FP (Foreign Policy) Analysis The Biggest Challenges Trump Faces in His Second Year - From Russia-Ukraine to the U.S. midterms, Trump faces a bumpier year at home and abroad. -- January 16, 2026, 9:41 AM -- By FP Staff

 FP  (Foreign Policy) 

Analysis

The Biggest Challenges Trump Faces in His Second Year

From Russia-Ukraine to the U.S. midterms, Trump faces a bumpier year at home and abroad.

January 16, 2026, 9:41 AM

By FP Staff

A photo collage illustration shows the back of President Donald Trump in front of three track hurdles. Behind the hurdles are a stack of shipping containers, soccer stadiums and a passport, and a voter in a U.S.-flagged voting booth.

Klawe Rzeczy illustration for Foreign Policy

Never miss a story: Click + to add authors, topics and regions to your My FP profile.

U.S. Foreign Policy

Elections

United States

Russia

Iran

Middle East and North Africa

Ukraine

Domestic politics and the prospect of Republicans losing their monopoly over government in Washington are likely to take up more of U.S. President Donald Trump’s attention this year. That will give him more to worry about than the early days of 2025, when he and his allies confidently proclaimed they had received a strong mandate by American voters for sweeping change.

Trump’s Second Term

Ongoing reports and analysis

At the same time, Trump’s years of self-aggrandizing his abilities as the dealmaker-in-chief are running into the harsh reality of some of the world’s most intractable conflicts. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians, Israelis, and their foreign interlocutors are at an impasse over how to implement phase 2 of Trump’s vaunted 20-point peace plan. And Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to refuse to accept any credible security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a hoped-for peace deal.

All of this adds up to what could be a particularly difficult year for Trump and his foreign-policy ambitions. Here are some of the biggest challenges he faces heading into the second year of his second term.

JUMP TO TOPIC

The U.S. Midterms The Russia-Ukraine War The Middle East The Supreme Court Tariff Ruling The World Cup

The U.S. Midterms

People stand hunched over high top tables surrounded by privacy screens that read "VOTE" and depict a bald eagle against an American flag backdrop.

Voters cast their ballots on the eve of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Nov. 7, 2022.Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

The reality of Trump’s—objectively historic and noteworthy—2024 electoral victory is that although he won the popular vote, he did so by a much smaller margin than other recent U.S. presidential winners. But despite not technically winning a majority of the popular vote (he won 49.81 percent), Trump governed in his first year in office as if he had been given a clear directive from a significant majority of Americans to overhaul the country’s governance, economy, alliance systems, politics, media and culture, and rights and liberties.

Now Trump’s already-lengthy second administration track record of unilaterally imposing massive changes—including on things such as tariffs, immigration policy, withholding or impounding large sums of congressionally directed taxpayer funds, and unauthorized military offensives in places such as Venezuela and Iran—will very much be on the ballot in November, even if the president himself is not.

While the U.S. midterm elections are still nearly a year away, Trump’s mediocre public approval ratings have hovered between the high 30s and low 40s for many months now. Meanwhile, in generic congressional ballot questions, Republicans have consistently trailed Democrats. And while Republicans are currently projected to maintain their hold on the Senate, Democrats are seen as having a narrow advantage to win back the House of Representatives.

The broad unpopularity of some of Trump’s signature policies in areas such as trade, immigration, and the economy comes amid growing signs that notable numbers of Capitol Hill Republicans are more willing to speak out or vote against the president’s wishes on issues from military action in Venezuela to bullying Denmark over Greenland to health care funding.

All signs point to a more turbulent year for Trump domestically—to say nothing of what might come in 2027 should Democrats manage to break Republicans’ power hold in Washington.—Rachel Oswald

Return to Full List

The Russia-Ukraine War

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, dressed in dark clothing, sits at a large conference table in an ornate government meeting room, looking over his shoulder toward the camera. Several other officials, including Trump, sit around the table in the background, with microphones, documents, water glasses, and place settings visible. U.S. flags, military banners, framed portraits, and gold curtains decorate the room.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and his cabinet at the White House in Washington on Oct. 17, 2025.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Despite Trump vowing to end the Russia-Ukraine war within “24 hours” of taking office, that deadline proved impossible to meet. Now, one year and several dramatic, high-level meetings later, the war remains unresolved, with a U.S.-drafted 28-point peace plan at an impasse.

