Under President Trump, an agency created to keep Americans safe has so shifted its focus to illegal immigration that other parts of its mission are suffering.
President Trump’s aides have given conflicting accounts of what they are seeking to achieve, as America’s largest aircraft carrier heads to the Caribbean region.
The chief executive of a Saudi firm says a Trump-branded project is “just a matter of time.” A major Trump Organization partner is also signaling Saudi deals.
Russia Tried to Cut Ukraine’s Lights. Now It’s Aiming for the Heat.
Moscow’s attacks on gas supplies, the main source of warmth for most Ukrainian households, could plunge millions into the cold.
The conservative commentator has further fractured the right with his anti-Israel rhetoric and sympathy for a white nationalist. He’s not in the mood to apologize.
The New Jersey governor’s race was the first significant sign that President Trump’s success with Hispanic voters in 2024 may have been only a temporary shift.
President Trump has been dining with billionaires and taken an interest in crises abroad, leading to fears that he is drifting from his more populist stances.
The revelations are a remarkable reversal for President Volodymyr Zelensky, who once presented himself as a leader who would clean up Ukraine’s politics.
This is Donald Trump’s world—we’re all just living in it. The disruptor-in-chief was the biggest factor shaping global affairs in 2025, and that will be the case for as long as he remains in the White House. His norm-shattering approach has caused turmoil in some areas (as in trade) but has also delivered diplomatic results (as in Gaza) and forced necessary change (as with European defence spending). As the Trumpnado spins on in 2026, here are ten trends and themes to watch in the coming year.
Expect to hear wildly diverging accounts of America’s past, present and future, as Republicans and Democrats describe the same country in irreconcilably different terms to mark the 250th anniversary of its founding. Voters will then give their verdict on America’s future in the midterm elections in November. But even if the Democrats take the House, Mr Trump’s rule by bullying, tariffs and executive orders will go on.
Foreign-policy analysts are divided: is the world in a new cold war, between blocs led by America and China, or will a Trumpian deal divide the planet into American, Russian and Chinese “spheres of influence”, in which each can do as they please? Don’t count on either. Mr Trump prefers a transactional approach based on instinct, not grand geopolitical paradigms. The old global rules-based order will drift and decay further. But “coalitions of the willing” will strike new deals in areas such as defence, trade and climate.
With luck, the fragile peace in Gaza will hold. But conflicts will grind on in Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar. Russia and China will test America’s commitment to its allies with “grey-zone” provocations in northern Europe and the South China Sea. As the line between war and peace becomes ever more blurred, tensions will rise in the Arctic, in orbit, on the sea floor and in cyberspace.
All this poses a particular test for Europe. It must increase defence spending, keep America on side, boost economic growth and deal with huge deficits, even though austerity risks stoking support for hard-right parties. It also wants to remain a leading advocate for free trade and greenery. It cannot do all of these at once. A splurge on defence spending may lift growth, but only slightly.
China has its own problems, with deflation, slowing growth and an industrial glut, but Mr Trump’s “America First” policy opens up new opportunities for China to boost its global influence. It will present itself as a more reliable partner, particularly in the global south, where it is striking a string of trade agreements. It is happy to do tactical deals with Mr Trump on soyabeans or chips. The trick will be to keep relations with America transactional, not confrontational.With rich countries living beyond their means, the risk of a bond-market crisis is growing
So far America’s economy is proving more resilient than many expected to Mr Trump’s tariffs, but they will dampen global growth. And with rich countries living beyond their means, the risk of a bond-market crisis is growing. Much will depend on the replacement of Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve in May; politicising the Fed could trigger a market showdown.
Rampant spending on infrastructure for artificial intelligence may also be concealing economic weakness in America. Will the bubble burst? As with railways, electricity and the internet, a crash would not mean that the technology does not have real value. But it could have wide economic impact. Either way, concern about AI’s impact on jobs, particularly those of graduates, will deepen.
Limiting warming to 1.5°C is off the table, and Mr Trump hates renewables. But global emissions have probably peaked, clean tech is booming across the global south and firms will meet or exceed their climate targets—but will keep quiet about it to avoid Mr Trump’s ire. Geothermal energy is worth watching.
Sport can always be relied upon to provide a break from politics, right? Well, maybe not in 2026. The football World Cup is being jointly hosted by America, Canada and Mexico, whose relations are strained. Fans may stay away. But the Enhanced Games, in Las Vegas, may be even more controversial: athletes can use performance-enhancing drugs. Is it cheating—or just different?
Better, cheaper GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are coming, and in pill form, too. That will expand access. But is taking them cheating? GLP-1s extend the debate about the ethics of performance-enhancing drugs to a far wider group than athletes or bodybuilders. Few people compete in the Olympics. But anyone can take part in the Ozempic games.
Jeffrey Epstein cast himself as a Trump insider and wanted to leverage potentially damaging information about the president, according to emails with associates.
The dust may have settled on Zohran Mamdani’s astounding, against-the-odds victory in the New York mayoral election. But a week on, the scale of his achievement looks no less impressive.
As Ed Pilkington outlines in this week’s big story, Mamdani swept away his establishment-backed heavyweight opponent Andrew Cuomo by mobilising an army of grassroots volunteers and donors, while also connecting deeply with the voters whose support he most needed on the issues that mattered most to them, namely affordability and economic justice.
It’s a ground-up approach to doing things that US Democrats – who also won governorships in Virginia and New Jersey on an encouraging night – can learn from as they reflect on a torrid year since Donald Trump swept to power.
Spotlight | The green monster of Cop30 Amid bombast, strife and competing interests, is the annual climate summit, which opened in Brazil this week, still the forum we need to save the planet? Fiona Harvey reports from the Amazonian city of Bélem
Spotlight | The extraordinary fall of the BBC’s top bosses A whirlwind that began with a report criticising the editing of a speech by Donald Trump is part of a wider political story, some say. Media editor Michael Savage charts the tale
Feature | Why not everyone is sad to see the end of USAID When Donald Trump set about dismantling USAID, many around the world were shocked. But on the ground in Sierra Leone, the latest betrayal was not unexpected. Mara Kardas-Nelson finds out why
Opinion | A president groped? Sadly it isn’t a shock After Claudia Sheinbaum was assaulted last week, her opponents claimed she staged it. From their own experiences, the women Mona Eltahawy met know she didn’t have to
Culture | Rosalía, the Catalan queen of pop With a towering new album about female saints in 13 languages, she’s pop’s boldest star – and one of its most controversial. She tells Laura Snapes why we need forgiveness instead of cancel culture
I’m starting to feel some pre-emptive nostalgia when I do a Google search. Yes, it’s true, search can sometimes take you to places you don’t want to go. But at least a ‘classical’ search engine like Google in the 2000s and 2010s took you outside itself, and perhaps implicitly prompted you to evaluate critically what you found there. by Donald MacKenzie
Slavery was accepted across most of the early modern world. No one wanted to be a slave, except when the alternative was being executed after a battle, or made a human sacrifice, but the institution was taken for granted until the growth of abolitionism in the later 18th century. Liverpool could hardly be an exception when the slave trade was so embedded in its economy. By John Kerrigan
We still live in the long shadow of Habsburg disintegration. In addition to the lingering legacy of 19th-century state formations, European and global politics are shaken by continuing reverberations in states that have disappeared from Europe since 1990: Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the GDR and, above all, the Soviet Union. By Holly Case
Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct
In a message obtained by Congress, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Donald Trump spent hours at his house with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims.
The shake-up in China’s armed forces comes as both Beijing and Washington are pushing through major changes in their country’s militaries, in different ways.
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