Right now, there are two potential outcomes of Trump’s tariff bombshell. Setting aside Keir Starmer’s pledge today that he will ensure the UK is protected and, therefore, that the complete opposite is guaranteed to happen, here are two scenarios both of which are equally likely.

2025 in review: scenario A.

Trump’s protectionist gamble triggered global economic meltdown

The world woke on 5 April this year to a financial maelstrom unlike any since the Great Recession. President Donald Trump, freshly re-elected and emboldened by a Republican sweep of Congress, had made good on his campaign promise to impose sweeping tariffs: 25% on all imports from China, 20% from the EU, and a staggering 35% on goods from Canada and Mexico. Wall Street, expecting a softer rollout, panicked. The Dow plummeted 4,000 points in a single day, a domino effect rippling through global markets as investors fled to safety.

In New York, trading floors buzzed with desperation. The tariffs, meant to “bring jobs home,” instead triggered a cascade of corporate selloffs. Tech giants like Apple, reliant on Chinese manufacturing, saw their stock values halved overnight. Retail chains, bracing for skyrocketing costs, slashed forecasts, sending the Nasdaq into freefall. By noon, the US dollar wobbled as foreign investors pulled out, fearing a protectionist spiral.

Across the Pacific, China retaliated with precision. Beijing slapped 50% tariffs on American soybeans, cars and tech exports, while quietly dumping US Treasury bonds. The Shanghai Composite tanked, but the Communist Party spun it as a necessary sacrifice, rallying citizens against “Western aggression.” Factories in Shenzhen slowed, and whispers of unrest grew in industrial hubs as workers faced layoffs.

Europe, caught in the crossfire, fractured. Germany’s DAX cratered as BMW and Volkswagen grappled with lost U.S. markets. France, already simmering with populist discontent, saw riots erupt in Paris as Macron’s government scrambled to shield farmers from the fallout. The EU convened an emergency summit, but unity dissolved—Eastern bloc nations, less exposed to US trade, balked at bailing out the export-heavy west.

In Canada, the government teetered. The Toronto Stock Exchange bled out as oil and auto sectors collapsed under the new tariffs. Protests clogged Ottawa, with cries of betrayal from a nation that had long leaned on its southern neighbour. Mexico, meanwhile, faced a peso crisis; maquiladoras along the border shuttered as American firms pulled back, leaving thousands jobless.

Emerging markets unravelled next. Brazil’s real nosedived as US demand for its beef and iron ore vanished. India, a tech-outsourcing hub, saw contracts dry up as American firms tightened belts. In Africa, commodity-dependent nations like Nigeria watched oil and mineral prices crash, igniting fears of debt defaults.

By April 7, the IMF issued a dire warning: a global recession loomed. Cryptocurrencies, briefly a haven, crashed as panic selling spread. Gold spiked to $3,000 an ounce, but few could afford it. In the US, Trump doubled down, tweeting, “This is the pain of winning. America First!” His base cheered, but Main Street reeled. Walmart shelves emptied as import costs soared, and gas prices ticked toward $5 a gallon.

A week later, the world tilted toward chaos. Russia and China, sensing opportunity, brokered deals with sanction-hit nations like Iran and Venezuela, forming a bloc to counter the dollar’s dominance. The UN Security Council met but achieved nothing—vetoes flew as geopolitical fault lines deepened. In the US, Congress rushed a stimulus package, but partisan gridlock delayed it, leaving millions of newly unemployed workers in limbo.

By mid-April, glimmers of adaptation emerged. European nations pivoted to Asian markets, while India and Japan forged a tech alliance to bypass US supply chains. American manufacturers, spurred by desperation, began retoolling domestic plants, although years of offshoring left them woefully unprepared. Small towns buzzed with rumours of factory re-openings, but the jobs were slow to materialise.

By the end of April 2025, the world was in flux. The stock market stabilised at a lower plateau, but trust in global trade had shattered. Cities glowed with protests, from Detroit to Delhi, while leaders grappled with a new reality: Trump’s tariffs had not just crashed markets. They’d rewritten the rules of the game. Whether this was a stumble toward isolation or a brutal reset for resilience, only time would tell.

