Ukraine: Trump’s plans in Ukraine are coming into focus as he has convened the first peace talks in Riyadh that included Russia, but not Ukraine. This comes after Zelensky is reported to have refused a contract offered by Trump negotiators that would give the US a 50% concession over wide areas of Ukraine's economy.
But reports have surfaced, sourced to anonymous defense and congressional officials, that Putin is not interested in a real peace deal. Are we starting to see a split between Trump and the intel agencies over Ukraine?
As the Republican backlash to Hegseth’s recent comments in Munich shows, no player at the table has any incentive to reveal what they’d accept this early in the game, which is where prediction markets come in. Looking at multiple markets at once gives us a pretty clear picture of the most likely deal to emerge:
- Ceasefire signed in 2025 - 71% odds
- Trump meets with Putin in first 100 days - 68% odds (down from over 80% yesterday)
- Ukraine agrees to give US rare earth minerals by April - 66% odds
- Ukraine gives up its captured Russian territory in 2025 - 59% odds
- Ukraine elections held in 2025 (62% odds)
- Ukraine recognizes Russian sovereignty over any of its land in 2025 - 24% odds
Trump vs Cartels: One of the less-covered foreign policy stories is the unfolding conflict with Mexican drug cartels. Trump is expected to sign an executive order soon to classify cartels as terrorist organizations (🔮73% odds it’s signed by March) and there are some reports that American special forces are already fighting them in Mexico. But another market on whether US troops will be fighting there by May has declined to 15% on reports that the US troops will be on a training mission only.
X AI: Odds have shot up to 83% for Elon Musk’s xAI to have the top AI model by the end of February with the release of Grok 3. The benchmark used is Chatbot Arena, which lets users input any prompt and A/B test the model outputs blindly.
Eric Adams: Despite his alleged deal with Trump to drop Federal corruption charges in exchange for support with deportations, NYC mayor Eric Adams isn’t out of the woods yet. Odds for Adams to be out by April 1 shot up to 26% after a number of his staff resigned and New York governor Kathy Hochul released a statement that she was convening leaders for a “conversation about the path forward.”
DOGE Spending Cuts. There is now a full-2025 market for DOGE spending cuts, and the highest bracket of > $250b in cuts is narrowly leading at 37% odds. Like with other DOGE markets, the odds are polarized to “boom” and “bust” scenarios. It’s possible this polarization is because court decisions are the major limiting factor to DOGE right now: either Trump wins in court and cuts a lot or he loses and cuts a little.
Welcome to Audit Season. The next phase of DOGE activity is likely to involve audits of various institutions. What are we auditing this year?
- IRS audit by May - 85% odds
- Department of Labor audit by May - 85% odds
- Fort Knox audit by May - 50% odds
- Gold missing in audit? - 18% odds
Yoon Out Soon? Impeachment proceedings are underway against South Korea’s President Yoon following his arrest in early January. Yoon is charged with treason and abuse of power following his botched martial law declaration. There’s a 83% chance he is convicted and removed by April and 91% chance he’s out this year.
Gaza. Donald Trump stunned many when he announced a plan for the US to take over and develop the Gaza strip, and resettle Palestinians living there in neighboring Arab states. But a number of markets on Polymarket cast doubt on any of this happening soon. What’s going on here? As Geiger Capital notes, Trump may be Art of the Deal-ing the Arab states into taking a more active role in the Gaza reconstruction.
Milei. The launch of the Argentina memecoin LIBRA, which saw $4b in market cap erased in a few hours, has led to a real threat to the presidency of Javier Milei. After the disastrous launch, which allowed insiders to cash out over $100m and may have triggered a 5% drop in Argentina’s main stock index the next trading day, has led to accusations of fraud and calls for impeachment. While odds Milei is out as president this year are still low at 14%, it’s a doubling of risk from before the launch.
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