NEW DELHI, November 5. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump has taken a lesson from the results of the midterm elections, which will make Washington’s foreign policy more predictable, Indian American studies expert Arvind Kumar, a professor at the School of International Studies at Nalanda University, told TASS.
"I think it (US foreign policy - TASS) will be slightly better and more coherent in terms of evolution. President Trump now has learned a lesson from this midterm election," he said. "But the question basically is: despite having enormous power in the hands of the President, I think he will have a lot of limitations in using those powers because of, obviously, the whole idea of these Democrats controlling the Senate," Kumar explained.
The expert said Trump had not anticipated this turn of events. "The rest of the world certainly was expecting that now there is going to be a quantum shift in the US approach. So, sanctions and tariffs and obviously the challenges associated with the trade. All these aspects obviously will have some different approach now onwards," he added.
In Kumar’s view, "It is most likely now that the US foreign policy will witness a quantum shift in its approach towards Ukraine as well as Iran." "That is one of the things which obviously the US will find a lot of changes. And specific to the world view which the US will evolve, especially with regard to their engagement with the rest of the world, that also will find change. I think the way President Trump was dealing with the world, I think there will be a far greater change because of this particular midterm election," the expert said.
"The US approach to its allies, which has recently been taking a different shape, will now obviously change. There are a lot of these policies on tariff, the policies with regard to the climate change," he said.
Commenting on sanctions policy, Kumar pointed out that "sanctions really have always been an instrument of the US foreign policy. And despite the fact that sanctions have produced counterproductive results, they still have been using them." "Most of the unilateral sanctions which are led by the US obviously will find a different structure now onwards. Tariff as a policy again will find changes," he concluded, adding that "we have to wait and watch in terms of how this midterm election result is going to have an impact on the larger key decisions which President Trump will take in the foreseeable future."
The United States held its midterm elections on November 3. Voters elected 35 of the 100 members of the Senate and all 435 members of the House of Representatives. Gubernatorial elections were also held in 36 states.
According to the latest estimates by US media outlets, Democrats are expected to secure majorities in both houses of the new Congress. Republicans currently control both the Senate and the House of Representatives.