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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take for you today. I want to talk to you about the geopolitical recession that we, the world, are now in. What is a geopolitical recession you ask?
Well, economic recessions you kind of understand. We have boom cycles and bust cycles. They happen frequently. So frequently that we even have solid measurements for when an advanced industrial economy is in a technical recession. That's two quarters in a row of negative growth. Or when the world is experiencing a recessionary year. They happen frequently in the United States since World War II, every seven to 10 years on average. And that means that we have been through many of those cycles, and we can recognize them and we know that we don't like them. We want to respond to them.
And whether you are an advanced industrial economy, a free market economy, or whether you are an authoritarian state and a state capitalist system, either way, you've got central bankers and finance ministers or treasury secretaries that are using monetary and fiscal tools to try to minimize the impact of a recession and get back towards effective more sustainable growth.
Okay, so that's the economic side. But I'm not an economist. I'm a political scientist. Are there cycles in geopolitics? And the answer is yes. But they're a lot longer. And because the cycles are longer, playing out over several generations, we don't live through a lot of them individually. And so, we don't recognize them as a pattern. But we are right now in a geopolitical recession.
What causes a geopolitical recession? Well, basically it's when the balance of power becomes misaligned, out of whack, with the rules of the road geopolitically. With how the world order is structured, the institutions, the architecture. So, for example, the global order that we have been living through both after World War II through the Cold War, and then through Soviet collapse, was all about a number of global institutions and architecture that the United States created with its allies, its friends, after World War II was over.
So, the world has just gone through this horrible cataclysm, a geopolitical depression, and now we've got a boom cycle. And the United States is creating the United Nations and the WTO and the IMF and all of these other global institutions with the idea being support for collective security, support for a multilateral free trade architecture, support for rule of law, promotion of human rights, promotion of democracy all over the world. Generally speaking, the United States created a whole bunch of global institutions that reflected what the United States thought about how the world should be run.
Then over time, the balance of power changes, but the institutions don't. At least not as much because they're sticky, because it takes a lot of political capital to change them. People kick the can down the road. Let somebody else do it. And when that gap grows too wide, then the geopolitical order starts to shake. It becomes much more unstable.
So, what happened here? Three big reasons why we are now in a geopolitical recession. Number one, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia was not integrated into the West, not into the EU, not into NATO. They're angry about it. They blame the United States. They are now a chaos actor on the global stage, at least insofar as the advanced industrial economies. The G7 are concerned, and their top allies are fellow chaos actors: North Korea and Iran. That's reason number one.
Reason number two, China was integrated into the global order, particularly the global economy on the notion that as they got wealthier, as they benefited from that, they would become responsible stakeholders. And what that means for Americans is that they're going to align with these US led global institutions and values and norms. They'll support rule of law. They'll become more politically liberalized. They'll become more economically free market in orientation. The Chinese have gotten much wealthier. They're now a technological peer to the United States, no one else is close, ahead in some areas, behind in others. But they absolutely have not aligned with the United States. And that is making a lot of Americans and a lot of American allies very concerned, and it's leading to confrontation between the two most powerful countries.
Number three, while those first two things were going on, lots of people in the West, and especially the United States, increasingly felt like their own leaders, their political leaders, their business leaders, their corporate leaders, their media leaders, their elites, were promoting globalism, were promoting a bunch of things for a global order that didn't help them. So, all of those ideas about collective security and promotion of democracy and promoting free trade, not interested, because the average American doesn't feel like they're benefiting from it.
And certainly that is a big reason why Trump won, not just once, but twice, and more decisively the second time around. And so now, not only do you have the Russians acting like rogues with allies, and the Chinese much more powerful, but not aligned with the US-led global system. But you have the Americans saying, "We're not very interested in promoting that global system anymore. In fact, we're more interested in the law of the jungle."
It's a worldview that's closer to the Chinese. Not multilateralism but just one-on-one relations where you are stronger and you tell the other country what you want to have done. It's very transactional, it's very pragmatic. Doesn't really matter what kind of values that country holds. If you're Trump, you'll do a deal with Russia or China or an ally, and you'll criticize and pressure anybody if they're not behaving the way you want to. The fact that there are common values doesn't really matter. The fact that you're part of the same infrastructure and architecture doesn't really matter. It's, "What are you doing for me now?"
So given all of that, we are now in a serious geopolitical recession. What I call a G-Zero world. Not a G7, not a G20, where there's an absence of global leadership. Now, what's very interesting about that G-Zero world, what's very interesting about this geopolitical recession that I believe that we're in is that the United States is in a particularly strong position right now. Particularly strong compared to its adversaries like China facing the worst economic conditions since the 90s, maybe even the 70s. Like Russia in a period of severe economic decline, and other decline, national security, political. And Iran, which has basically just lost their empire, their empire by proxy, the Axis of Resistance in the Middle East. The US is also much stronger relationally to its allies. America's technology capabilities becoming so dominant compared to what the Europeans, the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Canadians don't have. America's military capabilities. The strength of the US economy coming out of the pandemic compared to every other G7 democracy shows that the United States can get a lot more done in a geopolitical recession. Can ensure that its will is followed.
