As 2025 draws to a close, a crisis mindset pervades the foreign policy commentariat, particularly the corners I inhabit that are chiefly concerned with human security, human rights and human well-being. Indeed, for the humanitarian community, this has been the worst year on record. The U.S. and other wealthy nations are slashing the foreign aid on which recent advances in human health and well-being depended. President Donald Trump is also sabotaging efforts to address climate change and shredding rules and norms against acts of unprovoked aggression.
At the same time, Trump has cut funding to universities, terminated 3,800 grants awarded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. His administration is openly undermining the public’s faith in scientific expertise. Amid a wave of vaccine hesitancy and skepticism fueled by the conspiracy theorists who are now in charge of major governing institutions, preventable diseases are on the rise globally. It is easy to point to all this and feel as if the world is slipping into shadow.
Yet it is also worth remembering it was in the darkest of times when ancestral humans once huddled around fires praying for the return of the sun. Present-day winter holiday rituals celebrate individual efforts to hold candles against the dark, especially when the wider trendlines are disheartening. And the truth is that 2025 has taught the world much about human resilience in the face of adversity, turmoil and inhumanity. Here are three trends to celebrate, and to watch as the coming year unfolds.