Dec 28, 2025
3 min read
Geopolitical tensions, recessionary resistance, value chain disruption, trade chaos, interventionism... Trumpist's harsh legacy.
The five economic directions of 2026, after the new world order of 2025
The global system is going through a period of upheaval and has no fixed direction.The global economy has entered a state of permanent change in which stability is not the basis of the situation.The world is moving towards governance with continued competition between large blocs - United States, China, Europe and India, not forgetting the Global South - which has led to economic fragmentation, strategic reforms and major restructuring of the chain and a force of resistance which translates into a triple challenge: acquiring more skills to acquire global technical expertise.
In this context, fiscal and industrial policy replace monetary policy as the driver of the economy.Public spending on the energy transition, defense, digitization and infrastructure begins to define long-term winning markets and sectors, while the normalization of neutral interest rates, with an expansionary trend, without inflation and calmed by existing geopolitical tensions has settled into an unpredictable investment environment.
The information market combines this with the best management of the technological cycle that has thrown itself into the arms of AI, automation and advanced computing.
This dangerous overview of this year's milestones and predictions for 2026 will help us understand Trump 2.0's transition to global order.
1. Trump's geopolitics is infiltrating the markets
The rest of 2025 will complete the Republic of Republic of Republic of the US on the Checkboard of the Goldboard of the Goldboard of the Goldboard Officer.The other, he has served Washington to explain her leader under personal rules, requires, required, power and alitakac.The Sipmamany Monday is added to soldiers, the values and the correct methods are out of range or uniforms, Veernexes,
The economic impact of this change is not in the active conflict, but in the greater uncertainty they create.There is enough evidence to show that the market is reacting to the geopolitical threat - the expectation of a rise or fall - stronger than the known facts.It is this expectation that increases risk premiums, slows down business investment and pushes investors into more hedge positions.
Trump does not eliminate global risk. But on the contrary: less shared rules and more negotiation. The result is an environment that is almost always difficult. where geopolitics is no longer a special thing and is systematically integrated into the decisions of international prices and currencies, explains James Lindsay, Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
2. Protection against ESG investments
The advancement of defense-linked securities within European stability, social and good corporate governance is one of the most visible paradoxes of 2025. Fund managers have increased their exposure to military companies and have created a strong stock market performance in the sector with clear support for the restructuring of the leadership of the European institutions.Morningstar Stereolytics points out that this change does not abandon ESG capital, but rather redefines its boundaries.But it justifies that arms investment is compatible with social objectives.Security is considered an important national strategic factor
This shift is reflected in a shift in the defensive logic of ESG investments, where energy, security and geopolitics now define their own acronyms and flex their muscles against classic environmental criteria.As happened with the Russian gas crisis in 2021, the rollback of fossil fuel and defense spending has strained green capital.
3. Stock market rally: long distance, but with volatility
The end of 2025 marks a change in financial markets.The blue cycle is still macroeconomic support - solid growth and rate cuts from the Federal Reserve - but the next phase will be more demanding for investors.It's clear for strategists: Risk reduces volatility.
Kamakshya Trivedi of Goldman Sachs sums it up eloquently: “Growth has supported markets, but volatility continues to set the tone.”In his diagnosis, stocks and credit "are ahead of the macroeconomy" which still does not reflect the classic end-of-cycle imbalances, "creating frictions that are difficult to ignore."
4. Five market axes: excitement, shocks and spin-offs
On the face of it, 2025 was a good year for markets: US, European and Asian stock markets closed at record highs, and optimism around AI increased risk appetite.However, the signs on the surface proved to be one of the most volatile years since the 2008 credit collapse.
The first warning came in April, when Trump announced "Freedom Day" with tariff swaps that triggered a sell-off in stocks, bonds and the dollar, making the US briefly appear as an emerging market in crisis.Even as these facts faded away, confidence in the safe haven of the United States was shaken.At the same time, the leadership of the exchange changed its options.Europe, peripheral latitudes and emerging markets fared better.Wall Street, breaking the standards of American dominance.
In monetary policy, reductions in bank rates by the Fed or the ECB have not translated into similar relief in long-term bonds due to fears of inflation and high debt.Gold shined as a safe haven, bitcoin took a ride and private markets disappeared.The rest of 2025: a profitable year, but with a balance.
5. Tariffs, fragmentation and the global South: resetting trade
The business has experienced controversial practices.The return of US protectionism and the rise of tariffs have fueled the fragmentation narrative of globalization.However, trade flows have not collapsed, but have demonstrated resilience.According to UNCTAD, cross-border trade will reach a record $35 trillion due to the dynamics of the Global South.
