Trump in 2026: leader of the free world or lame duck president?

Donald Trump's return to the White House in 2025 marked a stunning political comeback, with the US president pushing an aggressive MAGA policy from trade to international relations. While the US leader has shaped the events of a turbulent 2025, the new year may prove harder to manage for Trump as the midterm elections approach.

For Europeans, that is one factor to watch after a difficult year in which the future of the transatlantic relation, the bedrock of economic prosperity and security for the continent since the end of the Cold War, came under scrutiny as MAGA went after the EU.

Declining, drowning in illegal migration, losing its identity, victim of poor economic policy and too much regulation, the US has painted a bleak picture of its historical ally. Meanwhile, Europeans recognise the fundamental nature of the relation could be changing forever - but the extend and speed could be determined by the midterms.

So, how to deal with the uncompromising dealmaker in Washington?

One way could be to watch Trump’s actual power diminish over the new year and wait for his time in office to end. A series of recent polls show the US president's popularity, even among his MAGA base, is receding. Key demographic groups, like Hispanic voters, which proved instrumental in his victory, are no longer as supportive largely due to his hardline policies on migration and concerns sparked by heavy-handed ICE raids.

While Trump remains a believer in his political invincibility and the popularity of the MAGA movement he built, “historical reality is setting in,” Ian Lesser told Euronews, a distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a transatlantic think tank.

“The electorate is deeply insecure and could move away from Trump in his second term - the question is whether it is structural or just a passing phenomenon.”

Americans uneasy about the future - they largely blame Trump

From tariffs to migration, from inflation to healthcare, from bashing Europe to knocking down parts of the White House: majorities of Americans feel an uneasiness about Trump’s attempts at reshaping US politics according to his own views.

Latest polling shows many Americans have begun to blame Trump for high prices of everything from food to housing - and that it’s beginning to shift political sentiment.

Almost half - 46 percent - say the cost of living in the US is the worst in memory, a view shared by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters, according to a poll by Public First from mid-November.

The poll also shows 46 percent of respondents believe those high prices are Trump’s responsibility.

So, if nearly half of Americans say they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation difficult to afford, there is at least a problem of perception.

But Trump stubbornly insists that there is no problem, that prices have actually come down, sticking to his almost messianic belief that the economy will take off next year.

He called talk of an “affordability crisis” a “con job” by Democrats. The political opponent addressed in this way, on the other hand, brings up the topic again and again.

“The economy is sagging, and Trump’s insistence that the affordability crisis is a ‘Democrat hoax’ sounds absurd when even his most loyal voters are staring at the price of meat at Piggly Wiggly like they’ve wandered into a luxury boutique,” Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky told Euronews in an email.

It's the economy, stupid, even for Trump

The affordability crisis is part of an overall economic picture that has become volatile over the past year.

Unemployment has hit 4.6% in November, a number not seen since the depth of the Covid pandemic.

A consequence of Trump’s tariff policies that started on April 2, according to some economists. Billed “Liberation Day” by the president, it was supposed to trigger the beginning of the United States rebuilding its industrial capacities.

But the opposite has happened. The economy has actually lost 60,000 manufacturing jobs, factory construction is down at least 5%, and inflation has gone up 3%.

“Trump’s big thing is the $20 trillion in investment that he imagines is coming into the country,” according to Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The $20 trillion would be derived from investment pledged made by partners in exchange for lowering tariffs but is not guaranteed they will materialise.

“This sum is equal to two thirds of annual GDP and almost seven times the current annual level of investment. But there is zero evidence of it anywhere in the data.”

On top of it all, the US Supreme Court is considering the legality of Trump’s tariffs and could issue a ruling in early 2026.

Unperturbed, the White House disputes that Trump is losing ground on the economy.

“Cleaning up Joe Biden’s economic disaster has been a Day One priority for President Trump,” spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.

“President Trump is just getting started implementing the policies that created historic economic prosperity in his first term,” Desai added. “And Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come.”

The White House eagerly pointed at the latest macroeconomic figures that came in just before Christmas.

They showed that real growth, driven by strong consumer spending by wealthy Americans, heated up at an annualized rate of 4.3% in the third quarter, far surpassing the forecast.

That follows a 3.8% gain in the second quarter and a contraction in the first.

But the summer surge was offset by more bad news on consumer confidence.

The Conference Board’s closely watched gauge of consumer sentiment fell in December for the fifth month in a row, the longest consecutive fall since 2008.

The electoral winds are shifting for Democrats

Is Trump winning the economic argument at the ballot box? Not so much.

In elections over the past year, Republican candidates experienced an eye-popping drubbing across the board, even losing the race for mayor of Miami to a Democrat for the first time in nearly 30 years by a 19-point margin.

But no other race encapsulated the current mood of the country better than the special election for Republican stronghold Tennessee’s 7th seat in the House of Representatives in early December, a district that Trump carried by more than 22 points a year ago.

