This flagship annual report by the Center for American Studies compiles a comprehensive set of materials that map the pivotal events and structural shifts shaping the United States in 2025, treating domestic governance changes and foreign-policy recalibration as two sides of the same strategic agenda. It situates these transformations in the context of the inauguration of the 47th President and the intensified implementation of the “America First” doctrine, which, taken together, recast both the internal trajectory of the US state and Washington’s engagement with the international system.

A substantial portion of the report is devoted to domestic re-engineering: institutional reorganisation, the politicisation of bureaucratic governance, and the consolidation of a more protectionist fiscal-economic model. The briefs give particular attention to the “One Big Beautiful Act” and the broader move towards “zero migration”, including the scale of deportations and departures, the expansion of detention and border militarisation, and the tightening of fiscal barriers across humanitarian and labour-migration channels.

On the strategic and external front, the report traces a clear shift from liberal internationalism towards transactional realism and economic coercion, analysing how this approach is operationalised across key theatres – US–China institutional confrontation (including AI governance), the reconfiguration of Middle East security dynamics, and the growing strategic salience of Central Asia. It also highlights the deepening fusion between the Pentagon and the technology sector (including new institutional mechanisms) and examines the political legitimisation of digital assets and stablecoins as part of a broader effort to secure US technological and financial primacy.

* The Institute for Advanced International Studies (IAIS) does not take institutional positions on any issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IAIS.