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Analysis
Last week, I wrote about the political revolution that President Donald Trump has launched in the United States and how it has made America a fundamentally unreliable player on the world stage.
This week, I’ll take on another question I detailed during my recent “State of the World” speech in Tokyo: How can/should the rest of the world respond to this new reality?
***
When dealing with a leader of the world’s most powerful country who ignores counsel and acts on impulse, most governments will have to avoid actions that make Trump-unfriendly headlines. (Looking at you, Doug Ford.)
This is the logic that led Canada to surrender on its plan to impose a digital services tax earlier this year, and why a TV ad aired by the province of Ontario using clips of Ronald Reagan to criticize Trump’s tariffs was hastily taken down when the US president got angry. It’s why Japan was wise to make unilateral concessions on Nippon Steel and automotive tariffs. To safeguard their national interests, if a fight can be avoided, other governments should avoid it – by whatever means necessary. Let the spotlight of Trump administration hostility fall on others.
Many US allies have moved to proactively limit damage from any future fight with the White House. The United Kingdom, the European Union, and a number of Southeast Asian countries have offered non-reciprocal trade deals. See also Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Argentina, and El Salvador.
From governments that have much more bargaining leverage – like China, Russia, and India – we’ve seen that standing up for yourself and a willingness to absorb punches can create needed space. That strategy won’t work for everyone. Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil and many others need to stay on a positive track with Washington.
But all countries, whatever their current relationship with the White House, will need to build their own long-term capacity and reinforce their own stability – to become more economically dynamic and competitive for the future.
That’s China’s current approach. Beijing has also doubled down on its support for existing international institutions, in part because it calculates that an American step-back will create new opportunities to change them.
In short, when faced with an America that’s become a more unreliable player on the global stage, one that can’t be counted on to safeguard allies who have underinvested in their own security, the right strategy is defense first, hedge second.
Just as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine persuaded Europeans to quickly reduce their own dependence on Russian energy, European governments want to avoid finding themselves at the mercy of shifting policies from Washington.
America’s traditional allies will have to regain their competitive position. That means a focus on growth, robust industrial policy, streamlined regulatory and bureaucratic authorities, and expansive investment in new technologies. They must attract and invest in entrepreneurship, assert more diplomatic leadership internationally, and accept responsibilities in building multilateral architecture.
Models already exist. In particular, there is Mario Draghi’s crucial competitiveness report for the European Union. On a smaller scale, there is Mark Carney’s thoughtfully crafted “Canada Strong” plan. Most every global leader should be thinking in these terms.
It’s easier said than done. The near-term politics of making these transformations is daunting. The EU is not a single state, and Europe's need for consensus rulemaking and pushback from more euro-skeptic governments (which could arrive even in France and Germany in the next election cycle) pose an enormous challenge.
There will be opposition from the fast-rising Reform Party in Britain and some provincial governments in Canada.
But once all these economic, political, security, and diplomatic investments are made, America’s unreliability, in the years well beyond Trump, will matter less.
As for hedging…
- Europe has committed to spend much more money on its own defense and to address the security coordination problems NATO will suffer without clear US leadership.
- The Saudis have signed a nuclear deal with Pakistan to hedge against any future security neglect from Washington, and there’s already more defense and intelligence-sharing among Gulf States.
- India’s Narendra Modi is working hard to stabilize his country’s relations with China and to temper their rivalry.
- The EU has finalized three free trade agreements — with South American bloc Mercosur, Mexico and Indonesia — and is working toward an agreement with India.
- Mercosur sealed a free trade deal with the European Free Trade Area, four European countries outside the EU. It has restarted negotiations with Canada.
In short, the defense and hedging strategies are well underway and likely to succeed to varying degrees in various places over time – though we should be more skeptical about even a medium-term turnaround in competitiveness.
We’re now living in a post-American order, with no one willing or able to fill the vacuum. China has its own problems and isn’t about to bite off more than it can chew. Which means a deeper G-Zero world, leading to more conflict, inflicting more damage, and lasting longer.
