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By definition, midterm elections in America occur two years into a presidential term with two years to go until the next general election.

They have no direct bearing on who is the president of the United States residing in the White House.

The midterms are about electing officials to Congress – the other, legislative, branch of the US government and to offices in each of the 50 states, the constitutional counterbalance to the centralised federal government in Washington DC.

In the excitement of poring over the many results from a massive nationwide vote involving millions of people, it is worth remembering that extrapolating from the midterms is a very unreliable way of predicting who will be the next president or even who will be the main nominees in the race.

Recent history shows how wrong snap judgments can be. Two years out from the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump was widely regarded as an unlikely joke candidate. At a similar point ahead of 2008, conventional wisdom was leaning towards Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as nominees.

Quite different people, Barack Obama and John McCain, actually fought it out in the end. In 1994 Newt Gingrich led the “Republican Revolution” with his “contract with America” smashing the ambitions of Bill Clinton’s Democrats. He was Time magazine’s man of the year and tipped as a future president. In spite of numerous bids for the White House, he never came close.

The final results are not yet in but there are already some pointers as to the political mood in the US.

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The “expected” red wave was more of a ripple. There is almost always a backlash against a first-term president’s party in the midterms but the Democrats fared much better under President Joe Biden than they did under Mr Obama or Mr Clinton.

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Check the results from the US
Surge of support for Trump’s Republicans fails to take off

As Dominic Waghorn has reported here, Republican candidates endorsed by Donald Trump fared significantly worse than those who steered clear of him.

Only a minority of Republican candidates were interested in campaigning on “the big steal” – the false claim that Mr Trump really won re-election in 2020, Republican analysts argue that the party is now pivoting away from Donald Trump’s obsession.

Dr Mehmet Oz the Republican senate candidate in Pennsylvania pointedly phoned Democrat John Fetterman to concede defeat. Mr Trump is said to be furious with his wife Melania for endorsing the TV doctor. Fox News played Mr Trump down on election night and Rupert Murdoch’s main US newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, have become heavily critical of him. The Post dubbed the former President “Trumpty Dumpty” this week.

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‘Red wave’ fails to show

Control of the evenly-split US Senate is down to three states which also played a key role in determining the outcome of the 2020 presidential contest: Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Given that Republicans have not polled as strongly as they would have liked, the special election run-off in Georgia on 6 December will be key. Under state law the winner has to take over 50% of the vote. In the first round the Democratic incumbent pastor Raphael Warnock had 49.2% and his Republican opponent, former football star Herschel Walker, had 48.7%.

From next January the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, will flip from Democrat to Republican. Kevin McCarthy will replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, the third-highest elected office in the US. A Republican House will most likely prevent President Biden from passing any further significant legislation. The investigation into the 6 January 2021 assault on the Capitol and Mr Trump’s role in it will probably be shelved.

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Donald Trump may soon be yesterday’s news as America’s right-wing media turns to Ron DeSantis
Could Florida governor Ron DeSantis thwart Donald Trump’s fresh run for the White House?

The stand-out winner of the night was 44-year-old Ron DeSantis, the Republican Governor of Florida who won re-election by a landslide in what is now Mr Trump’s home state. Another name to watch is the high profile and ambitious JD Vance, the best-selling author of Hillbilly Elegy. He fought a poor campaign but still held the Ohio Senate seat comfortably for the Republicans.

Immediately before the election, the assumption was that the race in 2024 would be a rerun of 2020: Biden v Trump. Both men had already indicated their intention of standing again, though neither had yet made a formal declaration. If he (all men so far) put his name forward, an incumbent president such as Mr Biden would not normally be seriously challenged by his own party. The Trump machine looked to be unbeatable.

Trump vs DeSantis battle anticipated

The Democrats’ relatively mild drubbing this week would seem to cement Mr Biden in place. But there is now a question mark over Mr Trump in spite of his insistence in advance that a poor Republican showing would have nothing to do with him. A battle for the nomination between Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis is widely anticipated. Things are unlikely to be so straight forward.

Mr Trump faces a busy few days. On Monday he is under subpoena to appear before the House January 6 Inquiry – though whether he will turn up is a matter of conjecture. On Tuesday he has promised to make a “very big announcement” that he said will be “perhaps” the biggest in American history. This is widely expected to be the official launch of his bid for re-election in 2024. Win or lose, campaigning is a money maker for Trump.

Becoming president would be the best escape from the various civil and legal law suits engulfing him. But the Republican hierarchy do not want him to be their candidate and pressure is mounting on him to delay. If he pulls out, Mr DeSantis will definitely put himself forward. However, there would be bound to be a contested primary season for the Republican nomination, with no certainty that Mr DeSantis would emerge the winner. Mr DeSantis’ prospects are even more uncertain if he gets locked in a bloody contest with Mr Trump, with others putting themselves forward as compromise candidates.

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The answer to the Republicans’ candidate quandary may determine whether Joe Biden, who will celebrate his 80th birthday on 20 November, really bids for the democratic nomination and a second term. Analysing the data, the Republican pollster Frank Luntz explains that Mr Biden is the only Democratic nominee likely to beat Mr Trump (he’s already done it once) but, paradoxically, any other Republican nominee would beat Mr Biden. If it is not going to be against Mr Trump, the Democrats would be wise to go with someone other than Mr Biden.

Fallibility of opinion polls

The fallibility of American opinion polls further adds to the uncertainty. The polls and the data mining aggregators who work from them, such as Nate Silver’s 538.com, had another bad night this week. John Della Volpe, the head of polling at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, did much better foreseeing the mere “red ripple”.

He points out that most of the commercial polls are commissioned by right-leaning entities and have tended to show the Republicans doing better than turns out to be the case. In particular their samples have failed to reflect the high level engagement of younger voters and their centrist tendencies, most likely boosted by the Supreme Court’s ruling against abortion.

All this means that we don’t yet know what the political battleground will be in 2024 and we can’t be sure who the “frontrunners” will be. It is unwise to read too much into the midterms or to pay much attention to the same pundits who told us that President Trump in 2024 was practically a locked-on certainty. The confusing wonders of democracy really were on the ballot this November.

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What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war ramps up

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What China could do next as Trump's tariff war ramps up

The severity cannot be overstated, if an additional 50% tariffs are levied on all Chinese goods it will decimate trade between the world’s two biggest economies.

Remember, 50% would sit on top of what is already on the table: 34% announced last week, 20% announced at the start of US President Donald Trump’s term, and some additional tariffs left over from his first term in office.

In total, it means all Chinese goods would face tariffs of over 100%, some as high as 120%.

It’s a price that makes any trade almost impossible.

China is really the only nation in the world at the moment that is choosing to take a stand.

While others are publicly making concessions and sending delegations to negotiate, China has clearly calculated that not being seen to be bullied is worth the cost that retaliation will bring.

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Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump

The real question, though, is if the US does indeed impose this extra 50% tomorrow, what could or would China do next?

It has said it will “fight to the end”, but what does that mean?

In reality, there are few good options.

There are some obvious measures that China will almost certainly enact.

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Further export controls on rare earth minerals (crucial for the development of high-tech products) are one example. China controls a huge proportion of the world’s supply, but the US would likely find workarounds in time.

Hiking tariffs on high-impact US products such as agricultural goods is another option, but there is only so far this could go.

The potentially more impactful options have significant drawbacks for Beijing.

It could, for instance, target high-profile American companies such as Apple and Tesla, but this isn’t ideal at a time when China is trying to attract more foreign investment, and some devaluation of the currency is possible, but it would also come with adverse effects.

Other options are more political and come with the risk of escalation beyond the economic arena.

In an opinion piece this morning, the editor of Xinhua, China’s state news agency, speculated that China could cease all cooperation with the US on the war against fentanyl.

