Transcript 0:00 [on-hold music] Hi, everybody, and welcome to Trendlines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. I'm Judah Grunstein, WPR's Editor-in-Chief. This week we'll be changing things up a bit. 0:16 Instead of our usual format, I'll be joined by the entire WPR editorial team to take a look at the year's top developments around the world. 0:24 Maria Savell is our associate editor in charge of global insider interviews and the editor's channel. Hi, Maria. How you doing? I'm doing well. 0:32 Carina Peiser is our associate editor in charge of in-depth articles and reports. Hi, Carina. How are you today? I'm doing well. Thanks. And Freddy Deknatel is our senior editor in charge of daily briefings. Hi, Freddy. 0:43 How you feeling? Hey, Judah. I'm feeling well. So we thought to, uh, do a little end of the year review. 0:49 We'd take a look at each region one by one and, uh, and sort of talk about, uh, some of the things that we've covered on each region and some of our thoughts on it. Uh, it's obviously been a very eventful year, 1:02 um, and one that, uh, ends with quite a bit of uncertainty in terms of what comes next. 1:08 Uh, I thought we could start out by taking a look at Europe, where we've covered everything from, uh, the rise of populist parties, uh, terrorist attacks, uh, the migrant crisis, Russia. 1:22 Maria, you've lived in Europe in the past. You cover it quite a bit in terms of your writing. 1:27 Do you feel like this is a temporary phase for Europe in terms of some of the trends we're seeing or are we entering a period, uh, where the stories are going to be a little darker and more alarming? 1:39 I, I think it's a little hard to tell at the moment, but honestly, I'm not super optimistic just looking at the events of this year and how populism seems to be taking, has a stronger grasp across the continent. 1:53 You know, we've seen Podemos be a major spoiler in Spain's election crisis. 1:57 And with the far-right candidate making it to the second round of the Austrian presidential election, you know, I think it has a lot of people nervous going into next year where there's major elections in France, Germany, and the Netherlands where populist and, you know, far-right parties could ha- see major victories. 2:17 Carina, we recently ran a country report on the Netherlands and the rise of their populist leader, Geert Wilders. 2:24 Uh, you also lived in France for a period of time where we've seen the rise of, uh, Marine Le Pen, uh, and the National Front Party. 2:33 When you're looking at these, these, this rise of populism, what are the drivers for you? I think that it's, there are some easy things that we can identify, the migrant crisis, um, 2:44 the proliferation of terrorist attacks on European soil, which is something that many on the continent weren't, obviously weren't accustomed to. 2:53 Um, and then some of the similar reasons that propelled Donald Trump's rise in the US, feelings of economic disenfranchisement, um, the idea that elites are controlling the system and ignoring the demands of everyday citizens and blue-collar workers. 3:10 We, we saw that with the, with the Brexit, uh, vote, obviously. Uh, I wrote about this from living in France. 3:17 I saw it with, uh, the burkini bans over the summer where there, in addition to an economic angle, there's also a cultural angle, a, a societal angle where there's a generation of Europeans, uh, who've seen the, the, the continent and their, or more likely their local corner of the, of the continent, uh, change in ways that they don't recognize, and it does create quite a bit of, uh, of concern among them a-about this sense of belonging or not belonging. 3:46 Um, and in, in a lot of ways, uh, the, the, the rise of these populist parties, in, in some ways what's most troubling is that they're capitalizing on issues, uh, that were often for, for many years outlier issues but that have just taken o-on this in-incredible, uh, relevance and importance to peos- people's everyday lives. 4:09 Whether it's perceived or real, uh, sometimes the regions that are most, uh, responsive to these messages are the regions where there's the least, uh, amount, uh, of impact. 4:21 Uh, Freddy, you actually have, uh, British ci-citizenship, if I'm not mistaken. You've spent time over there. 4:27 Uh, what, what w- what's your feeling when you see something like Brexit happen where the landscape just, uh, even if the a-actual impact hasn't been felt just yet, the landscape changes under your feet? Yeah, I do. 4:40 I have, I have family in England still. 4:41 And, um, you know, on the one hand, uh, one of the bases for the Leave campaign was, uh, you know, northern English towns and cities that used to be the country's industrial base and then were slowly eroded. 