2027. They could bring that forward and say we'll do you a deal. President Trump to actually lift that now if you've got enough Republicans voting with us in exchange for ending the Iran war. There's going to be all kinds of attempts like that. Of course, if Trump doesn't agree, he can veto anything that the Congress passes. Yes, it is. But I expect if by January nothing has happened on that and this war is still technically going in one form or another, There will be more concerted Democratic majority attempts to defund it. Thank you very much. He can always veto such measures. When Democrats take control of Congress, they're not only going to be focused on the issues of funding the Iran war, but also on trying to hold people accountable. And I would say at the top of their list, I think, is the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. There have been suggestions that the Secretary of Defense is at risk of being impeached by Democrats. In fact, just the other day, we saw Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to become the next speaker of the House, expected to be the top Democrat there in the House of Representatives. We saw him just the other day tell ABC News that he's a hard yes on the idea of impeaching Hegseth. I'm a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security. And engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe. Pete Hegseth has got to go. Is it your sense that we might see some movement at all around the Secretary of Defense? Pete Hegseth should be noted is not popular with many Republicans, particularly in the Senate. So if you're looking at 56 Democratic Senate seats, All you need is 11 Republicans to convict, to get to 67 votes, which is the two-thirds needed to override the President's majority. And I don't think that's inconceivable by any means, because Hegseth has not been briefing. People on this war and on other matters for that matter. He's really been ignoring what is his constitutional role to keep the chairs of the relevant committees briefed. And those chairs have been Republican. So there's a lot of disaffection up there about him. Now, in 2006, which was the last sort of big... A big defeat at an equivalent stage of a second term presidency when Bush lost. The next day he fired Donald Rumsfeld and that signaled this defense secretary at the time, the unpopular one, and that signaled that he was going to move, at least in some sense, towards a more bipartisan sort of conventional presidency. Let's see. Trump could do that, but the fact that he's appointed Stephen Miller. The most hardline member of his administration as chief of staff, I think, indicates that he's looking more at doubling down. And then just on top of that, you know, Hegseth responded last week to J.D. Vance's identification of Iran as being to blame for the midterm defeat. Mm-hmm. Responded with a sort of. I guess a sort of chest-beating series of statements about how it was full steam ahead, which suggests there's a fissure, there's a division there within the Trump administration. Another major foreign policy issue this election season was the United States' relationship with Israel. In fact, we got... A comment from one of our listeners, Megan, a U.S. expat in Australia, who got in touch to ask whether the war in Gaza is likely to have played a role in motivating voters to choose the Democrats. Now, we don't know why voters may have chosen a particular candidate, but I will say in that online social media post you referred to earlier from Vice President J.D. Vance, he also did mention Israel as a potentially motivating factor. We saw a number of Democrats this campaign season. Be really vocal in their criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza, and some of them campaigned on reducing or conditioning U.S. assistance to Israel. Do you think that these elections will mark some sort of turning point in the U.S.'s relationship with Israel? Is there any sort of bipartisan momentum on that front? I think that there is, I mean, it's more from the Democrats than the Republicans, but, you know, Trump last week before the polls closed, in fact, suggested that the annual $3.8 billion U.S. military aid assistance to Israel would end at the end of this year. Now, this has been the stance of Democrats, of many Democrats, that that aid package should end. Some go further and say that the United States should stop selling arms to Israel if it's not in compliance with international law in terms of war crimes, etc. But for Trump to suggest he'd pull the plug on the A package, that was new. And then that's his inclusion of support for Israel being a reason. The Republicans were so drubbed in the midterms that that suggests, you know, that there is a more rapid swing going on here. I think there's no doubt about it that if you look at the Democratic presidential primaries, that any candidate who has taken money from APAC, which is the big pro-Israel advocacy group in Washington, D.C., is going to. at the very minimum find themselves explaining that away and if you're explaining you are losing as they say in politics. But that's a minimum position. I suspect even taking APAC money It's funny. would be fatal to any nominee's chances. The mood shift in the Democratic Party, not mood, the actual substantive Policy shift on Israel has been quite dramatic. If we can look at this issue of U.S. support for Israel from the Israeli perspective for a moment, you know, as of this recording on Monday, November 9th, it is not entirely clear what Prime Minister