This trajectory isn’t sustainable. During the Cold War, it took the Cuban Missile Crisis to convince leaders that armed confrontation would be catastrophic – and that new communication channels and agreements were essential. We don't know what form “the crisis we need” to build a new order will take this time. But it's coming.
Until then? The old rules don’t apply anymore, and new rules haven’t been written yet. We must brace for sustained turbulence.
A Venezuelan Navy patrol boat sails off the Caribbean coast, amid heightened tensions with the U.S., in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, October 24, 2025.
On Monday, the US struck four boats off the Pacific coast of Central America, killing 14 people who the White House said were smuggling narcotics. Over the past few weeks, the Trump Administration has killed at least 57 alleged drug smugglers in the waters of the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, as part of a widening campaign against drug cartels that the White House says are linked to the Venezuelan government. Critics say these are extrajudicial killings, the Administration says they are permitted under anti-terrorism laws.
But is the US gearing up for strikes within Venezuela itself? Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday that President Donald Trump plans to brief members of Congress when he gets back from Asia about “future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia” and “a potential expanding from the sea to the land.” Trump himself has suggested as much, telling reporters earlier this month that “We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control.”
There’s reason to wonder. Over the past few weeks, the US has moved thousands of troops and military equipment into the region, including a state of the art aircraft carrier. It marks the largest buildup of US forces there at least since the 1990 invasion of Panamá to oust estranged former CIA partner Manuel Noriega.
The US military is currently conducting military drills with Trinidad and Tobago — just 7 miles off Venezuela’s shores. The extent of the build-up suggests that the real target may be Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro, experts say.
“I think this is about domestic policy objectives – migration and stemming drug flows – and a desire to remove Maduro from power,” says Eurasia Group Latin America expert Risa Grais-Targow.
There are a few ways Maduro could be pushed out. The US could try to peel off his inner circle or top generals with pressure, sanctions, and quiet offers of exile. It could back a covert operation or special forces strike to take him down directly — or, less likely, use limited airstrikes to cripple his military’s capabilities before taking out Maduro himself. One option that doesn’t seem to be on the table: the US launching a sustained ground invasion of Venezuela, a potential quagmire which could fly in the face of Trump’s stated opposition for “forever wars.” Still critics say even more limited operations would require Congressional approval and oversight.
What happens if Maduro is removed from power? While a Venezuelan pro-democracy movement – led by Maria Corina Machado – waits in the wings and is advocating for Trump to oust Maduro, Grais-Targow cautions that any post-Maduro transition would be “chaotic.” “The ruling party and armed forces control all relevant institutions,” she says, “and any eventual competitive elections or handover of power would require difficult negotiations around power-sharing, along with economic and amnesty guarantees.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council via video link at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on October 24, 2025.
It’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks for US-Russia relations.
Two weeks ago, US President Donald Trump was considering handing Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which would allow Kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory. But, following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 16, Trump decided to chop the Tomahawk plan, and announced a meeting with his Russian counterpart.
That quickly fell apart, though – reportedly because negotiations over a ceasefire deal had stalled – and by Oct. 23, an agitated Trump announced that he was sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, which together produce half of Russia’s oil. This was a step that even the Biden administration refused to take, largely over fears that oil prices would spike, driving up inflation.
Now, combined with Biden-era sanctions on Gazpromneft and Surgutneftegaz, the US has blacklisted Moscow’s four largest crude producers.
There’s just one problem, per Eurasia Group’s Russia expert Alex Brideau.
“The new US sanctions are most likely insufficient to change Putin’s strategy in the war against Ukraine,” said Brideau. “The full effect will depend, in part, on whether the largest importers of Russian oil, India and China, halt these purchases.”
Will China and India halt purchases? Here’s the thing: they just might. This would be devastating for the Kremlin: the two countries combined currently purchase more than 80% of Russia’s crude exports, per the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. What’s more, the oil & gas sector is vital to Russia’s government purse – it’s responsible for 30-50% of total budget revenues.
Even absent any pressure from the government to comply or ignore the sanctions, Chinese refiners are already looking elsewhere, per Eurasia Group’s Practice Head for China David Meale.