This time, the Republican margin narrowed to just 8 points – signalling a massive swing of voter preference towards the Democrats by double digits in a year.

“This is one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we’ve seen yet for Republicans,” wrote Republican strategist Matt Whitlock.

“If every House district in the country shifted left by this same amount - about 15 points - we would be looking at a blue wave far worse than 2018.”

To add to the complications, the Republican candidate in Tennessee had the firm backing of Trump, which shows even his seal of approval may not be enough to win.

And even as Trump and the White House machine became strongly involved in local races, Democrats still managed to make heavy inroads into an otherwise solid Republican electorate, hinting that the party may be on the mend after a disaster election under Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's late dropout from the campaign.

In 2026, competition may be much harder for Republicans.

Trump losing support among Hispanics, young people

Disappointed by Trump’s policies, some of the very groups that powered Trump’s victory last year are showing signs of breaking away.

According to a recent YouGov poll, Trump’s backing among Latinos, a group that provided crucial support in 2024, is cratering.

Whereas the approval/disapproval numbers were practically even in February, Trump’s numbers are now under water by 38 points. (31% approval, 69% disapproval).

Same trend among youth, another key group with which Trump made decisive inroads as young Americans have recently been trending more conservative.

Last spring, voters aged 18 to 22 narrowly approved of Trump’s job performance and voters between 23 and 29 narrowly disapproved – but now these groups disapprove of the President’s job massively - by 30 and 34 points, respectively.

Only 6% of these age groups believe that currently “things are going well in America”.

Latinos and youngsters are – not surprisingly – particularly put off by Trump’s immigration policy, probably the signature topic of all of his campaign promises last year.

Since returning to the White House, the president issued a series of executive orders that include declaring a nation emergency at the US-Mexico border, deploying hundreds of troops there and attempting to end birthright citizenship for the children of unauthorized immigrants and foreigners, set to be challenged in court.

His administration has also largely closed access to the asylum process on the southern border, suspended refugee resettlement and ended temporary humanitarian protections for thousands of people from Latin American countries.

In March, Trump invoked the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to remove Venezuelan migrants to a notorious jail in El Salvador without a court hearing, sparking criticism that due process and rule of law is actively being diminished by the administration.

Data shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are increasingly targeting migrants with no criminal record.

In fact, only about 5% of those detained had a violent criminal conviction, said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank in Washington.

The result: Latino communities from California to Florida are terrified with people not showing up for work or school and avoiding public places like shopping malls.

Numerous are stories like that of Diana Santillana Galeano, a daycare worker in Chicago, who was arrested by ICE agents without a warrant in front of children and parents last November. The case sparked nationwide outrage after ICE agents dragged her out of the Rayito del Sol daycare center.

Galeano was only released from an ICE detention because a federal judge ruled her arrest “unlawful”. Her story is one of the many testimonies gathered this year.

Today three out of four Latinos reject Trump’s hard-line immigration policy.

Somme Republicans are starting to move away from Trump

Sensing the political winds shifting, some Republicans are now feeling emboldened to push back against certain aspects of the Trump agenda or against Trump himself.

In December, Republican state senators in Indiana blocked an aggressive White House-led effort to redraw the state’s congressional maps.

While 20 Republicans in Congress joined Democrats supporting a bill that would overturn Trump’s executive order limiting union rights for federal workers.

Also, last December, Congress passed a bipartisan bill to bolster Europe’s defense, openly challenging Trump’s foreign policy strategy.

And some Republicans publicly criticized Trump’s vile remarks following the murder of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife, criticised for its insensitive tone.

And then there are the cracks within Trump’s own “Make America Great” movement, most prominently on display when long-time top ally Marjorie Taylor Greene offered a withering assessment of the president and announced she would resign from Congress.

When Greene had vehemently demanded the release of the files connected to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in November last year, she went on a full collision course with Trump - and has only amplified her campaign against the president since.

She also criticized the administration and fellow Republicans in Congress for ignoring rising health care costs for average Americans and refusing to do something about it.

Greene also questioned the authenticity of the near-full support that Trump has among Republicans in Congress, suggesting these same lawmakers used to mock Trump behind his back.

In reaction, Trump has withdrawn his support and endorsement for Greene, calling the Georgia representative a “traitor”, a “disgrace” to the Republican Party and compared her a to “rotten apple” for her "attacks" to his administration.

Whether the brewing dissatisfaction among Americans and within the Republican Party will grow by the time the midterm elections roll along, remains to be seen.

Trump might be able to turn things around by focusing more aggressively on issues that can quiet the discontent rather than foreign policy, which has concentrated the bulk of his actions in his pursuit, largely, to win the Nobel Peace Prize by ending conflicts.

The most difficult - Russia's war against Ukraine - remains unsolved looking to 2026.