道格·索斯尼克曾担任比尔·克林顿的顾问，他回忆起这位总统在白宫最后阶段日程安排之紧凑。“我们讨论日程，还能再安排多少次出访——你介不介意一天工作18个小时？”克林顿是个急不可耐的人。“我任内只剩一年了，”他感叹道，“我余生还有大把时间睡觉。”如今，同样的时钟也在为唐纳德·特朗普滴答作响。过去十年里，他是美国政坛的标志性主角。
DOUG SOSNIK, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, recalls the president’s frenetic agenda during his final stretch in the White House. “We talked about the schedule and how many more trips we could do—do you mind doing an 18-hour day?”Mr Clinton was a man in a hurry. “I’ve only got a year left in office,” he observed. “I’ve got the rest of my life to sleep.”The same clock now ticks for Donald Trump. He has been the defining protagonist of the past decade in American politics.
但在11月3日，他成为继2006年的乔治·W·布什之后，第二位在掌控国会两院的情况下迎战最后一次中期选举——并双双失利——的任期受限总统，这一结果令特朗普本人震惊。“哇，”得知共和党在南卡罗来纳州——这个曾经的“让美国再次伟大”铁票仓——失利后，他对《纽约时报》说，“这太不可思议了。”
But on November 3rd he became only the second term-limited president, after George W. Bush in 2006, to fight his final midterm election in control of both chambers of Congress and to lose both, shocking Mr Trump himself. “Wow,” he told the New York Times upon learning of his party’s loss in South Carolina, a former MAGA stronghold. “That’s amazing.”
在任期最后两年里，特朗普将在国内陷入困境，直面其政治生存期的终结。国会此前在共和党控制下被特朗普基本边缘化，现在将以听证会和传票淹没其政府，调查腐败和滥用职权指控（“找律师吧，”一名众议员在X平台建议道）。国会还将迫使他否决恢复医疗资金等受欢迎的政策。民主党也将设法阻止他在首都的面子工程：他的豪华舞厅和凯旋门。
In his final two years in office, Mr Trump will be embattled at home as he confronts his political mortality. Congress, which Mr Trump had rendered largely irrelevant while under Republican control, will swamp his administration with hearings and subpoenas on corruption and abuse of power. (“Lawyer up,” one congressman advised on X.) It will dare him to veto popular policies such as restoring health-care funding. Democrats will try to stop his vanity pursuits in the capital, too: his grand ballroom and his triumphal arch.
但他将继续拥有最大、最不受约束影响力的领域是在海外，他将转向那里寻找要消灭的“怪物”、要留下的政治遗产。特朗普的外交政策——从委内瑞拉到格陵兰再到伊朗——一直激进且极度活跃。现在它可能变得更甚。特朗普在伊朗和古巴留下的未了之事，可能把美国更深地拖入中东和拉丁美洲。他与弗拉基米尔·普京和习近平举行峰会、搞大国瓜分势力范围的调情，可能预示着一个更黑暗的世界秩序——以及乌克兰的困境。
But the area where he will continue to have the greatest, most unrestrained impact is overseas, where he will turn for monsters to slay and legacies to leave. Mr Trump’s foreign policy—from Venezuela to Greenland to Iran—has been radical and hyperactive. Now it could become more so. Mr Trump has unfinished business in Iran and Cuba that could drag America deeper into the Middle East and Latin America. His flirtation with great-power carve-ups, including summitry with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, could herald a darker world order—and difficulties for Ukraine.
他对朝鲜领导人金正恩的痴心妄想式追求，可能会颠覆美国的核政策。所有这一切都将在人工智能神技螺旋式迈向通用人工智能的过程中展开，这将抛出外交和国家安全挑战，由特朗普先生来应对。即便是一位拥有外交天赋、赫拉克勒斯般职业道德和正常注意力持续时间的总统，面对这一切也已令人担忧。特朗普先生不仅缺乏这些品质，在鸭子总统时期，他还很可能失去本可在危机中提供帮助的经验丰富的工作人员。未来两年，总统的海外冒险注定将混乱且难以预测，即便不一定毫无成果。
His quixotic courtship of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, could upturn American nuclear policy. All this will unfold as AI wizardry spirals towards artificial general intelligence, throwing up diplomatic and national-security challenges that will fall to Mr Trump to manage. All this would be concerning enough for the world under a president who had a gift for diplomacy, a Herculean work ethic and a normal attention span. Mr Trump not only will have to do without those qualities, but he will also probably lose experienced staff who could help in a crisis—another feature of lame-duck periods. The president’s adventures abroad over the next two years promise to be chaotic and unpredictable, if not necessarily fruitful.
