2025 Predictions
Expect the unexpected, and get ready for a wild ride
WTF? It’s 2025, and it starts with a literal WTF. Since the three days of the new year are Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, people on the internet casually nicknamed it a “WTF year.”
The last time the world welcomed a WTF year was in 2020, and everything back then was chill, with no bad vibes. For some, the WTF year might be a bad omen, given that 2020 included a global pandemic, racial unrest, and a chaotic presidential election featuring Donald Trump. Many aren’t holding their hopes too high for what comes next.
It promises to be a year of uncertainty and complication, not just due to politics. In June 2024, the UN proclaimed the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) to be the theme of 2025. Some, like the Economist magazine, have described the potential developments of this year to Schrödinger's cat, the famous thought experiment that imagined the cat could be alive and dead at the same time inside the box until somebody opens it. Before the US election, the world has hovered in a superposition of two very different states depending on the results.
On November 5, we opened the box and got a Donald Trump victory. As with many headlines of 2024, from Trump’s landslide victory to the escalating conflict in the Middle East, the failure of imagination will impede you severely going forward. Like the behavior of quantum particles, expect the unbelievable, unexpected, and unknown.
Another key theme of 2025 will be how the chaos in political heaven affects people’s daily lives, and suffice it to say, it won’t be a pretty sight. I do want to quote the lyrics from the song 3X (세 번) because the first few lines feel ominously prescient to the year we will be going through.
똑똑똑 (knock knock knock) check on every door
쿵쿵쿵 (come come come) coming through the floor
Ring ring ring no one on the line
No one coming to save you this time
Fear and the superficial will play a substantial role in 2025, and the political turmoil erupting worldwide will amplify those feelings.
With that, here are my guesses (Take them with your grains of salt) on what happens in the upcoming year.
One of the biggest topics of 2025 will undoubtedly be the new Trump administration. When Donald Trump swears his oath on the Bible, the world will have changed from a Biden presidency to a second Trump term. During the campaign trail, Trump has made a plethora of campaign promises, especially on immigration and the economy. Project 2025 was brought to public attention thanks to promotional work from the DNC, and Trump’s subsequent hiring of the project’s contributors into senior members of his administration. There are also concerning ones, such as Trump’s mass deportation scheme and threats to prosecute his political opponents.
If you believe all the concerns about Trump’s second-term agenda are hysteria, hyperbole, and exaggeration. I hope you are right. You can list the failed promises Trump did not keep during his first term in office, and how these policies are more designed to excite his base than being implemented to suggest my concerns are overblown. However, based on the current administration’s staffing, and the roadmap set in place to implement Trump’s agenda, surprise should be the last feeling in your mind as you process his decisions.
There is one constant in the uncertainty of the Trump administration: Volatility. Expect firings from top positions of his administration once he doesn’t like what they’re doing, expect performative stunts on mass deportations and major policy moves to impress his voters, and expect the bullying and belittling to be the new norm in international relations.
Domestically, he will be facing a different political and media landscape. Business leaders have rushed to kiss the ring since the election victory, trying to curry favor with the new administration. Trump’s closest supporters in business and finance, like David Sacks and Elon Musk, will be reaping the rewards of their support. In the media, there have already been signs post-election of obeying in advance, for example, ABC News’s decision to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by the then-former president. During a press conference in December 2024, Trump told reporters “In the first term, everyone was fighting me. This time, everyone wants to be my friend.” As Bulwark founder Sarah Longwell put it in response to Trump’s comment: “Trump’s first term was a study in the capitulation of the Republican Party and conservative movement. Apparently Trump’s second term will be a study in the capitulation of…everyone else.”
Many have written about the Democrats’ post-election identity crisis. But inside Trump’s camp, there is a likely chance that MAGA might tear itself apart in the coming year. We have seen in the legislature that Republican members are not easily going to bow down to Trump, whether it is Senate Republicans partly contributing to the rejection of Matt Gatez as Attorney General, or House Republicans voting against a budget bill that was influenced by Elon Musk and Trump himself.
