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The Shape of the Fractured World in 2026

Donald Trump’s tariff policies and his aggressive foreign policy approach are straining relationships with traditional US allies. One consequence that is apparent in our Global Fracturing Dashboard is that voting alignment between the US and its allies at the United Nations went from a record high during the Biden administration to a record low in 2025.

Despite that, allies’ responses to US tariffs or, indeed, to the seizure of Nicolás Maduro, give no sign that the core alliances of the US bloc are breaking apart. But at the geopolitical periphery there is significant movement. For example, we think that India has moved from a pro-US stance to being unaligned over the past year. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, has shifted away from China and closer to the US.

In all, the alignments of 16 countries have changed within our Global Fracturing framework. The net result is that the unaligned portion of the global economy has swollen in size. Meanwhile, the share of global output generated by China’s bloc continues to fall and the share of global trade that takes place between the US and China blocs has dropped to the lowest since 2006.

This report presents highlights from our updated Global Fracturing dashboard. The dashboard allows clients to investigate how geopolitical shifts are playing out in terms of the breakdown of global output, trade and investment between geopolitical rivals, and the composition of global financial markets. Users can also download the data from the underlying database. 

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