res economics essay competition 2023

Discover Economics

Young economist of the year 2024 sponsored by kpmg uk and ft schools.

The 2024 competition is now open for entries! Click here to submit your entry now, and read on below for more information. ​

- Aim - Eligibility - Entry format - What happens next? - Frequently asked questions

The Royal Economic Society Young Economist of the Year competition 2024 sponsored by KPMG UK and FT Schools aims at encouraging Year 10 – Year 13 students (in England and Wales, or equivalent in Scotland and Northern Ireland) to produce their own ideas in analysing contemporary economic problems facing the UK and the world.

Students can choose from a list of topics provided below. Students do not need to be studying economics to be able to enter this competition. The RES welcomes entries from any students who are interested in economic issues and would like to share original ideas or perspectives on these issues. The RES also welcomes a diverse range of contributions and insights on the competition topics.

Entry format

Your entry must: 

•    answer only 1 of these 5 questions:

Do you think the government should subsidise the purchase of electric cars?

What is the economic impact of the growing gig economy?

What are the economic arguments for and against a one off cost of living payment for all individuals?

What long term changes to the labour market might be expected post pandemic?

 Should the government tax goods that are unhealthy?

•    be in written or media format. Written would be in blog format no longer than 1,000 words. Media includes video, podcast or presentation slides. Videos and podcasts should be no longer than 5 minutes in length.

•    be an individual or group entry. Groups to be 2-5 students.

•    must not include any personally identifiable information. This needs to be entered on the competition website.

•    must not use applications such as ChatGPT or other forms of artificial intelligence (AI)

•    you must acknowledge the use of information/material from other sources. We do not require a detailed in-text referencing of your arguments, however a list of sources that you have consulted and have substantively influenced your arguments must be included at the end of your entry. If a written entry then this is not included in the word count. View the ‘ How to reference ’ video for more guidance.

Frequently asked questions

Take a look below at the recording of our webinar to find out the answers to some of your questions! If you still have anything you'd like to ask, please email [email protected] .

Is there a time limit on podcasts/videos?

Yes - podcasts and videos should be no longer than five minutes long.

Do I need a transcript for my podcast/video?

No, but think about how you will submit your references - will this be spoken, or as a word document?

Do quotes contribute to the word count?

Any personal data which may be submitted in an entry will be processed by RES in accordance with any applicable data protection legislation, and RES Privacy Notice available at  https://res.org.uk/resources-library/privacy-notice/

The Financial Times has created a hub for schools and colleges.   Teachers in schools around the world with students aged 16-19 years old can  get free access to the FT here  and request individual FT accounts. Colleges in the UK can also sign up. You can  check to see  if your institution is already registered.

Schools Digest, a weekly newsletter from global education editor Andrew Jack, features student competitions, quizzes and the best of the Financial Times' expert analysis and coverage. All FT subscribers and those on the free schools programme can  subscribe here  to receive it every Monday at 7am.

Click here for more information.

Eligibility

To enter, you must be: •    in Years 10 to 13 in England or Wales, Years 11 to 14 in Northern Ireland, or S3 to S6 in Scotland (or equivalent)

•    studying in the UK

The competition is free to enter.

You do not need to be studying economics, and you can work on your entry or with up to 4 other students.

For independent school entries we promote mixed group entries with local state schools.

What happens next?

Submit your entry here .

All entries must be submitted by 23.59 (BST) on 12 July 2024.

A panel will read and mark your entry before agreeing a final shortlist of 5 entries. The 5 shortlisted entries will be announced in September 2024 ahead of an in-person final event to be held at KPMG offices in October 2024.

The in-person final will involve the 5 entries giving a 10 minute presentation followed by 5 minutes of questions from an expert panel before a winner is announced.

The winning entry will be featured in the Financial Times.

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

This article is part of the Financial Times free schools access programme. Details/registration  here .

School students across the UK in years 12 and 13 are invited to enter the Young Economist of the Year competition run by the Royal Economic Society in association with the Financial Times.

Applicants — who need not be studying economics — have until July 10 to write up to 1,000 words on one of the five questions picked for this year.

The winning article will be published in the Financial Times and on the RES website and the author will receive £1,000, with £200 for each of the runners up.