“I think there is no chance that China will push its firms to comply with the sanctions for the purposes of improving bilateral relations,” said Meale. “However, their major oil companies have already curtailed purchases due to how the threat of sanctions affects their other international interactions.”
India, meanwhile, has until now resisted Trump’s direct pressure to stop buying Russian oil, in part because it wants Moscow to stay neutral if China-India tensions flare up again. With the new US sanctions in place, though, it could be a different story.
“The sanctions on the two largest Russian oil firms have certainly changed the situation,” said Ashok Malik, partner and chair of The Asia Group’s India practice. “I would expect Russian oil purchases to decline significantly — at least in the medium run — should these measures be carried through.”
It seems the process has already begun: Reuters reported last week that Indian oil refiners are poised to halt purchases of Russian oil.
“A near-total halt in Russian crude imports by late November appears inevitable – not out of political alignment, but because continuing would endanger India’s economy itself,” Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Delhi-based Global Trade Research Initiative, told GZERO.
In a sign that the sanctions are already hurting Russian crude firms, Lukoil unveiled a plan yesterday to sell off its foreign assets.
So it looks like Moscow is in trouble? There are signs that the attritional war is starting to take a toll on the Russian economy, which had been remarkably resilient over the first three years of the war. The International Monetary Fund forecast that the Russian economy will expand by less than 1% this year – it grew over 4% in each of the last two years. Inflation has remained stubbornly high at around 8%. And Russians are becoming less optimistic about whether economic conditions are improving in their area, per a Gallup poll.
“Over a longer period of time,” said Brideau, “these trade-offs may become too difficult for the state to manage.”
A stubborn (Moscow) mule. If there is one last reason that Russia will continue this war, it’s Putin. The Russian leader has displayed an extraordinarily high threshold for pain on the battlefield: his army has suffered huge losses and is advancing in Ukraine at a snail’s pace, yet he has shown no willingness to compromise on his main war objectives. He believes that Ukraine belongs to Russia, and that NATO shouldn’t be continuing to expand along Russia’s border.
If this high pain threshold applies to economic suffering, too, then these sanctions won’t stop the war any time soon.
“Politically, Putin remains strongly committed to his objectives in Ukraine,” said Brideau. “He is willing to risk the long-term health of the Russian economy to pursue these goals.”
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh as East Timor's Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao and Singapore's Prime Minister Lawrence Wong look on at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on October 26, 2025.
US President Donald Trump kicked off his five-day trip to Asia by signing a raft of trade deals on Sunday with Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur. Next, Trump heads to Japan to meet newly-elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi Tuesday morning, before sitting down with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday. What should we make of Trump’s trip so far, and what can we expect in the week to come?
Deals! Deals! Deals! In Kuala Lumpur, Trump reached agreements that promise to eliminate tariffs on roughly 99% of goods with Thailand, reduce Washington’s $123-billion trade deficit with Vietnam, and secure Malaysia’s agreement not to restrict rare-earth exports to the US. Simultaneously, delegates from the US and China met on the sidelines, producing a preliminary framework for a deal that could pause new American tariffs and Chinese export controls, in preparation for Trump’s meeting with Xi on Thursday.
Tuesday with Takaichi. Next, Trump meets Takaichi, who took office last week. The new Japanese PM is known as a China hawk and has promised to ramp up defense spending to 2% of GDP two years ahead of schedule, which should please Trump. But she also must follow through on her predecessor’s pledge to funnel $550 billion worth of investment into the US by 2030. Japan is reportedly prepared to offer sweeteners to Trump in the form of increased purchases of US soybeans and trucks. The two countries are also set to sign an agreement to cooperate on advanced technologies including AI, quantum computing, and nuclear fusion.
The main event: Trump and Xi. The leaders of the world’s two largest economies will seek to ease a deepening trade war without ceding ground on critical priorities.
