FP’s look ahead

At the start of each year, we ask some of our columnists to look into their crystal ball and tell us what they anticipate for the year ahead.

This year, we asked our writers to distill the lessons of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House—and how global leaders will likely apply these lessons going forward. Much more than during his first presidential term, his administration has revolutionized U.S. foreign policy, blanketing the world with tariffs, downgrading alliances, and seeking accommodation with adversaries. It has been messy and often unpredictable, but foreign leaders are learning how to manage their relations with Washington in a more volatile age.

At the start of each year, we ask some of our columnists to look into their crystal ball and tell us what they anticipate for the year ahead.

This year, we asked our writers to distill the lessons of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House—and how global leaders will likely apply these lessons going forward. Much more than during his first presidential term, his administration has revolutionized U.S. foreign policy, blanketing the world with tariffs, downgrading alliances, and seeking accommodation with adversaries. It has been messy and often unpredictable, but foreign leaders are learning how to manage their relations with Washington in a more volatile age.

Here are six lessons from Trump’s second term that will shape global politics in 2026.—Stefan Theil, deputy editor

JUMP TO TOPIC AND AUTHOR

By Zongyuan Zoe Liu, FP columnist and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

Dan Duffy, an American farmer concerned about the effect of tariffs on exports to China, plants soybeans in Dwight, Illinois, on April 28, 2025.Scott Olson/Getty Images

While much of the world recoiled at the Trump administration’s tariff ultimatums, Beijing pushed back and emerged from 2025 largely unscathed. The lessons were simple but consequential: Trump is now far more unrestrained, less predictable, and more willing to wield the U.S. economy as a weapon than during his first term. Yet even the sharpest U.S. pressure could be bent, blunted, and occasionally reversed.

Three lessons stand out. First, Trump’s maximalist threats rarely stick. Headline-grabbing tariffs, sanctions, and tech bans often yielded to market pressures, lobbying, or the president’s appetite for any deal he could call a victory. Second, China’s accelerated trade diversification gave it room to absorb U.S. pressure and avoid signaling weakness. Third, targeted retaliation against U.S. supply chain vulnerabilities and politically sensitive constituencies proved far more effective than broad counterstrikes.

Even more revealing was China’s execution of a playbook refined during Trump’s first-term trade war and informed by nearly a decade of experience navigating U.S. export control regimes. Beijing has refined its own export control regime and tested it against Washington by restricting exports of critical minerals and other upstream inputs—not just symbolically but with teeth. The results confirmed what Chinese officials may have long suspected: The U.S. supply chain is brittle. Price spikes, manufacturer complaints, and lobbying pressure offered tangible proof. Trump’s reversal to allow shipments of Nvidia H200 chips to China was not goodwill; it was evidence that Beijing’s calibrated pressure has worked.

The United States’ latest National Security Strategy (NSS) reinforces this reading. Analysts noted its downgrading of geopolitical struggle, instead framing China primarily as an economic and technological competitor. The document does not promise détente, but it confirms the battlefield: economic and technological leverage—the very arena where China had just proven its hand.

This experience hardened another lesson: As the Trump administration approaches the midterm elections, the need to energize core supporters could make it even less institutionally anchored, more transactional, and more focused on short-term political wins. Trump may thus be even more susceptible to targeted pressure. He might be willing to make trade or regulatory concessions that benefit China—easing various tariffs, adjusting technology licensing rules, or allowing specific Chinese firms into U.S. markets—while framing the moves as victories: a successfully negotiated “deal,” a “win” on the trade deficit, or China stepping back from some of its retaliation. Even if Trump’s concessions do not immediately compromise core U.S. national security interests, they could create accumulated vulnerabilities that China may exploit over time.

Beijing’s posture for 2026 is clear. It will pursue narrow, transactional deals that allow Trump to claim victories while conceding little. It will deepen ties with Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Gulf states to dilute U.S. leverage and accelerate domestic technological autonomy. Volatility is now structural; even Trump’s planned April visit will not be able to repair the erosion of stability and trust. China does not expect détente, only time: time to test U.S. vulnerabilities, fortify its own system, and ensure that Washington’s coercions increasingly lose their bite. Patience, precision, and calibrated leverage have become Beijing’s defining arsenal of statecraft.

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A top China scholar and former Biden administration advisor on the Trump-Xi meeting and the future of the U.S.-China relationship.
By Ravi Agrawal

By C. Raja Mohan, FP columnist and professor at O.P. Jindal Global University

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive for a news conference at the White House in Washington on Feb. 13, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Few governments greeted Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency with as much enthusiasm as that of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And few faced greater disappointment.

Modi was one of the first world leaders to meet Trump after his inauguration, and India quickly launched trade talks in recognition that commerce was now a central axis of U.S. foreign policy.

Yet hopes for elevating the India-U.S. strategic partnership came crashing down by August, when Trump raised the tariff on Indian goods to 50 percent. Part of the problem was Modi’s misreading of Trump’s grand delusions about peacemaking, especially regarding India’s military clashes with Pakistan. Had Modi been more effusive about Trump’s role in saving the subcontinent from itself, things might have unfolded a little differently between New Delhi and Washington.

Modi’s advisors had a decent grasp of the coalition that propelled Trump back into the White House. Yet they were blindsided by the power and fervor of the MAGA movement, which turned on India and its diaspora with unexpected force. Since then, New Delhi has calibrated its approach, which now rests on three principles: avoid public arguments with Trump despite his repeated claims (that New Delhi thinks are false) of having ended India’s war with Pakistan; praise his peace efforts in Gaza and Ukraine; and keep the broader U.S. system engaged on trade, technology, and defense.

In 2026, New Delhi sees........

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