Entries will be judged on originality, quality of writing, economic content and quality of the economic argument. They should answer a question on one of the following topics, described in detail on the competition website along with further guidance:

Regional inequality and “levelling up”

The UK’s “cost of living crisis”

The value of a university degree

Cryptocurrency and financial stability

The competition is part of the  FT’s schools programme , which provides free access to the FT for students aged 16-19, their teachers and schools around the world.

Supporting ideas and data for entrants can be found in the FT. Full details and information on submission are available on the  RES competition website .

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International Edition

YES Essay Contest

The winners of the 2022 Young Economists' Society Essay Contest.

Winner : Hin Tak Ben Law - Eton College, United Kingdom

Special mention : Nori Law - King George V School, Hong Kong

Special mention : Eva Solway - Kellett School, Hong Kong

Essay title : Inflation in the United Kingdom rose to its highest level in almost 30 years in January 2022. Discuss the economic effects of such high rates of inflation.

Feedback from the judges:

Essays were well written with insightful analysis of the effects of high inflation in the UK. In most essays a range of reliable sources were used to support this analysis. In the best essays there was clear and nuanced evaluation of the effects of high inflation. To improve, some answers would benefit from:

Focusing on the question - the effects of inflation not why inflation is occurring.

Expanding a point fully before moving on to the next point.

Using reliable sources to support all points.

Evaluating points rather than focusing on only the positives and negatives.

LSESU Economics Society

The Essay Competition 2023

Welcome to the lsesu economics society’s essay competition 2023. we are so excited to release this year’s questions, our questions range from the impact of artificial intelligence to explaining variations in happiness. we can’t wait to read your entries, prizes range from signed certifications by nobel prize-winning economists and include £100 amazon gift cards..

Harvard International Economics

Essay contest (hieec).

HIEEC provides students the opportunity to demonstrate an accomplished level of writing and understanding of economic theory. Through the contest, students hone their academic and professional skills and exhibit their knowledge. 

HIEE C 202 3 -2024

Hieec 2023-2024 is now closed. .

The 2023-2024  Harvard International Economics Essay Contest is sponsored by the Harvard Undergraduate Economics Association (HUEA). This essay competition is open to high school studen ts of any year and is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrat e an accom plished level of writing and understanding of economic the ory. T hrough the contest, student competitors hone their academic and professional skills and exhibit their knowledge to future employers and academic programs. 

Competitors must construct a convincing argument using economic theory and real-world examples. Winning essays will be published on our website  and will be available for the greater Harvard community to read. Essays should focus on argumentation supported with facts and references, although data-based support is also welcome.

Yiheng Lyu​

Audrey Ku k​

Hyoungjin Jin

Juyoung Chun

Kevin Zhang

Matthew Choi

Mikayil Sadikhov

Raunak Agarwal

Vallabh Himakunthala

Highly Commended

Aronima Biswas

Aryan Nangia

Kridaya Gupta

Leonardo Jia

Rohan Mathur

Anagha Chakravarti

Amberlynn Gong

Neha Shanavas

Donghyeon Oh

2023-2024  Essay Questions

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to affect growth, inequality, productivity, innovation, and employment. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in particular, has greatly increased public awareness about the significance of AI and its implications for the future. What impact will the development of AI have on economic inequality, the composition of the workforce, and economic output as a whole? How can nations prepare for the micro and macroeconomic changes brought about by AI?

Measuring national and global economic activity allows us to understand how economies change in size and structure—how they grow and contract. In addition to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), government budgets, and the money supply, alternatives like the Human Development Index (HDI) and Gross National Income (GNI) are used to assess economic progress. What are the advantages of our current economic indices, including GDP, HDI, GNI, government budgets, and the money supply, and in what areas are they lacking? Which of these indices do you find most helpful, and how can we enhance or combine them to improve our understanding of economic measurement?

Proponents of income redistribution support the idea that redistribution policies will increase economic stability and give more opportunities to the less wealthy. Others, however, are more skeptical and believe it could have negative consequences for economic growth. Current methods of redistribution include taxation, welfare, public services, and other monetary policies. What strategies for income redistribution should the U.S. adopt from other countries? What economic impacts could a wealth tax or super millionaire tax have? What type of redistribution is most effective and feasible? What would be the impacts of the U.S. enacting universal basic income? Discuss the implications of any of these issues and feel free to expand on other areas of economic redistribution.

