Hello and welcome. You're watching Global Lens with me, Parikhit Lutra. Our top story tonight: 2026 is shaping up to be a tipping point year for the global order. According to the Top Risks 2026 report by Eurasia Group, the world is entering a phase of heightened instability driven by geopolitics, economic fragmentation, and rapid technological change. Among the key risks flagged is artificial intelligence, where growing pressure to justify valuations is pushing companies towards socially dysfunctional business models. Next, China's deflation trap, raising the risk of global spillovers as the imbalance between capacity and demand increases. Another major risk highlighted is, quote-unquote, "overpowered." The report warns that China is tightening its grip over the electric and industrial technological stack, while the United States continues to bet heavily on fossil fuels. This power balance could reshape global supply chains. Russia's second front, with Moscow intensifying hybrid warfare against NATO, extending the conflict well beyond the Ukraine battlefield. But the report is clear: the single biggest risk in 2026 is the United States itself. It warns America is in the midst of a political revolution. With President Trump weakening institutional checks, politicizing the state, and redefining how power is exercised, the implications are global. A more unpredictable Washington weakens alliances, unsettles markets, and accelerates a more fragmented and conflict-prone world as well.
Let's now get you the latest on US-Russia tensions. This could be another flashpoint, another risk point in 2026. US President Donald Trump backs the Russia sanctions bill, says Senator Lindsey Graham, who is speaking with other lawmakers to build consensus ahead of the vote. Graham slammed Russia, saying that the bill would give President Trump the power to penalize countries buying cheap Russian oil, giving the US leverage over China, India, and Brazil. He expects the bill to be presented to the Senate as early as next week, aiming for a strong bipartisan vote. Here's what the bill does and why it matters for India. If passed, it gives the president the power to punish Russian officials who refuse peace talks with Ukraine. Any further invasion or subversion of Ukraine would also carry consequences. The bill allows the president to impose tariffs of 500% on Russia and 500% also on countries importing Russian uranium and petroleum products. Tariffs could be increased further if imports continue. Since India imports Russian oil, it could face the 500% tariff if the bill becomes law. However, India's imports from Russia have already declined since last year's US sanctions. According to Kpler, India's Russian crude imports are projected at 1.3 million barrels per day in January, but stopping imports would require government action in India. The bill also allows the US to block visas of the Russian president, key military commanders, and anyone supplying defense items to Russia. Additionally, US authorities could freeze Russian financial institutions' assets and ban the export or re-export of US-made energy products to Russia. Earlier this week, Graham said that India stopped buying Russian oil because of the imposition of tariffs, while Trump warned the tariffs could be raised very quickly.
If you're buying cheap Russian oil, keeping Putin's war machine going, we're trying to give the president the ability to make that a hard choice by tariffs. I really do believe that what he did with India is the chief reason India is now buying substantially less Russian oil. So I hope we pass this bill soon and after this...
They wanted to make me happy, basically. He wanted to... Modi's a very good guy. He knew I was not happy, and it was important to make me happy. They do trade, and we could raise tariffs on them very quickly, and it would be more... afraid of that.
The White House has said that US President Donald Trump and his team are actively discussing an offer to buy Greenland from Denmark. Speaking to reporters, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated President Trump's view that the acquisition of the Arctic island would deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the region. This comes a day after the White House said that using the US Army to take Greenland is always an option. President Donald Trump reasserted in the new year that the United States wants Greenland.
We need Greenland from a national security situation.
Trump said a newly appointed special envoy would lead the charge, drawing sharp criticism from Denmark and Greenland. Let's take a look at why Trump is interested in the vast Arctic territory. Greenland is strategically significant for the US military. The shortest route from Europe to North America runs through it. The US has said it wants to expand its existing military presence on the island. That includes placing radars to watch waters in the region used by Russian Navy vessels and nuclear submarines.
Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.
Shipping data show most Chinese and Russian activity in the Arctic is in waters near Russia. But more broadly, the Arctic is becoming more militarized, with NATO states, China, and Russia all expanding activity there. The island is also rich in minerals, oil, and natural gas, though development has been slow and mining has seen very limited US investment. Legally, Greenland is a territory of Denmark, which is a NATO member. In 2009, it was granted broad self-governing autonomy. That includes the right to declare independence from Denmark through a referendum. Polls show most of Greenland's 57,000 inhabitants back independence, but many of them also fear a hasty move for independence could leave them worse off and expose the island to the US. The US military has a permanent presence in an air base in northwest Greenland. In 1951, the US and Denmark made an agreement. It gave the US the right to move around freely and construct military bases on the island as long as Denmark and Greenland are notified. Trump offered to buy the island during his first presidential term, a move Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called absurd. In late 2025, Trump named a special envoy to Greenland: Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, who publicly backs the idea of the island becoming part of the US. Frederiksen has since said Denmark wants to continue being a good ally of the US while also saying that Trump's threats should be taken seriously. In a joint statement pushing back on Trump, she and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen said Greenland belongs to Greenlanders, saying, quote, "You cannot annex another country, not even with an argument about international security."