随着任期结束临近，特朗普先生寻求在海外寻找慰藉并非独一无二。《经济学人》分析了追溯至哈里·杜鲁门时期的总统出访记录。记录显示，总统在第二任期最后两年通常在海外活动频繁得多（见图表）。布什先生2008年在海外度过了50天，是他此前年度平均值的两倍。在2006年中期选举失利后，他不顾国会的强烈反对，下令向伊拉克增派军事力量，试图挽救一场已严重偏离轨道的战争。
Mr Trump will not be unique in searching for solace abroad as the end comes into sight. The Economist has analysed presidential travel records going back to Harry Truman. They show that presidents are typically much more active overseas in the last two years of their second terms (see chart). Mr Bush spent 50 days abroad in 2008, twice his previous annual average. After losing the 2006 midterms, he ordered a surge of military forces in Iraq against bitter opposition in Congress in the hope of salvaging a war that had gone badly awry.
贝拉克·奥巴马在其第一任期最后两年和第二任期最后两年之间，将出访天数翻了一番。他在2014年中期选举惨败第二年，达成了全面的伊朗核协议。“总统任期末期会对各种约束感到沮丧，”美国企业研究所（一家智库）的尤瓦尔·莱文说，他曾在布什政府任职。“而外交政策是约束最少的领域。”
Barack Obama doubled his travel between the final two years of his first and second terms. His sweeping nuclear deal with Iran came the year after his own bruising in the 2014 midterms. “Presidents by the end of their term are frustrated with the various constraints on them,” says Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, who served in the Bush administration. “And foreign policy is where there are fewest constraints.”
开战而非谈情？特朗普先生就像一位在观众厌倦时更换节目的演出经纪人，倾向于采取让批评者困惑、且在其心中能展示其力量的外交政策手段。
Make war, not love? Mr Trump, like an impresario who changes the act when the audience grows weary, is drawn to foreign-policy manoeuvres that confound his critics and, in his mind, demonstrate his strength.
特朗普长期以来一直吹嘘自己的外交才干，曾著名地声称他将在一天内结束乌克兰战争——并在11月1日的中期选举集会上宣称，他本可以在一周内赢得越南战争。因此，特朗普在手头这场与伊朗的战争中明显未能取胜，令他颇为恼火。双方继续发生小规模冲突，美方于11月2日实施了其称为“防御性”的空袭。
Mr Trump has long boasted of his diplomatic prowess, famously claiming that he would end the Ukraine war in a day—and, at a midterms rally on November 1st, that he would have won the Vietnam war in a week. Mr Trump’s evident failure to win the war at hand, with Iran, therefore rankles with him. The two sides continue to skirmish, with America conducting what it described as “defensive” air strikes on November 2nd.
直到最近，特朗普仍倾向于在18个月内对伊朗发动第三次袭击（见地图），并与以色列配合，迫使伊朗完全重新开放霍尔木兹海峡并限制其核计划。这将招致伊朗对海湾能源设施的报复，未来几个月将消耗特朗普的精力。10月28日，民主党参议员克里斯·墨菲表示，他已接受关于美国作战计划的情报简报。“我只想说一点——他们的计划疯狂至极，”墨菲说，并指出公开报道已指向以民用基础设施为目标。
Until recently Mr Trump was leaning towards his third attack on Iran in 18 months (see map), in concert with Israel, to force it to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and limit its nuclear programme. That would trigger Iranian retaliation against Gulf energy facilities, consuming Mr Trump’s attention for months to come. On October 28th Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator, said that he had received an intelligence briefing on America’s war plans. “I will just say this—their plan is insane,” said Mr Murphy, noting that public reporting had pointed to the targeting of civilian infrastructure.
