Trump’s midterm play, Iran’s ticking clock, Ukraine’s edge, and more: Your questions, answered
Before Moose and I head off to Nantucket for our annual August reset, I’m answering questions straight from you, GZERO readers, on whatever has been on your mind. Thanks to everyone who sent one in – they’ve been lightly edited for length and clarity. As always, I got way more inbound than I could answer in one edition, so if you don’t see yours below, keep an eye out for next week’s newsletter too.
Got a question you want answered before I go dark? Submit it here.
How likely do you think it is that Trump will sabotage the midterm elections?
We have to be careful to distinguish President Trump’s interest in and willingness to sabotage the election, which is reasonably high, from his ability to actually succeed at swaying the outcome, which is pretty low. He isn’t prepared to accept as legitimate what even he understands will likely be a wipeout against Republicans. I expect him to contest close races, pressure state and local officials to tilt the playing field, deploy ICE to depress turnout in Democratic-majority areas, invoke foreign interference like he did in his primetime speech last Thursday, and otherwise use and abuse the powers of the office to undermine the legitimacy of the election.
But that’s all different from thinking he can effectively overturn the result given existing institutional checks (the federal government has no constitutional role in election administration), pushback from courts (which have consistently ruled against executive interference efforts) and Congressional Republicans (most of whom would rather dispense with what’s become an increasingly unpopular issue), and Trump’s own lack of discipline and focus on the issue as his lame-duck status nears.
If anything, Trump’s actions of late – including his further escalation of the Iran war, his support for less competitive but loyal Republican primary candidates like Ken Paxton in Texas, his tariffs, his prioritization of unpopular causes like the “Anti-Weaponization Fund“ and the White House ballroom – suggest he’s already written off the midterms and cares little about the GOP’s success when he’s not on the ballot. Going forward, he’s focused on his legacy, his business interests, and going after his enemies. Seen that way, Thursday’s speech was less about avoiding the inevitable than preparing his base to shift blame for it.
When do you think the conflict with Iran will end?
I’d like to be able to say ’soon.’ But in reality, this only ends when the leverage changes. The problem is that the Iranians believe (correctly in my view … and that of US intelligence) they have a lot more leverage than Trump gives them credit for. Compare this with Trump’s tariff boycott against China last year, when Trump backed down as soon as Beijing retaliated with prohibitive rare-earth export controls beyond the president’s initial expectations. He recognized he’d been outplayed and pivoted accordingly. The Iranian response to the US-Israeli campaign went well beyond Trump’s (unrealistic) expectations, too: no regime change, no capitulation, willingness and ability to close the Strait of Hormuz and threaten Gulf states for months on end. And yet, Trump still doesn’t fully believe the Iranians have the capacity to continue to resist American strikes, keep Hormuz closed, and cause economic pain. So he still thinks he has the stronger hand.
Regardless of who’s right, that gap in perceptions is pushing both sides away from de-escalation and toward further conflict. As I wrote last week, things are likely to get worse before they get better even though no one wants a return to all-out war. The Americans and the Iranians have the ability to maintain their dueling blockades and keep engaging in limited military strikes for at least another month or two. The United States can’t force the Strait open, nor can it adequately protect transiting vessels and Gulf allies from Iranian attacks. What it can do is keep striking Iran militarily until the economic costs of the Strait closure come home to roost or the US military runs out of munitions. While Tehran can keep the Strait closed until Trump cries uncle again or the Gulf states agree to pay them off and recognize their authority over Hormuz.
Iran’s leverage is a wasting asset, though. The longer it weaponizes the Strait and attacks Gulf energy infrastructure, the harder countries will work to harden their defenses, develop alternative trading routes, and invest in pipelines, ports, and supply chains that bypass Hormuz ... in turn incentivizing Tehran to try to extract the most concessions it can get while it still has maximum leverage. The clock is already ticking.
The change in momentum in the Ukraine war seems awfully sudden. Have the US or Europe changed their support or intel sharing? Or is this 100% Ukraine?
It’s mostly a made-in-Ukraine story: years of dramatically expanding homegrown investment and innovation in unmanned tech capabilities – ground vehicles, sea drones, interceptor drones, medium- and long-range strike systems – finally compounding into an asymmetric battlefield advantage the Russians have been unable to close. Big credit goes to recently-sacked (and now maybe back in favor) defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who fought tooth and nail to modernize Ukraine’s armed forces, and to Elon Musk, whom Fedorov persuaded to cut off Russia’s access to Starlink last February.
Expanded European financing and ongoing weapons sales and intelligence sharing from the United States certainly helped the Ukrainians stay in the fight, but that decision by Elon – which set back Moscow’s unmanned capabilities by roughly a year while Kyiv developed an ever-larger and more autonomous lead – was the real gamechanger.
Greenland’s future is brought up by the US administration every now and then. At the end of Trump’s term, what will the (ownership) situation look like?
Exactly the same as it does now. There’s no US national interest in Greenland that can’t be resolved easily through diplomacy with Denmark and with NATO more broadly. The direct ownership conversation is about the president’s personal ego and legacy – his desire to leave a literal mark on the map. There’s no other constituency for it, and plenty of opposition (from the American people, Congressional Republicans, markets, European allies, etc.). Trump will keep bringing it up, but there’s neither a coherent plan nor a credible “or else“ to back up the threats – whether on NATO withdrawal, trade, or territorial expansion. It’s not going anywhere.
What, if anything, will replace the USMCA agreement? Is this just an excuse to raise tariffs in order to keep taxes lower for the wealthy?
Nothing replaces it, that’s the point. USMCA has become a zombie, neither dead nor alive: not extended, renegotiated, or killed, but left to stagger on, used by Trump to extract concessions (trade and non-trade) in bilateral negotiations with Mexico and Canada. We called this outcome in our top risks for the year back in January, and it’s playing out as forecast. The tariff-exemption framework for USMCA-compliant goods stays technically intact, so Canada and Mexico still get to keep lower average tariff rates than most of the world. Everything else is up for grabs in negotiations that’ll never quite conclude but neither Ottawa nor Mexico City can afford to walk away from.
This is a leverage play, not a revenue / domestic redistribution play. And it’s a reflection of how this administration does trade policy across the board, preferring bilateral leverage over multilateral rules … because rules constrain you and leverage doesn’t.
How can we trust that your analysis, however thoughtful it may be, is independent and unbiased when your products are financed by big global corporations? It’s understandable that you have to pay the bills, but whoever signs the paychecks always has the last word …
It’s a fair question. But just because someone’s paying to get your product, it doesn’t mean they have a say over how you make it. Our clients are interested in hearing what we genuinely think is going to happen in the world, not whatever they would like to see happen in the world. There’s plenty of lobbying, strategic communications, and PR shops out there whose business it is to do just that. That’s not what Eurasia Group and GZERO Media sell. Our clients and sponsors get no value from “analysis“ that is deliberately designed to validate their preexisting views. They come to us because we have world-class analysts, we always call it like we see it – whether right or wrong – without fear or favor, and we are honest about our assumptions, biases, frameworks, and mistakes. You can judge our analytical independence and credibility by our track record, which goes back nearly 30 years now.
What will your next book be about and when will it come out?
I’m working on it, though in some ways, I’ve been thinking about it my entire career … 😊 At the risk of giving away too much, it’s about the long history of geopolitical boom-bust cycles and what comes after the G-Zero. Stay tuned for an announcement sometime next year.
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