4:58 Uh, but in fact, some of them like Manchester and other places had bounced back a little bit in recent years, um, and they had been huge beneficiaries of, uh, development aid and, uh, investment that, that was a consequence of, um, being part of the EU. 5:13 So they had actually benefited very strongly from EU membership. Um, that didn't matter. 5:17 That was, uh, you know, voters there were still convinced that, uh, you know, these unelected bureaucrats in Brussels were, uh, undermining British sovereignty and leading to all kinds of social and economic problems. 5:29 But, but, you know, it's, uh, you know, you see similar things in, in the United States, that people who have actually benefited from some of these, uh, relationships are actually the ones to vote against them, um, because they've been convinced by these now emergent populist movements, um, these sorts of attitudes that were on the one hand either fringe or minority, uh, opinions have become more mainstream. 5:56 Um, that isn't to say that the economic discontent in the north of England p- in particular, it doesn't exist, but, uh, it, it, it is not as stark as the Leave campaign made it. 6:07 Um, I might be something of an outlier in terms of, uh, my, my perception or, or my interpretation of this. 6:14 Uh, it, uh, a lot of people were very surprised by Brexit, this idea that people are voting against their economic interest. 6:20 Um, and yet for me, uh, I see a lot of the ways in which I've, I've written about this a lot, uh, over the past few months, that, uh, emotion and affect are driving political behavior as much, if not more than, uh, this idea of the rational actor. 6:37 It, it's very understandable for us when we hope, hope that, uh, very wealthy progressive people will vote against their economic interests in favor of more redistribution. 6:47 So there are times where we understand, uh, the idea of, of someone voting against their economic interests, uh, and other times where we're a little less, uh, understanding of it. 6:56 I think this is one of those areas where because of some of the troubling, uh, implications, we, we tend to, to be a little less understanding. 7:05 Obviously, uh, we've only barely scratched the surface, but one last issue that, uh, that's sort of looming over Europe is the, this, these, the new relationship with Russia in the aftermath of the, the UK- Ukraine crisis and the sanctions. 7:19 Um, I grew up in a, in a time period that was radically different than yours. 7:25 Uh, uh, Maria, did you ever think that, uh, there would be a possibility where Russia and Europe would be in a, a very adversarial and in some ways hostile relationship in your lifetime? 7:37 No, definitely not to the extent that they currently are. 7:39 Obviously, they're never going to be best friends, and you look at the history of EU-Russia relations, but it's, it's interesting to see how bad things have gotten, and it doesn't seem like the outlook for ties are gonna get better anytime soon. 7:55 At the same time, there's a, there's a, a, a something of a constituency within Europe that's in favor of, uh, warmer ties with Russia, which I know you'll be working on, uh, in the near future on a, on an article. 8:08 But, uh, definitely something to watch because there's, uh, there's all sorts of economic reasons why ties should be warmer, all sorts of political reasons why, why they obviously, uh, 8:20 probably won't be for quite some time. 8:23 So, uh, moving on, uh, a l- to a, a nearby region, uh, that in many ways, uh, the developments there are, are impacting Europe more and more, uh, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, where, uh, we have obviously the ongoing, uh, tragedy of the Syrian Civil War, uh, uh, more overlooked in ways, but, uh, perhaps smaller in terms of numbers, but no less, uh, no less significant in terms of the humanitarian impact, the war in Yemen. 8:52 Uh, we've seen shifts in alignments and, uh, and sort of coalitions that, uh, in many ways, uh, would have been surprising even 18 months ago or six months ago, let alone, uh, six years ago. 9:08 Uh, Freddy, you do a lot of writing for us on Syria in particular and, uh, have edit- edited quite a few briefings on Yemen and, uh, other, other parts of the, the region. 9:18 Did you ever think you'd be seeing a time where, uh, the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, and Turkey meet to decide the fate of Syria and the US is not at the table and in some ways isn't part of the equation? 9:32 I think you could see that this would be the worst case scenario, um, 9:38 when the United States and European powers as well took the position that they've taken for the last few years, and that was one to, of being involved enough to continue the war and fund the, the opposition sides, and I say sides plural because there's many sides fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime, and there's hardly been coordination between the US and its European or Middle Eastern partners in terms of coordinating that assistance. 10:05 But that happened outside of any real political pressure, um, or other moves to try to shape the outcome in Syria. I don't necessarily think that was entirely wrong. 10:15 I don't think the United States at any point should have been the policeman in Syria or even attempted to try, um, to shape the outcome there, uh, necessarily given, you know, the shadow of Iraq next door. 10:30 But that said, uh, when that's the position that they take, you can't be surprised then to see it come to this point. Um, I'm more surprised that Turkey has come around. 10:39 Um, it once called directly for the overthrow, uh, of Assad and direct, and, you know, openly supported rebel movements and kept its border very porous to allow all kinds of groups, including jihadist groups, into Syria. 10:53 Um, and certainly, you know, just a year ago had a very contentious relationship with, with Putin and with Russia. Um, it, that's more surprising to see Turkey come around. 11:02 At the same time, Erdogan is quite opportunistic. Uh, he sees the writing on the wall. 11:07 It, it, it also, uh, grows out of this, uh, reality, uh, among the American coalition in Iraq and Syria that, uh, it's sort of, uh, you know, the, the only thing that the coalition members, uh, hate more than each other is, uh, the so-called Islamic State. 11:27 Uh, one of the big problems for Turkey in terms of the, the coalition there was that the US was relying more and more on the Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as more of a threat to their interests, uh, in Syria and in their own, uh, Kurdish southeast, uh, than, for instance, uh, Assad or the, the idea of a Russian involvement there. 11:49 At the same time, there's this awful humanitarian tragedy going on in Yemen, which is, uh, being waged by a, a Saudi-led coalition of, uh, American allies, uh- 12:02 The Civil War obviously predates that, but the Saudis decided to intervene with an air campaign that bear quite a bit of similarity to what the Russians, uh, have been doing in Aleppo that has been very seriously condemned. 12:14 Corinna, when you see that, do you, do you feel like there's an element of hypocrisy that, uh, A-Aleppo is, uh, in the news every day in terms of the tragedy there, but we don't really talk about, uh, US, the US involvement in supporting the Saudi-led coalition in, uh, in Yemen? 12:30 I think that's been a clear problem with the coverage of Yemen, which has already been limited anyway over the course of the war. 12:36 But the US role in it has been wildly understated, um, and it kind of touches on a lot of the problems with the US relationship with Saudi Arabia, which gets covered in general terms and in terms of Obama's rhetoric in terms of the relationship with Riyadh, but not in terms of the practicality of what it means when US weapons are being used in, in wars like Yemen, uh, which many consider pointless. 13:05 We, you, you just wrote a piece about, uh, the nominee for US ambassador to Israel under the incoming Trump administration. 13:14 Uh, and, and it seems to be a, a sort of common theme, whether it's the Saudis or, uh, the US relationship with Israel, that on the level of rhetoric and discourse, there's quite a bit of, uh, tension. 13:27 There's, uh, maybe even some animus between, uh, the, the, the US president and the leaders of those countries. At the same time, the, the nuts and bolts of the relationship doesn't necessarily change that dramatically. 13:39 Yeah. 13:39 And, and that's clear in the context of US-Israel relations, which despite shifts in rhetoric between different administrations, continues to be very consistent when it comes to aid and when it comes to actual condemnation of Israeli policy. 13:56 Uh, Obama and Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, it was very known that they didn't like each other at all. Um, the US under Obama consistently spoke out against settlement expansion, for example. 14:09 Uh, and yet in, I think it was in September, the US gave Israel a thirty-eight billion dollar aid package. And that's kind of a similar rapport with Saudi Arabia, although, uh, it's a different context, but. 14:21 Freddy, you, you've spent time in Sy- in Syria and Egypt, so I don't expect to get a lot of optimism from you. Corinna, you spent time in Tunisia, where, 14:31 you know, we, we, we try to hold out hope that Tunisia might be the, the, the, the green shoot of the Arab Spring that might grow into a, a stabled democra- democracy. 