🟩 Trump threatens to send troops to Nigeria and denies Venezuela attack plans, China-US trade détente || Global Risks Weekly Roundup #44/2025

Iran is carrying out more construction in and around a mountainous nuclear site. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have captured the city of el-Fasher in Sudan.

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Nov 03, 2025

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Executive summary

Geopolitics

The Americas

South America

Donald Trump denied reports that the US is ready to carry out strikes on Venezuelan soil. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also called the initial report, which was published in the Miami Herald, “fake”. Trump later lashed out at a reporter for repeating the question and implied that he wouldn’t tell the media about any attack plans if they existed.

How can I answer a question like that? Are there plans for a strike on Venezuela? Who would say that? Supposing there were. Would I say that to you? “Yes, we have plans, we have very secret plans!” Who would say that? You know, what kind of a question is it?

The USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier is in the Mediterranean heading towards the Caribbean, and at least some destroyers in its carrier strike group appear to be preparing to join it. The USS Gravely and Marines conducted joint exercises in Trinidad and Tobago from October 26 to October 30, after which the USS Gravely sailed eastward, north of Venezuela, where it is believed to be now. The USS Iwo Jima and a destroyer escort were also spotted about 225 miles north of Caracas late last week. The USS Fort Lauderdale, part of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, has left port in Florida and is en route to the Caribbean. While not all US Navy ships in the Caribbean are close to Venezuela at the moment, several are; US Navy ships are distributed at various locations in the Caribbean.

Forecasters now believe that there’s a 52% chance (range: 36% to 65%) that the US will carry out an airstrike on Venezuelan soil before December 2025. Polymarket is likewise at 50%. Doing so would make it more difficult for the Trump administration to keep Congress out of the discussion.

At least 132 people died in Brazil’s capital Rio de Janeiro, in what was perhaps the largest police raid ever to have taken place in the city. The raid targeted organized crime elements, and approximately 2,500 police officers participated in the operation.

United States

Trump ordered the immediate resumption of nuclear weapons testing, supposedly to put the US on an equal footing with Russia and China. Neither Russia nor China have carried out an explosive nuclear weapons test since 1990 and 1996, respectively, with the last such test in the US having been carried out in 1992.

However, officials later clarified that those comments were referring to a test of a system that would be capable of delivering a nuclear weapon: the US Energy Secretary said that any tests would involve “non-critical” rather than nuclear explosions. One forecaster believes that an explosive nuclear weapons test would not be necessary and that resuming testing could actually be slightly beneficial to Russia and China, who probably aren’t as good as the US at nuclear modelling or at testing subcomponents of their weapons. Overall, forecasters believe there’s a 2.2% chance (range: 1% to 5%) that the US will carry out a “critically” explosive test of a nuclear weapon before 2027.

Several high-ranking members of the Trump administration, including Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, are now living in military housing typically reserved for high-ranking military officers, because of security fears.

Middle East

Satellite imagery suggests that Iran may have resumed its nuclear activities since the US-Israeli strikes in June, particularly at Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā (Pickaxe Mountain), a deeply buried site which lies to the south of its Natanz facility and which we mentioned in our June reports.

Western intelligence also suggests that Iran continues to develop its ballistic missile program, despite the re-imposition of UN sanctions that prohibit such activities. In particular, several shipments of sodium perchlorate, a precursor of the ammonium perchlorate used in ballistic missiles, have reportedly been arriving at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas from China.

Israel launched strikes on Gaza, allegedly in response to violations of the ceasefire by Hamas. 100 Palestinians were reportedly killed in one night, but the Israeli government says it still endorses the ceasefire.

Amjad Shawa, a human rights activist and NGO official, has reportedly been endorsed to lead a new technocratic administration in Gaza by both the Palestinian Authority (which governs the West Bank) and Hamas (which was governing Gaza). Shawa has historically maintained a neutral stance toward Hamas and has been involved in coordinating humanitarian activities in both Palestinian territories. Hamas continues to maintain that it cannot disarm as part of the US peace plan for Gaza, however.

Former world leaders have been lobbying Trump to force Israel to release the Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti from prison, and Trump himself has stated that he is considering the option. He is a former politician who belongs to the secular nationalist Fatah party (which dominates the Palestinian Authority) and who was imprisoned by Israel as a result of what some suggest was an unfair trial. Some polls suggest that he would be Palestinians’ top choice to lead a full-fledged Palestinian state, ahead of both current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leaders. Barghouti has historically endorsed a two-state solution but has also been sympathetic to armed struggle against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, a resistance group in Iran with good English publicity and a Twitter presence, organized or took part in protests. They are also known as the MEK, and they fought for the Iranian revolution back in the 1970s. However, they also supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war after they were suppressed by the new Ayatollah, and as a result, they became unpopular. But they still have the organizational muscle to participate in and coordinate protests.

In a separate incident in Iran, a man who posted a video of himself on Instagram burning a flag with Supreme Leader Khamenei’s image was later found dead in his burned car. At his funeral, crowds chanted, “Death to Khamenei!”

