U.S. allies need a plan for a lame-duck Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump and other NATO leaders attend the bloc's summit in Ankara on July 8. | Pool / via REUTERS

Nov 10, 2026

Conventional wisdom has it that after U.S. President Donald Trump suffered a stinging rebuke from American voters this month, losing both houses of Congress, he’s now all the more likely to lash out via foreign policy — the one area where his power remains undiluted.

That has Ukrainians fretting (and Russia’s state-controlled media speculating) that Trump could blame them for his defeat, decide that his legacy depends on forcing their capitulation to Moscow or both. Iranians worry he could try to “finish” them. Israelis are concerned he may follow the shifting tide of opinion against them. And if Cuba’s leaders didn’t already assume they’re on his menu, they now should.

Some of those fears may well materialize, but it’s far from clear how the least predictable U.S. president in memory will react. The one sure bet — as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague and Trump biographer Timothy O’Brien put it Thursday — is to expect volatility. Trump, he writes, has always tended “to double down when he fails, with little regard for consequences.”

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