For Britons used to a rapid transition of power following the defeat of a prime minister, the long period between the election of an American president at the beginning of November and the inauguration at the end of January is an odd spectacle.
This year, it has been made even stranger by the contrast between an outgoing incumbent for whom the term “lame duck” seems a generous moniker and an energetic incoming president-elect who is the first candidate to win non-consecutive terms in 130 years.
“The president-elect doesn’t take over for six more weeks, but – magically – he has already made America great again,” joked a column in the Washington Post last weekend, mocking Donald Trump for his claims to have stopped migration through Mexico, turned the US economy into the envy of the world and brought peace to the Middle East.
However, it is undeniable that Trump is already having an influence on world affairs, both directly and indirectly, from Tel Aviv to Tehran, Riyadh to Riga, the Californian State Legislature to the Chinese Politburo. Whether exploiting a brief window of opportunity, accelerating existing policies or laying the groundwork for a new world order, leaders and lawyers are frantically second and third guessing the “known knowns” and “known unknowns” of the 45th and 47th president to put themselves in the best possible position for the new year.
Using only the levers of social media, a visit to Notre-Dame and a reputation for predictable unpredictability, this is how Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” has re-established himself on the world stage, long before his feet are under the desk in the Oval Office again.
NATO
Trump has spent a decade castigating European powers for failing to take responsibility for defence, telling a rally in February this year that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they wanted” to countries who didn’t stump up. He returned to the theme in a moderately threatening interview with NBC on Sunday, stating, “If they’re paying their bills, and if they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely, I’d stay with NATO.”
This warning shot had already been heard loud and clear across the Atlantic. Although the creation of an EU army, advocated by the prime minister of Luxemburg in November, is unlikely to garner widespread support, the continent is undoubtedly on manoeuvres. Last week, it was reported that European countries are discussing a €500 billion defence fund, financed through joint borrowing and open to non-EU states such as Norway and the UK.
This week, Nato members discussed raising the target for its members’ defence spending from two per cent to three per cent of GDP. Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, has spent the two months since his appointment in October touring European capitals, as well as meeting with Trump in Florida. On Thursday, he told security experts in Brussels that it was time for Europe “to shift to a wartime mindset”.
“All the Baltic states have been preparing furiously for another Trump presidency,” says Dr Kristi Raik, deputy director at the International Centre for Defence and Security, a think tank based in Estonia – the second-largest defence spender in the alliance by proportion of GDP, behind Poland. “You hear some people say that the first Trump administration was actually quite good for the Baltic states [because of increased defence spending by European nations] – and that now there will be an even bigger boost. But there is so much uncertainty. The longer-term trend is a United States that is less committed to Europe – and Europe is not doing enough to prepare for that. Small states are in a vulnerable position.”
Ukraine
There has also been a lot of uncertainty over the Trump administration’s approach to Ukraine, a conflict that he once promised to solve within 24 hours of returning to power. Widely interpreted as an inclination to force significant territorial concessions on Kyiv in exchange for peace, Trump’s stance contributed to Biden’s outgoing administration announcing a new military aid package of almost £1 billion last Saturday. This week, the president-elect blamed Biden’s “foolish” Ukraine policy for “making things worse” and said he “vehemently” disagrees with the decision to permit Ukraine to strike targets within Russia with US-supplied long-range missiles
Trump’s position has also seen calls by Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader who looks likely to win the German elections in February, for a European “contact group”. Announced to Volodymyr Zelensky’s approval during a visit to Kyiv this week, the group would include the UK, Germany, France, Poland and Denmark. If necessary, it would bypass the USA and forge a common European plan for peace in Ukraine.
However, the mood music emerging from Trump’s meeting with Zelensky in Paris last weekend suggests that this group might not be necessary after all. In a 5,000-word interview with Time to accompany his award, the president-elect made it clear that he would not abandon Ukraine during any peace negotiations (although he is believed to expect European, not American, troops to provide the peacekeeping force). Meanwhile, having expressed his “deep gratitude” for the president-elect’s “strong resolve” to find a “real and just end to Russian aggression”, the Ukrainian president turned on the Biden administration this week for suggesting that he arm newer, younger, Ukrainian soldiers. And then, for good measure, he added on X: “I told President Trump that Putin fears only him and, perhaps, China.”
Such high-stakes diplomacy, overseen in Paris by a weakened President Macron, is highly unusual for an American president-elect. “It breaks protocol,” says Dr Luca Trenta, associate professor in International Relations at Swansea University. “Until January, Trump isn’t president, so there shouldn’t be official, publicised meetings while another president is in power.”
