EMFX in 2026: Surviving The Saboteur

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11 Jan 2026Subscribe nowAs macro risk-takers looked ahead to the usual new-year grind, with P&Ls reset to zero (or worse), the leader of the free world was holding court at Mar-a-Lago. Tariff effects were fading into the rear-view mirror and asset prices were still climbing, yet a fresh assault on the rules-based international order was already underway.Perhaps Maduro hoped 2026 might pass calmly and deliver a dilution of Trump’s political power. With a midterm defeat looking plausible, and a messy scramble for succession likely to follow, the danger might pass. For the Venezuelan leader, it is too late, but this still seems like the central plan for much of the political and business world: placate now, renegotiate later. Take the meeting, sign the vague memorandum, offer the headline concession, and assume the calendar eventually delivers a more conventional White House. That assumption has underwritten the calm market reactions to norm-busting that we’ve enjoyed of late.Venezuela is the reminder that not all shocks are tariff-shaped. Some genies don’t slip so easily back into the bottle. So one key question we’ll keep asking in 2026 is: will we be able to safely run down the clock on Trump, or will he break things that cannot be easily put back together?My base case, like most people’s, is that we can muddle through, collect carry selectively, and hope to catch any major turns early. For macro hedge funds, the pivot points in 2025 had enough follow-through to be tradable. There is a serious chance that Trump provokes another set of moves like those seen after Liberation …