In a G-Zero world, where no one country or group of countries is willing and able to provide global leadership, the law of the jungle prevails. And the law of the jungle says the apex predator gets to do whatever he can get away with, while others either get on board or become lunchmeat.
President-elect Donald Trump, just days away from taking over the world’s largest economy and most powerful military, spent the past week showing exactly what that will mean in practice. His threats to use economic and military coercion to take control of Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal are outlandish, but they send a clear message to the world: In Trump’s second term, it's his way or the highway.
Trump's worldview represents a decisive rejection of America’s postwar commitment to global collective security, free trade, and democracy promotion in favor of transactionalism. The United States is increasingly adopting a rather Chinese approach to international relations: bilateral deal-making with little regard for common values, the rule of law, multilateralism, or the global public good. With the idea being that the world’s most powerful country will play that game more effectively than Beijing. It’s called “America First” for a reason.
Does this mean Trump actually intends to buy Greenland, make Canada the 51st state, and seize the Panama Canal? No (… probably). Trump didn’t believe Mexico would pay for his border wall in his first term, but the threat helped pressure the Mexican government to devote more resources to curbing migration flows, which Trump then claimed as a win. The playbook this time will be no different (because Trump himself hasn’t changed): make outrageous, unrealistic demands of weaker foreign leaders to extract concessions – both from the targeted countries in question and from others looking to avoid coming into Trump’s crosshairs in the first place.
What makes this time different is Trump’s far stronger hand at home and abroad. Not only does he have a mandate, control of Congress and the Republican Party, and a 6-3 Supreme Court, but he will also have a more ideologically aligned and loyal administration. His personalistic leadership style and consolidation of power – what we call Rule of Don in our 2025 Top Risks report – mean US domestic and foreign policy will increasingly depend on the decisions of one man and his inner circle, precisely what the Founding Fathers sought to prevent through constitutional checks and balances.
Meanwhile, the United States is comparatively more powerful today relative to 2017 vis-à-vis its adversaries – with China experiencing its worst economic crisis in decades, Russia in serious decline, and Iran having lost its proxy empire – as well as its allies, most of which have weak and unpopular leadership.
The combination of Trump’s consolidated power at home, America’s greater might abroad, and the president-elect’s willingness to wield that power unilaterally for transactional gain means the incoming administration will rack up significant early wins. With the world more dangerous than ever, few governments or corporations want to risk becoming the apex predator’s next prey.
We’re already seeing these dynamics play out domestically, where major companies are falling in line to avoid running afoul of the incoming administration. Mark Zuckerberg’s dramatic shift on Meta’s content moderation reflects a broader recognition that resistance is futile – better to align with Trump and his advisor-in-chief Elon Musk than to fight them. And if you think Meta, Apple, and the like are humiliating themselves at Mar-a-Lago, that’s nothing compared to the lengths that foreign governments will go to stay off Trump's radar or avoid his wrath.
Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, will do everything possible to fix a bilateral relationship that Trump believes is broken. It will take more and longer than she wants, but I think she’ll get there. The European Union, despite likely trade tensions and possibly tit-for-tat tariffs, will probably reach a deal that satisfies Trump and ultimately bolsters Europe’s “strategic autonomy.” NATO members won’t increase defense spending to a whopping 5% of GDP as Trump recently demanded (the US itself spends around 3.4% of GDP), but most will continue to boost their military expenditures.
Even seemingly absurd threats, such as a military takeover of the Panama Canal, will likely force real concessions like limits on Chinese investments, reduced transit fees, or enhanced cooperation on migration across the Darien Gap. And while Trump will neither purchase nor invade Greenland, his shenanigans have brought the issue of the territory’s independence from NATO ally Denmark to the fore, putting Copenhagen in a bind and raising the prospect of increased US access to the resource-rich and strategically vital Arctic island.
But Trump’s transactional approach won’t work everywhere, and in some cases, it will backfire. China isn’t prepared to offer meaningful enough concessions to achieve a grand bargain, especially amid an absence of communication and management channels. Early tariff hikes and mounting US provocations (at least as perceived by Beijing) in the coming months are likely to cause a breakdown in US-China relations this year.
Indeed, while many countries will seek to accommodate Trump to avoid confrontation, others will see no choice but to dig in. This includes one of America’s oldest allies and its largest trading partner, Canada. Trump’s annexation rhetoric and threats of 25% tariffs have touched a nerve north of the border, pushing politicians across the Canadian political spectrum to prepare aggressive responses ahead of the Liberal Party’s internal leadership race and the country’s general elections. Neither the ruling Liberals nor the opposition Conservatives can afford to appear weak in the face of US bullying. Trump’s tactics are fueling Canadian nationalism, reducing room for compromise, and making harder-line retaliation that hurts America’s interests more likely – the opposite of his presumed objectives.
The United Kingdom’s current predicament offers a telling example of the dilemmas facing many US allies. British officials are holding crisis meetings to determine how to respond to the incessant direct attacks from Elon Musk, who is now actively intervening in the domestic politics of US allies (including not just the UK but also Germany and the EU itself) with what we can assume is at least the tacit consent of President-elect Trump. They worry that pushing back against the world’s wealthiest individual could trigger retaliation from Trump himself, with whom Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants a good working relationship. But doing nothing is not an option when Musk’s invectives are believed to have jeopardized the personal safety of British cabinet members. There’s also a concern that passivity would embolden both Musk and Trump to push even harder for advantage.
This gets at a broader challenge: Even as it yields short-term wins, the president-elect’s coercive diplomacy will reflect and reinforce the broader breakdown of international order I described last week. The US remains the world’s most powerful nation by far. But rather than providing global public goods like collective security and free trade, it's using that power to extract concessions for itself through bilateral pressure. Trump’s defenders say that his unpredictability is a feature, not a bug, and that keeping friends and foes guessing is how he gets things done. But the uncertainty it creates poses enormous risks for governments and businesses trying to survive in the jungle.
This is the essence of the G-Zero world: Not just an absence of global leadership, but the deliberate dismantling of the systems and norms that have guided international relations for decades by its erstwhile lynchpin. Trump isn’t the cause – he’s its leading symptom and beneficiary. But his return to power will accelerate the trend toward a more dangerous, crisis-prone international system. The apex predator may rack up some impressive kills, but the jungle will grow deadlier and more savage for everyone – including, eventually, for the United States, too.
