🟩 Aircraft carrier ordered near Venezuela, chance of Trump 3rd term, bird flu spreading with fall migration || Global Risks Weekly Roundup #43/2025.

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Oct 27, 2025

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Executive summary

Geopolitics

The Americas

South America

The US continues to increase its military presence in the Caribbean Sea. On Friday, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the Gerald Ford Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to deploy to the Caribbean. On Sunday, the world’s largest aircraft carrier left port in Croatia; the journey to the Caribbean can be expected to take approximately 1.5-2.5 weeks. After the USS Ford’s arrival, if not all ships in its CSG have also deployed to the Caribbean, then training with other ships already deployed will be likely. The USS Ford’s deployment to the Caribbean from the Eastern Mediterranean, just weeks after entering the Mediterranean Sea on October 1, suggests that the US mission in the Caribbean Sea is evolving substantially in real time and that hawks in the White House, especially White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller and possibly to a lesser extent Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are gaining power.

USS Gerald R. Ford Transits the Strait of Gibraltar earlier this month, full of aircraft, via DVIDS.

The Trinidad and Tobago government stated that the USS Gravely, a guided-missile destroyer already deployed in the Caribbean, was expected to arrive in the country on Sunday with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) for a 5-day joint training exercise to be held October 26-30 with the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF). The destroyer will dock in the Port of Spain, which lies 24 mi. from Venezuela. However, other US Navy ships are scattered in the region, presumably in preparation for Hurricane Melissa, a category-5 hurricane expected to strike Jamaica and nearby areas, and thus, strikes do not seem likely to be immediately imminent.

The US flew B-1 bombers close to Venezuela, though they remained in international airspace. These bombers can carry bombs of up to 75,000 lbs and can be flown directly from the US to Venezuela. The flights, conducted with transponders on, likely mapped radar targets for potential later missions. Over 200 US military flights were conducted in the Caribbean between August 15 and October 15.

US President Trump and members of his administration made several statements last week that suggest that they plan to conduct strikes on Venezuelan soil. Trump said, “Something very serious is gonna happen, the equivalent of what’s happening by sea. And we’re going to Congress just to tell them what we’re doing, just to keep them informed.” Semafor reported that, “a person close to the White House told Semafor that Trump will coordinate with Congress ‘when Maduro’s corpse is in US custody.’”

Forecasters think there’s a 61% chance (range: 45% to 75%) that the US will conduct an airstrike on Venezuelan soil before December 2025. They point out that the sending the USS Gerard Ford to the Caribbean is a stark signal. On the other hand, Miller is powerful but not the sole voice in the administration; Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon oppose boots-on-the-ground regime change, as has Trump throughout his life. The cost of maintaining a carrier strike group in the region as the ultimate pressure move is comparatively low in terms of dollars and political risk… compared to attempting regime change and either failing or being responsible for the aftermath. Attacking some sites and hoping for Maduro’s ouster without publicly stating it as the goal may provide a middle path that asserts US primacy in the region even if Maduro manages to hold onto power. US carrier-based strikes in Yemen over recent months may be the best guide for what is likely to occur. While forecasters think a US strike on Venezuelan soil is highly likely, they are uncertain about the exact timing.

Milei won the Argentina midterm elections; the peso jumped 10%, and the Argentinian stock market 20%.

United States

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon claims that there is a plan to ensure that Trump has a third term in office, which would (likely) violate the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution. However, there could be loopholes that could potentially provide a path for Trump to become president: for instance, Trump could be the running mate of a presidential candidate, who could then resign on taking office, potentially allowing Trump to ascend to the presidency from the vice presidency. Forecasters believe there’s a 3.3% chance (0.5%, 2%, 4%, 4%, 20%) that Trump will be the de facto US president on January 21, 2029.

Forecasters point out that Trump would be too old, and there would be considerable public backlash to such a violation of the Constitution and an attempt to stay on for a third term.

