In a rare occurrence, a US election may have actually been decided by foreign policy. Donald Trump’s war in Iran and international tariffs are seen as playing a key role in the inflationary pressures that drove so many Americans to vote against his party on Tuesday in what has been described as a “generational wipeout” for the Republicans. And in the coming months, the president is going to face severe headwinds on those policies as Democrats storm back into control of Congress, threatening investigations of some of his top envoys and Pentagon contractors, big fights over budgets linked to the Iran war, and greater scrutiny of US relationships with allies such as Israel.
While Democrats plot their strategy, the civil war within the Republican party has already begun. JD Vance was early out of the gate, announcing in a postmortem on X that the Republicans’ shellacking was directly linked to Trump’s decision to strike Iran. But he added that he believed the Iran war was worth it, and that “we had to do it, we continue to do it”.
Democrats will hold a majority in both houses of Congress, but won’t be able to override a presidential veto to force legislation into law. So the likely battles in the coming months will be focused on finding leverage to constrain the White House – most clearly through Congress’s control of the budget. They could also hold hostage the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, demanding concessions on Iran or limits on Trump’s authority in order to pass the Senate version of the bill that would authorise about $1.15tn in national defense spending for 2027.
One progressive foreign policy thinktank suggested inserting language into the continuing resolution that would prevent Trump from using the money authorised by Congress to fund the war in Iran, as well as in Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza. But shutting down the government could be a “two-edged sword”, said Crocker, and Democrats will have to be careful not to overplay their hand. When Congress managed to pass a bipartisan resolution that invoked the War Powers Act to end US support for Saudi Arabia in the deadly war, Trump simply vetoed it.
Even with control of both houses of Congress, it will remain difficult for Democrats to constrain Trump’s power to dictate foreign policy over tariffs, the war in Iran or aid for Ukraine such as intelligence sharing, deliveries of desperately needed Patriot interceptors or access to the Starlink satellite internet service. Vance, in his public statement about the elections, prescribed his cure for what is ailing the Republican party: “1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel.” That also marks a dangerous moment for Israel, wrote Amit Segal, a political analyst close to the Netanyahu administration, which “now faces its biggest challenge in Washington since at least the 1975 ‘reassessment’, when Ford and Kissinger froze arms deals to pressure Jerusalem,” he wrote. Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democrat who will be the first sitting Muslim senator next year, illustrated how far US policy has shifted in this election as he praised Trump’s decision to end military aid to Israel at the end of this year.
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