Harris/Trump Scenarios for Ukraine and Europe

The outcome of this U.S. election will reverberate far beyond American borders, impacting the future of Ukraine and the European security order especially.

But how exactly?

Together with Rachel Tausendfreund from the German Council on Foreign Affairs, we sketched out a variety of potential scenarios in this regard. Matching a prospective Harris/Trump 2.0 administration with three EU constellations (a strong, split or stuck EU), we plotted out scenarios in three specific fields:

1️⃣ Support for Ukraine
2️⃣ A negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia
3️⃣ NATO and European security

Scenarios are of course only estimates. They sketch out possibilities.

But the process of zooming in, outlining prospective futures, and refining potential pathways in a workshop we had with experts from half a dozen countries, provides a range of insights.

Some key take-aways are:

📍Timing matters. Under a Trump 2.0 scenario, the EU needs to act fast, while under Harris it has more time to strategise and prepare. It's therefore good that the European Commission already put a task force on the US in place. The window between 05 November and inauguration on 20 January is important to try and shape the environment for the next President.

📍Unsurprisingly, a strong and united EU fares better in each scenario, while a stuck EU…