US President Trump loses a key ally following the Serbian election and fails to gain a new one in Brazil.

Donald Trump Loses Allies After Elections in Serbia and Brazil October 30, 2026 In the USA, the time has not yet come to go to the polls. This coming Tuesday, November 3, Americans will vote in the midterm elections to decide who will represent them in Congress. Currently, the right-wing conservative Republicans of US President Donald Trump hold the majority in both chambers. Elsewhere, elections have just concluded: In both Serbia and Brazil, voters have opted for the left-wing political camp. These results have no predictive value for how the midterms in the USA will turn out. Nevertheless, the victories of the student list in Serbia and the incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva are bad news for Trump. In Serbia, he loses a key ally in Europe in the former president, Aleksandar Vucic. And in Brazil, the Trump camp had hoped for a victory by Flávio Bolsonaro. Trump had a good relationship with his father and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. "Trump was a strong supporter of both Jair Bolsonaro, the Trump-like president who was in office before Lula's victory in 2022, and his son Flávio," Lawrence J. Haas, a US foreign policy expert at the American Foreign Policy Council think tank, told DW. "Trump was not exactly happy about the defeats of the two, and he has no time for Lula. The relationship [with Brazil] will therefore remain cool at best." In the 1990s, Haas served as communications director for Bill Clinton's Vice President Al Gore. Trump: Brazil Election Looked "Rigged" Flávio Bolsonaro faces money laundering allegations. Following the lost election, he fled to Florida; the US State Department has issued visas for him and his family. He refuses to admit his defeat in the election, claiming instead that irregularities occurred during the voting. This is strongly reminiscent of Trump, who still falsely claims that Joe Biden and the Democrats "stole" the 2020 election victory from him. Trump expressed himself similarly regarding Bolsonaro's defeat. "To be honest, it looked like another rigged election," the US President said on Monday. "Elections must be beyond reproach—and in my opinion, this looked very bad." Good Relations with the Now-Ousted Putin-Friend Vucic Vucic had ruled Serbia with an iron fist since 2017 and now wanted to take over the position of Prime Minister. Vucic had stated in the past that he and President Trump were like-minded. Shortly before the US presidential election in November 2024, and again a few months later, Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., visited Vucic in Belgrade. The "Conservative Political Action Conference" (CPAC), a US organization close to Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement, recently announced it would hold a meeting in Belgrade in November. Vucic was intended to be one of the keynote speakers at the event. It remains unclear whether this will still happen. Another thing that connects Vucic with Trump: Serbia's soon-to-be former president holds a much more positive view of Vladimir Putin than most other European heads of government. Vucic did not join the EU sanctions against Russia after the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine. Belgrade continues to buy Russian raw materials, and under Vucic, Serbian state media portrayed Russia more positively than the EU. Trump is also showing an increasing affinity for Moscow. His special envoy Steve Witkoff recently described Putin as a "philanthropist," and Trump himself openly admitted in an interview that he gets along better with Putin than with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The end of the Vucic government now also means that Trump has lost one of the few allies in Europe who share this view. A Ray of Hope in Israel? Result Still Open At least in Israel, there could be an outcome that is to Trump's liking. After more than 96 percent of the votes have been counted, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing bloc is leading. However, Trump-friend Netanyahu has also lost his majority, so coalition negotiations are likely to be complicated. The two heads of state have not only been close since they jointly began the war against Iran at the end of February. Already during his first term in 2018, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The move was controversial because Jerusalem is claimed as the capital in part by both Israel and the Palestinians. The camp around Netanyahu welcomed the decision at the time. Today, the USA remains by far Israel's most important partner, and Israel is a vital foothold for the USA in the region. It is unclear how the relationship would look under a different Israeli government; should Netanyahu remain in power, little to nothing is likely to change. No Rosy Outlook for the Midterms for Trump With Vucic's defeat, Trump loses a loyal ally; with Lula's victory, an unwelcome president remains in office. This is not ideal for Trump, but it will have no influence on the important election in his own country, says Haas: "Americans will vote based on issues that affect them directly, and depending on how they feel about the party currently in power." But these are not promising prospects for Trump either. "He has the lowest approval ratings for a president before the midterms since Harry Truman in 1946," says Haas. "Americans are very concerned about how much they can still afford [and] they reject the US war against Iran." Contribution by Benjamin Alvarez Gruber