“这将导致毁灭性的升级，并极可能摧毁我们对法治的承诺。”（三天后，墨菲因中风住院。）一位知情人士透露，特朗普曾考虑是否袭击亚洲海域的伊朗油轮。近日其他消息人士称，特朗普已将这些计划搁置，告知以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡，美国不会支持以色列发动袭击。已做好袭击准备的以色列部队已暂停备战。
“It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.” (Three days later Mr Murphy went to hospital after suffering a stroke.) A person familiar with the planning says that Mr Trump was considering whether to strike Iranian oil tankers in Asia. In recent days other sources say that Mr Trump has put these plans on ice, telling Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, that America will not back an Israeli attack. Israeli forces, which were ready for a strike, have paused their preparations.
特朗普将面临来自多方的反对，反对对伊朗发动新袭击。其中之一是他的副总统——也是2028年总统大选的有力竞选人——J.D. 万斯，他在11月4日于X平台发帖，明确将中期选举的惨败归咎于战争，并称选民希望与以色列建立不同的关系。另一方是国会。
Mr Trump will face opposition to fresh strikes from multiple sources. One is J.D. Vance, his vice-president—and a probable candidate for president in 2028—who, in a post on X on November 4th, explicitly blamed the midterms drubbing on the war and said voters wanted a different relationship with Israel. Another is Congress.
蓝色浪潮之大、战争之令人厌恶——堪比越战——以至于民主党人可能会扣留拨款（并冒着被指责削弱前线部队的风险）。即使特朗普选择升级，美国也不大可能拥有足够的弹药、防空拦截弹，或政治意愿来支撑另一场旷日持久的战役。特朗普的目的推测是达成一项协议，让他能从这场混乱中脱身，并呈现出一种体面和平的假象。伊朗领导层察觉到特朗普的政治脆弱性，不大可能轻易屈服。
Such is the scale of the blue wave and so detested is the war—on a par with the Vietnam war—that Democrats might withhold funding (and risk being accused of undermining the troops in the field). Even if Mr Trump chooses to escalate, America is unlikely to have the munitions, air-defence interceptors or political stomach for another protracted campaign. Mr Trump’s aim is presumably to secure a deal that allows him to emerge from the fracas with the appearance of an honourable peace. Iran’s leadership, conscious of Mr Trump’s political frailty, is unlikely to fold easily.
如果伊朗是特朗普外交议程的第一场考验，乌克兰很可能是第二场。在这里，总统的报复心理构成了危险。特朗普一再指责乌克兰挑起战争，批评该国袭击俄罗斯炼油厂，并贬低其总统泽连斯基。目前，美国与乌克兰的情报共享以及通过欧洲进行的军售仍得以维持。当美国谈判代表在2025年11月拿出一份草率的28点和平计划时，特朗普的国务卿鲁比奥和欧洲盟友介入，删减了其中最糟糕的部分。在每一个关头，特朗普都从完全抛弃乌克兰、彻底倒向俄罗斯的悬崖边退了回来。
If Iran is the first test of Mr Trump’s diplomatic agenda, Ukraine is likely to be the second. Here the president’s vengeful instincts present dangers. Mr Trump has repeatedly blamed Ukraine for the war, criticised the country’s strikes on Russian oil refineries and belittled Volodymyr Zelensky, its president. So far American intelligence-sharing with Ukraine and arms sales via Europe have survived. When American negotiators unveiled a half-baked 28-point peace plan, in November 2025, Mr Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and European allies intervened to prune its worst parts. At each juncture, Mr Trump has stepped back from the breach of a complete abandonment of Ukraine and a definitive turn towards Russia.
如果特朗普得出结论——错误地认为——乌克兰袭击俄罗斯炼油厂是导致燃料价格冲击的主要原因，而该冲击帮助葬送了共和党在选举中的前景，他可能会再次将怒火指向泽连斯基。2020年，特朗普在认为中国误导了他关于新冠疫情传播的情况后曾大发雷霆。类似的背叛感可能转化为对泽连斯基个人以及整个乌克兰更激进的施压行动，旨在迫使乌克兰投降。
Mr Trump may direct his ire once again at Mr Zelensky, should he conclude—wrongly—that Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries were primarily responsible for the fuel-price shock that helped doom Republicans at the polls. In 2020 Mr Trump responded furiously after believing that China had misled him over the spread of covid-19. A similar sense of betrayal could translate into a more aggressive pressure campaign against Mr Zelensky personally and Ukraine as a whole, with the aim of forcing Ukraine’s capitulation.