Also, the fact that Trump is consolidated so much more power this time around compared to 2017 when he was first president. Last time, he had all of these establishment Republicans that didn't really support him, all the way from Mike Pence, his vice president, to Mad Dog Mattis, to Mike Pompeo, to Nikki Haley, to Gary Cohn, and on and on and on. This time around, not at all. Everyone is aligned with Trump.
Also last time, the GOP, the Republican Party, didn't feel like they had to ride Trump's coattails. He wasn't as popular as a lot of they were in their own individual campaigns. This time around not at all. Trump's much more popular than them, they need him much more. And that's happening at a time when so many allied governments are very, very weak. And that's a problem, right? For them. If you're Canada and your government's imploding, or you're South Korea and your government's imploding, or you're Germany, your government's imploding, or France and your government's imploding. Or even countries like the United Kingdom and Japan where the establishment is very, very vulnerable, and very unpopular, Trump's ability to tell you, "This is what we want. And by the way, we are a lot more effective at playing the law of the jungle than either our allies or our adversaries."
It's going to be very hard for them not to kiss the ring, not to provide big wins for the Americans. So, lots of wins for Trump, and that's what we're going to see over the course of the coming year, and a lot of defense being played by a lot of those other countries around the world. But is that sustainable?
Because to get out of a geopolitical recession, you ultimately need to create new rules of the road. You need new global architecture, especially because our challenges, whether it's climate change or an arms race, nuclear weapons, whether it's AI and new disruptive technologies, for good and for bad, they all are global challenges and global opportunities. But we are increasingly fragmenting our responses to national and even local levels.
So, this is not a sustainable trajectory, and that is what we're going to spend an awful lot of time looking at over the coming year, over the coming administration, and going beyond. Because, of course, this is the first time that any of us have experienced a country, the United States, essentially unwinding, undoing its own order. These global institutions that Trump and others are saying are globalist and not useful for the Americans to align with are institutions the United States initially created to help run the world in America's own image, but the US no longer believes that that works for it. And that is a fantastically interesting, but also unnerving, unsettling, and unstable time for us all geopolitically.
So, that's what a geopolitical recession is. I hope you found this worthwhile, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, March 23, 2023 in Washington D.C.
Barring an eleventh-hour reprieve, TikTok’s operations in the US are likely to be shut down on Sunday. China is said to be considering a sale of its stateside outfit to X owner Elon Musk as the incoming administration seeks a pause on the ban so it can pursue a deal to keep it running. While both of those options look unlikely, at least in the short term, President-elect Donald Trump is considering an executive order that would delay enforcement of the ban for 60 to 90 days.
The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on a challenge to the ban yet, nor is it required to by the Sunday deadline. The law, passed in April, only requires that US app stores no longer carry or permit updates of TikTok, and that internet service providers block access to the TikTok website. That would leave existing users with access to the platform, though it would degrade over time. But ByteDance, the social media platform’s owner, announced Wednesday that it is preparing to fully shut down the app in the US when the ban comes into effect.
Meanwhile, in a case of unintended consequences, TikTok users have been signing up en masse for China’s TikTok equivalent, RedNote — or Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book.” The shift is connecting US and Chinese social media users, which means that one of the aims of the TikTok ban, keeping US social media users away from China, may come up short of its goal. But it’s also exposing Chinese users to thousands of Western voices – something Beijing may not appreciate either.Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested by officers from the national corruption authority after an hours-long standoff on Wednesday morning. His detainment comes six weeks after his short-lived imposition of martial law, for which he was impeached and suspended from office, but his final removal is pending a ruling from the Constitutional Court.
Yoon, the first South Korean president to be arrested while technically still in office, was taken via motorcade to a detention center in the suburbs of Seoul. In a statement posted to social media, Yoon said he chose to submit to arrest to avoid violence, but he reportedly refused to answer questions during police interrogation. Police now have less than 48 hours to formally charge him before they must obtain a warrant to continue holding him.
Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan says Yoon can’t keep dragging his feet. “Now that he has been removed from his official residence, Yoon will likely be unable to avoid answering the questions of CIO investigators, the Constitutional Court, and parliamentary hearings.”
The arrest blows South Korea further into uncharted waters. When former President Park Geun-hye was impeached in 2017, prosecutors waited for her removal before bringing charges and arrest warrants. South Korean presidents may be arrested for insurrection, which is what Yoon is facing, but otherwise enjoy immunity from prosecution.
