The year 2025 was certainly the year of Donald Trump. He returned as president of the United States and wasted no time implementing a lesson he learnt from his previous presidency: forget the niceties, move fast and break things so your enemies can’t put them back together again.

A lot of things have been broken. Traditions, precedents, treaties, friendships, alliances and so on; some consciously and directly broken, others indirectly and perhaps inadvertently so. Whether those things deserved to be broken is certainly the topic of many heated debates.

Looking into my rather gloomy crystal ball, I would say that while Trump will remain the main character in 2026, things won’t go so well for him.

There are enough domestic obstacles that’ll push some of his programmes off track. One such obstacle appearing more inevitable by the day is a trouncing in the mid-term US congressional elections in November, which is likely to result in his impeachment and possible ouster.

We’ll let the Americans sort out their own domestic politics, even if the noises emanating from them are deafening and at times downright scary. We’ll focus on how the rest of the world will fare in 2026.

First and foremost, how will Malaysia fare? We did quite well in 2025, actually. Our presidency of Asean allowed us to conduct some diplomacy and do some schmoozing and swooning. Malaysia has enough economic clout to matter to Trump’s US, and is friendly enough with local superpower China to keep things running evenly.

Here come the middle powers

For much of the rest of the world though, 2026 will be the year for the “middle powers” to push back and rearrange the seats at the big global table. “Middle powers” is a surprisingly humble term much favoured lately by a clutch of nations, who feel it is time for them to take some big bold gambles.

The clearest sign of this nascent assertiveness was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the recent Davos World Economic Forum. It was brave, historic and signalled that much of the world, which has not dared to take on Trump in 2025, thinks it may have nothing more to lose.

Carney was immediately invited by Australia, another “middle power”, to address its parliament in March. Other such powers will follow suit, feeling increasingly secure in their growing numbers.

Trump shock and awe

When you consider their chances, you first must answer the question – did Trump overdo it in 2025? Did he push too many countries too hard, break too many long-standing arrangements in his quest to put America first?

I think he did, and my logic is very simple: because that’s what Trump always does. He’s a walking, talking textbook narcissist who accepts no boundaries, and believes keeping his enemies unsettled and constantly besieged by doing the unthinkable is the best strategy to win.

His whole life has been like that. As a businessman, he was his own boss who answered to nobody, safely ensconced in his inherited wealth within a US culture that tolerates, even applauds and rewards, such behaviours.

In his first term, he was surrounded by more conventional and qualified, albeit very right-wing, people running the US government. Over the course of the term, he fired all of them, replacing them with acolytes and disciples and those deemed loyal enough.

We saw the result of that when the US was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. At a point when competence was called for, Trump advocated for bleach injections or other unhinged remedies that resulted in the US having one of the worst records of Covid-19 damage, despite a healthcare economy that ran in the trillions.

He started 2025 with shock and awe, breaking things that he felt constrained him, such as treaties and alliances and conventions. Much of the US and the world stood transfixed with both fascination and horror, incapable of understanding how quickly things were breaking down.

Middle powers awake

Canada, which felt the most heat from Trump, has become the unlikely cheerleader of the middle powers. Suddenly, western Europe began to perk up, and even the spineless United Kingdom, still lulled by its own fantasy about its “special relationship” with the US, woke up with a start when Trump basically said “screw this special relationship”.

The first month of 2026 has seen trade deals suddenly negotiated by middle powers, the biggest and most significant between the European Union and India, involving almost two billion people and described by the EU as the “mother of all trade deals”, perhaps in a deliberate effort to wind up the US.

Such a deal would set in motion things that will last for decades – supply chains, standards and protocols, legal and financial mechanisms – that won’t be easily broken. We can see this from the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (Cusma). While Trump can rail and scream, he hasn’t broken Cusma as it binds tightly and doing so would hurt all parties involved, including the US.

Where Malaysia stands

Malaysia is not a middle power, but we’re not far off either. Our economy is surprisingly large, bigger than some of the smaller or middling European nations by nominal GDP, and certainly punching way above our weight when compared based on purchasing power parity.

We haven’t been buffeted too much by the US, so we have no reason to pick a fight with them. We don’t want to anger China, a huge trade partner and political factor regionally. Neither should we let opportunity slip; this is the time to open up our friendship and alliances and declare to the world that Malaysia is open for business to all!

If we take all of Asean into account, we’re certainly a middle power, maybe even a largish one at that. We can take advantage of this grouping; though in all likelihood, Asean is still some way away from acting as a real bloc like the EU and even Mercosur.

Getting by with friends

The future looks like it’ll be a good place for middle powers with good friends. The US’s ability to shock and awe is running a bit thin. Its own internal politics look set to get even more chaotic in 2026, while its manufacturing sector and tourism are in recession. Consumer confidence is lower than even during the worst of Covid-19, and that’s never a good sign.

By and large, the world is slowly getting the measure of the US. It remains the single most powerful country in the world economically and militarily, but whether it has the stomach to implement some of its more bellicose threats – taking over Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada, or Iran with Israel’s help – remains questionable.

Europe has realised that kowtowing to the US will just invite more punishment and bullying. China, which literally invented the word “kowtowing”, has shown that if you don’t back down to the US, you’ll prevail in your battles. India has been spurned by the US – I can see future historians asking “who lost India” as if there’s ever any doubt about it – and is happily cozying up to old friends like Russia, and new ones such as the EU.

The world will find 2026 to be unpredictable and risky. The US, still the biggest economic and military power on earth, dwarfing any other country, is in turn dwarfed by the world. It certainly can inflict pain, but as recent military and economic history has proven, its ability to take pain is much more limited.

Room for optimism

So, sit back, watch the madness continue in 2026, and take heart that the tide is turning. The boring old men and women who run the rest of the world are finding out that the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

I’m optimistic that Malaysians will have a good year. We’re aspiring to be a middle power ourselves, and we’re closer to being one then many people realise. We need to continue being boring and predictable in a world where people are getting exhausted by the constant excitement and outrage.

We’ll be fine. Have a good year, my fellow Malaysians.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.