"Doug Casey: Top Predictions for 2026"
by International Man
"International Man: What do you see as the single most important thing that people should prepare for in 2026?
Doug Casey: Strauss and Howe asked that question in their book, "The Fourth Turning." We’re at a major turning point in the U.S. I’ve felt for years that the U.S. was heading toward something like a civil war. It could be as serious as the unpleasantness of the 1860s, just different. The red people and the blue people in the U.S. really dislike each other; they can’t even talk to each other. When things get to that stage, things are typically solved by force; I expect that’s what’s going to happen. Very likely during the next three years, while Trump is still in office. He’s the perfect catalyst.
It’s going to be exacerbated by the long-term migration trends. If we look 100 years down the road, it’s pretty clear that with modern travel and communications technologies, the migration of people from poor countries to rich countries all around the world will accelerate. Eventually, the U.S. won’t even exist in its present form. Of course, that’s true of every country. The colors of the map on the wall have been running since Day One.
I hope a catastrophic upset doesn’t happen in the near future for any number of reasons. For one, it won’t be any fun. For another, I’m a huge fan of traditional America. It was a unique institution in world history - the only country ever founded on the concepts of free thought, free markets, and individualism. A civil war - regardless of what form it takes - would likely overturn those things. While I hope things mellow out, hope isn’t the best foundation for making plans.
International Man: Geopolitically, tensions continue to build across Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Where do you expect the major flashpoints to emerge in 2026?
Doug Casey: The politicians who run Europe are uniformly despicable non-entities, from Ursula von der Leyen, She-Wolf of the EU, on down. One proof of that statement is that I could be prosecuted just for saying so in much of Europe. They’re soulless bureaucrats who stand for nothing but statism and collectivism. They’re driving Europe to actively rearm, doubling military budgets, reinstituting the draft, and talking about the necessity of war with Russia. I suspect they’ll get their war; I just hope it doesn’t go nuclear or biological. Odd, in that it’s over the Ukraine, the most backward and corrupt country on the continent. Perverse, in that it was never even a country until Lenin created it in 1923.
But that’s not all. The euro, an Esperanto currency, the “Who owes you nothing?” of fiat currencies, is a dead duck. All of the EU’s member countries are bankrupt welfare states. In fact, the European Union itself is going to break up. What’s good for individual countries is totally at odds with what the 80,000 - and that’s an accurate number - EU employees in Brussels want to impose. NATO, which should have been disbanded when the USSR collapsed, will also disappear. Europe will, best case, become a petting zoo for Chinese tourists and a luxury resort for Third World migrants.
The Middle East? While Trump is in office, we might as well adopt Israel as the 51st state. That won’t go down well with the world’s two billion Muhammadans. Don’t confuse the friendly relations of Washington with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others among the 55 Muslim countries with political stability. Most are economic basket cases and extremely unstable.
East Asia? It’s perfectly irrational for China to attack Taiwan. The result would be widespread destruction on both sides - even if the US and/or Japan didn’t join the party. But governments do irrational things, unpredictably. What will happen with China’s claims on the East and South China Seas? It should be between them and six of their maritime neighbors. But the US could turn a regional border dispute into WW3.
But the unexpected flashpoint, I think, is going to be Africa. Over the last 60 years, the 55 African states (that’s only an approximate number since we don’t know how places like Libya, Western Sahara, Somaliland, or Darfur will wind up) have developed significant armies, aided by weapons and training from Europe and the US. They survive on the export of raw materials (causes of perpetual conflict) and aid from Europe and the U.S. (which is likely to evaporate). All of them (like almost everywhere in the Middle East and Central Asia) are artificial constructs with arbitrary borders. They’re all unstable kleptocracies run from the presidential palace.
The question is: to what degree will Europe, or especially the U.S., or especially Trump, stick their nose into African border wars and civil wars? There will be lots of them. I think Africa is the big powderkeg that nobody’s talking about.
International Man: The U.S. domestic political situation remains combustible, with deep cultural and economic fractures. How do you expect America’s internal divisions to evolve in 2026 as we approach the midterms?
Doug Casey: Trends in motion tend to stay in motion. Despite the fact that corporations, the entertainment industry, academia, and the media seem to be backing away from truly insane levels of wokeism, the issue is in doubt. The trend toward Wokeism has built momentum for decades, and the country’s been indoctrinated with it for generations. It’s not going away overnight.
Trump is purposefully and overtly polarizing. As I discussed last week (link), although he may see himself as Cincinnatus, he’s more like Caesar. He’ll keep stirring things up, if only because he knows what his adversaries will do to him when he’s out of office. While most sensible people love his antiwokeism, most of his economic and international interventionism will backfire - bigly. I suspect he’ll lose the midterms, and the Dems in the House will impeach him again. Will they succeed in the Senate this time? The natives will get restless no matter what.
International Man: With Trump poised to replace Fed Chair Powell, he will exert a stronger influence over central bank policy. What do you expect the monetary environment of 2026 to look like?
Doug Casey: The dollar will approach its intrinsic value as Trump and the Fed create a trillion more of them. It’s a formula for chaos. Trump is a big believer in mercantilist-style economics, which holds that the US must export more than it imports. I think he’ll try to force that issue with foreign exchange controls of some type, creating yet more distortions.
You want to exit the dollar, own precious metals, avoid the stock market and bond markets, and get your money out of the U.S. None of this is a formula for domestic tranquility, either in 2026, 2027, 2028, or beyond. And I’m assuming there will be a normal election in 2028, which is not a very safe assumption.
International Man: Investors are torn between chasing the current market bubble and preparing for a potential financial reckoning. Where do you think the biggest risks and opportunities will be in 2026, and which asset classes are positioned to benefit most from the turbulence ahead?
Doug Casey: There’s no question about the fact that most of Trump’s business success has been due to borrowing. Leverage, low interest rates, and inflation made the man. Trump’s history and incorrect understanding of economics tell me that the Fed will buy and monetize more government debt than ever, doing everything they can to artificially depress interest rates. For the short run, that could argue for the stock market going higher in 2026. But it’s a high-risk bet. Do you feel lucky?
With gold over $4,000 and silver over $60, they’re probably where they “should” be relative to other things. But as unstable as the world is, and because of their unique advantages, they’re going higher. The smart thing is to speculate on the shares of miners; they’re really cheap, and neither the public nor the institutions even know they exist, for reasons I’ve discussed in the past. All-in sustaining costs of producing gold is about $1,500 an ounce. It’s not hard to do the math.
In the last 50 years, we’ve had five 10-to-1 mining bull markets. I think we’re about to experience one more. A big one. Many of the smaller stocks have already gone three or four to one. Nobody cares… which is good. In addition, you should be long commodities generally. Grains are basically selling at around the cost of production. As are oil, gas, coal, and uranium. Commodities are very under-owned. Buying ETFs in any or all of these things is a set-and-forget allocation of capital for at least the next couple of years."
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