Trump’s mid-term election disaster is not good news for Nato or Ukraine

Donald Trump asked Americans to “pretend” he was on the ballot. They took him at his word. Democrats won both chambers of Congress and flipped seven Republican Senate seats, some of them held by the party for decades. Trump had said in advance what he would do if this happened: he would veto everything. Europeans who were cheering for the Democrats can celebrate. For Europe, though, little is likely to shift, at least for now. Diplomats in Brussels expected little to change, and said so before the vote. Governments may still draw the wrong lesson. The Democrats have won the power to restrain Trump, but they cannot make American policy toward Europe predictable. Congress can only slow Trump down A presidential veto override needs two-thirds of both chambers, and in the Senate most ordinary bills still need 60 votes to get past a filibuster. Democrats have neither. They will control spending bills and they can subpoena officials. They can also block or delay nominees, which is enough to slow the administration down but not enough to run foreign policy from Capitol Hill. Congress already authorised $400m [€356m] a year for Ukraine security assistance in 2026 and 2027, in the defence law it passed last December. Democrats can push actual money through must-pass spending bills. A president cannot lawfully refuse to spend appropriated funds for policy reasons. Presidential drawdowns from US stocks, delivery schedules and export licences remain largely in executive hands. Trump lost his emergency tariffs in the Supreme Court in February. He replaced them with a temporary global levy. When that expired on 24 July, new tariffs on imports from 60 economies took effect the same day, under a different law. Congress could rewrite the powers it delegated to the president, but that bill would meet a veto. Even Joe Biden, a president friendly to Europe, needed months to ease the steel tariffs after Trump's first term, and he replaced them with quotas, not free trade. On Iran, war powers resolutions face the same veto, and attaching conditions to war money is politically hard while American troops are in the field. Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz carried oil and petroleum products equal to about a fifth of world consumption. Most of it went to Asia, but major disruptions still push up the prices Europeans pay. Nato withdrawal? Untested On Nato membership itself, the protection is stronger. A 2023 provision co-written by Marco Rubio, then a Republican senator from Florida and now Trump's secretary of state, bars withdrawal from Nato without two-thirds of the Senate or an act of Congress. Whether it holds against a president who claims treaty withdrawal as his own power has never been tested in court. Congress went further a year ago. The December 2025 defence law limits what Pentagon money can be used for in Europe. It cannot pay for cutting US forces there below 76,000 for more than 45 days. Nor can it pay for removing major equipment, giving up bases, or handing the top Nato command to a non-American. The Pentagon can still do any of this, but only after the secretary of defense and the US commander in Europe each certify the decision to Congress, submit the required assessments and then wait 60 days. The restriction applies to fiscal 2026 funds, and Congress is considering whether to extend it. Even if it survives, the law covers what is stationed in Europe. What Washington sends when a crisis comes, and whether aircraft based in Germany fly for European purposes or for operations somewhere else, is still decided in the White House and the Pentagon. Hegseth holds the cards The timing is bad too. The Pentagon's review of US forces in Europe was to give secretary of defense Pete Hegseth at least four sets of options by 6 November, with the review finished in December. The new Congress only meets on 3 January, so Hegseth is scheduled to have the options weeks before any Democrat chairs a committee. Before the vote, there was a nagging fear in Europe that a Trump beaten at home would look for distraction abroad. Josef Braml, the European director of the Trilateral Commission, warned on Wednesday (4 November) that the president may now push harder on tariffs, Nato and Ukraine. That may very well happen. But Europe's own response is the more immediate concern. Europe now has rules that favour its own defence industry, in the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) and in the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loans. The rules alone will not produce refuelling tankers or missile stocks. That takes money and years. A Congress more supportive of Nato and Ukraine could give governments an excuse to delay the expensive decisions that would make European defence less dependent on Washington. Trump's term ends in January 2029, and the Democratic majority may last only two years. Europe cannot plan its defence around a two-year American election cycle. Americans voted on Tuesday about inflation, the Iran war and Trump himself, not about European security. Europe should not behave as if they had.