Take Brexit Britain and Trump’s America. Add climate change, instability in the Middle East, cryptocurrencies, and self-driving cars… and you have the world in 2018: hopeful, yet seemingly unpredictable.

We have assembled 11 unlikely events that - if they somehow happened - have the potential to profoundly affect the world as we know it.

To assess the political, economic, financial, and social impacts, IG brought together global economic/political experts to give their perspectives and predictions.

Explore some of the great unknowns facing us all today

nuclear weapons

What If

Trump wins a second term

A shock election result in 2016 catapulted businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump into the White House. Critics say his outbursts, sex scandals and unorthodox way of running his office mean he is bound to be impeached before the end of his term. But with the support of a huge swathe of US voters, could he not only serve a full term but manage to be re-elected?

Category: Politics Region: North America

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Our panel of experts (interviewed March-May 2018):

Robert Kelly

Robert Kelly

Professor of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University

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Robert Kelly is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University in South Korea. His work focuses on international security and political economy. His areas of interest are East Asian security, US foreign policy, the Middle East, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Kelly has appeared as an analyst on television news services, including the BBC and CNN.

John Kicklighter

John Kicklighter

Chief Currency Strategist, IG

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John Kicklighter is Chief Currency Strategist and head of DailyFX in New York City and San Francisco. He specialises in combining fundamental and technical analysis with money management. On his personal accounts, he trades spot currency, financial futures, commodities, stocks and options. Kicklighter holds a Finance and Investment degree from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York City.

Ben Page

Ben Page

CEO, Ipsos MORI

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Ben Page is Chief Executive of Ipsos MORI. A graduate of Oxford University, Page is a frequent writer and speaker on trends, leadership and performance management. He has previously worked for companies including Shell, BAE Systems, Sky TV and IBM. Page has also worked closely with ministers and senior policy makers across government, leading on work for Downing Street, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office and the Department of Health.

[ What if this happened? ]

Robert Kelly
Robert Kelly
This would complete the morphing of the GOP (Republican Party) into something like the French National Front. Trump has sparked a conflict between GOP Reaganite traditionalists and his populist followers, and the traditionalists are losing. If Trump is re-elected despite all his scandals, that will lock in the Trumpification of the GOP.
John Kicklighter
John Kicklighter
A simplistic interpretation would suggest that a Trump loss would lead to a rally from the markets under a more steady stewardship, but the mirror of that assessment was made in the lead-up to his election for the first round. The market interpreted it as a wave of short-term, growth-friendly policies being pushed through, which spurred a rally. Ultimately, the reaction will depend on where in the speculative cycle we are when the vote is tallied.
Ben Page
Ben Page
It’d be good for big business and for oil. It’ll be good for weapons manufacturers. Trump’s announced he wants to do more in that space. It’s probably not very good for the environment, and he seems pretty coherent on that.

[ Likelihood ]

We asked our experts to rate how likely it is that Trump will win a second term.

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[ Impact ]

Panel members also rated the impact they would expect this event to have.

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The Political Impact

Robert Kelly

Robert Kelly

Professor of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University

If Trump wins a second term, there would be a revolution in the US two-party system as its right wing turns into a European-style blood-and-soil party, plus the possible fracturing of the GOP as ‘never-Trumpers’ flirt with a third party, which will fail. The big medium-term question in the US under Trump is the fate of the GOP. Will it become a Bannonite, National Front-style party, or revert to Reaganite form after Trump? Trump himself is too old, too erratic, and too narcissistic to complete the former. But he has shown that GOP voters are far more sympathetic to crypto-racist, crypto-authoritarian appeals than anyone previously thought. So now the question is, will there be a Trumpist Republican who is far more lucid and coherent than Trump himself to properly finish his remaking of the GOP into a soft version of the National Front? And, if so, will that party morph into a vague threat to US democracy as the National Front is in France? In short, the Trumpers will likely win the GOP Trumper-Reaganite civil war, but they need a political class more focused than Trump himself.
Ben Page

Ben Page

In the polling that we do around the world, America’s standing in the world slumped after his election, which was not the case for Britain after the Brexit vote. So that would likely continue. We’d see a more polarised US society than today – with some cities in the US becoming almost hostile zones to the federal government.

The Economic Impact

Robert Kelly

Robert Kelly

Professor of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University

Trump is broadly incompetent and most of his economic ideas – tariffs, inequality-worsening tax cuts for the wealthy, ballooning deficits – will generate medium-term drag. But that won’t be felt until his successor, who will be under enormous pressure to raise taxes to reduce the deficit, as happened in the 1990s.
John Kicklighter

John Kicklighter

Chief Currency Strategist, IG

If the economy stabilises sufficiently to boost Trump’s popularity and win him a second term, conditions would likely have to be significantly more positive than just a ‘neutral’ or moderate course. Growth that robust would suggest a course of further strengthening.
Ben Page

Ben Page

CEO, Ipsos MORI

You ain’t seen nothing yet! Trump winning in 2020 means he has escaped Robert Mueller and all his other travails, and the Democrats are still in disarray. It would involve more public spending cuts in the US, and more ‘America First’ in diplomacy and world trade. There would also be a decisive shift from the post-Second World War consensus around the UN, Washington DC, the International Monetary Fund and other institutions that managed global order in the latter half of the 20th century, to a much more chaotic, more Victorian type of international order with more conflicts between major nations. If he does actually get into a trade war with China, it would be interesting to see the effects on the economy as a whole.

The Financial Impact

Robert Kelly

Robert Kelly

Professor of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University

There would be a mild rise. By 2020, Trump will be a known quantity to the market, and his affinity for the stock market is now well known. Because he uses that as a critical benchmark of his presidency’s success, he will do a lot to keep it moving upward.
John Kicklighter

John Kicklighter

Chief Currency Strategist, IG

A presidential candidate cannot run a campaign of ‘massive change’ twice in a row. So a second term for Trump (again, with a theoretical qualification of a strong economic backdrop) would likely be registered as a status quo which would support equities, and other risk assets, if they were already on the rise. As for the dollar, the unlikely event of Trump’s re-election would also happen in a stable economy that would favour conditions such as the Federal Reserve steadily raising interest rates, and local assets competing or outperforming their global counterparts. Putting aside the political taste or distaste of the event, the circumstances under which this would happen are likely to support the dollar.
Ben Page

Ben Page

CEO, Ipsos MORI

We’ve already seen the stock market slump because of his tariffs on Chinese goods and uncertainty about tariffs, so there could be more of that.

The Social Impact

Robert Kelly

Robert Kelly

Professor of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University

There would be a significant worsening of race relations – a Trumpified, National Front-style GOP will increasingly be the party of whites and the Democrats of everyone else. This division will be felt throughout US culture – TV, movies, holidays.
John Kicklighter

John Kicklighter

Chief Currency Strategist, IG

If Trump were to win a second term, the social impact would likely re-entrench the division between those who hate him and those who love him. But it may not actually change the ratio between those two sides. If he was able to win the election, his popularity scores would theoretically have had to improve significantly.
Ben Page

Ben Page

CEO, Ipsos MORI

Basically, Trump is this cry of anger from middle America, and middle Europe and middle Britain, against the world order that was set up at the end of the Second World War. This was basically free trade run by the UN and Washington DC, and he’s saying that deal isn’t working out for us any more, so we’ll go for something else. You’re moving to a world that’s more like the Victorian period, where you’ve got great powers, either fighting occasionally and having proxy wars, or duking it out.

Find out about another risk facing the world in 2018 and beyond

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