As spring bled into summer, the world staggered under the tariff war’s weight. In the US, inflation hit 8%, the highest in decades, as imported goods vanished from shelves or doubled in price. Breadlines snaked through Rust Belt towns in a way eerily reminiscent of the 1930s, while Silicon Valley’s layoffs swelled tent cities in San Francisco. Trump, undeterred, toured factory sites in Ohio and Pennsylvania, promising a “manufacturing renaissance”. Critics pointed to empty lots and idle machines. Rebuilding supply chains, they argued, would take years, not months.

Globally, the fracture widened. China’s economy contracted, but Xi Jinping leaned into nationalism, unveiling a “Made in China 2030” plan to wean off Western markets. State subsidies propped up factories, although rural provinces simmered with discontent as food prices soared. The EU, desperate to avoid collapse, launched a €500 billion “Solidarity Fund” to bolster its weakest members, but Hungary and Poland threatened to defect, eyeing trade deals with Russia instead.

The Global South bore the brunt. In Nigeria, a currency collapse triggered riots in Lagos; the government defaulted on its debts by June, sparking a wave of IMF bailouts across Africa. India, battered but resilient, pivoted to ASEAN nations, its software firms striking deals with Singapore and Vietnam to offset US losses. Brazil’s Amazon burned hotter as loggers exploited the chaos, unchecked by a cash-strapped Brasília.

By July, geopolitical realignments took shape. Russia and China, flush with discounted oil from Iran, pushed a “Petroyuan” to challenge the dollar. Saudi Arabia, caught between its US alliance and economic survival, hedged bets, quietly signing yuan-based contracts. The US retaliated with sanctions, but their bite weakened as allies like Japan and South Korea, reeling from tariff fallout, hesitated to enforce them.

In the US, summer brought rage. A “Tariff Tax Revolt” swept cities: truckers blocked highways, small businesses shuttered, and a viral video of a Detroit grandmother burning her last dollar bill ignited nationwide strikes. Congress, pressured by midterms looming in 2026, passed a $2 trillion relief bill, but Trump’s veto, calling it “socialism” sparked a constitutional crisis. The Supreme Court, packed with his appointees, upheld the veto, deepening the divide.

Europe faced its own reckoning. The UK, post-Brexit and tariff-crippled, saw Labour sweep into power on a platform of rejoining the EU single market. France’s Yellow Vests morphed into a broader anti-globalist movement, toppling Macron by August. Germany, the EU’s anchor, teetered as Merkel’s successors struggled to hold the bloc together.

By September, green shoots pierced the wreckage. US manufacturers, spurred by tax breaks and desperation, opened plants in the Carolinas and Midwest – small-scale, but a start. Tesla relocated battery production from Shanghai to Nevada, a propaganda win for Trump, although costs soared. Consumer habits shifted and “Buy American” campaigns gained traction, though quality lagged and prices stung.

China, meanwhile, flexed its soft power. Belt and Road projects accelerated, pulling Africa and Central Asia into its orbit. A Shenzhen tech expo unveiled AI-driven supply chains, signalling self-reliance. Europe stabilised as Germany and France brokered a trade pact with India and Japan, bypassing the US entirely. The euro, battered but alive, gained ground as a reserve currency.

The Middle East flared. Israel and Saudi Arabia, fearing Iran’s tariff-fuelled rise, launched joint strikes on Tehran’s proxies, dragging the US into a proxy war despite domestic exhaustion. Oil spiked to $120 a barrel, hammering recovery efforts worldwide.

By 31 December 31, the globe stood transformed. The US economy, down 15% from its pre-crash peak, showed flickers of life: unemployment eased to 10%, and steel towns hummed with modest activity. Trump, his approval at 35%, claimed victory, though polls hinted at a 2026 midterm bloodbath. The dollar, weakened, shared reserve status with the yuan and euro.

China emerged leaner, its GDP bruised but its influence vast. The EU, smaller after Hungary’s exit, coalesced into a tighter, Franco-German core. India and Japan led an Asian bloc, while Africa and Latin America limped, tethered to whoever offered the best lifeline – Beijing, Moscow, or a faltering Washington.

Climate talks collapsed. Emissions spiked as nations prioritised survival over sustainability. Protests ebbed, replaced by weary pragmatism. On New Year’s Eve, Times Square’s ball dropped to a muted crowd, the Jumbotron flashing “America First – Year One.” Across the globe, leaders toasted to resilience, but the champagne tasted bitter. The crash of ’25 had not just broken markets: it had forged a fractured, multipolar world, its pieces still settling as the clock struck midnight.

