- Friday Stability Roundup and a Deep Dive[
What Does Trump 2.0 Mean Internationally?
Andrew Sheves Good morning.
Monday through Thursday, we cover each region with the stability situation and regional news but Fridays are when we take a deeper dive into an issue and give you a rundown of the baseline stability ratings for each country.
Today’s deep dive is a look at what the second Trump term means on a geopolitical basis.
Two quick pieces of news worth mentioning first.
On Thursday, the GOP officially retained control of the House, meaning Republicans will hold the Presidency, Senate, and House and have a right-leaning Supreme Court [SOURCE - Politico].
A Pentagon official warned that the Houthis have access to increasingly sophisticated weaponry via Iran [SOURCE - Axios]. Comment - I’ve written before that there is no incentive for the Houthis to stop interdicting Res Sea shipping traffic but access to more sophisticated missiles and their increasing drone capability is making a previously domestic group a much more influential regional actor.
Commodity and Rate Snapshot
🛢️** Crude Futures (WTI)**
$68.42
💵 **USD:EUR **
$1.057 (Price of 1EUR in USD)
₿ Bitcoin
$89,734.19
As at Nov 15, 06:00ET -Data is illustrative, not for decision-making.
Financial data via Bloomberg, Freightos and AlphaVantage
President Trump 2.0 Comes into Focus: So What?
In 2016, Peter Thiel complained that the press took Trump ’literally but not seriously, whereas his [Trump’s] voters took him seriously but not literally’. [CNBC]
Fast forward to 2024, and better advice seems to be to take Trump both seriously and literally: what nominee Trump said on the campaign trail seems to be what President-elect Trump is putting into action. Picking Stephen Millar as Deputy Chief of Staff and Tom Homan as Border czar lines up 100% with the hard line he promised to take on immigration.
So, this analysis takes President-elect Trump seriously and literally, reviewing what he’s said he will do in his second term.
The silver lining here is that this reduces the possibility of surprises and allows some time to prepare for what a second Trump term might mean.
So, what can we expect at the geopolitical level? Here are five scenarios to prepare for.
The US will impose tariffs on a wide range of imports
Trump has floated a 60% tariff on goods from China and 10% on all other imports. This complicates supply lines and increases the cost of goods for US consumers and manufacturers.
So what? Trump may be able to settle more favorable terms for US trade on the basis of these tariffs but, to begin with, the pain is likely to be felt by the US consumer and seen in rising US inflation. Retaliatory tariffs are also a possibility, complicating things for US exporters.
Ukraine will be forced to trade land for peace
T
Carpe tomorrow!