Moreover, the Christmas social media fight between Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, against most of the MAGA base and online trolls shows a deeper rift in the party. On one side, we have the technocratic business-aligned supporters of the MAGA base, who are more similar to traditional Republicans when it comes to legal immigration, free markets, and boosting profits. On the other side, we have the more fervent MAGA base that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, supporting a nativist and isolationist platform that propelled him to the White House in 2016 and 2024. If left unchecked, the divisions that showed their signs in 2024 will fester and grow in 2025.
Speaking of Elon Musk, 2025 will turn out to be a mostly good year for the richest man on Earth. People have already raised concerns over Musk’s power before the election, but the billionaire’s newfound influence could be affecting global politics in the year to come. In space exploration, expect Musk’s SpaceX to get more benefits and prominence in American spaceflight thanks to his coziness with Trump and the new NASA administrator Jared Issacman being a close ally with the billionaire owner. Fresh off a win in America, spending more than a quarter million dollars that led to Donald Trump’s victory, Musk has ambitions to affect British and German politics. Just last December, the Tesla owner was among several billionaires considering donations to the far-right Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, one of the masterminds behind the Brexit campaign. In Germany, which is going to hold an election on February 23, Musk has been a vocal supporter of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, including writing a controversial opinion piece in a German newspaper advocating for the neo-Nazi party.
Things are not going to be smooth outside of America, especially under Trump’s influence. Even if the US president is joking, and not considering, buying Greenland, retaining ownership of the Panama Canal, or making the leaders of Mexico and Canada “governors” of new American “states,” the message from Trump is loud and clear. Expect the tariff man to spark a major economic war against his neighbors and China, which might bite his country, especially his supporters, in the rear end. If you’re sick of inflation-related price rises, get ready for overpriced food and groceries thanks to Trump-sponsored tariffs.
For allies, kiss the old rules-based world order goodbye and save yourselves. European countries will be concerned over how Trump negotiates a peace deal or a ceasefire in Ukraine, whether they can step up to the challenge of an ever-weakening NATO or a defense alliance by themselves will be a big question in 2025. European countries are stuck with going alone in defense, sticking it out with America, or muddling a way through, all unpalatable options. When it comes to the emerging global south, Trump might provide a mixed record. Some Latin American countries, like Argentina under Javier Milei, could have improved diplomatic and trade relations. Muslim-majority nations would be more deterred by Trump’s America, as it increases its military support for Israel in its expanding Middle East war (For Asian countries, Trump’s actions and rhetoric in the South China Sea and North Korea could cancel out some complaints over the US’s Middle East policy).
One of Trump’s biggest foreign policy promises is to end the two major wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The Russo-Ukranian war will likely be paused by the end of 2025, preserving negative peace as both sides stop firing weapons. For Zelensky, he will be more open to ceasefire talks as Ukrainian forces dry out their military supplies from US lethal aid, and the lack of advances on the battlefield is a more persuading factor. For Putin, he might play along with Trump’s ceasefire talk tea party but don’t expect him to make any promises. European allies will also want a seat at the table, wanting reassurances so Putin won’t invade Ukraine again, or move deeper into Europe. One like scenario is Ukraine giving up the occupied territories held by Russia, in exchange for either NATO membership or NATO troops maintaining peace inside Ukraine.
Things can get a lot trickier with Netanyahu and Israel’s growing wars. Despite the humanitarian crisis and diplomatic repercussions, Israel has gained tactical wins against Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as a political win against the increasingly weakened Iran. On the campaign trail, Trump has positioned himself as the anti-war candidate, pushing Hamas to release the hostages before his inauguration. Good news for both Trump and people wanting to see peace, Israel and Hamas are getting closer to a ceasefire deal, and a deal will likely be struck sometime this year. However, the devil is in the timing. Even though Trump wants a deal to be done before the inauguration, it is more likely that the deal will materialize after the American president comes into office. Not only that, Netanyahu has selfish concerns that he places before a ceasefire in Gaza or the return of the hostages, especially legal ones that have intensified in 2024, both domestically and internationally. No matter what the outcome is, expect Trump to take full credit if a deal is struck, before or after January 20.
Without Trump, the world would be busy as it is. Look out for these countries in the upcoming year, because there could be dramatic shifts happening there at any time.