14:43 In thinking about what we were gonna talk about today, we had, we had talked about possibly, uh, trying to point to good, good s- uh, um, good outcomes, bad outcomes. Uh, 14:53 is there any optimism in the Middle East for you today? Do you, do you see any place where you can say, "Okay, at least there's that"? 15:00 I think Tunisia, it's easy to identify as the success story of the so-called Arab Spring. Um, the country didn't descend into conflict. The, the president left. 15:12 They, they've had a political transition going on, a new constitution. But on many levels, from human rights to economic progress, there hasn't been much, uh, it hasn't moved forward very much. 15:24 And Tunisia has also been victimized by a number of attacks by the so-called Islamic State. Uh, also a very large number of Tunisians have left to go fight with terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. 15:36 So, uh, sure, it has seen some success since two thousand eleven, but it also can't be divorced from its regional context and what's happening next door in Libya and in the region more broadly. 15:48 The only thing I would add, um, on the optimism or pessimism is that, uh, you know, you can go back to two thousand and ten, uh, even earlier or, or even early two thousand and eleven, when protests were only just taking place in Tunisia and nowhere else. 16:02 Uh, and everybody was taken by surprise, and it didn't seem like these protest movements, you know, Egypt had had ten years of, of budding, uh, civil society and protest movements against the Mubarak regime, going back to, you know, the Second Intifada and, and the Iraq War protests. 16:18 Um, and, and that took lots of people by surprise, the two thousand and eleven protests. 16:22 So I think that there's still, you know, just taking recent history as a guide, the possibility that things can, you can be surprised still. 16:30 Um, I think in, in Egypt especially, you know, you have structural conditions that are strikingly similar to the late Mubarak years already in terms of widespread economic discontent, crackdowns on political protests of all kinds. 16:44 Um, a lot of the same things that Mubarak did not deal with, Sisi is allowing to fester. So don't count out the resilience of people's, uh, desire for positive change. They might just surprise us. All right. 16:57 Freddy holding out for optimism in the Middle East. I'm, I'm glad to hear that. Uh, taking a look over to, uh, at Latin America, uh, 17:07 where there's been, after years of, uh, uh, hot economies from the commodity super cycle and boom and Chinese demand, uh, a fall off in terms of Chinese demand leads to, uh, r-recession, austerity, budget cutting, uh, the end of, uh, very generous, uh, redistributive pol-policies in Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, uh, Bolivia doing a little better actually. 17:33 Um, and, uh, uh, quite a bit of shifts in terms of what we might have expected ten years ago, five years ago. Maria, you had mentioned when we were talking about some topics we wanted to talk about, uh, 17:46 the Colombia FARC peace deal. Uh, seems like this great breakthrough turns into a referendum debacle, and now it's back on track. 17:56 You pointed that out as, as, uh, uh, one of the better stories of two thousand and sixteen. 18:02 There's been a lot of bad news in Latin America this year, and I think the FARC peace deal, despite, uh, the road bumps finally getting to it, deserves to be celebrated as a major achievement for Santos. 18:14 Uh, despite it being rejected by the referendum, gets complicated with domestic politics in Colombia, but at the end of the day, both sides, after fifty-two years, agreed to put down arms and move forward, and that is huge. 18:29 And shouldn't be overlooked or My feeling is that it's huge symbolically. Yes. Um, there was a time, or maybe last year, uh, I mentioned this to some people. 18:39 They laughed at me, admittedly, but, uh, it was at a time where things seemed like there might be a breakthrough on Cyprus. Uh, there was... 18:47 looked like there was gonna be a breakthrough on FARC, uh, on the Colombian Civil War. Uh, who knows? There, there seemed to be, I think Kerry, uh, was making his final push. It seemed like, uh, 18:58 three, three conflicts that had lasted, uh, for most of the past half-century might, uh, uh, be resolved or, or a peace deal signed. 19:07 The one caveat I'd say is that it's still gonna be incredibly difficult to implement, as a few of the briefings by, uh, Adam Isaacson that we've run have, have detailed. And that in a lot of ways the... 19:16 sometimes these peace deals are top-down, uh, and they exist on paper, but, uh, on, on the ground, there's still a lot of violence, there's still a lot of coercion, there's still a lot of, uh, injustice. 