New Year’s Resolutions for Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and Other Global VIPs

The first days of the New Year are a traditional time for resolutions, when we pledge to eat or drink less, exercise more, be kinder to our friends and more tolerant of our enemies, and be better people overall. I have a long list of my own: read more books and fewer social media posts, practice an instrument every day, write to friends more often, improve my backhand, and do more AI experiments. Come back in a year and we’ll see how you did.

Given the widespread perception that 2025 is a bad year, many world leaders and public figures would benefit from making some ambitious resolutions this year. I want to be helpful, so I decided to make some New Year’s Resolutions for VIPs around the world.

American president Donald Trump. I start with the leader who needs improvement the most. As a realist, I wouldn’t expect a 79-year-old with a long, well-documented record of bad behavior to devote much (any?) time to becoming a better person, and recent trends are not encouraging.

But I have a modest suggestion: Stop posting on social media, or at least let Chief of Staff Susie Wiles check it out for you. These unhinged rants on Truth Social may please MAGA’s dwindling base, but you alienate swing voters, expose your own mental decline, and signal to the rest of the world that the United States is led by a narcissist who has no control over your impulses. For your own sake, put the damn phone down.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. There are a lot of suggestions I could give you, but I’ll limit myself to two. First, read more about modern nationalism to understand why Ukrainians did not want to be ruled by Moscow and fought like tigers to avoid this fate. You clearly have a good sense of how to appeal Russian patriotic sentiments, but you seem to have overlooked the fact that other societies have their own distinct identities, even if they share some distant historical features with others. The tide of war is certainly now turning in your favor, but it has lasted almost four years, the costs far exceed your initial expectations, and it will take Russia many years to recover.

Secondly, ask someone to update you on the latest developments in the field of artificial intelligence, as Russia ranks 31st in some indicators. Even if you achieve most of your war goals in Ukraine, you are bequeathing to your successors an economy smoldering in an increasingly digital world. We hope they will be China’s junior partner for many years to come.

European leaders. The European Union and many of its member states are in desperate need of reform, and a lot of smart people have been making lists of things Europe needs to fix. But in 2026, European leaders should begin to acknowledge that trying to appease the Trump administration is not working. Ordinary Americans are still friendly, but the Trump administration is not, and Trump and his cronies are also bullies who prey on the weak and hesitant but back down when faced with determined resistance. Here’s the first step: resolve to diversify your business relationships by signing that long-awaited trade deal with Mercosur. Do it now.

the Kakistocrats. The Trump administration has set a new standard for senior officials who are unqualified for the positions they hold and who show it every day they serve. This may just be wishful thinking on my part, but if I were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and a few other beneficiaries of the “Peter Doctrine,” I would steal a page from Dan Bongino’s playbook and get out while I still could. The wheels come off the MAGA bus; The next three years will get ugly, your legal risk will increase, and you may be able to take what’s left of your reputation and get a cushy job at Fox News or Prager “University.” Just say you want to spend more time with your family, thank the boss for the opportunity to serve, and save yourself and the rest of us more damage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m sure I’m not on Netanyahu’s list of people he could take advice from (a short list anyway), but I wonder if he realizes that 2025 is not the big strategic victory he likes to trumpet. True, Israel has harmed some of its direct adversaries—Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and the Houthis—but its economy is in poor shape, it is no closer to a permanent settlement with its Palestinian nationals (who make up nearly half the population of the territories it controls), and its actions in Gaza and elsewhere have caused a startling shift in public attitudes toward the country. Americans sympathize with the Palestinians more than they sympathize with Israel. Dozens of countries have officially recognized the Palestinian state, support from the US Democratic Party has begun to diminish, and the MAGA movement has been divided over this issue as well.

Trying to deflect or silence criticism by blaming all of this on anti-Semitism doesn’t work for one simple reason: Most anti-Israel sentiment is motivated not by hatred of Jews but by opposition to the country’s actions. People like Nick Fuentes are still a distinct minority – thankfully – but what should worry you are reasonable people (including many Jews around the world) who are disgusted by what Israel did under your leadership. For 2026: Realize that what is in your personal political interest may not be in Israel’s long-term interest, and resolve to focus on the latter rather than the former.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. You may be feeling good about 2025. I had a good reception when I visited Washington in November. The Trump administration is doing its best to quash the Green Revolution and keep oil at the heart of the global economy, and efforts to whitewash the kingdom’s image with sports are going well despite some setbacks on the LIV golf tour.