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This has been a major political issue for Mr Trump, and it’s hard to see it would not constitute some sort of red line for him.

Other options touted include banning the import of American films, or perhaps calling for the Chinese public to boycott all American products.

Anything like this comes with a sense that the world’s two most powerful superpowers might be teetering on the edge of not just a total economic decoupling, but cultural separation too.

There is understandably serious nervousness about how that could spiral and the precedent it sets.

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US

Donald Trump’s 104% tariffs on China – and other levies on ‘worst offenders’ – in effect this mornong

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Donald Trump's 104% tariffs on China - and other levies on 'worst offenders' - in effect this morning

Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.

The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.

At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.

“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”

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White House announces 104% tariff on China

After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.

The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.

China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.

More on China

‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect

Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.

The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.

The UK was not included on this list, and instead saw a “baseline”, worldwide 10% tariff on imported goods in effect from last Saturday.

At the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer promised the government was ready to “shelter British businesses from the storm”.

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What’s going on with the US and China?

Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.

As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.

According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.

New York Stock Exchange on 8 April 2025. Pic: AP
Image:
Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP

Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war ramps up
Chancellor to hold tariff crisis talks with top City executives

Trump signs coal orders

Meanwhile, the US president signed four executive orders to boost American coal mining and production.

The directives order:
• keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open;
• directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands;
• requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and;
• directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.

Read more:
The good, the bad and the ugly in Trump’s coal plans

At a White House ceremony, Mr Trump said the orders end his predecessor Joe Biden’s “war on beautiful clean coal,” and miners “will be put back to work”.

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US

What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war ramps up

Published

on

By

What China could do next as Trump's tariff war ramps up

The severity cannot be overstated, if an additional 50% tariffs are levied on all Chinese goods it will decimate trade between the world’s two biggest economies.

Remember, 50% would sit on top of what is already on the table: 34% announced last week, 20% announced at the start of US President Donald Trump’s term, and some additional tariffs left over from his first term in office.

In total, it means all Chinese goods would face tariffs of over 100%, some as high as 120%.

It’s a price that makes any trade almost impossible.

China is really the only nation in the world at the moment that is choosing to take a stand.

While others are publicly making concessions and sending delegations to negotiate, China has clearly calculated that not being seen to be bullied is worth the cost that retaliation will bring.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump

The real question, though, is if the US does indeed impose this extra 50% tomorrow, what could or would China do next?

It has said it will “fight to the end”, but what does that mean?

In reality, there are few good options.

There are some obvious measures that China will almost certainly enact.

👉 Follow Trump 100 on your podcast app 👈

Further export controls on rare earth minerals (crucial for the development of high-tech products) are one example. China controls a huge proportion of the world’s supply, but the US would likely find workarounds in time.

Hiking tariffs on high-impact US products such as agricultural goods is another option, but there is only so far this could go.

The potentially more impactful options have significant drawbacks for Beijing.

It could, for instance, target high-profile American companies such as Apple and Tesla, but this isn’t ideal at a time when China is trying to attract more foreign investment, and some devaluation of the currency is possible, but it would also come with adverse effects.

Other options are more political and come with the risk of escalation beyond the economic arena.

In an opinion piece this morning, the editor of Xinhua, China’s state news agency, speculated that China could cease all cooperation with the US on the war against fentanyl.

Read more from Sky News:
Baby girl becomes first child in UK to be born from womb transplant
March hottest on record in Europe and by some margin

This has been a major political issue for Mr Trump, and it’s hard to see it would not constitute some sort of red line for him.

Other options touted include banning the import of American films, or perhaps calling for the Chinese public to boycott all American products.

Anything like this comes with a sense that the world’s two most powerful superpowers might be teetering on the edge of not just a total economic decoupling, but cultural separation too.

There is understandably serious nervousness about how that could spiral and the precedent it sets.

Continue Reading

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