FinovateSpring 2026: Navigating a Multi-Aligned World – a Geopolitical Outlook with Manas Chawla

By John San Filippo

Finopotamus, an official media partner of FinovateSpring 2026, was onsite for this important event in San Diego starting May 5. On the first day, Manas Chawla, CEO of London Politica, delivered a keynote address titled, “The Global Economic & Geopolitical Outlook & the Direction of Travel for the US Economy.”

“I’m a geopolitical strategist,” Chawla told the audience. “It’s my job to help financial institutions, corporates, governments around the world navigate geopolitical change.”

The Shift Toward Multi-Alignment

Chawla argued that the traditional concept of “multipolarity” – where the world is divided into neat, mutually exclusive blocs – is no longer an accurate representation of global dynamics. Instead, he introduced the concept of “multi-alignment,” where countries find multiple partners for economics, defense, and trade.

“I think that this idea of multipolarity is a bit of a lie,” Chawla observed. “The world does not need to be arranged into these three mutually exclusive, neat blocs.”

He explained that the world is far more complex and messier than Cold War-era thinking suggests. In this multi-aligned landscape, emerging markets like India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are becoming increasingly empowered. These nations maintain agency and autonomy, refusing to be leveraged into a single bloc. Instead of a multipolar world where countries were in neat blocs, they did their economics, their politics, their culture, their defense, their trade all together, they’re now multi-aligned,” Chawla said.

Empowered Emerging Markets

India, Chawla noted, serves as a prime example of this trend because it maintains a vibrant political relationship with Europe and solid economic and defense relationships with the United States, while still sourcing 60% of its arms from Russia. Furthermore, he said it maintains high levels of trade with China despite ongoing border disputes and champions the Global South while sourcing cyber weapons from Israel.

“Which geopolitical bloc does India sit in?” Chawla asked. “It’s very unclear, which is why India is a perfect example of a multi-aligned country.”

A Growing Trust Gap

The presentation also highlighted a stark contrast in institutional trust between Western industrialized nations and emerging markets. While people in the U.S. and Europe increasingly distrust the media and government, trust and political stability are growing in many emerging economies. “The data shows us that this isn’t the entire world; this is in fact just Western industrialized countries,” Chawla noted.

“Low-trust societies” lead to multi-aligned voters and the breakdown of traditional two-party systems, Chawla observed. He noted that across different demographics, approval for the president is receding across gender, race, and party lines. With President Donald Trump’s approval ratings at historical lows (according to the latest Marist Poll), Chawla suggested the upcoming American midterm elections would serve as a difficult referendum for the incumbent party.

“We’ve had 22 midterm elections since 1938,” Chawla stated. “In 20 of them, 20 out of 22, the incumbent party severely lost power.”

Economic Resilience and Energy Realities

The economic calculus is also shifting. In Europe, traditional patterns have flipped. France now faces higher borrowing costs and higher debt-to-GDP ratios than nations like Greece or Portugal. In the United States, the economy remains resilient despite high oil prices and inflation. Chawla attributed this to two primary factors: the dominance of the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks and a massive investment in infrastructure.

“Half of U.S. growth is coming simply from spend on data infrastructures,” Chawla said.

Finally, Chawla addressed the surprising growth of renewable energy. Despite political rhetoric and the rollback of certain subsidies, the U.S. generated more electricity from renewable sources than from gas for the first time in history this past March, he explained. Chawla further noted that in a volatile world, countries and companies are seeking optionality and diversified energy sources. “The more geopolitical volatility we have, I think the more support for renewables that we will see.”