Illustration: Liu Xidan/GT

We have a maximum of global uncertainty. We have an incoming US administration. And I want to make four quick points about 2025 - what I hope will happen and what could happen potentially in 2025.

The first point is about the three major global hot spots. We need to end the war in Ukraine. This war will end when the US finally says clearly that it will stop attempting to expand NATO to Russia's border. The war in Ukraine is caused by the US' intention to enlarge NATO - a provocative action. Stopping this action can help end the war by addressing both Russia's security needs and Ukraine's security needs, thereby ending an unnecessary provocation.

The second hot spot is the Middle East. This violence will stop when there is a State of Palestine admitted to the United Nations as the 194th UN member state, living alongside Israel in peace. So many of the crises in the Middle East have occurred because of Israel's attempt to continue to hold on to the occupied territories it captured decades ago and to rule unjustly over the Palestinian people. The two-state solution will be the basis for peace. This can happen, indeed, as early as 2005.

The third hot spot is East Asia. Here, there is a straightforward solution, that is for the US to abide by the one-China policy and stop arming the Taiwan region. It is not the business of the US to violate the one-China policy and continue arming Taiwan. Such actions are provocative and dangerous, putting the Taiwan region at risk and significantly increasing the likelihood of war.

My first point is that the three hot spots - Ukraine, the Middle East and East Asia - can all be resolved through straightforward policies. The US needs to shift from provocation to cooperation.

The second point is the reform of the global financial architecture. US President-elect Donald Trump said that the BRICS countries should not dare to try to introduce a non-dollar payment system. The US has militarized the dollar. It has weaponized the dollar and imposed sanctions using the SWIFT banking system all over the world. The US has to stop weaponizing the dollar. Other countries don't need the dollar to be the dominant or the sole payment mechanism for international trade, especially between BRICS countries, who are not transacting with the US but are transacting with each other. So, I favor many kinds of non-dollar payments anyway. 

I also want to say, with regard to the global financial architecture, to China: please expand the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). That's purely a win-win for China and the partner countries. Make the loans under BRI long-term - 30-year loans - and give the other countries time to grow and repay the loans. It's a win-win proposition to have an even larger Belt and Road program.

The third area is climate action. We need the world to decarbonize by mid-century. We need China, with its capacity in renewable energy, fourth-generation nuclear power, electric vehicles and the hydrogen economy, to accelerate decarbonization. And we need the US to do the same: to stop putting emphasis on new fracking and hydrocarbons, to phase out fossil fuels and collaborate with China on decarbonization, and to form a partnership with China to help other regions of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, in making their energy transitions. This is an area where China and the US could very helpfully cooperate.

The fourth area is the urgent need for the US, China, Russia and some other countries to engage in renewed negotiations over the nuclear arms control framework, to stop a new nuclear arms race, and to make real progress, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty under Article VI, to phase out nuclear weapons. These are the greatest threats to humanity. We don't need them. We don't need them in such numbers. We need to phase them out for our survival.

These are the four points that I believe are at least potentially within reach in 2025: to stop the wars and ease the tensions in Ukraine, the Middle East and East Asia; to reform the global financial architecture by ending the weaponization of the dollar; to have joint climate action; and to restore nuclear arms control.

The US has an incoming administration. It's got a very diverse and, in some ways, unpredictable agenda. But if it receives clear messages from China, Russia, the BRICS countries, the UN General Assembly, the African Union, and other parts of the world, there is hope that the next administration can be more prudent, safer, more peaceful, and less provocative than the outgoing US administration.

The author is a professor at Columbia University. The article is compiled based on a video speech Professor Sachs delivered during the Global Times Annual Conference 2025. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn