How the world reacted to Trump’s Midterm defeat: 5 things to know
Global leaders offered little public sympathy or encouragement to United States President Donald Trump after his party was blown out in the Midterm elections, even as they wondered what the result might mean for trade, energy and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Trump’s enemies abroad – and many of his more estranged frenemies, as well – could not hide their glee today after Democrats seized control of the House and Senate.
There were celebrations in Iran and China, in the capitals of Spain and South Africa, and from European officials in Brussels.
From many of Trump’s closest allies, there was largely silence.
There was no official reaction from the top leaders of Britain, France, Germany or Italy, and only glancing acknowledgment from top officials in the insurgent European far-right parties that previously drew inspiration from Trump’s electoral successes.
It was a reflection, analysts said, of the shocking scale of the defeat – and of a desire not to further antagonise an already reeling President who retains great power on the world stage.
“In response to a Democrat-controlled Congress, Trump could try to find distractions elsewhere, including on tariffs and the use of force,” Ja-Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said.
Here are five things to know about the global fallout.
1. America’s aggrieved friends cheered
Trump has antagonised some traditional US allies this term, and those allies were happy to needle him today.
Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s Foreign Minister, said in a text message that the election results were “a great victory for democracy and the rule of law in the USA and the world”.
The relationship between the two countries has been tense since Trump took office and falsely alleged that white South Africans were being killed in a genocide and that the Government was seizing white-owned land.
Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, a darling of the global left and a vocal Trump critic who will run in a snap election this month, said the returns showed a global surge of far-right parties was “no longer growing: It is collapsing”.
“Yesterday, American society voted against policies that only impoverish,” Sanchez wrote on social media.
Liberal officials in the European Union, which has battled Trump on tariffs, were even more biting.
“This is a spectacular slap in the face for Donald Trump and his policies, and a major victory for American democracy,” Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, said in a statement. Sandro Gozi, who represents a French constituency in the European Parliament, called the vote the “beginning of the end of the Trump era”.
2. The far right was quiet – and so were centrist European leaders
There was largely silence from previously outspoken Trump backers across Central and Eastern Europe, where right-wing nationalist politicians once hitched their political fortunes to the President and even backed his false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.
In France, Italy and elsewhere, far-right leaders offered muted reactions that seemed to distance their parties from Trump’s losses.
The president of France’s far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, told a radio interviewer that “I am not an American voter, and we must respect the American people’s vote, whatever it may be”.
There was also no public response from Emmanuel Macron, France’s centrist President, or from Friedrich Merz, Germany’s centre-right Chancellor. Both have sought to nurture alliances with Trump in hopes of keeping him from siding with Russia over Ukraine.
Johann Wadephul, the German Foreign Minister, said, “I am confident that we will continue to find partners in America with whom we can work closely together”.
3. There was confusion over what’s next in Iran …
In Asia, which is heavily reliant on energy from the Middle East, the Democratic victory initially produced a wisp of optimism that Trump, rebuked over the war on Iran and high fuel prices, would seek to wind down the conflict.
Iranian leaders stoked that sentiment with a taunting message to Trump. Iran’s Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote on social media that the results amounted to a rejection of Trump’s war, and warned against further escalation.
“Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message,” Ghalibaf wrote.
On social media, some Iranians joked that while Trump had started the war partly to topple Iran’s authoritarian Government, the only significant political consequence had been in the US.
“Eight months of war with Iran. The achievement? Regime change in America!” wrote Seyed Alireza Salehi, an Iran-based religious scholar and commentator.
But some analysts, in Iran and elsewhere, expressed concern that Trump could indeed re-escalate the war, possibly in conjunction with the embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, worsening the squeeze on oil and gas supplies.
4. … and with trade
Trump still has sweeping powers over trade. Now that he is no longer concerned about drawing attention to inflation before the elections, analysts said, he might make a reinvigorated push to impose tariffs on countries like Japan, Vietnam and, especially, China.
“People are deeply uneasy about the Trump Administration’s past actions and remain anxious about the future,” Kazuhiro Maeshima, a professor of American politics and diplomacy at Sophia University in Tokyo, said in discussing the mood in Japan.
Congress, however, could use its newfound leverage over the federal budget and its oversight authority to shape some of the details.
There were similar concerns in China, with public revelry over the Midterms. On Weibo, China’s dominant social media platform, the hashtag “Trump suffered a complete and utter defeat” was trending as results were announced.
Analysts see little reason to believe that Democrats in Congress would be friendlier to Beijing than Trump. Democrats, too, have increasingly adopted a tougher posture on China when it comes to economic competition,
Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said the Democratic victories could rattle US-China relations.
China’s President Xi Jinping and Trump reached an understanding at a summit in May in favour of what China defines as “constructive, strategic stability”. But Shi predicted that this understanding would break down “because Trump suddenly becomes far from all-powerful”.
5. No one knows what it means for Ukraine
Ukraine and its European backers spent the last month agonising over a period of increased tensions between Ukraine and Washington.
In recent weeks, the Trump Administration agreed to purchase Russian diesel and urged Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries even as Moscow destroyed Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
There was no immediate consensus about how the vote might change Trump’s behaviour.
Moscow projected optimism. “President Trump continues to be in office, and we sincerely hope that he will also continue his peace-making efforts,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in comments reported by a Kremlin pool reporter on Telegram.
Several analysts suggested that European leaders should effectively ignore the Midterms and continue their efforts to support Ukraine; Washington, they said, will continue to pull back, regardless of who is in charge.
It would be a mistake to assume that the Democratic victory meant that “we don’t have to solve our problems ourselves and the big brother USA will do everything for us”, said Nico Lange, a Ukraine backer who is the director of the Institute for Risk Analysis and International Security, a think-tank in Berlin.
The US, he said, “won’t do it” – no matter who controls Washington.
Written by: Jim Tankersley and Damien Cave
Photographs by: Doug Mills, Tomas Munita, and David Guttenfelder
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
©2026 THE NEW YORK TIMES