Key Points:

• House and Senate results will shape U.S. support for Ukraine and Taiwan.
• Bipartisan support exists, but deals will be challenging.
• A divided government may slow, but not stop, international agreements.
• Also: With tensions heating up globally it’s easy to miss the biggest investments staring people in the face. Read about “the next Nvidia” and decide for yourself.

Austin Smith and Michael Muir examine the impact of down-ballot races on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding Ukraine and Taiwan. Michael notes that while the House looks favorable for Democrats, the Senate might lean Republican, creating a divided Congress that will complicate any president’s agenda. Despite this, there is bipartisan support for Ukraine and Taiwan, especially in the Senate, suggesting that deals are possible but not guaranteed. The conversation highlights that while foreign policy deals could be struck, they will likely be challenging given the political landscape.

Transcript:

So then let’s talk about it.

Let’s look at what would… Can we look at this in the context of maybe Ukraine and Taiwan and how they’re supported on either side of the line?

Is there bipartisan support? Is it typically on one side of the aisle versus another?

Sure. Well, so again, polls are not always reliable, but looking at the landscape going into this election,

The House looks quite favorable to the Democrats.

There’s a couple of seats that are definitely up for grabs.

The Republican majority is very narrow.

The Republicans overperformed in New York State in 2022.

But there has since been redistricting.

New York’s 22nd has gone from kind of a toss up to lean Democrats.

So I would expect that one to flip.

We look at Alabama’s newly created second congressional district.

That was a court order to create a second majority black district, so naturally that is going to favor the Democrats.

However, if we look at the Senate, it’s not quite so favorable for the Democrats.

A lot of the seats that are up for grabs are definitely winnable for the Republicans.

West Virginia is a near certainty to flip. Joe Manchin’s retired.

I’m pretty certain the Republicans are going to take that one.

Montana is another one that I think is very much in favor of the Republicans.

John Tester barely scraped by in the last election.

So that one could very easily flip.

There’s a lot of other marginal seats. Arizona, Nevada, and Ohio are all up for grabs as well.

So I think the most likely outcome is going to be the Democrats retake the House, but they’re going to lose the Senate.

So they have essentially the same problem.

It’s just different now with what they have.

So in terms of… Yeah, go ahead.

It’s interesting to think about, you know, we don’t always put it in this framework,

but you know, what happens in Alabama, Montana, and Pennsylvania might mean more for Ukraine than what happens in the White House per se.

Yeah, absolutely.

It’s going to constrain really what can happen and the deals that can get done.

Now, for Ukraine, there is a lot of skepticism on the Republican side, but it’s not universal.

I think that’s something that’s important to point out.

There are actually a lot of strongly pro-Ukraine Republican representatives, and it’s a little stronger in the Senate.

Mitch McConnell is known for obstructing basically everything the Democrats ever want to do,

but in Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel, he’s spoken publicly of the need for American support.

So there’s probably scope, even if the Democrats lose the Senate, if Harris wins, to get a deal done.

Similarly, there’s bipartisan support also for Taiwan.

So there is room to make a deal.

If Harris wins, for Trump, it’s really just going to be dependent on how much he wants to actually get done.

In terms of deal-making, which is something Yashun has had difficulty with in the past.

So is it fair to say, we don’t want to oversimplify, everything is still up in the air, as you said earlier, polls do change.

But is it fair to say at this point, based on where things look like they may be leaning,

that deals are a possibility for Ukraine, Taiwan, but not a certainty?

And that’s trying to look at the mix of maybe the House, the Senate, and the President.

You know, so maybe some of the Republican skepticism around Ukraine is not as strictly hard line or unilateral as it may seem.

And that reality might mean that if there’s a loss of the House or Senate, you know, for one party or another,

that a deal can still get done, but there’s no uniparty.

There’s no single party control expected, you know, in getting the triumvirate to sort of do as you please.

So deals are possible, but with difficulty? Is that the right way to characterize it for Ukraine and Taiwan?

Well, I know we’re not talking about domestic politics right now, but I think neither candidate is going to have…

Both candidates are really going to struggle to get anything done domestically.

But internationally, there’s more scope for deal-making.

And I think if we think about the aftermath, let’s say Harris does win and Trump loses,

is that the end of Trump as an influential figure in the Republican Party?

It’s difficult to say, but if his influence has waned, then this kind of Ukrainian, this skepticism over Ukraine might also fall away a little bit.

It really depends.

But again, there are some influential voices in the Republican Party that have expressed public support of Ukraine and Taiwan.

So I would expect there is room to make a deal.

And I think that is also why Walz was chosen as vice president.

He has experience dealing with a divided legislature, and as governor of Minnesota, I believe, in his first term.

And then as a representative in the House, he was the first congressional district, six terms.

And I think he was comfortably in the top ten for most bipartisan representatives.

So he has this kind of experience of wheeling and dealing.

So, yeah, I think there’s room to make a deal with regard to Ukraine and Taiwan.

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