Sean Doherty, head of trade at the World Economic Forum (WEF), the governing body of the Davos summits, assures that "the commercial architecture has not been destroyed, but is being reconfigured" and warns of its additional costs: more debt, more expensive logistics and less efficiency.Global trade remains but is entering a "more political, regional and complex era".
This panorama leaves five warnings for mariners through 2026.
1. Less Wall Street and more European and Asian values
The risk and opportunity map for 2026 points to a corresponding strategic shift in asset allocation.After years of US leadership, its economy is heading towards stagnation and a dollar that shows structural weakness.All of this calls for investors to be cautious and less dependent on assets embedded in the US greenback and less on tariffs and monetary policy outside the control of the market and the Federal Reserve.In this context, Europe has emerged as an attractive option within a cyclical defense approach, and Asia—especially China—concentrates most capabilities in 2026, which supports geographic rotation.
2. A resilient but fragile global economy
The current confusion in 2026 changes whether there will be a recession or not, hence, a change in the business cycle.With US GDP sinking into a sea of uncertainty, Chinese GDP below 5% and the real estate sector and flat encephalograms in Europe slow alarm signals.All three superpowers are losing steam in their domestic demand - domestic consumption and business investment - but they avoid entering the red.Despite the fact that many of its sectors are shifting fatigue, its work rate is stagnant and its prices are rebounding, its major companies maintain record profits and the rise of AI has unleashed a massive wave of capital toward data centers and infrastructure that fuel the idea of a new industrial revolution.
Mark Zandi, the chief executive of Moody's Analytics, buried his uncertainty from the middle of 2025 and now thinks that the recession may be avoided, although he warned that the economy is moving "on the knife".He talked about the United States, but also international activities, where he gave an example of growth of 2% at the end of 2025, and gave a risk of a decline of 30% in 2026. "There is no decline in sight, but there is no room for mistakes," he emphasized.
3. Will this be a rehearsal for the next financial crisis?
The annual transfer has fueled the debate about another stock market crash. Many analysts believe that there is a bubble. In AI-related securities, they describe them as overvalued because the quarterly results and billions of dollars in investment do not allow us to understand the performance of AI projects in progress, or the number of times of new technology or cryptoasset changes. Everything is in the air. Euphoria has won caution.
AI centers the majority of the warnings.Beatech Companies and their guarantees lead $ 1.6 trillion per year in data centers until the final profitability of many of the projects is uncertain.For ADVAIT ARUN, an analyst in the Center for Public Enterprise, "the technology sector was drowned in its own irrational exuberance."
Although this is not the only scale that institutions such as the IMF are aware of the emerging crisis.Gold, government debt, private debt and crypto assets exhibit similar dynamics: values that are difficult to justify and flows that move in and out in sync.Jeffrey Gundlach - the owner of DoubleLine Capital and nicknamed the King of Bonds - or Jamie Dimon - the CEO of JP Morgan - warn of the risk of opaque credit, while episodes like the rise and fall of memecoin reinforce the idea of a market dominated by stories and far from realpolitik.
4. Fixed investors take up the challenge to become El Dorado investors in 2026
After the extraordinary 2025, with returns of more than 50% - up to 310 billion dollars - stablecoins will face their litmus test next year.Encouraged by the Trump administration and Genius-like laws that have provided legal support to lenders since the summer, they have invested in debt assets — the short-term debt of the US Treasury — and left them outside of SEC oversight.In business, it's years of searching.Being legal.The first sign of international companies to light their digital currencies.
The story of Mark Zuckerberg's long-term desire to release his company's currency, Libra, in 2019, already has its first projects for major investment banks in the US, is happening in Europe and Spain and could be the financial market in 2026 so that the financial sector can make a "more hybrid and competitive" system, the Financial Times predicts.
5. Voice of the experts
The analytical chorus can be summarized as follows: Economic risk is not recession, but political mistakes in the context of overconfident markets (Mohamed A. El-Erian, Allianz Advisor) and the threat of trade and financial mergers that reduce the macroeconomic cushion in the face of new shocks (Gita Gopinath, IMF Number Two);overvaluing assets and undervaluing the risk of regime change in conditions of high debt levels, geopolitical rivalry and the absence of monetary coordination (Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater).And artificial intelligence, which will "increase inequality and concentrate economic resources" (Daron Acemoglu, MIT professor) and will be subject to the question of its "regulatory responsibility" (Brad Smith, president of Microsoft) in 2026.