To end the war, year two of Trump 2.0 will likely face many of the same hurdles as year one. Moscow refuses to slow its advance or stop targeting civilian and energy infrastructure in Ukraine and remains staunchly opposed to having any Western troops in Ukraine as part of a future security guarantee for Kyiv. Ukraine, for its part, rejects demands that it relinquish some of its territory to Russia and isn’t willing to stop fighting without those security guarantees.

Meanwhile, Trump has not managed to get Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the same room, despite imposing steep U.S. sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies as well as high tariffs on countries that purchase crude from Moscow. U.S. lawmakers are running out of patience with the Trump administration’s handling of the conflict. And Washington’s NATO allies appear to be growing less convinced that the White House cares about Europe’s interests.

With accusations that Trump and his team are soft on the Kremlin, 2026 may be the year that Ukraine’s European backers take the reins. France and the United Kingdom have promised to send troops to Kyiv in the event of a peace deal, the European Union is discussing a drone wall to combat Russian incursions, and NATO members have begun the process of increasing their defense spending to meet the new 5 percent target amid a more turbulent world order.

Trump wants the recognition of ending Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. But it’s unclear if he and his team have the patience, attention span, or diplomatic expertise necessary to see the effort through.—Alexandra Sharp

Return to Full List

The Middle East

Collapsed and partially-destroyed buildings line a dirt road that leads toward the sea. Rubble, broken concrete, and makeshift shelters line the sides of the street. Several people walk along the road.

Palestinians walk amid destroyed buildings in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Jan. 10. Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images

Since the Trump-brokered cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began in October 2025, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians and demolished thousands of buildings in Gaza. Several Israeli troops have been killed in Gaza since the truce began, with the last such incident occurring on Oct. 28, 2025. The ongoing violence, which has led some international observers to reject the notion that there’s a cease-fire in Gaza at all, is indicative of the array of obstacles standing in the way of moving to phase two of Trump’s peace plan.

The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution in mid-November endorsing Trump’s plan, including aspects such as establishing a “Board of Peace” and an international stabilization force. But as things stand, the process has not moved beyond phase one and there have been little to no signs of progress.

The second phase is meant to see Hamas disarm and Israel take strides toward fully withdrawing from Gaza. But Hamas opposes disarmament, and Israel’s defense minister in late December said the Israeli military will “never fully withdraw” from Gaza.

This impasse is poised to be a significant challenge for Trump in 2026, particularly if he hopes to see progress made on other fronts in the region such as advancing the Abraham Accords, with countries like Saudi Arabia stating they will not join until there’s a credible path toward establishing a Palestinian state.

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have also faced historic levels of violence from Israeli settlers. Trump has expressed concerns about the violence in the West Bank, but critics want him to do more to pressure Israel to curb the attacks—emphasizing that the situation there also threatens the White House’s agenda in the region.

Meanwhile, the truce between Israel and Lebanon also remains on shaky ground. The Lebanese military in early January said that it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah, a key aspect of the cease-fire agreement. But Israel has expressed impatience with the pace and scope of the process and in recent days launched a wave of strikes on the Iran-backed militant group.

Though some recent reporting suggested Trump gave Israel a green light for a fresh offensive in Lebanon, renewed conflict in the country could prove to be a significant headache for the United States as it seeks to advance its objectives in the region.

And then there’s Iran, which saw historic anti-government protests for the past several weeks largely driven by the country’s nosediving economy. Reports suggest that hundreds or possibly thousands of protesters have been killed by security forces as the Iranian regime sought to quell the most serious domestic challenge to its power in years.

Trump repeatedly threatened to intervene to stop the violence against protesters but appears to have backed away from taking any actions now that the protests appear to have died down. But the situation remains very fluid, and it’s difficult to predict what could happen next.—John Haltiwanger

Return to Full List

The Supreme Court Tariff Ruling

Trump stands at a podium and speaks into a microphone while holding up a chart titled "reciprocal tariffs." It lists the names of several countries on the left and the tariff rates they'll face on the right.

