Despite ongoing Middle East tensions, tariffs remain top of the list of political risk concerns, according to latest Willis Political Risk Survey.

Although the survey was issued as the conflict in the Middle East broke out, respondents selected tariffs over international violent conflict as a top political risk, with 61% believing the impacts of rising tariffs are the most difficult to manage. 61% also reported that their company had experienced a negative financial impact from tariffs.

The share of respondents reporting credit and political risk insurable losses from geopolitical causes is the second highest in the nine years of the survey. For the third year running, related losses amounted to more than US$250m, and interest in political risk and trade credit insurance as a means of managing geopolitical risk has increased.

39% of companies said they face higher risks because of the policy choices of their home government. 84% said they are either actively preparing for, or considering preparing for, a future in which ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ portions of the global business may need to be structurally independent.

Among the other concerns raised in the survey, economic coercion or retaliation – such as official or unofficial sanctions, threats or tariffs, or export embargoes for key commodities – was ranked as the greatest gray-zone aggression related area of concern by 61% of firms, the second largest group of respondents. Attacks on infrastructure such as cutting undersea cables, destroying pipelines, disrupting power stations, arson in warehouses and other acts of this nature continue to be the top concern for 65% of respondents.

Sam Wilkin, director of political risk analytics at Willis, said: “It’s surprising that while conflict in the Middle East dominates the headlines, the effects of tariffs continue to dominate business concerns. But this finding is in keeping with other trends portrayed by our survey sample. The political risk map of 2026 is not simply a map of war zones. It is a map of contested systems – trade systems, technology systems, information systems and domestic political systems.

“For globalised business, political risk is becoming less about exposure to a handful of unstable places, and more about exposure to an increasingly unstable world order. This report shines a light on what companies find hardest to manage in this geopolitical landscape that is changing so fundamentally.”

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