THE ECONOMIST: Syria takes out The Economist’s country of the year for 2025

Each Christmas The Economist names a country of the year. Not the happiest: that would nearly always be Scandinavian, making for a dull, predictable contest. Nor the most influential: that would always be a superpower. Rather, we try to identify the country that has improved the most, whether economically, politically or in any other way that matters.

The year was a turbulent one, with President Donald Trump disrupting global trade and horrific conflicts scarring places such as Gaza and Sudan. But several countries navigated choppy waters well. Canada elected a sober technocrat as prime minister, rather than a populist, and stood up to American bullying. Voters in Moldova rejected a pro-Russian party despite threats and disinformation from Moscow. Mr Trump brokered a shaky truce between Israel and the Palestinians.

South Korea recovered from a serious threat to its democracy. A year ago President Yoon Suk Yeol tried to impose martial law, sending troops to shut down parliament. But lawmakers, protesters and institutions held firm, and this year the disgraced ex-president was put on trial for insurrection.

Another exemplar of how to deal with violent attempts to upend the constitutional order was Brazil. In September a Brazilian court imposed a 27-year jail term on Jair Bolsonaro, a former president who lost an election in 2022, claimed he was cheated and tried to mount a coup to stay in power. Brazil was plagued by coups for much of the 20th century; this is the first time a putschist has been suitably punished. The government also managed in 2025 to slow the pace of deforestation in the Amazon, thus doing its bit to slow climate change. However, its Kremlin-cuddling foreign policy badly blotted its record.

The two strongest contenders this year are very different: Argentina and Syria. Argentina’s improvement has been economic. Its president, Javier Milei, began far-reaching free-market reforms in 2023, hoping to jolt his country out of more than a century of statism and stagnation. Such reforms — abolishing price controls, curbing spending and ditching distorting subsidies — are exceptionally hard because they are exceptionally painful; many previous reformers have failed.

Yet Mr Milei stuck to his chainsaw in 2025, and voters stuck with him. So did America, offering a $20bn lifeline to avert a financial crisis. The results have been impressive. Inflation has fallen from 211 per cent in 2023 to around 30 per cent now. The poverty rate is down by 21 percentage points since last year. The budget has been wrestled under control. Mr Milei has moved towards a floating peso, and removed most capital controls.

Argentina could still fail. The Peronists who misruled it for generations are itching to return, should Mr Milei stumble. And the president has many flaws: he is intolerant of critics and beset by corruption scandals. But if his reforms are sustained, they could permanently alter Argentina’s trajectory — and give hope to economic reformers everywhere.

Syria’s improvement, by contrast, has been political. Little more than a year ago it was ruled by Bashar al-Assad, an odious dictator backed by Iran and Russia. His jails were stuffed with political prisoners, and dissent was punished with torture or death. Thirteen years of civil war had claimed more than half a million lives. Mr Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons and barrel bombs indiscriminately on civilians. More than 6m people had fled from the country.

Then, in early December 2024, the tyrant was himself forced to flee as rebels seized power. When we were choosing that year’s country of the year, it was too soon to have an idea of how the new Syria might look. Its ruler, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was a jihadist. Many feared he would impose a grim Islamist theocracy, or that Syria would collapse into chaos.

In fact, neither has happened. Women are not obliged to cover up or stay at home. Entertainment and, yes, alcohol are allowed. Mr Sharaa has brought about a series of positive surprises, holding the country together and forging good relations with America and the Gulf states. As Western sanctions are relaxed, the economy is starting to recover, too.

Huge problems remain. Militias carried out two atrocious local massacres of minorities, in which 2,000 people died. Mr Sharaa rules in a clannish way, and in such a fragile country much could still go wrong.

Nonetheless, Syria in 2025 is far happier and more peaceful than it was in 2024. Fear is no longer universal. Life is not easy, but it is more or less normal for most people. Voting with their feet, some 3m Syrians have returned home. Our choice goes to Syria, too.