特朗普中期选举后心态的早期一瞥，可能出现在11月18日至19日，届时他和普京将访问中国深圳，出席由习近平主办的一个国际峰会。
An early glimpse of Mr Trump’s post-midterms mood may come on November 18th-19th, when he and Mr Putin visit Shenzhen, China, for an international summit hosted by Mr Xi.
美国的欧洲盟友担心乌克兰将成为谈判筹码。近几个月来，特朗普接连向俄罗斯做出让步，达成协议购买柴油并豁免制裁，以换取一名美国囚犯获释，部分目的是引诱普京走上谈判桌。普京可能会得出结论，他再也不会遇到像特朗普这样顺从的伙伴。但这位俄罗斯领导人也认为时间站在他这边，且欧洲对乌克兰的支持将逐渐消退。
America’s European allies fret that Ukraine will be on the menu. In recent months, Mr Trump has made concession after concession to Russia, cutting a deal to buy diesel and waiving sanctions in return for the release of an American prisoner, in part to lure Mr Putin to the negotiating table. Mr Putin may conclude that he will never again enjoy as pliant a partner as Mr Trump. But the Russian leader also believes that time is on his side, and that European support for Ukraine will ebb away.
此外，国会民主党人预计将阻挠或阻止特朗普在乌克兰问题上向普京做出更多让步——尤其是任何带有腐败气息的交易。总统可能很快就会失去对乌克兰泥潭的兴趣（这并非首次），并将注意力转向自家半球另一个正在发展的热点：古巴。上任以来，特朗普在经济上施压古巴独裁政权，导致该岛出现停电、粮食短缺和医疗体系崩溃。
What is more, Democrats in Congress can be expected to hinder or block efforts by Mr Trump to give Mr Putin more ground on Ukraine—especially any deal that reeks of corruption. The president may quickly lose interest (not for the first time) in the quagmire of Ukraine and turn his attention to another developing hot spot in his own hemisphere: Cuba. Since taking office, Mr Trump has squeezed Cuba’s dictatorship economically, causing power cuts, food shortages and a collapse of health care on the island.
2026年1月，总统通过绑架委内瑞拉领导人马杜罗，实际上斩首了委内瑞拉政府。据信他倾向于在古巴采用类似的“轻触式”政权更迭模式。美国的经济战旨在削弱政权并分裂该国精英阶层，从而可能涌现出愿与美国合作的伙伴，正如委内瑞拉代理领导人罗德里格斯抛弃了马杜罗。特朗普对自己的目标讳莫如深。“我们在从伊朗回来的路上会顺道解决古巴，”他在去年10月的竞选集会上夸口道。
In January 2026 the president decapitated Venezuela’s government by abducting Nicolás Maduro, its leader. He is thought to be tempted by a similar model of light-touch regime change in Cuba. America’s economic warfare is intended both to weaken the regime and split the country’s elite, potentially throwing up partners who might work with America, much as Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting leader, abandoned Mr Maduro. Mr Trump has made little secret of his goal. “We’ll take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran,” he boasted on the campaign trail in October.
那个月，古巴裔鹰派人物鲁比奥敦促不满的古巴人与中央情报局合作：“致那些寻求在古巴创造积极变革的人——现在就是时机。”特朗普渴望成为一位实现前任未能完成之事的总统。他会乐于成为扭转1959年古巴共产主义胜利的领导人。但他不是一个注重细节的人。
That month Mr Rubio, a Cuban-American hawk, urged disaffected Cubans to work with the CIA: “To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba—now is the time.”Mr Trump longs to be a president who achieves what his predecessors did not. He would relish being the leader who reversed the Cuban communist victory of 1959. But he is not a man for details.
在委内瑞拉，他基本上让该国的独裁政权保持原状，更换其领导人并达成肮脏交易，以便为美国公司获取石油。一位了解政府内部辩论的人士指出，在古巴要实现类似的模糊妥协将难得多，因为古巴的侨民群体——比委内瑞拉的更年长、更成熟——会让人感受到他们的愤怒。
In Venezuela he has largely left the country’s dictatorship in place, swapping its leaders and cutting grubby deals to secure its oil for American firms. A fudge like that would be far harder to pull off in Cuba, notes a person with knowledge of the administration’s debates, because Cuba’s diaspora—which is older and more established than Venezuela’s—would make its wrath felt.
