China prefers Donald Trump

It is now clear that the Chinese leadership would prefer Donald Trump. The messages we are getting from Beijing are that they believe that Joe Biden would be tougher on China than Trump. They now know the current President relatively well and they think that if there is an agreement on trade everything else will be manageable. They see Donald Trump as a transactional leader. He is aware of the Chinese geopolitical ambitions and must refer to them in his public speeches. But he can be satisfied with a trade agreement if he thinks the agreement is good for his electoral basis. And it is true he has a good personal rapport with President Xi Jinping. On the other side, the Chinese leadership see Biden as more ideological. He will be raising issues that are particularly unpleasant to the ears of the Chinese Communist bosses. Issues such as human rights, the special status and freedom in Hong Kong, the re-education camps in Xinjiang Province, the relations with Taiwan, and so on. These are extremely sensitive matters for Beijing. Trade is a small business when compared with any of these challenges. Therefore, they will try to do anything they can to make sure that Donald Trump gets re-elected.

Poor leadership

Europe is again building borders and walls. The leaders decided this week that the external borders of the Union will remain closed for another month or so. I see this decision as an inept response to the problem. Airports and land passage points could be equipped to check travellers’ temperatures and identify the individuals that might require further health scrutiny. Worse, the internal borders between the Member States continue to be blocked for people’s travel. And the governments cannot agree on a timetable and a phased approach to deal with that. There is no news about the matter, besides the closure. That is the best way to feed the nationalistic feelings. It is also one of the direct roads towards a fragmented Europe. Populists must feel excited.

I am shocked by the lack of coordination within the EU. I am also amazed by the timidity of the European institutions’ leaders. They are silent and so afraid of proposing anything. They have become the obedient functionaries of the national leaders and little else.

The world’s recovery, as well as the European one, calls for renewed cooperation, complementary and strategic alliances. We should be debating that in the G20 or a similar forum. All that is yet to be seen. There is no international conference being prepared to agree on a framework for action. No leader speaks on behalf of a greater project, of a different future, of anything else but of his or her own national square mile. It is disappointing and more, it is the wrong approach to build the post-covid world.

Some national leaders and some published opinion have now concluded we cannot depend on China or elsewhere when it comes to medical items, including masks. They put the blame on the Chinese and on the corporations that have established their workshops in the Far East or in India. That is an excuse. I do not accept it. The fact of the matter is that we forgot the concept of strategic health reserves. The national health services were not given enough means and attention. They have been undersupplied; the emergency stores were depleted. It is so much so that in Belgium some of the initial health supplies came from a big bank, that had understood early enough what was going on and created a substantial reserve of masks and so on. That happened with other governments as well. Politicians forgot the old and wise adage that one of the key roles of the government is to foresee impending crises and be prepared for them. To govern is to predict.

Well, the new adage, the one that is now being applied, is different: to govern is to react, a day at a time.

Bolsonaro and Trump

Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump have been duly elected. The democratic procedures in their respective countries have been followed. At least, at a level that made their elections acceptable by their countries’ institutions. The point is that democracy is fine, but it can result in the election of fools. Bolsonaro and Trump are two daring fools. If you dare, if you know how to insult everybody else, you might get there. They have taught us that lesson. We should say thank you for that and then, make sure they are not re-elected.

The Sahel and its major challenges

The poor people in the Sahelian countries are now facing three major menaces to their survival: terrorism, covid-19, and hunger. All three are growing by the day. And I was listening to reports coming from the region, I thought the people are very resilient and combative. They do not give up. But the combination of these three threats is an immense challenge. I noticed that Africa was mentioned in today’s EU summit. The European leaders know what is going on in Africa, in particular in the Sahel region. But they must take the initiative in the international fora to mobilise exceptional support for the Continent. Medical assistance and food should be prioritised. They are much easier to deal with than the security dimensions. However, security cannot be ignored. It has become a major issue.

A war economy or just words?

You call it a war, but you keep acting as if there was no need to reorganise the entire production to win the war. When you are at war, your economy must become a war economy. If not, you are not a good leader and you cannot connect your words with the reality that must be put in place. 

They can't drink oil

      The collapse of the oil price has several major implications. It is an economic tsunami. For the oil-producing developing countries, in Africa and elsewhere, it means an extraordinary loss of revenue. That’s the case for Nigeria, Angola, Congo, South Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, and so on. It adds fuel to social instability in those countries. It brings, at least, a new level of poverty and hardship to their populations. For the developed countries, it carries serious capital losses for the pension funds and other sovereign funds that were heavily invested in oil corporations and all the other companies that deal with bits and pieces of the oil industry. For all of us, it discourages new investments in renewable sources of energy. The bottom rock oil price makes any renewable too expensive to contemplate at this stage. 