Trump holds up a chart while detailing his “Liberation Day” tariff plan at the White House in Washington on April 2, 2025.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

One challenge almost certain to confront Trump sooner rather than later is the Supreme Court ruling on the bulk of the tariffs he has levied on nearly every country in the world. Those tariffs invoked Carter-era legislation to declare a national emergency, which the administration argued allowed it to usurp the powers of taxation from Congress (tariffs are import taxes, and add up to hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue for the Treasury every year). Many of the Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical of such notions when oral arguments were held in November.

If the Supreme Court strikes down those tariffs, that will present the administration with two immediate issues. First is the question of refunds to companies for tariffs already collected. The administration has suggested that large-scale refunds would be a budgetary disaster, as well as a paperwork nightmare; but if they are mandated, some observers expect another boost to spending and the U.S. economy this year.

The other question is how to do the tariffs under other authorities that don’t fall foul of the courts. There are plenty of options that have been under discussion at the White House for months: There are narrower national-security tariffs that can be levied (and have been plenty of times by Trump) under a 1962 trade act; there are smaller, and shorter-term, tariffs allowed under a 1974 trade act, but Congress has the ultimate say in those; and there is the nuclear option, reaching back to the Smoot-Hawley bill of 1930 to levy stiff tariffs on any country for “discriminatory” trade practices.

The problem for the Trump administration is that all of those approaches take longer, require study and consultation first, are more limited, and in some cases are naturally constrained by Congress. Trump, the self-proclaimed “Tariff Man,” may meet his first serious rebuke over his efforts to reshape the global trading order. It won’t end his quest but will make it a bit trickier to pull off the construction of the protectionist wall he promised to build.—Keith Johnson

Return to Full List

The World Cup

Trump, President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum, Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney, and FIFA President Gianni Infantino stand on a stage and smile. Each country leader holds a small strip of fabric labeled with their respective country's names.

Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stand on stage with FIFA President Gianni Infantino to show the results of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final Draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Dec. 5, 2025.Patrick Smith/Getty Images

The 2026 World Cup is set to occur from June 11 to July 19. This iteration of the international tournament will be unprecedented, with three nations jointly hosting: the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Trump has presented hosting the World Cup as a big win for the United States and has taken a personal interest in the tournament. “It’s a very special event. I think it’s probably certainly one of the biggest, and maybe the biggest sporting event in the world,” Trump said in 2018 after the United States was tapped to host alongside its southern and northern neighbors.

The White House has also touted the fact that the tournament is coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding.

But pulling off the World Cup without any problems will be a big challenge for Trump, particularly given the political climate in the United States. Trump has already floated the notion of stripping World Cup games from U.S. cities that have not cooperated with his agenda, exhibiting his willingness to politicize the tournament.

There are also significant and complex logistical issues to consider. Last summer’s Club World Cup, which was held in the United States and saw the country welcome fans from across the globe, offered a window into the potential problems. FIFA was alerted to 145 human rights concerns during this tournament that were linked to issues ranging from the enforcement of U.S. policies to safety concerns over extreme heat.

Along these lines, there are open questions as to whether Trump’s immigration agenda will clash with the World Cup, as fans from across the globe gather to celebrate the most-watched sporting event in the world. It may be a challenge for Trump to maintain his hard-line immigration policies and avoid any high-profile incidents during the tournament. Due to the various issues with visas and the general state of the country, some international fans might end up avoiding games held in the United States altogether to avoid the hassle.

And fans from at least four countries that qualified for the World Cup—Iran, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Haiti—will likely find it very difficult or impossible to attend any games in the United States due to travel restrictions imposed by the Trump administration. These restrictions do not extend to players and staff, but they still don’t exactly jibe with a tournament that’s meant to be about international cooperation and hospitality. Even fans that are not from countries facing especially stringent restrictions may still have to hand over up to five years of social media history as they enter the United States.

Much like the Olympics, the World Cup is a major example of sports diplomacy that offers host countries a huge opportunity to advertise their people, culture, infrastructure, economy, and values to the world. But with the 2026 World Cup being co-hosted by an administration that does not exactly prioritize being welcoming to outsiders, the tournament could end up damaging perceptions of the United States in the eyes of the globe even further.—John Haltiwanger

Return to Full List

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration. Follow along here.

Never miss a story: Click + to add authors, topics and regions to your My FP profile.

U.S. Foreign Policy

Election

United States

Russia

Iran

Middle East and North Africa

Ukraine