South Korea has already experienced a dramatic December in 2024, with two impeachments and three acting leaders. Don’t expect the drama to die down anytime soon. With the opposition having a majority in the National Assembly, and a weakening ruling party taking charge of the country, anything could happen, including a snap election. At the same time, the Constitutional Court will be ruling on whether the disgraced President Yoon Suk Yeol is guilty of impeachment charges passed through the legislature, while staffing issues inside the Court will continue to generate controversy in the nation’s politics.
Myanmar’s military junta that took over the country in 2021 has never been weaker by 2025, thanks to major losses against rebel fighters throughout the past year. It could fall, or it could barely cling to power. For those who celebrated the recent and sudden fall of Assad’s government in Syria, Burma could follow next.
After the fall of Assad’s regime, the rebel groups led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are now in governing mode. Rebel groups are already forming a unity government with the HTS by late December, agreeing with other factions to dissolve their leadership. If things go well for Syria, and there is ample room to go wrong, it will depend on diplomacy and a hopeful population urging for change and good leadership.
Following the snap elections and the fall of Michel Barnier as the country’s three-month prime minister, French President Emmanuel Macron’s position looks increasingly unstable thanks to the influence of the far-right National Rally. However, a trial accusing the National Rally’s leader Marine Le Pen on charges of embezzling European Parliament funds could derail her ambitions to be president in 2027.
Even though 2024 is the big election year, 2025 promises to have enough electoral drama to sustain itself throughout the next twelve months. The ascendancy of right-wing populism and anti-incumbent sentiment will fester in the countries waiting to re-select their leaders. For incumbents, like Justin Trudeau of Canada and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, their chances of retaining power are toast and both nations will elect more right-wing governments. Populist figures like Andrej Babiš of the Czech Republic, as well as Javier Milei of Argentina, will face their judgment days on whether the public is supportive of their leadership and policies. The AfD will see itself becoming the second most powerful party in Germany, the right will see wins in Chile after taking down its unpopular left-wing president, and Australia’s ruling Labor party will barely cling on to power as a minority government. For the Phillippines and Bolivia, expect maximum drama between rivaling parties, with the Duterte and Marcos families battling it out in the island nation, and sitting President Luis Arce having an angsty fight against mentor and former President Evo Morales. However, don’t expect Belarus’ dictator Alexander Lukashenko to lose his election in January, which is decried as a sham by Western governments, and might face small unrest that will likely be quashed.
Given we learned that we should expect the unexpected, there are numerous wild cards at our disposal from a new pandemic to technological black mirrors, as listed by The Economist. But one particular wild card concerns the sun, our star that might break the internet, literally. Scientists have already determined that the solar maximum will likely happen in July 2025, meaning the sun will be the most active during that period. For our digitally-obsessed era, that is not good news.
Eruptions of plasma from the surface of the Sun, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), can shoot billions of tonnes of energetic particles into space. If the Earth is in the path of such an eruption, the result can be geomagnetic storms and widely visible auroras, as charged particles slam into the Earth’s magnetosphere. At solar maximum, the peak of its 11-year cycle, the Sun can produce two or three CMEs per day, compared with one a week at solar minimum. And the Sun is currently at solar maximum in an unexpectedly active cycle—hence the unusually vivid displays of auroras in May and October 2024, with the Northern Lights visible as far south as Sicily and Alabama.
As well as producing spectacular light shows, such solar storms can cause problems. These include short-wave radio blackouts and disruption to power grids, as currents are induced in cables and transformers. In 1989 a solar storm knocked Quebec’s grid offline for nine hours, and a CME that narrowly missed the Earth in 2012 could have destroyed a quarter of America’s high-voltage transformers, according to one analysis. CMEs can also affect satellites, by causing the atmosphere to swell slightly, increasing drag on those in low orbits. In February 2022 a CME led to the loss of 38 satellites.
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Were a large solar storm to occur in 2025, its impact could be far greater than any in the past, because of humanity’s greater dependence on technology. A report prepared in 2013 by Lloyd’s, an insurer, estimated the cost of such an event in America alone at $0.6trn-2.6trn. It could take months to repair damage to electrical grids and restore power. Water and food supplies would be interrupted. Thousands of satellites could be disabled, including those used for navigation, disrupting global aviation and shipping.
Welcome to 2025, hope you’re not too nervous because the roller coaster starts right now!