According to David Meale, Eurasia Group’s Practice Head for China, the two sides are looking to find a path between each other’s pain points. “In particular, critical minerals need to flow from China to keep advanced industries in the US and elsewhere operating, and certain technologies (especially advanced chips) need to be available to China for its development of emerging technology sectors that are central to its economic blueprint going forward.”
While full details of the Oct. 26 framework are not yet available, both sides aim to make progress on key issues. Trump wants better cooperation from Beijing on stopping the export of fentanyl precursors, as well as further commitments from China to buy US goods, especially agricultural products. Xi, meanwhile, wants to head off Trump’s threats to raise tariffs further and impose fresh export controls on US software exports. And both sides seek a “a final deal” on the sale of TikTok’s operations in the US.
Potential pitfalls. Trump has said he will raise the contentious questions of Taiwanese independence — which the US has implicitly supported despite longstanding Chinese objections — and possibly the detention of Hong Kong media mogul and activist Jimmy Lai. Florida Senator Rick Scott published an open letter urging Trump to press Xi for Lai’s release, and a group of Catholic bishops also has urged his freedom. Lai, who converted to Catholicism in 1997, has become a symbol of Hong Kong’s resistance.
Nonetheless, Meale expects that the meeting will strike a positive tone, due to the respect shown by the two leaders to each other. “Chinese officials believe President Trump is someone with which they can chart a course forward,” he says, “because he is pragmatic and demonstrates respect to President Xi.”
Postscript in Pyongyang? Trump mused this morning about the possibility of extending his trip to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “I’d love to meet with him, if he’d like to meet,” said Trump. “It’s our last stop, so it’s pretty easy to do.”As we race toward the end of 2025, voters in over a dozen countries will head to the polls for elections that have major implications for their populations and political movements globally.
Today, GZERO is highlighting three of them that stand out to us – in the United States, Argentina, and Côte d’Ivoire. The issues each of those electorates face are different, but the results could provide insight into the future of larger political trends.
Democrats seek a glimmer of hope
The United States doesn’t have a nationwide election this fall, but it has plenty of local ones to pique the interest of political nerds. These include the mayoral election in New York City, gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and state Supreme Court races in the purple state of Pennsylvania – Election Day for all them is Nov. 4.
“Democrats probably should win all those races for this election to be to feel like a success for them,” University of Virginia politics expert Kyle Kondik told GZERO.
Though these races are local, they have national implications, as the Democratic Party desperately seeks to build some momentum after a tough year. The party is struggling for leadership, its messaging has been muddled, and it hasn’t been able to even temper – let alone stop – President Donald Trump’s policy agenda.
One Democrat who has brought some life to the party this year is Zohran Mamdani, the nominee for New York City mayor. A democratic socialist, Mamdani rode the waves of a successful social-media campaign to defeat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the primary, and is now all-but-certain to become the mayor. This doesn’t mean his message, though, will work elsewhere in the country.
“There may be something appealing about Mamdani’s campaigning style – the short videos, that sort of thing.” said Kondik. “But I don’t think staking out left-wing positions is going to suddenly be seen as a winning strategy.”
Can Milei clean up the midterm mess?
Argentine President Javier Milei’s libertarian movement is on the line as the South American country heads to the polls on Sunday in legislative elections.
The economist-turned-politician, replete with his mutton chops and sometimes a chainsaw, has become a figurehead for a global movement to slash the size of government via “shock therapy.” However, he’s faced some roadblocks recently: unemployment is increasing, the economy is slowing, and a corruption scandal sent government bonds tumbling over the summer. It didn’t help matters that his foreign minister resigned on Wednesday. This has all overshadowed the significant progress that Milei has made in cutting the country’s notoriously high inflation rate.
Though Milei isn’t personally on the ballot this year, an ally from afar has tried to throw his party a lifeline: US President Donald Trump pledged to hand Argentina a $20-billion bailout. The money comes with conditions, though. “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” Trump said. “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina.”
So what’s Milei’s target? Milei’s Libertad Avanza party is still nascent – it was only formed in 2021 – so it has only scant representation in the National Congress. What’s more, only a third of senators are up for reelection, and half the Chamber of Deputies. The goal for Milei, then, is simply to nab a third of all seats in the lower chamber, which will be enough to give him veto power.
