Bardella and Weidel distance themselves from Trump after Republican midterm losses

European far-right leaders distance themselves from Trump after US midterms

• European far-right leaders distanced themselves from Donald Trump after the Republican defeat in the 2026 US midterm elections.
• Jordan Bardella said US attacks on Iran had carried “very heavy consequences” for world economies without naming Trump.
• Alice Weidel said Trump’s broken promise of a non-interventionist foreign policy had returned to haunt Republicans.
• The Guardian said cost-of-living anger, housing crises, the rural-urban divide and immigration remain rooted in European domestic conditions.

European domestic pressures, not US results, sustain populist voting

After Republicans suffered a historic defeat in Tuesday’s US midterm elections, European far-right leaders moved to distance themselves from Donald Trump without launching personal attacks against him. Across France, Germany, Italy and Spain, politicians who had drawn on Trump’s border, culture-war and anti-globalist themes were insulating themselves from the White House while retaining a connection to parts of his political appeal.

Since Trump’s re-election in 2024, Marine Le Pen in France and Giorgia Meloni in Italy had carefully calibrated their public positions toward the US president. They embraced policies associated with hard borders, culture wars and anti-globalism. But The Guardian reported that European voters, including those on the far right, objected to Trump’s personal volatility, geopolitical unpredictability, unreliability on European defence and trade protectionism.

Trump’s threats over Greenland and economic nationalism created a second problem for European nationalist politicians. The report said a leader who championed national sovereignty and domestic jobs could not support threats to invade the largely self-governing territory of an EU member state or punitive trade tariffs. The scale of Tuesday’s defeat prompted European populists to move further away from the White House while avoiding personal criticism of Trump.

Jordan Bardella, leader of the National Rally in France and a possible prime minister if Le Pen wins next year’s presidential ballot, led the distancing. Without naming the president who ordered the attacks, Bardella blamed the US attacks on Iran for carrying “very heavy consequences” for world economies.

In Germany, Alice Weidel, a co-leader of Alternative für Deutschland, said Trump had promised his voters “not to pursue an interventionist foreign policy.” She added that “this broken campaign promise has now come back to haunt the Republicans.”

In Italy, Roberto Vannacci, founder of the insurgent far-right National Future party, said the result showed the political dangers of failing to deliver electoral promises: “Trump failed to live up to expectations,” he said. In Spain, Vox leader Santiago Abascal brushed aside questions about an ideological alliance with Washington by saying he was “in Spain, not in Michigan” and cared “quite little about what happens in other places.”

Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group consultancy said the European leaders were acting for domestic advantage. They hoped to benefit from the “ideological momentum of Trumpism” without being tarred by the “chaos and economic disruption of his presidency,” Rahman said.

For far-right parties in opposition, the US result offered a domestic political playbook: public anger over rising prices and unaffordable housing could be channeled into electoral victory. Bardella said purchasing power and the cost of living would be “the absolute priority” of a National Rally government. The party’s plans included cutting VAT on electricity, gas and fuel and allowing employers to raise wages without additional payroll charges.

In Spain, Vox was focusing on soaring living costs and plunging housing affordability against Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez. The party sought to enter government as a partner in a rightwing coalition after elections on 29 November.

For populists already governing, the midterm result was less helpful. Italian prime minister Meloni had faced several waves of domestic protest in Rome, Milan and elsewhere, some of them violent, over fuel costs and inflation. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League, said the US vote was “influenced above all by the wars, international tensions and the increase in the cost of living, the consequences of which fall directly on families.”

Opposition MPs connected the result to Trump’s pledge to lower prices and bring back quality jobs, saying that neither had been delivered. They argued that far-right leaders who take office and then fail to deliver face the same voter anger as other incumbents.

Some on the European far right resisted the result’s implications. Dan Dungaciu of Romania’s AUR argued that reports of Trump’s “political death” were greatly exaggerated. Even so, The Guardian’s broader assessment said nationalist leaders would probably continue to embrace Maga’s ideas while keeping Trump at arm’s length, because their underlying support rests on European domestic conditions.

The report identified the cost of living, housing crises, the rural-urban divide and immigration as the grievances driving European populism, rather than American election results. It warned mainstream parties against assuming that the midterms showed the populist tide was receding. Its conclusion was that voter anger over the cost of living is unforgiving, regardless of who is in power.