As the United States weighs the impacts of China’s rise to global prominence, economics and national security have become increasingly intertwined. As a result, the United States government has imposed both tariffs and investment restrictions on China to limit the nation’s access to both US markets and intellectual property (specifically in sensitive industries such as semiconductors). What are the economic implications of these policies for United States firms, consumers, and workers? Discuss the most important perspectives of the US-China trade war and provide suggestions on how both countries can manage the prospect of a changing economic order.

2nd November 2023 – Essay titles released

11:59pm EST 5th January 2024  – Essay submission deadline

Late February 2024*  – Highly Commended and Finalists notified

Early March 2024 * – Winners notified, results published on the website

*We received a high volume of submissions, therefore we anticipate  that it will take us a couple m ore w eeks to release the results. 

Entrants must choose one of the four prompts and write a response to it with a strict limit of 1500 words. Submission must be via the HUEA website and entrants are limited to submitting one essay with only the first submission being considered. Each essay submission will have a $20 reading fee which should be paid upon submission of the essay. If this fee will impose a significant financial burden on your family, please email us. The deadline for submitting the essay is 11:59pm EST January 5th, 2024. ​

Please submit essay submissions via this form.

If the above link does not work, use:  https://forms.gle/9NVDu9WVbU71iPpq6

*Be sure to read all the details in the submission form carefully before submitting, as failure to complete any of the steps correctly may result in your submission not being considered.

The essays will be judged by the board of the HUEA, with the top 10 submissions being adjudicated by the esteemed Harvard professor and 2016 Economics Nobel Prize winner Oliver Hart.

The top three winning essays will be published ( with the author’s permission) on our website. A finalist s list of the top  submissions will be published online and adjudicated by 2016 Economics Nobel Prize Winner Oliver Hart. A list of names that will receive the "Highly Commended" distinction will also be published online​. The judges' decisions are final.

Terms and Conditions

The word limit of 1500 must be strictly adhered to. Any words past the limit will be truncated. This limit excludes references, footnotes, titles, headers and footers.

Essays must be written only by the entrant. Any outside assistance must be declared in the beginning or end of the essay.

Only your first submission will be accepted. Any further submissions will not be read.

References must be included, and any plagiarism will lead to disqualification.

References must be in Chicago or APA format. 

The only accepted document formatting is PDF. Any other format will not be accepted, nor will refunds be given to those who do not follow this rule.

No refunds are granted.

Grades 9-12 are permitted.

The essay must not be entered in any other competition nor be published elsewhere.

No individual feedback of essays will be granted.

The decisions made by HUEA by the final round of adjudication are final.

All winners agree to their names being published on the HUEA website.

Past Winners

2022  prompts an d winners.

In recent years and decades, many countries have seen fertility rates drop, potentially leading to falling populations. Currently, China has a fertility rate of 1.3, one of the lowest in the world. However, in 2021, China experienced GDP growth of 8% with output totaling $17.7 trillion. Will this lowered fertility rate (with potential to fall further) affect China’s economic growth and policy? How so? What, if anything, can the Chinese government do to limit the risk of falling fertility rates?

U.S. mortgage rates recently passed 7%, making the purchase of a new home increasingly unaffordable. Meanwhile, the United States has suffered from a chronic shortage of available housing for decades, particularly in urban areas, leading to what many scholars and advocates call an affordability crisis. Why is housing so unaffordable in the U.S.? What can (or should) be done by private actors, state and local governments, and the federal government to alleviate the affordability crisis?

It is often suggested that a tradeoff exists between economic growth and the health of the environment, especially now as the threat of climate change becomes more dire. What economic risks does a changing climate pose? Can economic growth be consistent with a healthy environment? What policies, either market-based or otherwise, should governments enact to protect the environment while posing the least danger to economic efficiency? 

Central banks such as the Federal Reserve in the U.S. and the Bank of England in the UK manage their nation’s macroeconomies with the goal of ensuring price stability and maximum employment. Globally, inflation rates are rising to levels not seen since the 1980s, particularly in the U.S. and European countries. To what extent should the monetary policies of central banks in various Western countries differ or resemble one another as a reaction to the specific causes of inflation facing their economies?

​ Click below to view each winner's essay

Ashwin t elang  *   nanxi jiang   *   duncan wong, 2019 wi n ner.

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/when-is-one-choice-one-t oo-many

2020 Winners

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/covid-19-and-the-market

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/automation-and-jobs-this-time-is-different

https://www.economicsreview.org/post/making-rational-decisions

Submissions for Equilibrium are now open! The Semester 2 regular deadline is May 12th, 2024.

