The midterm elections curb Donald Trump’s domestic power. But that does not automatically mean a weaker US president. On the contrary: if Congress restricts what he can do at home, Trump is likely to show his power even more in the areas where presidents traditionally have greater freedom to act, in foreign, trade and security policy. For Europe, the most difficult two years of his second term may only be beginning now. The midterms are first and foremost a domestic reckoning.

Even while votes are still being counted, a clear swing towards the Democrats is emerging in both chambers of Congress. For Trump this is more than just a defeat for his party. This election was a referendum on his second term, on rising living costs, the consequences of his trade policy and, not least, on the Iran war. But anyone who concludes from this that Trump will now be politically paralysed could be mistaken. His weakening at home may actually increase his willingness to take risks in foreign policy.

From Congress to the world stageA Congress controlled by the Democrats can block legislation, influence budget funds, set up investigative committees and bombard the administration with subpoenas. A Democratic Senate can also hit Trump’s personnel policy where it hurts. The period of largely unhindered Republican control of government is over. And this is precisely where Europe’s problem lies. The US system of checks and balances limits a president’s room for manoeuvre more in domestic policy than in large parts of foreign policy.

If Trump keeps running into walls at home, the political incentive grows for him to shift to the stage where he can still demonstrate dominance. That would also fit his narcissistic leadership style. Trump does not readily accept constraints as a normal part of institutional power sharing.

Defeats are personalised, responsibility is pushed onto others, strength must be displayed. Foreign policy offers the ideal stage for that: presidents have considerable room to act, international crises generate maximum attention and real or perceived successes can be attributed to their own will to lead. This does not mean that Trump will automatically start a new war. But Europe must assume that this president will compensate for weakened power at home by exercising his power abroad all the more visibly.

The tariff weapon hits Europe firstThis is true above all in economic policy. Trump does not primarily see tariffs as an economic instrument but as a tool of political pressure. Europe has already felt this. After the trade arrangement with the EU, a tariff cap of 15% applies to most European exports to the United States, while substantial special burdens, for example on steel and aluminium, remain in place. Audi is particularly instructive here. At one point Trump raised the burden on European cars and trucks to 25% and openly linked his policy to the demand that companies should produce in the United States to avoid tariffs.

Audi eventually announced investments of around $4 billion for a US plant. Shortly before the midterms Gernot Döllner even appeared with Trump at a campaign rally in Georgia. This makes Trump’s geo-economic strategy clear: it is not free trade that decides where companies locate but politically induced cost pressure. German and European companies are supposed to shift capital and jobs to the United States. After an election defeat Trump might be tempted to double down right here, because he can sell toughness in trade policy as proof of his ability to act.

Ukraine and NATO as leverageThe geopolitical dimension is even more serious. Europe should not count on a weakened Trump automatically becoming more willing to compromise.

Washington has particular means in relation to Ukraine to impose conditions on European allies without needing a major domestic legislative process every time. The same applies to NATO. Trump has repeatedly questioned US support for the alliance in public. His course on Greenland also shows how far his transactional view of foreign policy goes. Even at the NATO summit last summer he once again demanded US control over Greenland, in other words over territory belonging to NATO ally Denmark.

This is not a side issue. It illustrates a fundamental difference in how the alliance is understood. Ideally, Europe sees NATO as a community of values and security. Trump thinks of alliances as deals: who pays what, who gets what and what advantage the United States gains from it. Iran: The most dangerous way forwardThe risk is even greater with Iran. Trump wanted to contain the war, but more than six months after it began there was still no lasting settlement. Iran also demonstrated how vulnerable the global economy is at the Strait of Hormuz.

This creates a dangerous constellation. A president weakened at home might want to stage foreign policy strength more aggressively. It would be speculative to claim that Trump will escalate the conflict for that reason. But the political incentive for him to show toughness does not necessarily diminish just because his party loses the midterms. And Europe would also be paying the price: through higher energy costs, additional refugee movements, new military commitments and further weakening of international non-proliferation regimes.

Trump against the EU, not just against EuropeThere is also an ideological dimension that is often underestimated in Germany. Trump is not only bothered by what he sees as Europe’s insufficient defence spending.

His political circle is also highly sceptical of Europe’s supranational integration. Europe must therefore assume that Washington will increasingly cultivate bilateral relations with governments and parties that want to push back powers held by Brussels.A divided EU is easier to handle for a transactional US power strategy than a united economic area with 450 million inhabitants. The risk is therefore not just that Washington will support Europe less. The greater challenge would be a United States that actively exploits European disunity to serve its own interests.US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio already offered a foretaste of a possible divide et impera course at the Munich Security Conference, even if in very different tones.

Vance or Rubio: the battle for the legacy beginsThe midterms already open the race for the 2028 US presidential election. Two names stand out in the Republican Party: Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Vance embodies more clearly the ideological continuation of the MAGA project: nationalist, critical of migration, sceptical about the traditional transatlantic order.

Rubio, by contrast, could present himself as the more experienced and institutional Republican in foreign policy.A clear election defeat makes this confrontation particularly interesting. The battle for interpretive dominance has begun. Did MAGA lose because Republicans did not follow Trump consistently enough? In that case Vance would benefit more. Or did they lose because Trump scared off centrist voters? Then Rubio would have room to move.

For now, however, Trump himself remains decisive. He is likely to keep both men in the running, because competition secures their loyalty.

That fits his proven approach to personnel management: not building up a successor early but keeping several aspirants dependent on his favour. Is the United States now shifting to the left? It would also be premature to read a simple shift to the left into the Democrats’ result. The rise of New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani and the numerous victories of progressive Democrats in the congressional elections do show that younger voters in particular can be mobilised for a more social democratic agenda.

Candidates he backed have already won Democratic primaries against representatives of the party establishment. But Mamdani’s significance does not lie so much in the idea that all of America is now becoming democratic socialist. More interesting is why his messages work: housing costs, healthcare and the everyday financial strain facing many Americans. He responds to material insecurity not with identity politics but by making it a question of distribution. This could become a strategic conflict for the Democrats.

One part of the party will infer from the midterm success that it should pursue a more progressive economic policy, while others will point out that majorities in swing states are often won by moderate candidates. Even before the election, a power struggle between the party leadership and newly strengthened progressives was already emerging. Europe’s most dangerous mistakeFrom a European perspective, the biggest mistake now would be to react with relief to Trump’s domestic defeat. Checks and balances do not work equally strongly everywhere.

The more firmly Congress controls Trump at home, the more he is likely to use those instruments of power that he still commands himself. These include tariffs, sanctions, military threats, diplomatic pressure and the political conditioning of US security guarantees. Europe may therefore not get a weaker Trump, but a Trump who turns even more strongly to world politics. For Germany and the EU this leads to an uncomfortable conclusion.

They must not base their strategic preparations on simply sitting Trump out politically. Europe needs to become more resilient economically against US tariff pressure, more autonomous militarily within NATO and more united politically against attempts to divide it. Dr Josef Braml is a US expert, author and European Director of the think tank Trilateral Commission. He has 20 years’ experience in applied research and advising leading think tanks worldwide, including the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP), the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), the Aspen Institut, the Brookings Institution, the World Bank and as a legislative adviser in the US House of Representatives. His book "Die narzisstische Nation. Amerika, Europa und die Psychologie der Macht" (The narcissistic nation: America, Europe and the psychology of power) has just been published.