However, it might just work. Exhausted Ukrainian officials, irritated by Biden’s cautious approach, have told reporters that they’re open to the “trip to the casino” of negotiating under Trump. Meanwhile, Putin’s foreign intelligence chief said on Tuesday that Russia was close to achieving its goals in Ukraine.
“This could be a simple military statement about the position of forces on the ground,” says Trenta. “Or it could be a signal to Trump and other international partners that they’re ready to negotiate.”
The Middle East
Critics of the Biden administration point to a prolonged period of American declinism on the international stage, its troops withdrawn ignobly from Afghanistan, its warnings unheeded from Israel to Iran to China. However, recent developments in Syria have significantly weakened overthrown president Bashar al-Assad’s allies in Beirut, Tehran and Moscow, while emboldening his enemies in Tel Aviv. And although Trump can claim no credit for these developments – “This is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved,” he wrote last Saturday – it is clear that here, too, he is already having a significant impact on events.
“Israel is taking advantage of this lame-duck period to push ahead with its objectives,” says Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. As well as attempting to create a buffer zone beyond the Golan Heights, its new strategy of “Fortress Israel”, it is looking “more broadly at degrading the ‘axis of resistance’ in advance of Trump’s return to power.”
Although Trump’s administration “will certainly have an Israel First approach to the Middle East,” she explains, “this will not be at the expense of America’s security. Trump definitely wouldn’t want to be dragged into Israel’s irredentist ambitions. So they’re using this window to put themselves in the best possible position.”
“Do you trust Netanyahu?” Time asked the president-elect.
“I don’t trust anybody,” replied Trump.
Meanwhile, Iran is also attempting to exploit the brief period before the return of an American president it once tried to assassinate. Last month, it stepped up nuclear negotiations with the UK, France and Germany, in a bid to find a breakthrough before Trump’s inauguration. Last week, the UN’s chief inspector announced that Iran was quadrupling its production of enriched uranium. This dramatic escalation has been interpreted as both Iranian self-defence against a resurgent Israel and a way of signalling to Washington that it is ready to re-negotiate the deal Trump relinquished in 2018.
Asked by Time about the chances of going to war with Iran during his presidency, Trump replied: “Anything can happen. It’s a very volatile situation.”
So, is Iran going to “come begging” for a new deal, as Trump predicted six years ago?
“There are signals through backchannels that Iran wants to talk,” says Vakil, pointing to Elon Musk’s meeting last month with Iran’s UN ambassador in New York (a meeting that Trump claimed not to know about). “Everyone is increasing their tools of leverage for negotiations that could be on the horizon.”
The Manhattan dealmaker turned Republican leader, who endeared himself to Netanyahu during his first term by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and brokering the Abraham Accords, has also lent his weight to Israel’s ongoing hostage negotiations with Hamas. In early December, he wrote on social media that there would be “all hell to pay” if they weren’t released by his inauguration in January. The prime minister of Qatar, which is mediating the talks, said last Saturday that momentum had returned to the negotiations following the US election.
Tariff wars
Trump’s fondness for sound and fury as a tool of diplomacy is particularly evident in his rhetoric on tariffs. Having expressed an enthusiasm in his first term for trade wars that are “easy to win”, he has picked up the thread again recently, promising tariffs of at least 25 per cent on America’s three biggest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China – apparently in a bid to save Americans from the triple evils of unemployment, drug use and illegal immigration.
Although 16 Nobel prize-winning economists have expressed significant doubts over the economic and diplomatic merits of Trump’s proposals, they have certainly sharpened the minds of the relevant leaders. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, flew to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s official residence, over the Thanksgiving weekend, a genuflection that didn’t stop the president-elect mocking him on social media this week as the Governor of America’s 51st state. On America’s southern border, Claudia Sheinbuam, the president of Mexico, was treated with slightly more respect during a “very productive conversation” last month in which Trump claimed (and she denied) that there would be no more migration through Mexico. According to the Trump Risk Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Mexico is the most exposed country in terms of trade, security and immigration to Trump’s second presidency.
Further afield, the threat of a new trade war has prompted China (the sixth most exposed country) to implement a “more proactive” fiscal policy and embrace a “moderately loose” monetary strategy this week, their first shift in monetary policy since 2011. “They’re looking at what Trump has been saying and what he is likely to do, and therefore building up their arsenal to counteract the possible protectionist measures issued by the Trump administration,” Kelvin Lam at Pantheon Macroeconomics told the Telegraph.