可以说，如果特朗普身边有经验丰富的幕僚，将有助于他在外交政策事务中取得成功。但一场人员外流可能正在发生。鲁比奥同时担任国家安全顾问，一直在低调考察私营部门的职位。（他可能放弃2028年总统大选，寄望于2032年出现更有利的条件。）鲁比奥的离职将改变政府内部的平衡，可能使中央情报局局长约翰·拉特克利夫成为内阁中最具影响力的鹰派人物。
It would arguably help Mr Trump’s chances of success in his foreign-policy endeavours if he had experienced staffers around him. But an exodus may be under way. Mr Rubio, who also serves as national security adviser, has quietly been exploring jobs in the private sector. (He may skip the 2028 presidential race, hoping for more favourable conditions in 2032.) Mr Rubio’s departure would shift the balance of the administration, potentially leaving John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, as the most influential hawk in the cabinet.
总统可能还会失去他在五角大楼最宠爱的人。许多民主党人想弹劾好斗且具分裂性的战争部长皮特·海格塞斯。众议院预计将由民主党人哈基姆·杰弗里斯担任议长，他并未排除这一可能。
The president may also lose his favourite man at the Pentagon. Many Democrats want to impeach Pete Hegseth, the pugnacious and divisive secretary of war. Hakeem Jeffries, the likely Democratic Speaker of the House, has not ruled it out.
民主党人可能以要求海格塞斯下台为条件，来通过一项包含670亿美元战争部拨款的876亿美元补充拨款法案，因为战争部正面临严重的财政窟窿。总统在遭遇选举重创后，往往会寻找替罪羊。布什在2006年中期选举失利后解雇了国防部长唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德；特朗普在2018年其党在众议院选举失利后解雇了时任司法部长杰夫·塞申斯。
Democrats may demand Mr Hegseth’s ousting as the price of passing an $87.6bn supplemental bill including $67bn for the Department of War, which is in a deep financial hole. Presidents often seek scapegoats after an electoral pummelling. Mr Bush dumped Donald Rumsfeld, his defence secretary, after his midterm loss in 2006; Mr Trump sacked Jeff Sessions, his then attorney-general, after his party’s defeat in the House in 2018.
然而，特朗普更有可能以挑衅而非悔恨来回应。有猜测称，海格塞斯可能被调任国家安全顾问，或者被任命填补马莎·布莱克本于1月留下的田纳西州参议员空缺，布莱克本已当选该州州长。
Yet Mr Trump is more likely to respond with defiance than with contrition. There is speculation that Mr Hegseth could be shunted into the job of national security adviser or possibly appointed to the Senate seat for Tennessee that is to be vacated in January by Marsha Blackburn, who has been elected the state’s governor.
有人指出，在那里，他将在一定程度上免受民主党调查的干扰——包括针对其下令对据信运载毒品的船只实施致命打击的调查。即使黑格塞斯能留任，特朗普的顾问圈子也已经开始变得稀薄。国家安全委员会已基本被清空，导致决策变得临时拼凑且随意草率。专家被大量解雇，导致会议和谈判准备不足。政策可能因个人或小团体的心血来潮而摇摆，正如SpaceX创始人、特朗普前顾问埃隆·马斯克在10月的一场争执中，其公司似乎切断了对乌克兰至关重要的卫星通讯所显示的那样。
There, some note, he would enjoy a degree of protection from Democratic probes—including those into his deadly strikes on boats thought to be carrying drugs. Even if Mr Hegseth survives, Mr Trump’s coterie of advisers has already begun to thin out. The national security council has been largely gutted, resulting in ad hoc and haphazard decision-making. Experts have been fired en masse, resulting in poor preparation for meetings and negotiations. Policy can swing on the whim of individuals or small groups, as Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and a former adviser to Mr Trump, showed when his firm appeared to cut off vital satellite communications to Ukraine during a row in October.