Harker Oeconomia

Harvard international economics essay competition, description.

The 2023 Harvard International Economics Essay Contest is sponsored by the Harvard Undergraduate Economics Association (HUEA) in conjunction with the Harvard College Economics Review (HCER). This essay competition is open to high school students of any year and is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate an accomplished level of writing and understanding of economic theory. Through the contest, student competitors hone their academic and professional skills and exhibit their knowledge to future employers and academic programs.  Competitors must construct a convincing argument using economic theory and real-world examples.  Winning essays will be published in the Harvard Economics Review and will be available for the greater Harvard community to read. Essays should focus on argumentation supported with facts and references, although data-based support is also welcome.

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Economics Content Update (Jan 2023)

5th January 2023

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Every best wish for the year ahead, we hope that you have a happy and successful 2023. Here is a quick Economics resource update.

We have produced some new short topic videos on aspects of development that students and teachers might find useful.

Human Development Index (2022 Update)

The 2022 Human Development Index is now available and Switzerland has overtaken Norway to claim top spot in this composite indicator of development. However, for the second year in a row, the Global Human Development Index has fallen reflecting the damage on incomes, education and health outcomes wrought by the covid-19 pandemic. Click here

Demography and Development

We have published a series of four videos looking at aspects of demographic change - available here in this updated collection

Currency gaps and capital flight

A growing number of nations are suffering from foreign currency shortages and significant capital flight, so these two videos provide useful context and comment for students:

Currency gaps: Click here

Capital flight: Click here

We also take an updated look at Sovereign Wealth Funds: Click here

Updates on the UK economy

2023 will be another year of change for the UK.

Four Reasons to Expect Falling Inflation during 2023: Click here

Four Reasons to Expect Falling House Prices in 2023: Click here

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And our tutor2u Economics instagram account provides daily news comment, quiz questions and much more! Click here

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All the best for 2023!

Geoff Riley

Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.

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Friday essay: Project 2025, the policy substance behind Trump’s showmanship, reveals a radical plan to reshape the world

Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

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Emma Shortis is Senior Researcher in International and Security Affairs at The Australia Institute, an independent think tank.

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In April 2022, conservative American think tank the Heritage Foundation, working with a broad coalition of 50 conservative organisations, launched Project 2025 : a plan for the next conservative president of the United States.

The Project’s flagship publication, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise , outlines in plain language and in granular detail, over 900-plus pages, what a second Trump administration (if it occurs) might look like. I’ve read it all, so you don’t have to.

The Mandate’s veneer of exhausting technocratic detail, focused mostly on the federal bureaucracy, sits easily alongside a Trumpian project of revenge and retribution . It is the substance behind the showmanship of the Trump rallies.

Developing transition plans for a presidential candidate is normal practice in the US. What is not normal about Project 2025, with its intertwined domestic and international agenda, are the plans themselves. Those for climate and the global environment, defence and security, the global economic system and the institutions of American democracy more broadly aim for nothing less than the total dismantling and restructure of both American life and the world as we know it.

The unapologetic agenda, according to Heritage Foundation president Kevin D. Roberts, is to “defeat the anti-American left – at home and abroad.”

Recommendations include completely abolishing the US Federal Reserve in favour of a system of “free banking”, the total reversal of all the Biden administration’s climate policies, a dramatic increase in fossil fuel extraction and use, ending economic engagement with China, expanding the nuclear arsenal and a “comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of U.S. participation in all international organizations” including the UN and its agencies. And that’s not all.

Australia itself is mentioned just seven times in the substantive text, with vague recommendations that a future administration support “greater spending and collaboration” with regional partners in defence and send a political appointee here as ambassador. But even if only partially implemented, the document’s overarching recommendations would have significant implications for Australia and our region.

Project 2025 is modelled on what the Foundation sees as its greatest historical triumph. The launch of the first Mandate for Leadership coincided with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981. By the following year, according to the Foundation, “more than 60 percent of its recommendations had become policy”.

Four decades later, Project 2025 is trying to repeat history.

The Project is not directly aligned with the Trump campaign: it has in fact attracted some ire from the campaign for presuming too much. Trump is under no obligation to adopt any of its plans should he return to the White House. But the sheer number of former Trump officials and loyalists involved in the Project, and its particular commitment to supporting a Trump return, suggest we should take its plans very seriously.