To discuss all this, I'm now joined by Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group. Thank you very much, Ian, for joining us. Let me begin with one of the top risks mentioned in your report: the political revolution of Donald Trump. How do you think 2026 will end up? Will it end up succeeding the political revolution of Trump and improving the dominance of America in the global order, or diminishing it?
In the near term, Trump's consolidation of power is leading to a number of wins for the United States. You just saw that in Venezuela. Of course, you've seen it with the way that a lot of the trade negotiations have asymmetrically benefited the US because the US is the most powerful country. But even though the US is the most powerful country, Donald Trump is not the most powerful leader. Xi Jinping is. And that's because Xi Jinping doesn't have term limits. He doesn't have checks and balances internally. He doesn't have an independent judiciary. He doesn't have a professionalized military that reports outside his structure. Trump has all of those limitations. And of course, the purpose of the political revolution is to end that. It is to ensure that the president is above the rule of law and that the US political system can be weaponized against Trump's political enemies the way that he believes that it was weaponized against him in the Biden administration. So, I mean, the risk, of course, is that that process is continuing, and not just in 2026, but over the remainder of the Trump presidency. The other part of your question, though, was: will he be successful? I suspect he will fail. I'm not completely confident of that, but I think it's likely he will fail. There are three reasons that I think he'll fail, in increasing order of importance. First is he's not very popular. He's likely to lose the House to the Democrats in November in midterm elections. And as a consequence of that, there are more Republicans that will start to think of him as a lame duck and will move away from him as president and the political revolution that he is supporting. Number two, more important and more likely, is that there still are important checks and balances that are stopping Trump in some of the acts that he is engaging in. The independent judiciary, which is likely to rule on constraining his trade powers, for example, the courts overturning the ability to send the National Guard into Chicago just in the last week, as I mentioned, the professionalized military, a federal system where governors and mayors are much more independent and have a lot of control over things like how elections are actually conducted. Very important in preventing a political revolution. And third, and most important, is that Trump lacks discipline. Trump has a great deal of policy incompetence, and he doesn't like to listen to his advisers because he's quite confident that he's right about everything. And if you want to be successful in a political revolution, you need to prioritize that. You don't focus on Greenland or Venezuela. You spend all of your time focusing on how do I destroy the Democrats, who are my principal enemy, and that is not what Trump is particularly interested in or capable of doing.
Right. So of course you need some sort of policy continuity as well. Now, coming to the tariff wars, we saw tariff wars for the whole of 2025. Do you think tomorrow's court ruling on tariffs, on the legality of these tariffs, will be a check, or do you think Trump still has toolkits in his bag which he could deploy to give legal effect to those tariffs? How do you see this tariff war in 2026?
I'm not a jurist, so I don't have the expertise to tell you how the Supreme Court is going to vote. But I can tell you that it is very clear that the IEEPA clause, which is meant to be applied in a national emergency by the president, is clearly not intended to be used against 90-plus countries for political purposes. I mean, there's no national emergency in many of these cases. So I do think that the Supreme Court, at a minimum, is likely to constrain the use of IEEPA in some of these purposes. That doesn't mean that they will overturn everything. They might not decide to rule on the entire scope of what Trump has engaged in. Doesn't mean they're going to claw back all of the revenue that has been collected. We'll see. But I do think that the Supreme Court is not going to give him a rubber stamp and say you have all of this control. The president can do whatever he wants, even though most of the tariff powers are meant to reside in the hands of Congress, the legislature.
Right. 2026 and even 2025 is becoming more and more about oil wars. Trump has done that by going into Venezuela, arresting Maduro, and saying that we'll control the Venezuelan oil fields. He has seized a Russian tanker. He has given a green light to Lindsey Graham's bill, which would allow him to impose 500% tariffs on goods from countries like India because we buy Russian oil. How do you think this could trigger a geopolitical conflict with Russia, with China?
I think that oil prices are quite low right now, right? They're about 50 bucks because there's not a lot of demand and there is a lot of supply, and that's even including almost 2 million barrels a day that OPEC members are keeping off the market. And with all the geopolitical conflict that we're seeing in the Middle East, in Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, it hasn't really changed that dynamic. So, I mean, the topics that you're discussing, you know, you're right that they are all about the United States seeking to increase its influence as the world's most powerful petrostate, presently producing 13.5 million barrels a day and perhaps nominally controlling in the future the world's largest oil proven reserves in Venezuela and offshore Venezuela. But I don't think that that is causing an increase in conflict in the near term because there's lots of oil that's available. Trump has not said that he's going to cut off Venezuelan oil from China, and he clearly wants to work with the Chinese going forward. He's looking forward to his trip to Beijing and his meeting coming up with Xi Jinping because the Chinese are powerful and have the ability to check Trump's power in a way that the Venezuelans, for example, do not. Also, let's keep in mind that while the Americans are investing in oil and gas and coal, the Chinese are investing in batteries and wind and solar and nuclear and all of the supply chain for critical minerals to power that. And oil and gas and coal, these are 20th-century technologies that are not getting materially cheaper over time. The post-carbon energy technologies, the prices are coming down steeply as the technology improves. So this is really a much smarter strategic bet by the Chinese to become an electrostate as opposed to a petrostate that will particularly matter in powering and exporting artificial intelligence going forward.
