What Will 2026 Bring, The Eye Of The Storm?

China Will Keep Growing & Not Invade Taiwan

The increasing encroachment of Chinese cars into the European market, and foreign markets that European brands sell in, together with the continued squeezing out of the German brands from China, will cause continuing angst and discussions of protectionist measures. But the automobile industry will only be the most visible encroachment of Chinese products into the core of European leading manufacturing sectors. China has recently made purchases of Airbus aircraft, part of perhaps a strategy of ameliorating the trade tensions with strategic purchases.

There will be a slight fall in the level of new renewable energy installations in China after the bumper year of 2025, due to policy changes and grid integration challenges. Coal use will stagnate while oil consumption may fall slightly (the increasing electrification of personal and commercial transport vehicles). Natural gas imports may continue the decline of 2025, as domestic production continues to grow.

Russia Will Not Collapse & Will Keep Changing The Facts On The Ground In Ukraine

The European Societies & Economies Will Continue To Decay & Become Less Globally Relevant

War making budgets will expand but with little real improvement in Europe’s war fighting abilities due to the highly inefficient military industrial complexes that have been subject to limited funding over a period of decades, and the lack of adequate scale in the general manufacturing sector in many European nations. While at the same time more and more attempts to cut social spending will be made. In contrast, China’s position as the global manufacturing powerhouse provides a myriad of benefits to its military industrial sector and Russia has proven the efficiency and effectiveness of its MIC in the past few years.

In reality, the European elites are still acting as obedient US vassals, not charting an independent path as some of them publicly state, as the Middle East Eye so well surmises:

The premise underlying these calls, however, is highly questionable. The claim that Germany, or Europe more broadly, faces an imminent military threat from Russia is deeply contested … Germany’s industrial base has been hollowed out, while its automotive sector is struggling under pressure from Chinese competition. Ultimately, its poorly concealed ambition to maintain its industrial edge by pivoting towards weapons manufacturing is easy to proclaim, but far more difficult to realise. Similar structural constraints affect much of Europe …

Some describe this moment as a Zeitenwende, a historic turning point framed as Europe finally assuming "responsibility" for its own security. In reality, it represents little more than burden-shifting within the Atlantic alliance, which it could have potentially withstood were it not for the fact that the main escalatory power remains firmly across the Atlantic. At the same time, Europe is now expected to provide the workforce, social discipline and political compliance.

Strategy, therefore, continues to be conceived and remotely controlled by Washington, while Europe bears all the risks and consequences.

Governments will continue to have very low approval ratings in Western Europe, and the EU will continue to centralize decision making away from democratic oversight while working to discipline “wayward” nations such as Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia. The continued financial and military needs of Ukraine will cause increasing problems as nations balk at greater and greater levels of financial guarantees for loans that everyone knows will never be paid back by Ukraine. With elections not scheduled until 2027 in France (April) and Italy (December) and until 2029 in the UK and Germany, deeply unpopular governments will continue in power.

The silencing of opposition voices will intensify through current and new laws, the pressuring of internet service providers to block dissenting voices, EU level personal sanctions, and general state intimidation and propaganda.

All part of the quickening incremental movement of Europe toward militarism and authoritarianism, an emerging version of 1984. The German AfD and the French National Rally will continue their journey toward establishment acceptance, which will include the acceptance of the war mongering and militarism; to become part of future ruling coalitions designed to demobilize oppositional voices. The AfD is a fake populist party founded by neoliberal economists and funded by the German oligarchy. The new leader of the National Rally has demonstrated a policy positioning much more in line with French oligarch preferences, including support for the Ukraine War.

The Mid-Terms Will Dominate The US

With the economy and the cost of living being the major issue for voters, it can be expected that the administration will do everything possible to juice the economy during the year. With the appointment of a new chair of the Federal Reserve in early 2026, this may include lower interest rates - and a resulting lower dollar - even if inflation starts to take off. Growth will be aided by the reflationary nature of the 2025-2026 federal budget. Much grandstanding around limited and many times purely performative government efforts to reduce prices for “working Americans” can also be expected.

What will also be front and centre will be the divide and conquering of the American people along cultural, religious and identity lines. Part of that will be an intensification of the immigrant scapegoating and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security actions against immigrant communities. With ICE being significantly expanded to become a para-military force answerable directly to the Executive Branch of the government.

What will not be allowed to dominate the elections will be the continued low-key genocide of the Gazan population, nor the extensive interference in the workings of foreign nations, nor the ongoing corporate concentration, collusion and corruption, nor increased war spending; as they are bipartisan oligarch policies. The Democrats will also once again act as the sheep dogs neutralizing oppositional energy through fake “left” positions. The Ukraine War may also sink into the background as it becomes a losing issue for the Republicans. The pressure will be kept upon Venezuela, but there is no way that the administration wants to risk a full blown military campaign in an election year.

The traditional media will also continue to drift even more rightwards and be more supportive of authoritarianism and foreign aggression, as Paramount (which includes CBS) is fully integrated into the Ellison Zionist-supporting oligarch empire, and Warner Brothers Discovery (which includes CNN) is integrated by Netflix. With career paths under threat from further consolidation and a significantly reduced employment environment for bourgeois-progressive “mainstream” journalists, the employees of such outlets as ABC and NBC will also increasingly facilitate the move toward much more explicit authoritarianism. The oligarch-controlled state will also use its powers of access and licensing to discipline outlets that do not fully fall into line. That Trump administration will continue to cleanse and subjugate the state apparatus of the members of the Professional-Managerial Class that do not align with the increasing oligarch consensus of state authoritarianism and intensifying corporate exploitation of the US state and the general population. This will include the PMC members of the theory industry, especially within the university social sciences and humanities departments.

There will be no significant improvement in the US productive forces, as the policies required for such an improvement are blocked by the nature and selfish interests of the dominant faction of the US oligarchy. As Hudson puts it, the US is dominated by an extractive rentier financialized capitalist ruling class with the previous generations of “builders” lost to the past. The US state has already been significantly stripped of the skilled technocrats required to manage a recovery in the productive forces, with the Trump administration intensifying the decline of the state technocratic ranks. The US will continue its decline relative to China.

The interim trade agreement between China and the US agreed in late 2025 pushed issues off until after the 2026 mid-term elections, removing them as an active issue during the run up to the mid-terms. Trump and Xi plan to meet at an April summit, and the Chinese will not want to rock the boat during an election year when such issues can be turned into an electoral hot potato that forces actions by the US administration.

Continuation Of The Trump-Monroe Doctrine

It is all about gaining greater power over Latin America. The US also gained an ally in Bolivia, a delayed benefit of the 2019 right-wing coup, together with the victory of Milei in the Argentinian elections. In addition to the in place US allies in control of El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and Peru (also controlled by narco-traffickers).

The only stand outs are Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. With elections in Peru in April, Colombia in May, and Brazil in October, interference in the internal politics of these countries can be expected to be ramped up. Mexico is a more long-term project given the overwhelming popularity of the left-wing president and the next legislative elections are not until 2027 and the presidential election is not until 2030. The US mid-terms may very well limit the actions of the US administration with respect to Venezuela, actions also designed to weaken Cuba.

There will also be continued pressure upon the Canadian government that has already made significant concessions, such as its targeting of a 5% of GDP level of war making expenditures. And pressure on Denmark with respect to Greenland, the Trump administration wishes to unequivocally dominate the Western Hemisphere from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

Continuation Of The Gazan Genocide

The Zionist regime will also continue to try to drag the US into a war with Iran, hoping that perhaps another attack on Iran can be turned into a wider war.

A Record Global Average Surface Temperature

The Year Before The Storm?