LONDON – World leaders who have clashed with “America first” President Donald Trump reacted with cautious relief Wednesday after Republicans suffered a decisive defeat in the U.S. midterm elections. The result allowed some to imagine that Washington might adopt a less confrontational foreign policy.
Still, that optimism was tempered by the expectation that the vote would not necessarily bring an end to the U.S. conflict with Iran or alter Trump’s positions on tariffs, Ukraine or America’s often lukewarm backing for its European allies.
Progressive politicians presented the outcome as part of a broader liberal revival, following recent setbacks for right-wing populists in Hungary, Brazil and Serbia.
Spain’s social democratic Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X that American voters had spoken “Against hate. Against machismo. Against climate denialism and against the privileges of the elites.”
“It happened in Brazil. It just happened in the US. And it will happen soon in Spain,” Sánchez added. He faces an election on Nov. 29.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said a majority of Americans had delivered a clear message: “they have had enough of MAGA and now want a different course. Enough of polarization.”
European leaders are hopeful but wary
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he hoped the results would sharpen the focus in Washington and other capitals on ending the Iran war, which has driven up fuel prices and intensified pressure on household budgets.
“The world has an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that’s the cost of living,” Burnham said while visiting the Commonwealth summit in Antigua. “But I can’t get people’s cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved.”
He also pointed to “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.”
Other European officials, however, warned against expecting an immediate shift in U.S. foreign policy. Trump will remain in power for two more years, they noted, while his administration has pushed defense, economic and diplomatic alliances toward the breaking point. The president has criticized European leaders over issues ranging from immigration to wind farms, disrupted their economies with tariffs, threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO and voiced a desire to take control of Greenland, the semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said that “independently of the election outcome, our security and prosperity in Austria and Europe must not depend on how people in Kansas or Iowa vote. That’s why we are strengthening our own defense capability and our own competitiveness.”
Laurel Rapp, director of the U.S. and North America program at the Chatham House think tank, said there would not be “a ‘we’re back’ moment in the U.S. relationship with Europe.”
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“I don’t expect this will significantly change the administration’s approach to Europe,” she said. “It’s been a very transactional one, one that has deep skepticism about the value Europe can offer the U.S. In terms of a defense relationship.”
Russia hopes Trump will stick to his current approach
The Trump administration has also sought to pressure Ukraine into ending the war Russia began with its full-scale invasion in 2022. Kyiv has accused Washington of delaying deliveries of vital interceptor missiles and said a temporary disruption to Starlink and Starshield satellite internet services weakened its ability to defend against Russian attacks.
Last month, even while directing insults at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump waived sanctions against Russia despite Congress overwhelmingly approving the measures in legislation intended to support Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia hoped Trump “will continue his peacemaking efforts” regardless of the election result.
A prominent German lawmaker urged Republicans to view the outcome partly as a voter verdict on Trump’s “wrong foreign policy.”
Jürgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesperson for the parliamentary group of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right bloc, told ARD television that he hoped Trump would “exercise more reason” in international affairs.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whom Trump has targeted with baseless allegations that his government discriminates against the country’s white minority, said Democratic control of both houses of Congress would “introduce a new era in world relations.”
Rapp, however, said Congress would find it easier to curb Trump on domestic matters than on foreign policy.
“On a lot of the foreign policy tools in his tool kit, Trump retains a lot of latitude to use them at his will,” she said. “Democrats have said they’re going to hold votes on the Iran war, but meaningfully being able to constrain him on some of these unilateral pieces is going to be tough.”
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Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin, Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Poland, and Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed to this report.
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