特朗普的一些特使，无论官方还是非官方，都将外交与追求利润丰厚的商业交易混为一谈。特朗普也将越来越难以获得参议院对新任内阁部长和其他任命者的批准，导致官员长期以代理身份任职。总统幕僚长苏西·怀尔斯曾被广泛视为白宫的稳定力量，在任职时间超过特朗普首任期内任何一位顾问后离职。由怀尔斯的副手、现将接替其职位的斯蒂芬·米勒推行的极端民族主义议程，已被证明是选举累赘。
Some of Mr Trump’s envoys, both official and unofficial, blend diplomacy with the pursuit of lucrative business deals. Mr Trump will also find it ever harder to gain the Senate’s assent for new cabinet secretaries and other appointees, leaving officials in acting roles for long stretches. Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, who was widely viewed as a stabilising force in the White House, has departed after serving for longer than any of Mr Trump’s first-term consiglieri. The ultra-nationalist agenda pushed by Stephen Miller, Ms Wiles’s deputy who will now take her place, has proved to be an electoral liability.
索斯尼克观察道：“政府后期人员素质往往下降：‘你看到队伍在稀释，进来的人……通常比他们取代的人低一两个档次。’”给和平一个机会？ 这使得日益孤立、四面楚歌的特朗普正在寻找巩固其政治遗产的途径，而他只知道一种方式：完全临时拼凑。跛脚鸭总统在任期最后时刻环游世界寻找持久政绩并不罕见。
The quality of staff tends to fall during an administration, observes Mr Sosnik: “You see a thinning of the herd, with the people coming in…generally a peg or two below the people that they replace.”Give peace a chance? That leaves an increasingly isolated, embattled Mr Trump looking for ways to shore up his legacy in the only way he knows: entirely ad hoc. It is not unusual for lame-duck presidents to roam the globe in search of lasting achievements in their final days.
但历史表明，这并非易事。伍德罗·威尔逊在1919年巴黎和会上待了六个月，随后回国向美国公众推销国际联盟——参议院否决条约，这项努力惨遭失败。德怀特·艾森豪威尔与苏联的超级大国峰会，因一架U-2侦察机被击落而破裂。1968年，林登·约翰逊决定不再寻求连任后，试图达成越南战争的和解，但未能如愿。克林顿在任期最后一年曾接近访问平壤，并试图在以色列与巴勒斯坦解放组织之间达成持久和平协议，但未能成功。
But history shows it is hard going. Woodrow Wilson spent six months at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and returned to sell the League of Nations to the American public—an effort that failed spectacularly when the Senate spurned the treaty. Dwight Eisenhower’s superpower summit with the Soviet Union fell apart after a U2 spy plane was shot down. In 1968, after he decided not to seek re-election, Lyndon Johnson tried to secure a settlement of the Vietnam war, to no avail. In his last year in office Mr Clinton came close to visiting Pyongyang and tried, but failed, to forge a lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
也有人取得了更好的成绩。理查德·尼克松和罗纳德·里根在任期最后几年签署了重大军控协议（约翰逊也曾如此）。奥巴马与古巴恢复了外交关系，并艰苦谈判达成了伊朗核协议（该协议被特朗普搁置）。特朗普本人在其第一个任期的最后阶段，开展了一场外交政策攻势，三次会晤金正恩，与塔利班达成和平协议，并斡旋了亚伯拉罕协议，使以色列与多个海湾阿拉伯国家和北非国家恢复了关系。
Some have fared better. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan signed major arms-control agreements in their final years (as did Johnson). Mr Obama normalised ties with Cuba and painstakingly negotiated the Iran nuclear deal (scuttled by Mr Trump). And Mr Trump himself, in the last part of his first term, went on a foreign-policy blitz, meeting Mr Kim three times,g a peace deal with the Taliban and brokering the Abraham accords which normalised relations between Israel and several Gulf Arab and north African states.A lame-duck Mr Trump does not seem well-positioned to strike lasting, historic deals.