Will it happen? “The expectation a couple of months ago was the government was expecting to have a very strong performance in the election and win at least a third of the seats.” Juan Cruz Díaz, the managing director of Buenos Aires-based advisory firm Cefeidas Group, told GZERO. “Now the situation is more challenging.”
Another old leader set to retain power on world’s youngest continent
Côte d’Ivoire on Africa’s West Coast is known for many things: it is the world’s largest cocoa producer, it has large gold reserves – particularly important with gold prices sky high – and it has had its share of world-class soccer players, most notably Didier Drogba.
One thing that the country isn’t known for, at least recently, is democracy. The country hasn’t had a peaceful transition of power in decades: two of the last three presidents were forcibly deposed, and the other was assassinated two years after leaving office. Meanwhile the incumbent leader Alassane Ouattara, who is 83 and seeking a fourth term, has clamped down on opposition leaders and restricted mass gatherings on the grounds that it could cause yet another coup.
What’s more, the opposition is fragmented, according to Eurasia Group’s West Africa analyst Jeanne Ramier.
“Nobody has successfully managed to mobilize against the fourth term,” said Ramier. “Whereas, on the contrary, many people are actually advocating for Ouattara because he’s got a good record, because they want stability and peace.”
Ouattara’s impending victory also highlights a trend across Africa: There are several elderly leaders across the continent, and many are set to stay in charge. It’s a remarkable trend on what is the youngest continent in the world – by some distance – and one that is fueling concerns about the state of democracy across it.
For 20 years now, we've been warned about China's rise, America's decline, and the inevitable collision between the two superpowers.
That’s not what's happening today.
The bigger story of our G-Zero world, which I laid out during my “State of the World” speech in Tokyo on Monday, is that the United States – still the world’s most powerful nation – has chosen to walk away from the international system it built and led for three-quarters of a century. Not because it's weak. Not because it has to. But because it wants to.
From unpredictable to unreliable
There’s no historical precedent for this choice. Since the end of World War II, America's elected leaders have upheld a commitment to US leadership in a troubled world. In service of that goal, they’ve bolstered allies to make them stronger, more competitive, and more secure.
But American willingness to lead is now buckling under a politics of grievance. Citizens increasingly feel US institutions – and many of the nation's elected leaders – have failed to deliver on their promises and no longer represent them. For millions of voters, the social contract – the implicit promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, the system will reward you – has been broken. Trump is a symptom, a beneficiary, and an accelerant of this breakdown, but he didn’t cause it.
As Americans have lost faith in their own system, so they have turned inward: away from allies, collective security, free trade, global institutions, and international rule of law. This is the G-Zero world I’ve been writing about for years, a vacuum of global leadership that no one else is willing and able to fill.
It doesn’t help that America's allies have brought less to the table in recent decades. Europe, the UK, Canada, and Japan are lagging in productivity and growth, face weak demographics, and have chronically underinvested in defense and technological innovation. They're more dependent on Washington precisely when Americans want their government to do less globally.
Winston Churchill said you can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they've exhausted all other options. The United States has always been unpredictable: in elections, in trade agreements, even in matters of war and peace. But it was rarely unreliable.
Today it is both. The United States remains committed to existing international norms, treaties, and agreements only insofar as they serve the interests of President Trump and his political allies. Governments sign deals only to have Washington unilaterally change the terms. Suspend intelligence-sharing overnight. Cut lifesaving foreign aid. Intervene in the domestic politics of friendly democracies. Threaten the territorial integrity of allies like Canada and Denmark. Impose the highest tariffs in nearly a century. Abandon countless global institutional commitments. The list goes on. America's unreliability has become the central driver of geopolitical uncertainty and instability in today's G-Zero world.
But unreliability is only half the story. To understand the scale of the problem – how deep it runs, how long it lasts, what can be done about it – you need to understand what’s currently happening inside the United States: a political revolution.
