Mark Leonard & Jeremy Shapiro
Most of our predictions for 2024—from the situation in the Middle East and Ukraine to the Chinese economy and the United Kingdom elections—were right. We ended with an impressive 7 out of 10 score. But one of our most important predictions—that Joe Biden would retain the United States presidency—turned out to be more than just wrong, as Biden did not even run for re-election.
Fortunately, there are no negative scores in our state-of-the-art prediction scoring algorithm. For 2025, we are determined to get better at being wrong, which is why we have focused on predictions with clear binary outcomes. Here are our ten key foreign policy trends for 2025, along with two bonus technology-focused forecasts.
1. It’s Trump’s world; we only live in it. Most governments outside of Europe (and a few within) spend the year either welcoming or pretending to welcome Donald Trump’s return to power. They find comfort in an American president who prioritises domestic interests over positioning the US as a global moral arbiter or a hegemonic power. By the end of 2025, the G7 evolves from a centre-left to a right-leaning group, showing little interest in “woke” issues like climate change or food insecurity. Even among Europeans, the predominant response to Trump’s re-election is one of pre-emptive surrender, tempered by discreet bargaining.
2. The German grand coalition strikes back. The February election results in a yet another version of the grand coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD coming to power in Germany. To the disappointment of many Europeans, this recycled coalition does not introduce any major changes in Germany’s foreign, security, or economic policy—whether on Chinese electric vehicles, military support for Ukraine, or defence spending. But they provide a comforting, if false, sense of stability to a German public that yearns for little else.
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