FT's Edward Luce: Trump is not just sinking in the Gulf

Key topics:Trump’s poll numbers slide amid Iran, Venezuela, and Greenland episodes.Courts and elections limit Trump’s unilateral power, challenging key agendas.MAGA base remains loyal, but working-class and independents turn away..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Edward Luce.“How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings [of Donald Trump]?” a big conservative crowd was asked in Texas last weekend. It yelled in the affirmative. “No. That was the wrong answer,” said the Trump loyalist hosting the event. “Let’s try it again.” The third time, after he rephrased, they dutifully agreed. It seemed the Maga gathering may have been afflicted by confused English rather than a sudden turn against Trump. The same is not true of wider America, which is undergoing prolonged buyer’s remorse.Not all of Trump’s slide stems from Iran. Months before he embarked on his Gulf war of choice, his poll numbers were heading south. Iran is only the latest — though most dramatic — example of Trump’s increasingly volatile switch from the home stage to the world’s (and from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids to missile strikes). Venezuela consumed the first few days of the year. Only after he climbed down from annexing Greenland did Trump build up the US armada in the Middle East.It would be fair to surmise that Trump’s domestic advisers are tearing their hair out. During Trump’s first term, “infrastructure week” became a recurring joke; every time the White House announced it, Trump would steal his own thunder by doing something unrelated. Trump’s “affordability” drive plays the same role in his second term. Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, keeps scheduling events in which he can talk about his plans to lower the cost of living. But the Iran war keeps making a nonsense of her efforts..Read more:.FT: Trump’s Greenland pivot leaves Europe flummoxed.Even if he declares unilateral victory in the Gulf, Iran would still have more influence than him over US inflation. America’s 47th president regularly backs down in the face of falling stock and Treasury bond prices. Much like China found last year with rare earths, Iran has discovered a lethal chokehold on the global markets. In a phone interview with me on Sunday, Trump insisted that Iran was now run by “professionals” compared with those who were killed in the opening days. But Iran experts say the regime has become more hardline and less amenable in the last month. Moreover, they have stumbled on a weapon that can induce Taco.It is now commonplace to hear speculation that Trump will cancel the US midterm elections in November. That is almost inconceivable. Not once since the first US election in 1789 has a nationwide election been cancelled. Every two years, America has elected a new Congress. This year will be no exception. Nor, as some of Trump’s Maga friends are advising, is he likely to be able to impose martial law in dozens of swing districts, though he might try.Pretexts can easily be conjured to convince the Maga faithful and Elon Musk that undocumented migrants are stealing the election. Judges are a different matter. The courts have issued dozens of injunctions against Trumpian over-reach, such as deploying the national guard to states that have not requested troops and ICE’s paramilitary tactics. Until recently, however, he could bank on the Supreme Court upholding most of his agenda. But Trump has soured on the highest court since it struck down his main tariffs in February. Now it looks likely to reject his reinterpretation of America’s 14th amendment, which gives automatic citizenship to anyone born in the US. Should the justices uphold the conventional view that the civil war-era law was not only meant for freed slaves, Trump will have suffered a double whammy. Tariffs and deportation of immigrants are two of Trump’s four biggest political touchstones. The third was to avoid “stupid, senseless wars” in the Middle East.Only on the fourth — his “war on woke” — has Trump delivered. But he may have done so a little too well. In 2024, psephologists talked of a US realignment in which Trump’s Maga coalition included a multiracial working-class base. There is no longer such talk. Polls show a big shrinkage of working-class support for Trump, particularly among non-white voters. Men under 45 of all races have also turned against him. Their lodestar, the podcaster Joe Rogan, recently called the Iran war “insane” and said Trump’s voters felt “betrayed”. Independents are also moving heavily against him; two-thirds of them disapprove according to a recent YouGov poll — the highest in either of his terms.It was once thought that Trump would turn to overseas adventurism only after a 2026 midterm defeat. He has started that clock ahead of schedule. His base is static but getting more extreme. Maga support for the Iran war is still above 90 per cent. But Trump has other ideas if Iran remains intractable. One of these is Cuba. “I think I can do anything I want with it,” he recently said. Cuba’s regime cannot say it wasn’t warned. .© 2026 The Financial Times Ltd.

FT's Edward Luce: Trump is not just sinking in the Gulf

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