What in the world: predictions for 2026

Well, the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now. You call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. Limited time, 50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required. $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for twelve month plan. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms. The Economist. Hello, and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Jason Palmer. And I'm Rosie Blore. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Did you know it's been a full twenty years that The Economist has been doing podcasts? We speak to the editors who were around at the beginning and how uncertain it was that we'd keep doing it at all. First up though. For forty years, The Economist has published an annual rundown of what our journalists think will happen in the coming year. It used to be called the World In. These days, we call it the world ahead. Starting today and over the next week, our correspondents will once again give us their expert view on what might dominate the headlines in the year ahead, from politics and geopolitics to wars and tech. But before we get to all that, let's look back to last year. Tom Standage edits the world ahead and is a deputy editor at The Economist, and he's with me now. Happy New Year, and hello, Tom. Hello. Good to be here. So, Tom, I always think it's almost a moral point that we have to think about what we said in the previous year and how we did. What were some of the main predictions for 2025 that we got right? Well, I think the things we got right, we said there would be a lot of uncertainty because of Donald Trump. Surprise, surprise. That was a pretty safe bet. We said that I think it was just gonna be Trump technology and uncertainty that would sort of shape the year, and I think that's reasonable. We said that even if he went ahead and did his tariffs, which, of course, he did, that actually the effect would probably be quite muted on The US economy, and you wouldn't really see them kicking in. And I think that's fair. I think there's still a bit of a debate about how much more of an impact there is to come, so I think that was pretty good. We also said that Chinese engineers were very, very good at engineering their way around the restrictions being placed on them by US export controls. And then, of course, in January, we had the whole deep seek moment …