Netanyahu's future will be. Our BBC colleague Lucy Williamson had some reporting on And how Israelis are fearful that. The U.S. election results in these midterms suggest that they can no longer rely on bipartisan U.S. support. Do you think that they are correct in that assessment? I do, yeah. I mean, if the phrase is no longer rely, that doesn't mean to say it won't be forthcoming at various points. But I suspect a government headed by Eisenkot, the alternative government leader, than one led by Netanyahu is likelier. to be able to get U.S. assistance or at least democratic support. Here in Washington, D.C., the one led by Netanyahu, who has gone out of his way over the years to identify with Republicans, so he has made it very partisan. But whatever government, should Eisenkot be asked to form the next government, with outside support from Israeli Arab parties, I'm sorry about that. That's not going to be a particularly stable or necessarily long-lasting government. I think we're probably going to get that sort of period where there are a lot of elections in a short period of time in Israel, and that will add to the confusion. But there's no doubt about it, the weather has changed. In terms of Israeli-U.S. relations, and I think that... It's forever changed, do you think, Edward? Or this is some sort of aberration in American politics? No, it's not an aberration. I think this is a big shift. You know, I wouldn't, you know, never say never. The word permanent is overused. But this shift isn't sort of a sudden sort of... thing in the last few weeks. This has been building for years. Let's move on to another sphere of the world that has occupied a lot of President Trump's I attention over these last two years, and that is the war in Ukraine. don't How might Vladimir Putin be reading these results? I think Putin, for Putin, he always has been treating this winter as his window window of opportunity to really go for Ukraine's jugular. know. And these results, probably reinforce that. I mean, I think it was going to happen anyway, but the sense that the window is closing of having a US president who is very sympathetic to the Russian side of this is going to be reinforced by the sweep. It should be noted, it's not just Democrats who are pro-Ukraine, it's most Republicans. And Trump actually reduced sanctions, announced he was going to be importing diesel, transferred billions of dollars to Russia to fund its war machine. That caused... Enormous disaffection amongst Republicans on Capitol Hill, amongst Republican senators, you know, from Ted Cruz to Tom Tillis to Mitch McConnell. There's enormous, enormously upset by that. And so I've no doubt there will be a new Ukrainian bill to reduce sanctions on Russia as opposed to increase sanctions on Russia. The big question is... Will it include new funding? Exactly. That is my question, Edward. I mean, if you're Volodymyr Zelensky, how are you reading these results? Because as you say, funding, yes, there might be Democrats and Republicans in Congress who in theory support Ukraine, but they have to reckon with the issue of affordability, the cost of living that was so high on many voters' minds this midterm season. I think that's yet to be determined. I mean, of course you could... You could make the point, if you are politically determined and you're the Democrats and working Republicans, that spending on weapons, interceptors, Patriot missile batteries, whatever they might be for Ukraine, creates American jobs here in America. And Vladimir Zelensky made it clear, I believe he said in the last couple of days, he now sees an opening for that. I want to bring in another perspective from one of our listeners. This comes from Catherine in Germany. Who is curious about how these midterms might shift the United States' relationship with Europe broadly. Catherine writes, I would be interested in the reaction of Europe's populist right and what the results mean for these parties. For example, like the AFD, which did well in recent local elections in Germany. If you are one of those populist leaders in Europe preparing for the possibility of entering government, say someone like Marine Le Pen in France. How are these midterm election results at all changing your calculation? I'm not sure they changed the calculation much at all. All politics is local. Thank you very much, Michael. I think, you know, if you look at the biggest upcoming election, which is the presidential one in France, Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement, the far-right party in France, is doing well for French reasons. And if you look at her stance on the Iran war, she's been very critical. I mean, they are they're also very French, you know, quite anti-American in some respects party. And so, you know, attacking Trump's war is not inconsistent with being on the far right in France. So I don't I don't necessarily think it's going to affect elections there. Yeah, and the alternative for Deutschland. It's also, as you say, that's been surging in the polls and doing very well in regional, in land elections in Germany. How many? These are driven by local reasons, one of which, of course, is some latent unpopularity for supporting Ukraine, because Germany is spending, now beginning to really spend a lot of money on Ukraine. It's really been cranking up its own defence budget increase as well. I don't think Trump's party losing control of the first branch of government necessarily has much of an effect on that. You mentioned at the outset here, Edward, this upcoming summit where Xi