Five things Europe needs to keep an eye on following the Democrats’ victory in the mid-term elections

The day after the mid-term elections, preparations for inquiries are underway in Washington. The Democrats have taken control of the Senate and gained crucial seats in the House of Representatives, and they are promising to investigate everything that has happened over the last two years: the war in Iran, the management of the FBI, and the Trump family’s business dealings. “Get yourself a lawyer,” warned Californian Congressman Robert Garcia overnight, the likely next chair of the House Oversight Committee. Politico sums it up as follows: imagine Bill Clinton’s Whitewater scandal and Trump’s first impeachment combined, with a dash of Iran-Contra thrown in. But what does all this mean for Europe, which expects a great deal from Washington, from energy prices to the war in Ukraine? Jamie Dettmer, writing in Politico, identifies five things to keep an eye on.

This is the scenario that several expert observers consider not only possible, but highly likely. “We must prepare not for more harmonious transatlantic relations, but for greater hostility and even greater demands from Trump on Europe,” warns Wolfgang Ischinger, the German diplomat who for years chaired the Munich Security Conference. It is true that the Democrats will have more tools at their disposal to put Trump under pressure: control over the budget, hearings, inquiries, and conditions to be attached to the laws the White House wishes to pass. But in foreign policy, security and trade, the US president has ample room for manoeuvre, and Trump has secured even more of it through executive orders and legal manoeuvres to circumvent Congress. “He commands the armed forces. He controls tariffs and trade agreements. He has the most powerful platform in the world. And even if the Democrats take both houses, he can veto laws,” points out Phil Gordon, former national security adviser to Vice-President Kamala Harris. The result, according to Politico, will be more confrontation: Trump will want to prove he is still the boss, and the international stage is where it is easiest for him to do so. Europe, after all, has long been in his and his loyalists’ sights.

Almost all Democratic leaders have consistently supported aid to Kyiv. They can therefore begin to create the conditions to help it further. But “do not expect an immediate rescue for Zelensky”, warns Bronwen Maddox, director of the British think tank Chatham House: even if the Democrats were to decide to send more weapons and more money to Ukraine, “it will take months, perhaps years”. And Ukraine needs help now – starting with Patriot missiles for air defence – to get through the winter under Russian bombardment.

Trump presents himself as the president of peace, claiming to have brought an end to an increasing number of global conflicts (rising from five to six, seven and finally eight wars), going so far as to claim the Nobel Peace Prize for this. The White House occupant says that the Ukrainian conflict should have been the easiest to resolve, increasingly shifting the blame for the failure onto Zelensky. According to former U.S. diplomat Kurt Volker, Trump could ignore protests from Kyiv and European allies and “start lifting sanctions and doing business with Russia,” even on his own, by ordering the Treasury not to enforce them and seeking energy deals with Moscow: “He has already discussed this with Putin, with a view to bringing major American oil companies back to Russia.” On NATO, however, Volker expects more noise than substance: on the issue of withdrawing from the Alliance or reducing troop numbers in Europe, he says, “Trump is truly on his own; he has the support of neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, nor of Congress, nor of the media”.

Will it collapse? Better not to bet on it. On Monday, oil prices fell at their fastest rate since August, but Brent was still trading at $108 a barrel. Without an agreement with Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the energy shock that is driving up European bills and fuelling the cost-of-living crisis will continue, and will continue to weigh on the continent’s politics. Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, has warned that without a deal, the aviation sector will face “a real crisis by March or April”. And when it comes to Iran, Trump has no good options: resuming military operations in the hope that the regime will give in or collapse, taking a step back, or walking away by saying that others – namely the Europeans and Asians – must resolve the problem. Further escalation would be unpopular in the United States, notes Politico, but the electoral damage has already been done. And indeed, the president has just ordered the bombing of the Iranian island of Qeshm, which is strategic for control of the Strait.

Finally, there is a possibility that Washington is so preoccupied with internal political strife that neither Trump nor the Democrats have time for anything else, including foreign policy. Kamala Harris said last month that attempting a new impeachment “is not a good idea”, and the former mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, urged the Democrats to avoid a “canteen brawl” and to focus on the cost of living, the minimum wage and new ethical rules for all three branches of government. But Washington, as Politico observes, has rarely managed to avoid such brawls. And the fiercest conflicts may lie within the two parties, both of which, as John F. Harris writes, are called upon to decide how to present themselves to voters in the post-Trump era.

For Europeans, there is just one piece of advice, and Jamie Dettmer has always given it to Politico: “I would advise my European friends to be moderate and avoid creating any pretext that might give the White House a reason to be angry with Europe, which has already had enough.” In short, be careful not to celebrate too much.