Africa

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a rebel militia in Sudan, captured the city of el-Fasher after an 18-month siege. Tens of thousands of people have reportedly fled the city, and satellite imagery revealed evidence of mass killings. The RSF are an Arab paramilitary group that have been battling the Sudanese Armed Forces since April 2023. They control a lot of territory in the west and south-west of the country, while the Sudanese government’s strongholds are in the north and the east. The RSF seized control of Khartoum, the capital city, early in the war but lost control of it to Sudan’s Armed Forces in March 2025.

Forecasters think there’s a 36% chance (range: 19% to 60%) that they regain control of Khartoum before 2027. They point out that Egypt might intervene further to stop the RSF from regaining Khartoum.

Trump has threatened to send US troops to Nigeria or to conduct airstrikes in the country to combat Islamic rebels that his administration alleges is killing large numbers of Christians. Trump’s comments in two TS posts, comments to reporters and a post on X by Secretary of State Marco Rubio late last week suggest that the administration has chosen to make combating Islamic rebels in Nigeria a priority. The Nigerian government responded that the country would welcome US help to combat Islamic insurgents as long as Nigerian territorial integrity is respected.

Europe

Russia tested a new nuclear-powered and nuclear capable cruise missile, and this test may have prompted Trump’s remarks about carrying out nuclear tests.

The Pentagon has given the green light to deliver Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, though Trump will have the final say. In October, Trump indicated that he was against giving Ukraine these long-range missiles, but the Pentagon assessed that providing some to Ukraine would not negatively impact US stockpiles.

Asia

China reiterated that it “absolutely will not” rule out the use of force to unify Taiwan with what it considers to be mainland China.

The leaders of Thailand and Cambodia signed an expanded ceasefire deal with Trump present.

Technology and artificial intelligence

OpenAI announced their internal goal of developing an automated AI research intern by September 2026, and a “true automated AI researcher” by March 2028.

OpenAI’s restructuring into a for-profit Public Benefit Company has been approved by the Attorneys General of California and Delaware. The nonprofit will formally retain control over the for-profit entity, although the boards are virtually identical. The profit caps have been removed, but OpenAI had to make a series of commitments to the Attorneys General, including that they will follow their mission of ensuring that AGI benefits all of humanity. The nonprofit’s Safety & Security Committee (SSC) can also block releases of models:

The SSC has and will continue to have the authority to require mitigation measures—up to and including halting the release of models or AI systems—even, for the avoidance of doubt, where the applicable risk thresholds would otherwise permit release. The NFP will provide advance notice to the Attorney General of any material changes to the SSC’s authority.

Anduril is testing the use of LLMs to control killer drones.

OpenAI announced Aardvark, an agentic cybersecurity researcher powered by GPT-5.

Security vulnerabilities were discovered in OpenAI’s Atlas AI browser

Anthropic interpretability researchers found that AIs can detect and describe thoughts injected into their activations. They also notice the injected thoughts before responding, unlike with previous experiments (Claude Golden Gate Bridge) where they only noticed their thinking was affected after responding. The researchers write: “Taken together, our experiments suggest that models possess some genuine capacity to monitor and control their own internal states.”

US Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill that would ban the use of AI chatbots by children. Senator Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, called for the breakup of OpenAI and said he was worried about superintelligent AI.

Palisade Research found that, of all the models they tested, Grok 4 was the most prone to resist shutdown even after it was given explicit instructions to allow it.

Economy

China and the US came to an agreement to reduce tariffs on each other’s exports. China also agreed not to impose export controls on rare earth minerals, and there was a hint that US export controls on semiconductor chips might be loosened. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang “hopes” that his company will be able to sell at least some Blackwell chips (either the B30A or the B300) to China, though Trump said it’s a matter for Nvidia and China to discuss. Forecasters estimate a 34% probability (range: 20% to 50%) that this will be permitted before May 1, 2026.

Four Republican Senators – Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Rand Paul – voted with all Democrats to pass a measure in the Senate aiming to remove Trump’s tariffs on Canada. The same Senators later voted to overturn Trump’s global tariffs. However, the measure is unlikely to pass the House of Representatives, because House Republicans have used the chamber’s rules to block resolutions on Trump’s tariffs from getting a vote on the floor.

Canadian premier Mark Carney confirmed that he apologised to Trump for the airing of an anti-protectionism advert by the province of Ontario. While Trump said he had a nice conversation with Carney, he has yet to confirm that trade negotiations will resume.

The Federal Reserve looks set to reduce the size of its banking supervision unit by 30%.

Biorisk

H9N2, another bird flu virus, may have undergone some genetic changes that mean it is better adapted to human cells. But no human-to-human transmission has yet been observed. As of November 2025, there have been at least 173 cases reported globally as a result of zoonotic transmission, with at least two deaths, but the infection fatality rate (IFR) is likely to be much lower than the case fatality rate (CFR).

A new coronavirus subgenus with a mutation that could allow it to infect human cells may have been discovered in bats in Brazil, though the report has not yet been peer-reviewed. The virus reportedly has a functional furin cleavage site on its spike protein.

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