As a political scientist, I don't use the word "revolution" lightly. It implies a fundamental change in a country's governance – an attempt to overthrow what exists and replace it with something new. Whether motivated by ideology, identity, or wealth, a true revolution always depends on the ability and willingness of powerful actors to seize an opportunity created by a belief across society that the existing system is broken and therefore illegitimate. In this sense, revolutions are made, not born.
There have been two state revolutions with truly global impact in my lifetime.
The first was Mikhail Gorbachev's socialist revolution. The Soviet Union had long been losing ground in its Cold War competition with the United States. An out-of-touch party elite and sclerotic economic system struggled to sustain the state and fund an arms race Moscow looked destined to lose. To reverse Soviet stagnation, Gorbachev unleashed radical internal reforms: political openness (glasnost) to encourage competing ideas, economic restructuring (perestroika) to inject competitive market elements into the centrally planned economy, and self-accounting (khozraschyot) to devolve power from Moscow to the Soviet republics.
These reforms quickly undermined the foundations of the Soviet system. They enabled citizens, oligarchs, and nationalists to question the regime's legitimacy, creating widespread internal opposition and social dissent. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the Eastern Bloc accelerated the Kremlin's loss of control, and a nationalities revolution led to Soviet disintegration shortly after. Gorbachev's revolution failed, taking the Soviet Union with it.
The second revolution was Deng Xiaoping's economic modernization of China. In the late 1970s, the Chinese Communist Party leader responded to China’s underproductive, inefficient, and technologically stagnant socialist economy by transforming it from central planning to state capitalism: open to private enterprise, foreign investment, and trade.
Western governments eventually embraced Deng’s reforms, culminating in China's WTO admission in 2001. But the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the collapse of Eastern European communism, and the Soviet implosion all persuaded China's leaders that political reform was too dangerous. The Party's monopoly on power became non-negotiable, and it remains so to this day.
Still, Deng's economic revolution was a spectacular success. China lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, sustained nearly 10% annual growth for two generations, and became a middle-income economy of 1.4 billion that currently leads the world in many frontier technologies.
Trump's political revolution
And now we turn to Washington. Is it right to call what's happening inside the United States a revolution? It's early to say for sure, but increasingly I believe the answer is yes.
The president of the United States says the greatest threat to America is posed not by Beijing or Moscow or terrorists. The true enemies, he warns, are members of the opposite political party: its supporters, its fundraisers, and even its voters. President Trump believes his return to power allows – demands! – the end of political checks and balances on his executive authority.
There's not much economic revolution here. Yes, Trump has imposed the highest tariffs since the 1930s. Yes, he's trying to undermine the Federal Reserve's independence. And yes, he's dabbling in state capitalism – golden shares in US Steel, a 10% stake in Intel, a 15% cut of certain Nvidia and AMD chip sales. But these are ad hoc moves, marginal decisions in the context of the broader US economy. They’re not doctrine.
Trump picks winners and losers to demonstrate power, to reward loyalty, to extract rents. There's no structural transformation of how markets operate or the way the private sector engages with (and often captures) the regulatory system. There’s no strategic restructuring of capital. In fact, President Trump has abandoned his signature promise from 2016: "drain the swamp." Corruption and self-dealing aren't an economic revolution. They're business as usual in America's increasingly broken capitalist system … just more permitted now.
But a political revolution is another matter. President Trump is consolidating executive authority by pushing the boundaries of the law. He’s usurping powers traditionally left to Congress, the courts, and the states. He’s tried to undermine his political opposition to ensure they no longer pose a challenge to him and his allies. In part, this is Donald Trump's transactional approach to power. But it's also political retribution – a form of revenge on those whom Trump believes did, or tried to do, the same to him.
President Trump has accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the Department of Justice to imprison him and of promoting a "cancel culture" approach to right-wing speech, including by deplatforming Trump himself from social media after the January 6 Capitol riots.
Trump says the left in America has demonized him and his allies as "fascists" in ways that promote political violence, and he can point to two attempts to assassinate him during last year's election campaign as well as the recent murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to make his point.