On the other hand, in 2017, most people wouldn’t have assigned a high probability to there being a plot by Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in their favor. And he is already seeking to reinterpret the birthright citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment. Although there are only marginal, fringe mechanisms for Trump to become president under normal circumstances, normal circumstances may cease to hold.

Joking about a third term is a good strategy to “trigger the libs”: make them freak out about an unlikely yet very worrisome objective… but then also, through humor, bring that outcome into the Overton window. Forecasters highlight the following quotes:

> It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once but twice… or three or four times.

> Nah, it will be to serve twice.

Trump definitively ruled out the most widely discussed option of running as Vance’s running mate and then having Vance resign to get around the 22nd Amendment’s rule that a person can only be “elected” president twice. “I think the people wouldn’t like that. It’s too cute. It wouldn’t be right,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

The mid-terms will offer a preview as to what methods will be used to influence the outcome of a major election.

Trump decided not to send the National Guard to San Francisco for now, after hearing from Silicon Valley tech bosses and the mayor of San Francisco.

The Department of Justice announced that it will monitor elections in California and New Jersey.

The East Wing of the White House is being destroyed to make way for Trump’s ballroom.

Asia

The top Chinese official in charge of relations with Taiwan said that peaceful “reunification” with the island remains the “best option” but warned that secessionist activities wouldn’t be tolerated. One forecaster found his comments interesting because they suggested that some political configurations in Taiwan are much more agreeable to the Chinese Communist Party than others, which might mean there’s a low risk of invasion as long as the KMT, the relatively pro-China party, is in a reasonably strong position on the island.

In India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a populist, Hindu nationalist organization with ties to PM Narendra Modi, recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. The all-male organization has over 5M members, and a parallel organization for women, the Rashtra Semika Samiti, is estimated to have up to 1M members as well. The RSS, while small on the scale of Indian political groups, is wielding increasing power.

Middle East

Israel’s Knesset, in a preliminary vote, endorsed the formal annexation of the West Bank. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move counterproductive and said it puts the ceasefire in Gaza at risk, while Vice President JD Vance said, “If it was a political stunt, it is a very stupid one, and I personally take some insult to it.… The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of President Trump is that the West Bank will not be annexed. This will always be our policy.” Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s office later ordered a halt to further parliamentary work on the bills, while Trump said, “It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that at least 93 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire in the strip began on October 10, and the head of the WHO said that hunger is still at catastrophic levels. But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the ceasefire is, by and large, holding. The next phase of the US peace plan involves the creation of an international stabilisation force to operate in Gaza. Egypt is expected to take a leading role in the stabilisation force. Countries including the UK have pledged to send troops to participate in a task force coordinating stabilisation efforts; US and European troops are not expected to be part of the military stabilisation force itself.

A video of Ali Shamkhani, a top Iranian official and close adviser to the Ayatollah, was leaked. It shows his daughter and wife wearing Western-style dresses at the former’s wedding, and it drew accusations of hypocrisy because Shamkhani oversaw the crackdown on women during the Mahsa Amini protests.

Africa

M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have looted 500 kg of gold, now worth $70M, from a mine since they seized it in May.

Sudan was planning to reopen Khartoum Airport for domestic flights after a 2.5-year shutdown, but drone attacks from the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) hit the city ahead of reopening day and later in the week. The reopening has now been postponed “until further notice”.

Europe

The proposed meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was called off after negotiators on both sides ran into disagreements. Shortly after the collapse of the proposed talks, the Trump administration imposed fresh sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.

The EU failed to reach an agreement on using frozen Russian assets (as opposed to the interest on the assets, which they have been making use of) to support Ukraine. Belgium was concerned that any legal action taken by Russia could harm its financial sector.

Lithuania, a NATO member state, said two Russian jets briefly entered its airspace for 18 seconds. Two Spanish Air Force Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled to patrol the area in the aftermath.