The oil consumption is at present very low, because of the lockdowns that are implemented all over. But also, because the United States has continued to pump vast amounts of oil. They are now the largest producer, with 12.3 million barrels per day. President Trump could have compelled the industry to reduce daily production. There was a recommendation to cut it by 2 million barrels per day. He decided not to act because he saw this branch of the economy as a key pillar of his political basis. There are 10 million oil and gas sector jobs in the US, plus many billionaires that inject money in the Republican camp.   Now, he is promising them billions of dollars in subsidies. Public money being wasted when the solution was to reduce exploitation. His political choice has a huge impact on the domestic taxpayers’ money and on the world economy. It is inexcusable.

They say that misfortunes never come alone. Indeed.

Preparing for a new world

It’s time to start thinking about the shape of the world that is emerging in front of us. This pandemic is a deeper and wider challenge than what the politicians want us to believe. Tomorrow’s world will not be just a resuscitation of yesterday’s living styles. Some people say it is a call for a new paradigm. I would say that it is more than a call. It’s a must. Too many people will be excluded if we do not change the way we look at human security and dignity.

The world is next door

During the weekend, I spoke with friends living in Africa, South East Asia, Australia and the Pacific, as well as in Rio de Janeiro. I also have many friends in other parts of the world, from San Diego where dear Christine leaves to Helsinki, and so on. Had I chatted with them too, and I would have gotten the same report. Large chunks of the world are either closed or on a go-slow situation. Even remote places like Bougainville, an Autonomous Region of Papua New Guinea, is on lockdown. This is just an incredible reality. The world is getting poorer by the day.  The debt levels, both public and private, are growing by the hour. Elections are being postponed in many corners of the planet, except for a few cases, including Mali, that voted again today in the second round of their legislative assembly.

In many developing countries, the lockdown approach can’t work. People need to go out every day because survival is a daily chore. Moreover, in their cities, they live in large numbers in small and unfit dwellings. Overcrowding is the rule. There is no way they can follow the instructions about hygiene and social distancing. Extreme poverty means extreme fragility. And the health services have no capacity to deal with the disease. It’s a major problem. People are afraid but they know they have no other choice but to keep on moving. Fate, my friends remind me, is the currency of the poor. It’s the only thing they have in abundance. And after listening to that, I feel so disturbed.  

The big fight ahead of us

Besides the public health dimension, the main risk associated with the current world crisis is called isolation. Peoples have moved behind national borders and felt that was the only way to get safe. Before this calamity, there was already a growing mistrust on regional associations and multilateral organisations. In a few countries, the politicians were getting dividends out of that distrust. They were throwing fuel at it. I am afraid we might see a lot more of that as we get into the next stage of this global challenge. That would destroy the multilateral system, the UN and its main agencies, and other entities such as the European Union. At least, it would contribute to further marginalise them, making them irrelevant, walking ghosts.

Our response must address that menace. We must find the words and the platforms that would make our voices heard. It´s not going to be easy. But we should not expect any easy times ahead of us. We must be prepared to fight for international cooperation. We must be able to win over the leaders that want to take advantage of the crisis to build new walls.

The US leadership

These days, for a European, to watch American TV is painful. And deeply troubling. The country is going through a major crisis, a very complex one, that combines serious health challenges with widespread economic hardship. Both challenges are immense. On top of that, there is a leadership tragedy. The President has lost the support of key State governors and of the country’s intelligentsia. The messages coming from the White House and from the key States are full of contradictions. There is no common direction. Many lives are lost every day, in the most developed country in the world, a good deal of them because there aren’t enough medical resources available, others because of poor policy guidance. The President’s press briefings look like boxing matches. He spends hours repeating the same simple sentences, the only ones he can articulate. It’s most unfortunate that the pandemic happens when the leadership in Washington is so incompetent and shallow.

I should not be writing about this, because I am not a US citizen. It is up to the country’s voters to decide whom they want next. But as we live in a period of global crisis, we tend to look in the direction of the US for leadership. That’s the reason why I write about the matter. We need the US to lead. And what we see leaves no room for optimism. One of the few positive things is to see the resolve of politicians like the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, or the Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, as well as the California Governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) and the Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (Republican). There are many more in action and doing the right things, but I just mention a few of them, in a balanced manner. The problem is the lack of clarity and support coming from the Federal government.

Another positive development concerns the medical research that is taking place in the US with a view to beat the virus. That research is done in collaboration with foreign institutes. That is certainly very encouraging. It brings together the best minds in the universities, philanthropic foundations and the private sector.

In the meantime, billions of dollars have already been spent in support of small businesses and individual workers. That is good but it is a short-term answer. The durable approach is to make the health system stronger, affordable to all, intensify the health education campaigns and re-open the economy as much as it is possible. For us, in addition to all that, we would like to see the US taking the lead in the UN Security Council, at the political level, and being much more engaged with WHO, at the technical level. The US must go back to the multilateral system. Its place is in the global scene, not simply in the Rose Garden.