The president's choices have wide-ranging and lasting implications. Inside the United States, the president has won the total loyalty of the Republican Party and the reliable support of Republican lawmakers for his revisionist legislative and executive agendas.
He has begun a sweeping purge of America's professional bureaucracy – which Trump and his supporters call the "Administrative State" – and replaced career civil servants with political appointees who are personally loyal to the president. He has weaponized the "power ministries" – the FBI, the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and many regulatory agencies – against his domestic political adversaries. And he has secured executive impunity from the rulings of an independent but no longer coequal judiciary.
In short, President Trump is replacing the rule of law with the rule of Don at home, much like he’s embracing the law of the jungle – where the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must – internationally.
Unlike the Gorbachev and Deng revolutions, Trump's revolution follows no grand strategic plan. Instead, it's a relentless pressure campaign to test the limits of what can be done on every political front – a commitment to act opportunistically as the crises these policies create open new possibilities to consolidate ever more power. This plan was launched by targeting those of Trump’s opponents who are most vulnerable and least organized, such as undocumented immigrants, green card holders, transgender people, and elite universities. The administration has since moved into the broader political categories of funders, supporters, and enablers of his political opponents. All of this is being undertaken with the intention of normalizing behaviors that have long been politically taboo.
Will Trump’s revolution succeed?
How much more can President Trump accomplish before next year's midterms or by Election Day 2028?
Partially, it's a matter of degree. The United States already has a structural bias toward Republicans because of the Electoral College system through which presidents are elected. A candidate can win the popular vote but lose the presidency thanks to the demographic and geographic distribution of electors, which confers a roughly 2-percentage-point advantage to Republican candidates. Add aggressive gerrymandering – with both parties rigging district maps – and elections become even less representative, less competitive, less legitimate.
More concerning is the possibility of President Trump deploying the National Guard in Democratic cities under the guise of a declared "national emergency" to suppress voter turnout. Federal probes into Democratic fundraising and organizations already underway add to these pressures, making these tactics increasingly plausible – and the election is still more than a year away.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting Trump runs for a third term or suspends elections. The Supreme Court would block both moves. But uncompetitive elections? Elections that look more like a single-party system than a competitive representative democracy? With the broader checks on presidential power now in question, that's increasingly plausible.
Trump's grip on the Republican Party and the Democratic Party's current divisions mean the legislature functions less independently from the executive. Even if Democrats retake majority control of the House of Representatives (a Senate flip is very unlikely), they’ll have no power to enforce subpoenas or force a defiant executive branch to cooperate with their oversight efforts.
America's judiciary remains independent, but its power now pales in comparison to that of the executive. The Supreme Court, aware that Trump could refuse to comply with decisions he dislikes, regularly limits the scope of its rulings to preserve its own institutional legitimacy. Though lower courts aren't as restrained, their decisions can be and often are overturned, giving Trump more leeway to consolidate authority.
The media, constrained by profit-driven corporate owners, faces pressure from above to avoid antagonizing the White House. Social media is increasingly controlled by Trump's political allies (more so when the TikTok sale goes through) and, in the case of Truth Social, by Trump himself.
There are still US institutions that can check the president's power. The military stands as a bastion of professionalism – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's blind loyalty to the president notwithstanding – because its culture continues to prioritize service to the nation over loyalty to any individual. The Pentagon's purges of some high-level military officers have made headlines, but not like China's last week – and they don't undermine the military's core operational integrity.
The devolution of political power to states and cities also offers a buffer. Many US governors and mayors are competent technocrats who govern independently of Washington. Trump's attempts to weaken Democratic national powers don't threaten state and city-level governance.
Corporate and financial leaders, uncomfortable with political upheaval, tend to avoid political confrontation that could jeopardize their interests and those of their shareholders. Most will focus on regulatory influence instead.
And then there are the American people themselves. More than five million Americans turned out in thousands of "No Kings Day" protests across the country this weekend, the largest demonstrations since the Vietnam War. President Trump is a historically polarizing and unpopular president. But then again, so is the 2025 Democratic Party.