19:27 So we'll see how that plays out. 19:28 Uh, another major story, uh, this year was Obama's visit to Cuba as sort of a mature phase of the U.S.-Cuba normalization process, which, uh, Freddy, you've edited, uh, quite a bit of briefings by William Leogrande, who's a, uh, regular contributor for us on this topic. 19:45 Do you th- Did, did that process get far enough to, to be irreversible, or are we, are we still not out of the woods? Uh, I think you hope that it has gone far enough. 19:56 Um, as Bill Leogrande has pointed out, um, it, it isn't just one deal. 20:02 It's several deals over the course of many years that deal with all kinds of issues around trade and business ties and regulations that would be hard to undo at the stroke of a pen. 20:14 Um, and it's been a long process to get here, and I think that that in itself is hopefully sort of the best defense against Trump undoing it all. 20:23 And also, uh, there's the point about, you know, not knowing what he actually wants to do beyond some of his rhetoric. 20:30 And, you know, he, he does say he's a business dealer, a wheeler and dealer, and, and there are arguably very good business deals to be made in Cuba. 20:38 Um, and so I think there's officials in Havana who are hoping that that's the Trump they get rather than the reactionary- At the same time, as we've seen in a lot of the coverage, the, the, uh, the Cuban leadership is a little wary of too much American business because that might be a sort of indirect regime change, uh, method whereby, uh, American corporations and businesses move in and kind of swamp the market. 21:01 I would also add that the EU has made a concerted effort to get its foot on the ground in Cuba, and I think that might be a reason why the U.S. 21:08 won't walk back a lot of the progress that has been made, 'cause they don't wanna lose out to European businesses that are really excited to get in on the ground. It's a great point. 21:18 Competition, uh, from other parts of the world that are, uh, eager to, to get involved could, uh, force Trump's hand. One last look at Latin America briefly. 21:29 Carina, you, uh, you edited a couple in-depth articles over the course of the past year on Venezuela, uh, one, uh, just recently on Brazil's, uh, cuts to the education, uh, higher education budget. 21:42 Um, the ways in which, uh, these countries that had, uh, sort of these very generous, uh, redistributive policies that were making a mark in terms of reducing policy, and all of a sudden Venezuela's in meltdown. 21:56 Uh, Brazil is in, it almost seems like a pre-revolutionary s-stage at, at this point between the corruption, uh, crackdown and, and things like that. Um, 22:09 uh, 10 years ago, Latin America was this booming region, independent. Now it seems like it might actually need a little more support from the U.S., support from, uh, other actors. 22:21 Did you think 10 years ago that, uh, that Latin America would, would, would suddenly be this center of, of possible instability? 22:29 Or, uh, were you counting on it to, to sort of continue the trajectory into, uh, into a dev- de... uh, fully developed and stable economies? 22:39 I think what a lot of people, a lot of Latin America observers have pointed to is kind of the way that the Latin American left has lost steam and all of the promise that it offered in terms of economic and social progress and how that hasn't really panned out. 22:54 Um, and what's interesting in the Brazil, you mentioned the Brazil article that we just published, is how the government is trying to 23:01 cut spending, um, and they're picking areas like education, which, uh, in the long run will hurt social mobility and that will undermine economic progress. So it doesn't... The, the outlook there doesn't seem very good. 23:16 Um, and in Brazil, just over the past couple of weeks, there have been, uh, a lot of protests over these new austerity measures. 23:24 We often, uh, we often talk about, uh, the Asia-Pacific, uh, as two sides of, two sides of the Pacific, the Americas, uh, and Asia increasingly integrated, so it's a natural, natural lead-in to, to take a look at Asia, uh, which over the past year has seen quite a bit of shifts in terms of an already uncertain regional, uh, outlook, uh, in the face of China's rise, uh, an American pivot that has, uh, perhaps, uh, l- left a little bit to be desired. 23:59 And, uh, more recently, we've seen some about-faces, the Philippines under its new president, uh, distancing itself from America after a previous administration that had really embraced American support, uh, with regard to, uh, territorial disputes with China. 24:15 Uh, and then finally within China itself, uh, crackdown on dissent, uh, a real s- sort of, uh, solidification of power by, uh, Xi Jinping. 