After being massively repudiated in Tuesday’s midterm election, Donald Trump has become a lame-duck president with significantly curtailed authority. What is likely to happen in the remaining two years until a new chief executive is sworn in on January 20, 2029?
It should be obvious at this point that Trump will not bow to the popular will and move away from those policies that have proven to be so toxic. Completely in character, early signs are that he is doubling down, as indicated by his replacement of Chief of Staff Susie Wiles with hardliner Stephen Miller, and the weird choice of offering Dana White, head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a man described by Trump as “a violent Fighter and Warrior,” the role of press secretary. Meanwhile, lame-duck presidents of the past have embarked on new foreign policy initiatives in their remaining years, since the Constitution gives them much more discretionary authority than in domestic policy.
So what can we expect?
There is one general consideration that will shape all potential possibilities. That is the fact that Trump has been very good for all of America’s traditional rivals, like China, Russia, and North Korea. Trump has sought to have good relations with the authoritarian leaders of each of these nations, and has worked tirelessly to weaken the United States by pursuing polarizing policies targeting the “enemy within”—namely, his domestic opponents. Trump has further weakened the United States militarily by depleting ammunition stocks with his ill-considered war against Iran and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s purging of competent military officers. And he has alienated American allies in Europe and Asia by waging a tariff war against them.
Trump has said that China wouldn’t dare move on Taiwan while he was president, but might under a Democratic successor. He is actually right about this, but for somewhat different reasons than those in Trump’s head. Why should the Chinese take on the enormous risk of a military operation now, when they have a U.S. president doing their work for them, defunding scientific research, as well as feuding with close allies like Japan and South Korea, while backing down on bilateral U.S.-China trade issues?
The midterm election has suddenly changed this calculus. It is now increasingly likely that Trump will be succeeded not by an isolationist Republican like JD Vance, but rather by a Democrat, who is very likely to reverse all of Trump’s foreign policy stances on day one. That means that if Xi Jinping were ever willing to attack Taiwan, it would have to be in the next two years. And what is the likelihood that a lame-duck Trump would meet a Chinese challenge with a spirited military defense of Taipei?
Similar considerations apply in the case of Russia. Trump has essentially switched sides in Russia’s war with Ukraine, seeking to weaken sanctions and denying Ukraine access to the weapons it needs to defend itself. A democratic president in 2029 could reverse this quickly, if it is not already too late and if Ukraine succeeds in holding on. Vladimir Putin has every incentive to complete the military conquest of Ukraine in the next two years.
A country that has not been at the top of people’s danger list is one that should be: North Korea. Pyongyang has learned a lot from its direct military involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war. It has absorbed the lesson that the future lies in large numbers of cheap FPV drones, and is rapidly working to reduce South Korea’s substantial battlefield advantage in older generations of military equipment. In addition, it now has a substantial nuclear arsenal that is capable of being used against the mainland United States. So what is the likelihood that a lame-duck President Trump would take a strong stance in defending South Korea, and commit to using American nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the North? Again, the window of opportunity lies in the next two years, not after.
Thus we are at a moment of heightened peril. Three powerful authoritarian governments have a friend currently in the White House, but that friend will be leaving in two years and will almost certainly be replaced by a more hostile successor. This greatly increases the incentives for them to move in the near term while they have a better chance of getting away with their plans.
Trump’s incentives, meanwhile, are to pull closer to the authoritarian trio, perhaps by trying to restart a dialogue with Pyongyang. But the nicer he is to them, the greater the likelihood that they will take advantage of good relations with the United States to move quickly.
Trump’s erratic foreign policy has destabilized much of the world. We see this currently in the Middle East, where there is no clear way out of the war with Iran. But that instability might easily spill over into other theaters, with incalculable consequences.