Much of what is happening now in the US is unprecedented. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, is currently locked in a Manhattan courtroom defending himself from criminal charges . Despite this unedifying spectacle, current polling separates Biden and Trump by a gap of just 2% , according to the latest poll. This year will be an existential test for American democracy.

Read more: Is America enduring a 'slow civil war'? Jeff Sharlet visits Trump rallies, a celebrity megachurch and the manosphere to find out

The four pillars

Project 2025’s chosen method for engineering its radical reshaping of that democracy takes a startlingly familiar bureaucratic approach. It aims to create a system where any potential chaos is contained by an administration and bureaucracy united by the same conservative vision. The vision rests on four “pillars”.

Pillar one is the 920-page Mandate – the manifesto for the next conservative president (and the major focus of this analysis).

Pillar two is the foundation’s recruitment program: a kind of conservative LinkedIn that aims to build a database of vetted, loyal conservatives ready to serve in the next administration.

The program is specifically designed to “deconstruct the Administrative State”: code for using Schedule F , a Trump-era executive order (since overturned), that would allow an administration to unilaterally re-categorise, fire and replace tens of thousands of independent federal employees with political loyalists.

Pillar three, the “Presidential Administration Academy”, will train those new recruits and existing amenable officials in the nature and use of power within the American political system, so they can effectively and efficiently implement the president’s agenda.

Pillar four consists of a secret “ Playbook ” – a resources bank of things like draft executive orders and specific transition plans ready for the first 180 days of a new administration.

The four pillars inform each other. The Mandate, for example, doubles as a recruitment tool that educates aspiring officials in the complex structures of the US federal government.

A response to Trump’s failures

The Mandate doesn’t specify who the next conservative president might be, but it is clearly written with Trump in mind. As it outlines, “one set of eyes reading these passages will be those of the 47th President of the United States”. What the Mandate can’t acknowledge is that the man aiming to be the 47th president was notorious for not reading his briefs when he occupied the Oval Office.

An unspoken aim of Project 2025 is to inject some ideological coherence into Trumpism. It aims to focus if not the leader, then the movement behind him – something that did not happen in the four years between January 2017 and January 2021. The entire project is a response to the perceived failures and weaknesses of the Trump administration.

Project 2025’s vision rests on almost completely gutting and replacing the bureaucracy that (in the view of its authors) thwarted and undermined the Trump presidency. It aims to remodel and reorganise the “ blob ” of powerful people who cycle through the landscape of American power between think tanks, government and higher education institutions.

It explicitly welcomes conservatives to this “mission” of assembling “an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State”. “Conservatives”, in this framing, are not those who would defend and protect the institutions and traditions of the state, but rather right-wing radicals who would fundamentally change them.

The choice of language – “mission”, “army” – is also deliberate. The Mandate repeatedly distinguished between “ real people ” and what it sees as existential enemies. “America is now divided,” it argues, “between two opposing forces”. Those forces are irreconcilable, and because that fight extends abroad, “there is no margin for error”.

This framing of an America and a world engaged in an existential battle is underpinned by granular, bureaucratic detail – right down to recommendations for low-level appointments, budget allocations and regulatory reform. Effective understanding – and use of – the machinery of American power is, the Heritage Foundation believes, essential to victory.

That is why the Mandate is 920 pages from cover to cover, why it has 30 chapters written by “hundreds of contributors” with input from “more than 400 scholars and policy experts” and why it can now claim the support of 100 organisations .

What follows is a broad analysis of the implications of Project 2025 for the world outside the United States.

Drill baby, drill: climate and the environment

In late 2023, Donald Trump was asked by Fox News anchor Sean Hannity if he would be a “dictator”. Trump responded he would not, “ except on day one ”. In the flurry of coverage that followed, rightly condemning and outlining Trump’s repeated threats to American democracy , the aspiring president’s stated reasons for a day of dictatorship were overshadowed.

But Trump was explicit: “We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling.” While Trump himself may not be across or even aligned with the specific detail of much of Project 2025’s aims, on “drilling, drilling, drilling,” they are very much in sync.

The Mandate condemns what it describes as a “radical climate agenda” and “Biden’s war on fossil fuels”, recommending an immediate rollback of all Biden administration programs and reinstatement of Trump-era policies.