一名跛脚鸭的特朗普似乎不太有条件达成持久的、历史性的协议。但他会尝试。他希望再次会晤金正恩，从第一个任期结束的地方继续谈判。他热衷于在深圳峰会上与普京和习近平举行三方会晤。这表面上也是为了讨论核军控（中国在其核武库规模未与美国和俄罗斯达到平衡之前，无意提及此话题）。他最终可能再次尝试斡旋乌克兰和平。
But he will try. He wants to meet Mr Kim yet again to pick up where he left off in his first term. He is keen on a three-way meeting with Mr Putin and Mr Xi at the summit in Shenzhen. That is ostensibly also to discuss nuclear arms control (a topic China has no interest in broaching while its arsenal is below parity with America and Russia). Eventually he may again try to broker a peace in Ukraine.
实质性外交的前景似乎黯淡。风险在于，特朗普可能同意达成草率的协议，这些协议如同创可贴，让他能声称自己配得上和平奖。
The prospects for substantive diplomacy seem bleak. The risk is that Mr Trump agrees to shoddy deals that serve as sticking plasters, allowing him to claim he is worthy of a peace prize. (Mr Vance too may encourage such pacts to promote his own peacemaking bona fides to future voters.)
（万斯先生也可能鼓励此类协议，以便向未来的选民展示自己的和平缔造资历。）这可能会给特朗普的继任者留下严重隐患，正如2020年所发生的那样：特朗普与塔利班达成的协议导致阿富汗政府垮台，并引致乔·拜登在次年仓促撤军。特朗普的“跛脚鸭”地位也将使他更难达成持久协议。智库兰德公司的萨姆·查拉普指出，朋友和敌人都会调整与总统的互动方式，因为他们清楚他的政治权威将逐渐消退。
That could store up serious problems for Mr Trump’s successor, just as happened in 2020: Mr Trump’s pact with the Taliban contributed to the collapse of the Afghan government and Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal the following year. Mr Trump’s lame-duck status will also make it harder for him to strike lasting deals in the first place. Friends and foes will adjust how they interact with the president, notes Sam Charap of the RAND Corporation, a think-tank, mindful that his political authority will ebb away.
11月3日民主党取得的胜利程度表明，该党在2028年赢得总统职位的形势大好。许多任期末期达成的协议，如奥巴马与伊朗的核协议及对古巴的开放政策，立法基础薄弱，极易被继任者推翻。特别是乌克兰，可能会试图拖过特朗普任期，期待2029年上任的继任者能更友善地对待该国。事实上，共和党要重夺参议院控制权——参议院必须批准国际条约——恐怕要等到2032年，那已超出特朗普的任期。
The extent of Democratic gains on November 3rd suggests that the party is in a strong position to win the presidency in 2028. Many late-term deals, such as Mr Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran and opening to Cuba, rest on weak legislative footing and are easily undone by successors. Ukraine, in particular, might try to wait out Mr Trump in the hope of a successor, in 2029, who would look more favourably on the country. Indeed, it will now be hard for Republicans to recapture the Senate—which must approve international treaties—until 2032, beyond Mr Trump’s tenure.
特朗普从根本上缺乏严肃性，这或许会对世界有利。实现外交突破需要付出艰辛努力。特朗普缺乏执行力，最终可能会把一个维持现状的世界留给下一任总统。也许他会更倾向于关注国内事务：在华盛顿的花岗岩上刻下自己的名字，保障家族卸任后的商业利益，以及大发赦令。但也有可能，他的冲动本性会在危机时刻让世界陷入险境——一场考验总统智慧与耐心的“黑天鹅”事件。试想一场由人工智能引发的网络危机，或中国对台湾的封锁，又或更糟糕的事态。
It is possible that Mr Trump’s fundamental unseriousness will work in the world’s favour. It takes work to achieve diplomatic breakthroughs. Mr Trump’s lack of follow-through might end up leaving a status quo world to the next president. Perhaps he will be drawn more to his domestic preoccupations: carving his name into Washington’s granite, securing his family’s post-presidency business interests and doling out pardons. But it is also possible that his impetuous nature will put the world at risk in a crisis, a black swan that tests a president’s wisdom and patience. Consider an AI-enabled cyber crisis or a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, or something worse.
未来两年，世界将屏息以待。编者注，2026年11月8日：本文已更新，加入唐纳德·特朗普以斯蒂芬·米勒取代苏西·怀尔斯担任幕僚长的消息。
For two years, the world will be holding its breath. Editor’s note, November 8th 2026: This article has been updated with the news that Donald Trump replaced Susie Wiles as his chief of staff with Stephen Miller