Part of the rush has to do with opposition leader Lee Jae-myung’s own legal problems. If the Supreme Court rules against him in corruption cases related to his earlier political positions, he could be barred from standing for president — but if he can force Yoon out and hold elections in time, it renders the issue moot.
Still, Lee is looking like much less of a sure bet than he was in mid-December. His party’s support among voters has fallen from 52% in the beginning of December to 42% in January, barely ahead of Yoon’s party at 40%.
In a political environment plagued by instability and polarization, who is poised to benefit? 2025 has kicked the G-Zero world into high gear: a world characterized by a growing vacuum in global governance. The anti-establishment wave and anti-incumbency trend that swept major democracies this past year underscore the dramatic shift. President-elect Donald Trump is the leading symptom, in many ways, the most powerful beneficiary of the G-Zero, argues Eurasia Group founder and president Ian Bremmer during a GZERO livestream to discuss the 2025 Top Risks report. He says that America’s embrace of a more “transactional worldview,” indifference to rule of law, and focus on rule of jungle will play to Trump’s hand and agenda. Bremmer adds that a G-Zero world and “a consolidated America First are the same thing, but jut from different perspectives. G-Zero is what happens with everybody else, and America First is what happens with the Americans.” With a tipsy-turvy year ahead, the world will be watching how Trump will navigate this moment in time.
Take a deep dive with the panel in our full discussion, livestreamed on Jan. 6 here.
- Three reasons for optimism in a leaderless world ›
- The rise of a leaderless world: Why 2025 marks a turning point, with Francis Fukuyama ›
- How Trump 2.0 could reshape US foreign policy, with the New York Times' David Sanger ›
- How will Trump 2.0 approach foreign policy? ›
- Quick Take: Trump's foreign policy legacy - the wins ›
HARD NUMBERS: Spain jacks taxes for foreigners, North Korea blasts off again, Haitian displacements soar, Red Note noted by TikTok users
A housing activist holds a sign outside a building whose residents fear they will be evicted after its purchase by a real estate investment fund, in the neighborhood of Lavapies, in Madrid, Spain, on Dec. 14, 2024. The sign reads, "My motherland is my neighborhood."
2: The new year is off to an explosive start in North Korea, where the regime has already conducted its second large-scale missile test of 2025, firing a barrage of short-range ballistic weapons into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Last week, Pyongyang let fly a hypersonic medium-range missile, after spending much of 2024 testing missiles of all kinds. Over the past year, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has severely hardened his policy toward the US, South Korea, and Japan, which he accused of forming a bloc of “aggression.”
1, 041,000 million: The number of Haitians displaced by gang violence has tripled over the past year, reaching at least 1,041,000 people, according to a new UN assessment. The forced return of about 200,000 Haitians from the neighboring Dominican Republic had made the problem even worse. Last week, Guatemala was the latest country to join a Kenyan-led international mission in Haiti that is struggling to quash the powerful gangs that control much of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
300 million: With just days before TikTok’s ban in the US is set to go into effect, thousands of the popular app’s users are reportedly flocking – in both irony and protest – to another Chinese-owned video platform called Xiaohongshu, or “little red book,” which English speakers simply call “Red Note.” The app has 300 million users already and is mostly in Chinese, meaning most of the new users have to use translation tools to navigate it.
Hard Numbers: Yoon gets a raise, China sets record trade surplus, California Dems are ready for Trump, Ryanair wants drink limits
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks on the government budget at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, 25 October 2022.
3: Despite being impeached and having a warrant out for his arrest, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol received his scheduled 3% pay raise on Monday, raising his annual salary to 262.6 million won, or $178,888.
1 trillion: China’s trade surplus reached nearly $1 trillion last year, far outpacing any trade surpluses recorded globally over the past century. But while it’s flooding the world with its products, it’s hardly importing thanks to its lagging domestic economy.
$50 million: California Democrats have reached a $50 million deal to lead a resistance against Donald Trump. The deal will provide funds for the state to challenge the administration in court, to fend off Trump’s mass deportation agenda, and to support legal and immigration nonprofits. Meanwhile, Republicans are criticizing state leaders for focusing on the deal as the state battles devastating wildfires.
2: Ryanair wants European airports to enforce a limit of two drinks per passenger as the budget airline pursues legal action to recover nearly $16,000 in costs related to a plane that had to be redirected mid-flight because of the disruptions of an overly intoxicated passenger last year.
In a wide-ranging conversation on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, Francis Fukuyama warns that the United States is losing its ability to lead globally as political polarization and a lack of bipartisan consensus undermine its long-term influence. He argues that America’s retreat from the liberal world order it once championed creates a dangerous power vacuum, inviting instability and the resurgence of the law of the jungle in international relations.