But some of your major megaprojects seem headed toward the same fate as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s “Virgin Lands” initiative, or Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward,” for similar reasons: overambitiousness, reliance on best-case assumptions, and rejection of expert advice. Self-confidence and determination are valuable traits in a leader, but they must be tempered by a willingness to listen to others and admit mistakes. To find out why, hire someone to translate the works of James C. Scott See like a country To the Arabic language, study it carefully, and resolve to listen more in 2026.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. We’ve never met, but I’ve watched some of your public performances, and you seem like a pretty smart guy. So, I’m puzzled that you agreed to cancel the department you were supposed to lead at a time when China’s diplomatic outreach efforts are on the rise, and when the United States is in dire need of skilled, experienced representatives who know how to talk to their foreign counterparts and persuade them to see things the way Washington wants them to. Refusing to attend major conferences, leaving dozens of embassies without an ambassador, and then withdrawing thirty ambassadors from their posts without warning indicates contempt for the rest of the world, and I find it difficult to believe that this is the message you really want to send.

Your New Year’s resolution for 2026 should be to tell Trump you’ll resign if he doesn’t stop tearing up the State Department. Lest this seem like a risky move, remember that Trump became president in 2016 by taking controversial positions and sticking to them, which made him stand out from the crowd of colorless GOP members (including you). If you hope to succeed him (and I suspect you do), it’s time to grow a backbone and prove that you stand for something more than just overthrowing governments in the Western Hemisphere.

technology bros. It’s been a great year for a lot of tech giants, with the exception of Elon Musk’s epic failure as head of the government’s efficiency department. This is not a group of people known for their modesty, and I can easily imagine every one of them thinking about not needing to make any New Year’s resolutions or considering the possibility of self-improvement.

Think again. Even if AI lives up to the highest expectations, sifting is inevitable, and some of today’s high-flying companies will turn out to be a 21st century version of Netscape. More importantly, these few who have amassed vast fortunes while millions of people struggle – and who seem indifferent to the fate of the latter – are flirting with a widespread and dangerous backlash. Do you think people won’t push back as much as their electricity bills rise to feed your data centers, and when the administration you like kills potentially useful wind farms?

My advice: Learn what happened to aristocrats and priests during the French Revolution, and resolve to do more to help those less fortunate than you. Progressive politics has repeatedly saved capitalism from its worst vices, and is a better guarantee of your long-term survival than the crass libertarianism to which many of you seem devoted.

Academic leaders. It’s been a tough year for university presidents, deans, boards of trustees, faculty, and students, but that makes it somewhat easier to draw lessons and make decisions about how to do better in 2026. So far, university leaders who have stood up to the Trump administration have done better than those who tried to appease it (partly because blackmailers like to make new demands), though they haven’t been able to contain all the damage. It is increasingly clear that the right-wing culture warriors demanding greater intellectual diversity have not been truly committed to a broad discourse; They just wanted to replace their traditional beliefs with ideas they didn’t like.

In 2026, I hope that those charged with managing an important national resource for higher education and academic research will resolve to defend academic freedom in the face of pressures from any direction and to maintain their institutions as a bastion of free and rigorous inquiry. No country has ever made itself safer or more prosperous by shrinking its research institutions or stifling freedom of expression, and academic leaders must stand up for their institutions even when governments do not.

The rest of us. I’ve been focusing on “global figures” in this column, but as David Hume noted long ago, “power is always on the side of the governed.” When ordinary people wake up, they can make their voices heard and their desires clear, even in the face of strong opposition. In 2025, major popular protests erupted in more than 70 countries, including “No Kings” marches in the United States and mass protests that ousted leaders in Nepal, Mongolia, and Bulgaria.

Whatever your political views, I hope you will resolve to do more to express them in the coming year. Maybe you’ll write a letter, support a campaign, sign a petition, attend a protest, or even run for office – that’s up to you. As you do this, I hope you will also make an effort to study the opinions of those with whom you disagree and see if there is something you might learn from them or if there is any common ground between you at all. We live in an age of profound political polarization, and it is very tempting to cheer for our tribe and assume that our opponents are ignorant, evil people who have nothing to contribute.

As some of my previous points reveal, no one is immune to this trend, but our common future likely depends on the ability to find common purpose across lines of difference. I guess this means my 2026 resolution list just got a little longer. a happy new year!