Which issue, trend or crisis will dominate global economic news in the year ahead?

The trend that will dominate global economic news is an anti-trend. It is the increasing recognition that there is no “normal” to return to, that the breaking of rules and the destruction or radical reshaping of global and regional institutions is now the norm. U.S. oil companies are wary of investing in Venezuela, notwithstanding President Trump’s urging, because of political instability. That instability will spread in the United States itself, with political violence on the rise; in Cuba; potentially in Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Greenland. The collapse or severe weakening of NATO will be a constant shadow. Putin will also amp up gray zone threats and warfare on Europe’s periphery and just inside European borders, raising the risk of actual interstate war between Russia and NATO nations. Other strongmen in other regions will take whatever they think they can get away with, knowing that the U.S. president has said he recognizes no constraints other than his own personal morality. Investors will increasingly look for safe harbors, as pervasive uncertainty becomes an abiding sense of precarity, but they will be harder and harder to find.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the CEO of New America.

Global economic imbalances will dominate the discussion in 2026. China just announced a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus in goods in 2025. At the same time, the United States trade deficit remained high while European countries are increasingly vocalizing concerns about China Shock 2.0. What is notable is that all of this is happening even after large increases in U.S. tariffs. The question for the global economy is whether China will take steps to curb this trend — which arguably is not a manifestation of China’s economic strength but instead a symptom of the weakness of its domestic demand, particularly consumer spending. How will Europe react, torn between its desire not to emulate the increasingly isolationist U.S. economic policies but also its mounting concerns about China? And what tools does the United States have, and will it shift to trying to act on China collectively rather than continuing to go it alone? All of this could reshape global trade flows, policies and geopolitics more broadly.

Jason Furman is a professor of the practice of economic policy at Harvard and was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2017.

The defining global economic story in 2026 will be the consolidation of a new political economy across parts of the Global South, particularly in West Africa and the Sahel, where recent assertions of political sovereignty are now being matched by deep economic realignment.

Following military coups, ruptured relations with Western partners and the rejection of external conditionality, governments are now openly turning to nontraditional actors such as China, Turkey and Gulf states. These partnerships extend beyond capital and investment to encompass governance practices and political models, reshaping how power is exercised, largely outside the spotlight of global economic reporting.

Large-scale projects such as Guinea’s Simandou iron ore development illustrate this shift. In a country now governed by a military regime, Simandou has become a strategic vehicle for state-led development embedded in new political and economic alignments. Backed heavily by Chinese firms, the project reflects arrangements that prioritize state control, speed and strategic coordination over the governance frameworks traditionally favored by Western institutions.

As these models scale across resource-rich and strategically located regions, they will shape global supply chains, investment norms and geopolitical alignments. The resulting friction between competing economic models, governance standards and spheres of influence is likely to define global economic headlines far more than marginal shifts in growth or inflation.

Attention should focus on the consolidation of an alternative political economy whose global implications are only beginning to register.

Kamissa Camara is a professor of practice in international diplomacy at the University of Michigan. She is a former chief of staff to the president of Mali, as well as a former minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation and minister of digital economy and planning.

For developing economies, one issue will transcend all others: jobs. These economies are staring down a jobs challenge of historic proportions. By 2035, about 1.2 billion young people will reach working age in the developing world, flooding labor markets that are already struggling to keep pace. Whether countries can deliver enough productive jobs will shape growth trajectories, poverty outcomes, social cohesion and political stability across much of the world.

The pressures are mounting fast. Job creation had already slowed even before the cascade of recent shocks, and many countries now face weaker growth, heavy debt burdens and limited fiscal space. Nearly 40% of new labor-market entrants will live in fragile and conflict-affected settings, where opportunities are scarcest and risks highest. At the same time, the old playbooks are becoming obsolete. Technological change, trade fragmentation, climate change and geopolitical tensions are slowing the engines that once powered employment expansion and income convergence.

Yet with the right choices, this generational crisis could become a powerful force for growth. The priorities are clear: Governments should invest in people and infrastructure, build business environments where firms can expand and hire, and mobilize private capital at scale. Agribusiness, manufacturing, infrastructure, health care and tourism can create jobs quickly if backed by credible macroeconomic frameworks and predictable policies.

M. Ayhan Kose is deputy chief economist at the World Bank Group.

The global economic issue I expect to see in this year’s headlines isn’t a single crisis, but a slow-burning tension that has been building for years: the gap between the realities of people’s economic lives and how state institutions define work, protection and representation.

For more than a decade, I’ve worked alongside organizations of street vendors, home-based workers, waste pickers and domestic workers in the Global South, who operate outside standard employment relationships. Daily life is shaped by volatile incomes, firms and employers shifting costs and risk downward, punitive state action, exclusion from social protection, and limited avenues for making their voices heard in economic decision-making.

