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LONDON (AP) — For Joe Reeve, the midterm afterglow faded fast.
The London startup founder was among the wave around the Trump-weary world awakening to the stunning news that Americans had sharply rejected President Donald Trump’s fist-in-the-eye stewardship of the United States that had started a war with Iran, forged no peace in Ukraine or the Mideast and made gas and food so expensive.
Voters, Reeve saw online, had flipped control of both houses of Congress, handing the power to check the president to his rival Democrats. American democracy, 250 years on, had survived the Trump era.
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But a deep and profound distrust of the United States had survived the vote, too. And from national leaders to aspiring American immigrants, no one seemed confident that change was afoot.
“What everybody’s learned,” Reeve, 29, the husband of a Ukrainian, said a day later in an interview, “is that America’s system does allow for these wild swings. We all know, now, that America has an ability to rotate on a dime and spit in our faces.”
Interviews by The Associated Press around the world since the vote revealed a sense that “one election alone does not restore anything,” as Kim So-jung, 49, an office worker in Yongin, South Korea, put it.
“We have to see what they actually do, and see that they are doing something different to gain at least a little trust back.”
That 77 million Americans voted to elect Trump to a second term, along with the administration’s combative conduct on his tariff war, Israel’s conduct in Gaza, immigration and Iran, had already shaken trust in America around the world.
By the time Americans awakened Wednesday, global leaders and regular people from Europe to Australia had moved beyond the “wow” to a reckoning with the reality that Trump still retains enormous powers.
“Quite frankly, Trump has largely governed without Congress for the past two years. Why should that change now?” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said a few hours after voters flipped control of the House and Senate.
Trump’s apparent detachment from the results and his focus on building projects in the days before and after the drubbing did little to calm speculation about how he governs. He could dissociate completely, some observers said. Or he could lean into foreign policy and become even less predictable.
“For the country’s allies, the question isn’t whether America is back,” Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, wrote in Think China. “It’s back to what — and for how long?”
The stunning midterm elections were not enough to reverse policies that have strained economies and finances and put dreams of making it in America on hold for many across the globe.
There was no sign of Trump letting up. On Friday, he promoted longtime aide Stephen Miller, a key architect of his hard-line immigration policy, to replace Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff.
“I don’t think all is forgiven,” ReadtheLine.ca editor Jen Gerson said during an online discussion Thursday.
“The President’s hold on power over two terms is — and ought to remain — a warning sign to Canada and to all of America’s allies.”
For many, reversing tariffs is a key test of restoring trust in America
Many eyes are trained on whether the Democrats can reverse Trump’s costly tariff regime as the incoming majority has promised in its 100 days agenda — and whether Trump accepts or vetoes any such changes.
“Time and again, we are presented with these chances for change, only for greed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” U.K.-based commentator Martin McSweeney wrote on his Truth Matters Substack at 5 a.m. the day after the election.
“Will this time be different? That’s up to the American people, and that makes me very nervous given past experience.”
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