One of Biden’s signature legislative achievements, the Inflation Reduction Act , attracts a great deal of attention. Unsurprisingly, the broad recommendation is that the Act be repealed in its entirety. But the recommendations are also specific: repeal “credits and tax breaks for green energy companies”, stop “programs providing grants for environmental science activities” and ensure “the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs”. This would include removing “federal mandates and subsidies of electric vehicles”.

There is, in all, a great deal to “eliminate” – a word that appears in the Mandate over 250 times. In environmental policy, programs on the elimination list include the Clean Energy Corps , energy efficiency standards for appliances , the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations in the Department of Energy, and the entire National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .

But this is not all. The elimination of climate-focused programs, legislation, offices and policies would be accompanied by a dramatic increase in fossil fuel extraction and use – a reversal of Biden’s “war”.

The chapter on the Department of the Interior, which manages federal lands and natural resources, recommends it “conduct offshore oil and natural gas lease sales to the maximum extent permitted” and restart the coal-leasing program.

This should include returning to the first Trump administration’s plans to further open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil fields development. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should, likewise, “not use environmental issues like climate change as a reason to stop LNG projects”.

Given the size and influence of the US economy, these policies would inevitably have global implications. This is not lost on the Mandate’s authors: the fight against the “radical climate agenda” is both local and global.

The chapter on Treasury, for example, recommends that a conservative administration “withdraw from climate change agreements that are inimical to the prosperity of the United States”. This includes, specifically, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement (which Trump withdrew the United States from in 2020, and Biden rejoined in 2021).

Analysis by the Guardian argues that taken together, these plans for rewinding climate action and accelerating fossil fuel extraction and use would be “even more extreme for the environment” than those of the first Trump administration.

This would not be a straightforward case of the US reverting from being a “good” actor on climate to a “bad” one. While the Biden administration has presided over some of the most significant climate legislation and actions in US history, domestic oil production has also hit a record high under Biden’s leadership . The US is already the second highest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

Several nations, including Australia, might find it convenient to hide behind the much more explicitly destructive policies of a future conservative US administration.

According to modelling by UK-based Carbon Brief , which does not include the increases in fossil fuel extraction and use outlined by the Mandate, a second Trump administration could result in an increase in emissions “equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries”.

That would mean, even without accounting for the opening of new oil reserves in places like Alaska, “a second Trump term […] would likely end any global hopes of keeping global warming below 1.5C”.

Project 2025’s authors are, of course, unapologetic. The Mandate demands that the next conservative administration “go on offense” and assert “America’s energy interests […] around the world” – to the point of establishing “full-spectrum strategic energy dominance”, in order to restore the nation’s global primacy.

A world on fire: security and defence

Restoring that global primacy is the focus of Section 2 of the Mandate. This section argues the Departments of Defense and State are “first among equals” with the executive branch, suggesting international relations should be a major focus for the next conservative presidency. It argues the success of such an administration “will be determined in part by whether [Defence and State] can be significantly improved in short order”.

Why is that improvement so important? Because, according to the Mandate, the US is engaged in an existential battle with its enemies, in “a world on fire”. China is, unsurprisingly, the main game: “America’s most dangerous international enemy”.

The Mandate’s overwhelming focus on China and its assessment that the world is in an era of “great power competition” is not radically different from the position of the current administration – nor the rest of the Western world. But the Mandate’s suggested response is different.

“The next conservative President,” the Mandate claims, “has the opportunity to restructure the making and execution of U.S. defense and foreign policy and reset the nation’s role in the world.”

For Defense, this reset means restoring “ warfighting as its sole mission” and making its highest priority “defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party”. It means dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and bringing its remit under Defense. It then recommends the department help with “aggressively building the border wall system on America’s southern border” and deploy “military personnel and hardware to prevent illegal crossings”.

Along with this expanded, more aggressive role for the Pentagon, the Mandate advocates for a dramatic expansion in defence personnel. A reduced force in Europe would be combined with an increase in “the Army force structure by 50,000 to handle two major regional contingencies simultaneously”.

It’s not quite clear how recruitment would be boosted so quickly. But at one point, the Mandate recommends requiring completion of the military entrance examination “by all students in schools that receive federal funding”. This is one of many lines that hints at a radical reshaping of American life.

The “two major contingencies” the department must prepare for appear to be “threats” from both China and Russia. As the long fight over US funding for Ukraine has demonstrated, however, many Trump-aligned conservatives have an ideological affinity with Putin’s Russia. This radical turnaround in the recent history of US–Russia relations marks a clear tension in conservative politics.