Remember: Trump was freely and fairly elected in large part because he embodied the political and cultural disruption that a plurality of voters craved. Most Americans who said they cared about democracy in 2024 voted for, not against, Trump, precisely because they were convinced the system was already broken and only he offered hope for change.
The fate of Trump's political revolution is uncertain, but on current trends, a constitutional crisis before the next elections looks increasingly likely. Possible outcomes range from a Republican break with Trump to a sustained political shift toward single-party rule in the United States. Nor can we rule out the kind of political chaos, realignment, and violence that America saw in the decades after the Civil War.
One thing I know for sure: the United States is not going back to the political culture that held sway a decade ago, before Donald Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator. The sooner the world accepts that, the sooner it can figure out how to respond and adapt to a post-American order. More on this next week.
U.S. President Donald Trump attends a bilateral meeting with China's President Xi Jinping during the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019.
As China’s Communist Party gathers this week to draft the country’s 15th five-year plan, the path it’s charting is clear: Beijing wants to develop dominance over 21st century technologies, as its economy struggles with the burgeoning US trade war, a slow-boil real-estate crisis, and weak consumer demand.
The plan will set the government’s priorities for the industries and policies it will prioritize over the next five years. Here’s what it might mean for China, the global economy, and its relationship with the US.
Addressing inequality to spur the economy. Mingda Qiu, China expert at Eurasia Group, says the biggest difference between the 14th and 15th national five-year plans is “the elevation of social equality” as a higher priority — a strategic shift to address imbalances where stimulus policies have not translated into higher incomes for many people.
The numbers tell the story: while China’s exports and factory investment have kept GDP growth around 4-5%, the domestic economy is sputtering. Retail sales grew just 3% in September — the weakest since last November.
The CCP is betting that reducing inequality will boost consumer spending, something the economy desperately needs. Since 2021, China’s housing market has been in freefall, with apartment prices in some areas down 40%. The crash has wiped out much of the public’s savings — and appetite to spend.
The problem runs deep. “Due to the export-oriented nature of China’s development in the past several decades, China’s domestic sector has never fully developed,” Qiu explains. “The economy faces severe imbalances: too much production and too little consumption.”
This creates a vicious cycle. Weak domestic demand “not only puts Chinese firms in ‘involutionary’ cutthroat price wars, but also creates trade frictions as China pushes those products overseas,” says Qiu.
Beijing's response so far — domestic consumption subsidies for smartphones, electric cars, and other domestically-made goods — hasn’t delivered lasting results. “The impact of such spending is not sustainable because it fades away as the subsidy goes down,” Qiu warns. Real change requires Beijing to “spend more effort in building up people’s income and change people's expectations in its economy.”
A tech-first strategy. The plan is expected to prioritize massive state-led investment in advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and green energy. In AI, China started behind the US, though it’s already emerged as the world’s second most important player. In green technology, it’s looking to expand its already commanding lead.
“China sees emerging fields such as AI and green technology as where China could play a leading role,” notes Qiu, highlighting Beijing’s ambition to “leap forward in championing development in AI and green technology by leveraging China’s advantage in market size and persistent targeted support from the government.”
Over the next five years, China plans to “double down” on investments in AI, semiconductors, digital infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing.
What this means for the world. China’s strategy presents a double-edged sword for the global economy. Its trade surplus is on track to exceed $1 trillion this year. While exports to the US have dipped due to tariffs, shipments to developing countries have soared, prompting nations from Brazil to Indonesia to impose their own tariffs on Chinese goods. Though China aims to diversify away from export-reliance over the next five years, in the short term, it will continue seeking new markets to prop up its sluggish economy.
For US-China relations, this five-year plan signals the end of an era. “Beijing no longer has the wishful thinking that the US-China relationship would swing back to the good old times of the 2000s and early 2010s,” says Qiu. China’s plan focuses on insulating itself against trade shocks and limiting American leverage.
“By focusing on technological self-reliance, China is essentially preparing itself for a situation if the US would cut essential tech supplies to China,” says Qiu.