America’s other trading partners are also taking steps to protect themselves, some in unusual ways. Yoon Suk Yeol, the South Korean president, has reportedly taken up golf lessons in anticipation of Trump’s return to office (Trump being a well-known fan of the sport).
More conventionally, Simon Harris, the Irish taoiseach, recently announced a $50 billion rainy day fund to guard against “transatlantic trade shocks” (the USA takes 30 per cent of Ireland’s total exports). Ireland is also concerned about Trump’s intention to reduce US corporation tax to 15 per cent, placing it on a parity with Ireland, in order to lure home American companies such as Meta, Microsoft and Google which have headquarters in Ireland.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau travelled to Florida to meet Trump after the president-elect threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian imports
In Brussels, meanwhile, a “Trump task force” has spent months preparing for his presidency, drawing up a tit-for-tat tariff list of iconic American products such as Kentucky bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorbikes, with a particular focus on products made in electoral districts vulnerable at the 2026 midterm elections.
“Although the EU is thinking about counter-measures, I think their preference is to make an offer to stop this happening,” says Mark Leonard, co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Trump is a deal-maker, so they will be thinking along those lines – for example, buying liquefied natural gas or weapons from America.”
Leonard also points out the increased willingness of the EU to pivot to other markets. Last Friday, riding roughshod over long-term opposition from the French, the bloc negotiated its largest trade deal to date, sealing a deal with Mercosur, the South American grouping that includes Argentina and Brazil.
One of Europe’s biggest challenges, however, is that it is unable to speak with a single voice to America. Views on the continent range from the Trumpian enthusiasm of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Romania’s presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, to Sir Keir Starmer’s invocation of Attlee and Churchill to justify his refusal to choose between Europe and America. Within the EU itself, not only are France and Germany largely rudderless at the moment owing to internal problems, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, is perceived as a Biden confidante, the EU Presidency rotates every six months and Trump himself has described the bloc as “worse than China”.
“It’s not very obvious yet who will be the Trump whisperer,” says Célia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Trump doesn’t like to deal collectively. He prefers to deal bilaterally with single countries. He always puts tariffs together with other issues such as defence and China and technology – and that’s why he prefers strong, authoritarian leaders because they can actually make decisions.”
US domestic
Although Trump has described “tariff” as the “most beautiful word in the dictionary”, many Americans are worried that they will increase prices and complicate supply chains. American accountants and lawyers, however, are delighted by the potential fee income from all the guidance that will ensue. “We are getting a lot of new clients,” one lawyer told the Financial Times this week. “I said to my colleagues – we’re bringing sexy back to trade.”
It seems that other lawyers are also working twice as hard since Trump’s election. Despite telling NBC that “retribution will be through success”, the president-elect said that members of the House Committee who investigated the January 6 insurrection were “creeps” and “political thugs” who “should go to jail”.
Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom asked the Californian legislature to create a $25 million reserve in order to litigate against the Trump administration’s expected lawsuits. State senators proposed a further $25 million to legal aid organisations to help people combat deportation, one of them vowing to “fight like hell to protect everyone who calls California home in the years to come”.
Trump’s rhetoric on immigration, which could see him attempt to deport up to 20 million people, has led to civil-rights groups providing advice on everything from finding marriage certificates to cutting spare house keys. Some immigrants are considering self-deportation.
In his NBC interview last weekend, Trump attempted to strike a softer note, saying that his inaugural address as 47th president would be different from the “American carnage” tone of his address as 45th president. “It’s going to be a message of unity,” he said. “I’m going to treat you every bit as well as I have treated the greatest MAGA supporters.”
Anti-woke warrior
Clearly, not everyone believes him. In anticipation of the restoration of the anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) executive order that he signed in 2020 and Biden rescinded the following year, companies and individuals have already started self-policing. Last month, Walmart announced that it was scaling back its diversity initiatives. This week, the Washington Post reported that federal employees are combing their social network profiles to delete any negative posts about Trump. Meanwhile, federal agencies have rewritten job ads mentioning topics such as DEI and climate change and recruitment agencies in Washington DC have seen a raft of requests from those looking to move into the private sector.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Trump told his NBC interviewer last weekend, pressed on whether tariffs would trigger inflation. “I can’t guarantee tomorrow.”
Maybe not. But friend or foe, federal worker or foreign immigrant, Farsi speaker or Russian Federation foot soldier – the president-elect is certainly having an outsized impact on today.
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