24:24 Uh, Freddy, you've, you've done a lot of, uh, edited a lot of briefings, uh, on the South China Sea at this point. Uh, Maria ran a Global Insider series on the South China Sea. Um- Freddy, I'll start with you. 24:37 When, uh, when you think of the next ten years, uh, US-China relationship in particular, uh, do you worry about the possibility of, uh, a hostile rivalry and even war for the medium-term future? Um, I do. 24:52 I mean, maybe not hos- full on war, but certainly increasing hostility. 24:57 I mean, I think what is happening now and what has been unfolding over the last year is what people were worried about, um, even when China's boom was happening, is what happens when there's inevitably an economic slowdown. 25:09 Um, and the Chinese Communist Party, on the one hand, to compensate for that, um, to maintain its legitimacy, uh, you'd go through political means rather than economic ones. 25:21 And the South China Sea, although is also economic, it's maintaining, um, you know, sea lanes and, and access as well to, to natural resources like oil that are in, in the South China Sea. 25:32 Um, and, and on the same, uh, the same side of that as well, a domestic crackdown is, is a way of also dealing with the, uh, discontent over a slightly slowing d- a, a cooling down economy. 25:43 And I think that that's why the... 25:45 it's hard to obviously predict or foresee the nature exactly of a US-China rivalry, but I think it will depend as much on what happens in China and to China's trade relations as much, uh, as what the US does or the US' position in, in Asia. 26:02 Now, one of the things, uh, that, that, that sort of dominates coverage in America of the Asian re- Asian, uh, landscape is this idea of choosing between China and the US. 26:12 The, the other states have to choose between China and the US and, uh, whereas the coverage in Asia is often, we don't wanna choose. [laughs] We wanna have a good economic relationship with both countries. 26:23 Obviously, China has a, a privileged access to those markets due to its proximity. Uh, but they're a little worried about, uh, the possibility of China becoming coercive, so they're happy to maintain ties. 26:33 Uh, Maria, in editing the, the Global Insider series on the South China Sea, we saw a lot of different approaches by the various countries that are all weaker than China. 26:43 Some more willing to bandwagon with the, or, or rather hedge with the US. Others, a little more willing to bandwagon with China. Others who wanna maintain their, their flexibility. Um, 26:55 when, when, when you look at, um, when you look at Asia, do you see, uh, do you see an increasing sort of divide? Do you see, uh, possibilities for compromise and accommodation? Are you optimist? Are you pessimist? 27:10 I think I'm a little bit more optimistic just because we've ran a couple stories about how there's more cooperation among the states in Southeast Asia who realize that they can't let the temperature keep rising or it's gonna be a disaster for them. 27:24 So it's in their interest, these smaller states in Southeast Asia, to work together and try to find a solution that can work in the long term. 27:32 So they're not going to antagonize China too much, and they're still gonna want to keep relations with the United States and with China and with their partners in the region for stability and continued economic growth. 27:45 So in other words, the, the, uh, the agency of the other states in s- in Asia, uh, will, uh, perhaps contain and constrain, uh, the, the US-China rivalry. 27:57 They say, there's a saying, uh, "When, when the elephants fight, the grass suffers," but maybe the grass gets a vote too, and, and they'll keep the elephants in line. Hopefully. 28:06 [laughs] Um, we also, uh, one of the things that I'm most proud of in terms of our coverage at WPR, uh, is our coverage of Africa, where we, uh, where we managed to get a lot of, uh, granular looks at, uh, domestic politics, uh, some of the economic trends, um, that over the course of the past decade were more promising than more recently, again, because of this slowdown in China's economy. 28:32 Some, uh, democratic, uh, backsliding, uh, some, uh, less optimistic, uh, outcomes at the same time that we had, just had Ghana's election where there was a transfer of power and a demo- democratic, uh, election. 28:47 Corinna, you've edited quite a few, uh, feature articles on, on Africa at this point, whether it's the security, uh, situation in the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa, growth and development in East Africa, democracy issues in Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, or Burundi. 