These dynamics are no longer mainly a Global South concern. In the United States and Europe, technological change is reshaping labor markets through subcontracting, misclassification, platform work and the expansion of informalized service sectors, while labor law, social protection and collective bargaining remain tied to a mid-20th-century model of stable, full-time employment.

As this gap widens, it is increasingly playing out politically through a crisis of representation. Workers outside traditional labor institutions struggle to see themselves reflected in economic policy. The result is that it is experienced as something done to people rather than with them, with implications for democratic legitimacy as much as for labor standards.

Laura Alfers is the international coordinator at WIEGO, a global network that supports workers in informal employment, especially women and those living in poverty.

The U.S. dollar’s centrality to global finance has been taken for granted for decades, providing steady, cheap funding for U.S. debt and a liquid safe-haven for all investors. That status is in doubt this year in a way unseen since the 1970s. This will push up interest costs on Treasuries and decrease American purchasing power, feeding inflation.

All four main pillars of faith in the dollar have eroded markedly, especially since January 2025: that federal deficits would be addressed eventually by Congress, that the Federal Reserve would credibly prevent inflation, that U.S. allies would have security benefits from dollar investment, and that all except a few criminal regimes would have reliable, rapid access in and out of dollar investments.

This does not portend a dollar crash, but an accelerating diversification away from Treasuries and other dollar assets, including by foreign reserve holders. What had been unacceptable alternative assets, from gold to euros to bitcoins, will gain investment as dollars become less attractive. The only offsets are AI investment and the potential sale of stablecoins. But even if those assets attract some inflows, it will only create a boom-bust cycle for them against the current — which would merely slow the downward dollar adjustment.

Adam S. Posen is president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Global economic headlines this year will be shaped by the widening exposure of global commerce not only to geopolitical risk, but to geopolitical strategy. Foreign policy crises — from Venezuela to Iran — are increasingly contested through economic pressure alongside military and diplomatic tools, in a global economy already strained by Russian aggression and an unsettled strategic contest between China and the West. Washington is intervening more directly in trade, investment and technology flows, often in novel and far-reaching ways, treating economic measures as core components of foreign policy.

In this context, the rules-based international order that once largely insulated global commerce from geopolitical confrontation has weakened, fueling concern that the gains it supported may be harder to sustain. Yet global integration has not collapsed. Inertia remains strong, with firms adapting rather than disengaging from global markets.

Global economic headlines will report shifts in capital flows, investment patterns and major commercial decisions, as well as how governments align, coordinate and strike economic deals. Together, these stories will provide insight into whether this moment leads to a more constrained form of global economic integration or a much sharper break — or breakthrough — in the global economic system.

Kari Heerman is a senior fellow and director of trade and economic statecraft at the Brookings Institution. She was acting chief economist at the State Department from January to May 2025.

Inflation has fallen from its post-pandemic peak, yet cost-of-living pressures continue to haunt households globally. For much of 2025, inflation was still the top issue in Ipsos’ “what worries the world” survey — not surprising, given the highly salient and sticky impacts of inflation at rates not seen for decades. Moreover, the Trump administration’s tariff policies sent global economic uncertainty to record highs in 2025, paralyzing businesses’ decision-making and prompting still higher prices, from household essentials to durable goods.

Higher prices and cost-of-living concerns feed widespread dissatisfaction about economic systems. In many countries, economic pessimism has endured since 2020, and there’s a growing sense that a better future for the next generation may be unattainable. Voters continue to demand policies that make life more affordable, but they’ve proven tricky to deliver. Many governments deftly managed a post-pandemic “soft landing,” only to be saddled with fiscal challenges and other longer-term brakes on growth — limiting tools to ease costs and improve economic opportunities.

In elections, voters’ desire for change will likely persist, but the direction of travel — the what and the how — isn’t clear. Will policymakers answer the call in 2026?

Natalie Baker is the director of economic analysis at the Center for American Progress.

The main story won’t be tariffs or trade wars — we’re actually past “peak tariffs” already. The principal source of global risk will be the United States itself, not just in 2026 but for years ahead. We’re in the middle of a political revolution, and nobody knows how it ends.

President Trump is dismantling checks on his power while building the most interventionist economic system since the New Deal. Government equity stakes, revenue-sharing deals, regulatory leverage — the toolkit keeps expanding, and there’s no limiting principle on how it’s applied. Every company and government Trump wants something from is a potential target. America has long been unpredictable, but it’s now become unreliable as executive impunity expands and the rule of law erodes. Firms now have to price their political exposure to Washington into every decision. When political alignment overshadows productivity, capital gets misallocated, and long-term growth suffers.

The United States will remain the most investable major economy in the world (there’s still no alternative), but the Trump administration’s political revolution will gradually damage the foundations of U.S. credibility, raise the risk premium on U.S. assets, and accelerate hedging. If things tip south — e.g., inflationary spike, AI bubble crash, recession — Trump will become more risk-acceptant and interventionist, not less. And when the next global crisis hits, there’ll be no “committee to save the world.”

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group.