https://arab.news/9bq93
The geopolitical landscape of 2025 has been dominated by President Donald Trump’s US and the ongoing agony of Gaza, along with its consequences in the region. Europe and its friends and allies in the Middle East have had to come to terms with the second Trump administration, which will be barely 25 percent fulfilled at the turn of the year.
A world order, built from the ashes of the 20th century’s European disasters and the diplomacy that followed, with its values base and postwar institutions, has run its current course. It will not disappear but inevitably it will be reshaped by this past year and the next few to come. It will be built on transactions with, and accommodation of, an uncertain leading figure, but its outline is becoming clearer and it ought to allow some reasonable prediction and forecasting.
No one scoffs now at the concept of “the art of the deal” being applied to issues that have occupied old-school diplomacy for decades. It may not be likeable but it accurately describes where we are.
The year opened with a unilateral readjustment of US trade tariffs, to be applied according to a formula whose precision was unclear. It did not much matter, as renegotiation was not built on any formula but on how the president’s demands could be accommodated. It was an accurate foretaste of what was to come.