However, this is just as plausible:

2025 in review: scenario B

Trump’s vision vindicated

As 2025 draws to a close, the world looks back on a year of upheaval, adaptation and, surprisingly to some, a growing sense that Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to leadership may have been ahead of its time. From the global economy to international peace, the echoes of his policies and predictions are reverberating in ways few anticipated. Let’s imagine how this year might have unfolded, casting Trump as a figure whose instincts, however brash, proved prescient in the medium and long term.

The Economy: America First pays off

In 2025, the global economy faced a reckoning. Supply chain disruptions, exacerbated by years of over-reliance on single-nation manufacturing, reached a breaking point as China’s internal slowdown collided with rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Enter Trump’s long-championed “America First” economic playbook. By mid-2025, the US had accelerated its reshoring efforts, a policy Trump had pushed hard during his tenure. Factories sprouted across the Rust Belt, fuelled by tax incentives and a workforce eager for stable jobs. The numbers spoke for themselves: US GDP growth hit 4.2% by Q3, outpacing a floundering Europe still tethered to cheap energy dreams and a faltering green transition.

Trump’s critics once decried his tariff wars as reckless, but in 2025 they began to look like foresight. With nations scrambling to secure domestic production, countries like India and Brazil followed suit, adopting protectionist measures that echoed Trump’s strategy. The medium-term result? A rebalanced global trade system where self-reliance trumped globalisation’s fragility. By year’s end, economists were whispering that Trump’s economic nationalism might have saved the West from a deeper recession, though his detractors still grumbled about higher consumer prices.

Peace Through Strength: A New World Order

On the global stage, 2025 tested the limits of diplomacy. Russia’s war in Ukraine dragged into its fourth year, while Iran’s nuclear ambitions rattled the Middle East. Yet, oddly, Trump’s shadow loomed large over a stabilising world. His “peace through strength” doctrine—mocked as bombastic in earlier years—gained traction as NATO, under pressure from a reinvigorated US commitment, finally flexed its muscle. A hypothetical second Trump term in 2025 might have seen him broker a Ukraine ceasefire, leaning on personal rapport with Putin and a refusal to blink in negotiations. Instead, his successors adopted a diluted version of the same playbook, with surprising success.

In the Middle East, Trump’s Abraham Accords matured into a broader coalition. Saudi Arabia and Israel, bolstered by US arms and energy deals, quietly collaborated to counter Iran, reducing proxy conflicts in Yemen and Syria. By December, analysts noted a 30% drop in regional skirmishes compared to 2024. His long-term vision of bypassing multilateral quagmires for bilateral dealmaking seemed to hold water, as the UN’s endless debates yielded little.

Energy and Climate: Pragmatism prevails

Energy was the sleeper hit of Trump’s 2025 legacy. His insistence on fossil fuel dominance, once derided as climate denialism, found an unexpected ally in reality. Europe’s renewable grid faltered under harsh winter demand, forcing Germany to restart coal plants and France to lean harder on nuclear. Meanwhile the US, flush with oil and gas exports, became the stabilising force in global energy markets. Trump’s medium-term bet – that fossil fuels would bridge the gap to a workable green future – looked less like stubbornness and more like pragmatism. By late 2025, even progressive voices admitted that energy independence had bought time for innovation, with American LNG cutting Russia’s leverage over Europe by half.

The Long Game: A Trumpian World?

Looking ahead, 2025 might be remembered as the year Trump’s ideas transitioned from polarising to prophetic. The long-term outlook suggests a world shaped by his principles: decentralised economies, muscular diplomacy, and a rejection of utopian promises. Global peace, while fragile, held firmer than expected, thanks to a deterrence-first mindset. The economy, though bumpy, showed resilience in nations that embraced his self-sufficiency gospel. Even his bombast, once a punchline, found echoes in leaders worldwide who adopted his style to rally their bases. Of course, this is an imaginary lens. Trump’s detractors would argue 2025’s successes stemmed from others refining his raw impulses, not from his genius. The wealth gap widened, they’d say, and cultural divides deepened. Yet, as the year closes, one can’t help but wonder: did Trump, in his chaotic way, see something the technocrats missed? History, as always, will have the final word, but 2025 suggests it might just lean his way.