The Mandate acknowledges Russia now “starkly divides conservatives”. But it offers no real resolution, suggesting this would be left up to the president. Inevitable contradictions like this run throughout.

Even on China – one of very few issues that unites conservatives and liberals – the Mandate can contradict itself. One chapter, for example, worries about China blocking market access for the United States. Another advocates complete market decoupling.

Modernise, adapt, expand: on the nuclear arsenal

Trump has repeatedly toyed with the possibility of using nuclear weapons. In 2016, the then-candidate was pressed on why he wouldn’t rule out using them. He responded with his own question: “Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?”

As president, Trump repeatedly bragged about the US nuclear arsenal and weapons development, and allegedly illegally removed classified documents concerning nuclear capabilities from the White House. During his presidency, the US also dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb, nicknamed with characteristic misogyny the “ mother of all bombs ”, on Afghanistan.

The Mandate encourages more weapons development. It argues the Department of Energy should refocus on “developing new nuclear weapons and naval nuclear reactors”. Its recommendation that the United States “expand” its nuclear arsenal in order to “deter Russia and China simultaneously” will especially concern advocates of non-proliferation .

The Mandate also recommends the next administration “end ineffective and counterproductive nonproliferation activities like those involving Iran and the United Nations”.

“Friends and adversaries” abroad

This ramping up of American militarism should be accompanied, according to the Mandate, by a radical shakeup of American diplomacy. The next administration should

significantly reorient the U.S. government’s posture toward friends and adversaries alike – which will include much more honest assessments about who are friends and who are not. This reorientation could represent the most significant shift in core foreign policy principles and corresponding action since the end of the Cold War.

In a line that inevitably provokes thoughts of regime change , the Mandate suggests “the time may be right to press harder on the Iranian theocracy […] and take other steps to draw Iran into the community of free and modern nations”. It is, of course, silent on how disastrous regime change has proved to be in the conduct of US foreign policy over the past half century.

The Mandate also suggests a return to the Trump administration’s “tough love” approach to US participation in international organisations, ensuring no foreign aid supports reproductive rights or care, and that USAID , the nation’s major aid agency, “rescind all climate policies”.

All of this would mean installing “political ambassadors with strong personal relationships with the President”, especially in “key strategic posts such as Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)”. In the State Department specifically, “No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day.”

Perhaps most significantly, Roberts argues in the Mandate’s foreword that “Economic engagement with China should be ended, not rethought.” The chapter on the Department of Commerce similarly argues for “strategic decoupling from China”.

Given the size and scope of the American and Chinese economies, and smaller nations like Australia’s reliance on stable economic relations with both, such a “decoupling” from China, alongside a ramping up of militarism, would have significant, wide-ranging consequences.

Another recommendation is that the United States “withdraw” from both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and “terminate its financial contribution to both institutions”. The global consequences of even more radical suggestions like a return to the gold standard, or even “abolishing the federal role in money altogether” in favour of a system of “free banking”, are genuinely mind-boggling.

A new, frightening world in the making?

Project 2025 opens a window onto the modern American conservative movement, documenting in minute detail just how much it has reoriented itself around Trump and the ideological incoherence of Trumpism more broadly. The success, or not, of this effort to unify the movement will also have international implications, as those same organisations and individuals cultivate their connections with the far-right globally.

While Trump, as always, is difficult to predict, there are long and deep links between his campaign and supporters and the Project’s supporters and contributors. Nothing is inevitable, but should Trump return to the White House, it is highly likely at least some of Project 2025’s recommendations, policies, authors, and aspiring officials will join him there. These include people like Peter Navarro, a former Trump official, loyalist and Mandate author, who is currently serving a four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress because he refused to comply with a congressional subpoena during the January 6 investigation.

Project 2025’s Mandate is iconoclastic and dystopian, offering a dark vision of a highly militaristic and unapologetically aggressive America ascendant in “a world on fire”. Those who wish to understand Trump and the movement behind him, and the active threat they pose to American democracy, are obliged to take it seriously.

• US politics
• Ronald Reagan
• Donald Trump
• Friday essay
• Trump administration
• Australia US alliance
• Climate change aid
• President Joe Biden

Program Manager, Teaching & Learning Initiatives

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, Earth System Science (School of Science)

Sydney Horizon Educators (Identified)

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Associate Professor, Occupational Therapy