Jinping is expecting attendance, as well as Vladimir Putin of Russia. We have yet to talk in this conversation much about how these midterm election results may be being interpreted in China. But if you are Xi Jinping, And you're going to that expected trilateral summit. Are you coming in there with a sort of, I don't know, bounce in your step level of confidence compared to sort of the questions that might be surrounded Trump's support at home in this moment? So I imagine there's slightly complex feelings there amongst people like Xi Jinping, because Trump has in many ways been really good for China. You know, he picked a trade war, China reciprocated, and Trump blinked first. He did climb down on the tariffs on China, but in exchange for China releasing its stranglehold on rare earths and some critical minerals, magnets and stuff. So, So Xi Jinping showed that he had a bigger bazooka than Trump. And, you know, he's watched Trump. In Chinese eyes squander American power with the war on Iran, the Operation Epic Fury. So in a sense, you know, it's been Christmas every day for China. Trump's second term began. Now he's seeing that window closed. There's Trump's, you know. Version of America first is being repudiated by by the American electorate. How long that repudiation lasts, you know, is a whole nother subject. Jack. But he's clearly on the way out. The way I put it last week was this is the beginning of Trump's end. Hmm. Uh. And therefore, that window to exploit what the Chinese see is really sort of haphazard. Quite self-defeating American foreign policy might be closing. So we could be entering a period of significant danger. Because as the window closes, the opportunity to exploit, you know, whatever they see as exploitable about Trump is also closing. And so I think there's going to be a lot more attention paid on Taiwan. I mentioned, you know, Putin on Ukraine. And don't forget North Korea, which has become increasingly sort of self-confident and its missile tests and its nuclear tonnage and range, etc. There are a lot of what Americans would see as bad actors. Um, who've been having a lot of fun recently and might be anticipating that the punch bowl is about to be taken away. Well, as we look to the next several months, um, history has shown us that in the final two years of, uh, a U S presidency, particularly after a midterm defeat, American presidents tend to turn their sights on what they can do abroad. Trump's second term. has already been dominated extensively by a lot of foreign adventure, some would say, right? Do you get the sense that we are likely to see more of a focus on the rest of the world? And if so, where might that be directed? I think he likes the idea that he's a dealmaker. And he keeps repeating this highly questionable claim that he's ended eight wars. Thank He wants to be the person who ends the Russia-Ukraine war. And I think that's going to be, it's ongoing, a big goal of Trump's. you Yes. Yes. He wants the Nobel Prize. Yes. Yes. You can never sort of... very Yes. Yes. I think too much downplay Trump's unpredictability. Yes. He's nothing if not good at dominating people's attention, much. and you dominate attention by surprising people. We know that this administration has insisted that their priority is the Western Hemisphere. One place we haven't talked about is Cuba, but I'm curious, Edward, what you... What I think there's, you know, right now we've got a tightened economic sanctions on Cuba. It's been deprived of the subsidized oil that kept its economy afloat, that it was getting from Venezuela, from Maduro, and also to some extent from Mexico. Trump forced Mexico to shut that off. So there's a lot of immiseration. going on in Cuba. I don't expect a sort of boots on the ground operation. But I do think that, you know, Marco Rubio, whilst he remains Secretary of State and National Security at the same time, you know, is going to keep looking for ways to try and bring about at least regime pivot or regime tweak, as we saw in Venezuela, if not regime change. Thank you very much. Because his political ambitions, as well as his identity as the son of Cuban immigrants, is very deeply bound up in Western hemispheric change. And he is and was very much the key person in pushing Trump for the Venezuela action. Thank you very much. The only thing that gives me pause is that, in spite of all that, I think that the scale of the defeat in the midterms... is going to lead Rubio to want to leave the administration sooner than later than he otherwise might have been thinking of leaving. Because this, you know, nailing your mask to the sinking ship of the Trump administration is not, nailing yourself to the mast is not a good way, you know, of preparing a 2028 presidential bid. He's going to want maximum distance. between him and his administration, knowing all along that J.D. Vance can't do that. Yeah, if you have future political ambitions, I suppose that complicates what you might want to do here as Secretary of State in these final two years. Well, Edward, thank you so much for joining us on The Global Story. Really appreciate all your analysis. It's a great pleasure. Thank you for having me. That's it for The Global Story on YouTube today. Thanks, as always, for spending some time with us. And I apologize that we were not able to get to everybody's questions, but thank you so much for writing in, and we really do read your emails. A reminder that if you have any questions or story ideas for us, you can write us anytime. Our email address is theglobalstory at bbc.com.