• Analysis
Ian Bremmer: Trump has two more years, and leaders know it
Donald Trump has roughly two more years in power - and world leaders are already acting on that assumption, according to political scientist Ian Bremmer, who says the president's political influence is steadily draining away even as he holds office.
Political scientist Ian Bremmer, founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, told France 24 that foreign governments increasingly treat Trump as a leader with a closing political window, planning around a post-Trump landscape rather than the man currently in the White House.
A diminished political horizon
Bremmer stood by what he called his provocative thesis that America has already reached "peak Trump". In his view, the country has entered the beginning of the end of Trump's capacity to dominate the domestic and international agenda.
The constraints he lists are multiple: congressional opposition, discontent inside the Republican Party, unpopular foreign policy decisions, and the growing awareness among foreign leaders that this administration's political horizon is limited. The loss of political authority while formal powers remain, he argues, is a process already underway.
The biggest comeback, then the biggest loss
The scale of the reversal is, for Bremmer, historical. Trump engineered the biggest political comeback in American political history in 2024, he says, and now - only two years later - the biggest loss in 50 years. He calls the recent electoral result the most consequential reversal for a governing party in more than half a century.
He points to three forces weakening Trump's coalition:
- •economic disillusionment among voters
- •unfulfilled electoral promises
- •accusations of political self-interest
Formal powers versus political influence
Bremmer is careful to separate two things. Trump remains commander-in-chief and retains the instruments of executive government; his institutional authority is intact. What is eroding, in Bremmer's account, is his political influence - the ability to set the direction of events rather than merely hold office.
The interview also raises a broader question: can a president keep the formal powers of the world's most consequential political office while progressively losing the political authority to shape the future? Bremmer ties this to the president's apparent preoccupation with monumental projects and personal legacy, which he cites as raising questions about spectacle versus governance.
How foreign leaders adjust
The practical consequence, Bremmer argues, is that allies and rivals are recalibrating. Foreign leaders, he says, will start to engage more with the America they expect to deal with after Trump is gone - adjusting their calculations on Iran, Ukraine and transatlantic relations accordingly.
Asked how much disruption remains, Bremmer was blunt:
Yes, two more years to go. But nowhere near the level of disruption that he had on the global stage at the beginning of this…
For Bremmer, the verdict is settled: Trump has two years left in office, but the global weight that marked the start of his term is already fading, and the gap between formal powers and political authority keeps widening.
