While turning a foreign war into a domestic dictatorship is complicated and difficult, Donald Trump could try to do so in one of five ways. But even the most likely scenario—using an act of terror as a pretext to delay or discredit the midterms—will not work if Americans are vigilant and refuse to obey in advance.
worries that the US president could exploit a terrorist act, or engineer one, to rig the midterm elections.
Economic performance in the United States has proved unexpectedly resilient in recent years, withstanding even Donald Trump’s return to the White House. But, from a failed war of choice against Iran to reckless deregulation, fundamental risks are piling up, and uncertainty has become so extreme that economic forecasters cannot even assign probabilities to them. While that rules out confident prediction, the global connectedness of these risks means that what comes next is certain to reverberate worldwide.
In the new issue of our magazine, leading thinkers examine how recent developments, from the AI revolution to intensifying geopolitical volatility, are reshuffling the economic and financial deck and generating new winners and losers across the global economy.
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Apr 9, 2026 Barry Eichengreen compares the US currency's global trajectory to that of the Roman denarius under Emperor Nero.
Apr 9, 2026 Timothy Snyder worries that the US president could exploit a terrorist act, or engineer one, to rig the midterm elections.
Apr 9, 2026 Shlomo Ben-Ami calls the ceasefire proof that powerful countries have again fallen into the trap of asymmetric warfare.
Apr 9, 2026 Kaushik Basu thinks existing measures of institutional health overlook how interconnected political systems have become.
Apr 9, 2026 PS Commentators highlight just how fragile—and uncertain—the global economy has become.
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Broad historical developments, together with recent policy changes, are reshuffling the economic and financial deck, injecting uncertainty into many markets, and putting a premium on economic security. The result will be new winners and losers within households, communities, professions, industries, markets, and regions – and across the global economy.
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