World Leader Power Rankings

Here's the new power rankings of world leaders. The last one was posted on December 16.

Rank	Leader	Country	Previous Rank
1	Xi Jiangping	China	1
2	Kim Jong-un	North Korea	2
3	Vladimir Putin	Russia	7
4	Recep Tayyip Erdogan	Turkey	Not Ranked
5	Abiy Ahmed	Ethiopia	5
6	Ivan Duque Marquez	Colombia	Nor Ranked
7	Lars Lokke Rsamussen	Denmark	Not Ranked
8	Jacinda Ardern	New Zealand	Not Ranked
9	King Mohammed VI	Morocco	Not Ranked
10	Sultan Qaboos	Oman	Not Ranked

1. China will determine the fate of our planet. Responsible for building Asia's and Africa's infrastructure, China will decide if climate change wipes us all out or if we can somehow stem the tide (literally). China is fast becoming the leader in electric cars as well.

2. Kim came out the winner of another summit with disgraced U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump was convinced of Kim's sincerity by a flowery letter he wrote to Trump and not by U.S. intelligence assessments of Kim's deceit in nuclear negotiations.

3. This is certainly the age of the strong man. Putin at least pretends to have elections even as he meddles in those of other countries. The U.S. stymied a Russian attempt to hack the 2018 midterm election. But Putin still has his puppet in the White House, so it's not all bad.

4. Erdogan has single-handedly managed to turn Turkey from a European-looking bastion of democracy in the Middle East to an economically-failing autocracy. But Erdogan has called out Saudi Crown prince MBS and Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi recently for their human rights abuses. So there's at least something redeeming about Erdogan.

5. Ahmed continues to reform Ethiopia. Recently, he has tried to open up the economy and make it easier to run a business. Previously surviving assassination attempts, Abiy is one of the few leaders in the world putting his life on the line and making the tough choices to help his country's future.

6. President Marquez comes out looking good in the Venezuela crisis. Trying to help usher in food to their collapsing neighbor, Venezuelan (ex-?)president Nicolas Maduro shut down the border with Colombia. You have to be terrible to make Colombia look like the stable nation in the region.

7. Prime Minister Rasmussen oversees the least corrupt country in the world. Apparently it's too cold for officials to ask for bribes. They're too busy rushing inside to sip some hot cocoa by the fire under a blanket.

8. Prime Minister Ardern is a rising star on the international stage and heads the second least corrupt country in the world. Northern Europe shouldn't even count, they always dominate lists like these, so let's go ahead and say Prime Minister Ardern heads the least corrupt country in the world.

9. King Mohammed VI met with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recently and Markle curtsied appropriately. I can't believe I even know anything about this shit. It just goes to show you how big these reality show characters are. And the king gets a boost by proxy.

10. Sultan Qaboos led Oman to the biggest increase in decreasing corruption from 2017 to 2018 if that makes any sense. My mom once sailed on his yacht. He was not aboard, so the sultan better not leave any mama jokes in the comments section.