France’s ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy entered jail after he was convicted of conspiring to fund his election campaign with illicit funds.

Arrests of people linked to an alleged Russian plot to send exploding parcels to Ukraine were made by the Polish and Romanian authorities.

Technology and artificial intelligence

A coalition of AI experts, Nobel laureates, faith leaders, politicians, artists and business leaders has called for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence that is not to be lifted before there is “strong public buy-in” and a “broad scientific consensus” that it will be done in a safe and controlled manner. The “Statement on Superintelligence” signed by this coalition is notable in that, in addition to having the backing of experts like Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and Stuart Russell, it also has diverse support from people from many other professions and backgrounds.

Of particular note is the cross-political support for the statement, with figures from the right such as Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck, as well as some associated with left-wing causes, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan. The statement is also backed by the former presidents of Ireland and Estonia, former senior US and UK national security officials, and the UK’s former AI minister. The signatories cite a range of concerns about the development of superintelligence, including risks to human obsolescence, freedom, and control, along with extinction risk arising from the technology.

Forecasters believe there’s a 6% chance (range: 1.5% to 15%) that there will be such a prohibition in place in US federal law by 2029. They point out that the current administration’s mood is very pro-AI development and hard-driving on a worldview of “winning the AI race,” and it’s hard to picture that changing. Pro-AI lobbying also seems much stronger than AI safety lobbying. On the other hand, a lot can happen in more than three years, a warning shot or job losses could change minds, and a ban on ASI seems like it will be a key ask from the AI safety community.

In other news, Anthropic has partnered with the US government to prevent its AI models from revealing information pertinent to nuclear weapons development.

A study into AI sycophancy found that when asked for advice, the most commonly used chatbots endorsed users’ actions 50% more often than humans do.

Reddit’s new AI was caught suggesting DIY heroin use for pain management. One forecaster suggests that this kind of behaviour may be a particular problem with smaller models.

And: The FTC is silently removing blog posts about open-source and AI-related risks to consumers. Shield AI, a defense startup, unveiled the X-Bat, an unmanned, AI-piloted fighter-jet drone able to take off and land vertically, with an estimated price tag of $27M. An Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage resulted in huge disruption on the internet. A company that specializes in spotting video deepfakes, Reality Defender, claims it was able to bypass Sora 2’s impersonation safeguards in 24 hours.

Economy

Trade negotiations between the US and Canada were called off by Donald Trump after the Canadian province of Ontario aired an anti-protectionist advert that featured clips from a 1987 speech by former US President Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs.. The advert has also been shown during two World Series games between American and Canadian baseball teams. Trump claimed that the footage was “fake” and imposed an additional 10% tariff on imports from Canada.

Biorisk

H5N1 bird flu is spreading rapidly in Europe, caused by the seasonal migration of wild birds. Ten countries, the highest number for at least a decade, have reported already this season, though there haven’t been as many total outbreaks as in 2022. As a result of the spread, 15,000 animals are to be culled in southern Germany. H5N1 is spreading among wild birds and affecting poultry farms in the US as well. In the Southern Hemisphere, H5N1 bird flu likely killed hundreds of seal pups on a sub-Antarctic island. There remains no human-to-human transmission of the disease.

Global public health funding has dropped to a 15-year low in 2025.

Mosquitoes have been spotted in Iceland for the first time, as Iceland’s climate warms four times faster than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. The mosquitoes are of the species Culiseta annulata, which inhabit cooler climes. Now, Antarctica is the only remaining region without mosquitoes.

As a result of a few news articles, chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology in India came onto our radar. Previously, kidney disease caused by overwork under the sun has been seen in El Salvador, the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere, and a toxin in the food supply is known to cause a kidney disease seen in Eastern Europe, called Balkan endemic nephropathy. Some of the cases in India may have been caused by heat exposure, while other cases may have been caused by unknown toxins or a combination of factors.

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