29:09 Uh, we, we talk of Africa as a, as, as one place since the- there's the, the, the sort of tongue in cheek, uh, reference Africa as a country when in fact it's not a country. Um, 29:22 where, what are, what are for you the things, let's say, that you've learned the most in, uh, editing and covering Africa as much as we do? 29:30 I think something interesting that has come out of the, the past year, um, is a push for industrialization, um, in certain parts of Africa and for entrepreneurship, especially in East Africa. 29:41 Uh, we published an article looking at, um, the growth of industry in Ethiopia, the attempt to kind of make a Made in Africa, uh, for garments and, uh, and textiles. 29:54 And, uh, already a lot of made in Ethiopia garments are featured in Western stores like H&M and so that, so there is a lot of room for economic progress there, but it shouldn't be overstated. There are a lot of setbacks. 30:05 Another area for progress, um, that I've learned about just from editing, uh, articles is, uh, food security or food insecurity is a huge problem across Africa. 30:16 Um, and Malawi, for example, is one of the most in- food insecure countries. 30:20 And there have been a lot of, uh, internal and foreign efforts to work on a sort of green revolution to change dietary habits in a way that's more sustainable, um, and to create new types of crops that, um, can increase access to food. 30:38 Uh, one of the More troubling trends in Africa, in certain parts of Africa, and so take Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and neighboring Republic of Congo. 30:48 And this has been the case, um, in a number of regions across the continent, is this trend of presidents for life. Uh, despite term limits, presidents refuse to relinquish power. 31:01 Um, there are constitutional barriers that they try to overturn through amendments and flawed referendums, fraudulent referendums often. 31:09 Just this week, the UN reported that in Democratic Republic of Congo, protests against, uh, the President Kabila, who has been trying to extend his rule, have killed, um, at least twenty-nine. 31:22 Um, in neighboring Republic of Congo, which hardly gets covered at all in Western media, uh, the president has similarly refused to step down and has even taken to, uh, air striking areas considered to be opposition strongholds. 31:37 So there isn't much room for optimism there, unfortunately. 31:41 I'll be, I'll be honest, when I first started editing World Politics Review, my familiarity with, with Africa was very limited, if, if, uh, maybe even non-existent. I'll, I'll, I'll be very frank. 31:52 And in covering it over the course of the, of the past eight years, I've learned such, such a, a great deal about, uh, the, the regional, uh, differences, the, the national differences in terms of outlooks and approaches and things like that. 32:08 Um, one of the things that we were pretty early to cover at WPR was this idea of, uh, the Africa success story, uh, where ten years ago, the, especially with, uh, Chinese demand, uh, which was, uh, and Chinese participation and involvement in development in Africa, there was this idea that African countries were in a position to develop their economies, um, and, uh, there were also, uh, quite a few, uh, promising signs in term of, in terms of democracy and transfers of power. 32:38 Now, the outlook is a little more, uh, a little more, uh, uh, I wanna say less hopeful, let's say. We have, uh, this ongo- ongoing, uh, catastrophe in South Sudan, uh, 32:50 some instability in other parts of the continent, uh, corruption, uh, remains a, a major issue. And all of this at a time where Chinese demand is lowering. 32:59 So, uh, like in Latin America, we see, uh, resource-based development, uh, countries that are, that have resource-based development programs, uh, uh, perhaps coming up short. Um, 33:12 and at the same time, I think if I were gonna point to one trend that has remained somewhat stable, uh, and I think is promising, is this, this idea of African agency, whether it's through the regional organizations like, uh, the, the Economic Community of the West African States, um, the East African Community, uh, the African Union, um, where there's been a, a real, uh, 33:39 just expansion in the African countries', uh, commitment and ability to address problems in Africa. Now, obviously, the, it leaves a lot to be desired. 33:50 Sometimes we're, we're interacting and, and really promoting, uh, regional roles for troubling actors, uh, whether, uh, whether it's, uh, Chad's, Chad's, uh, security role in the Sahel or Ethiopia's security role in, uh, Somalia and East Africa. 34:07 At the same time, there's this agency, uh, in Africa to address, uh, issues, whether it's, uh, election outcomes, uh, civil wars, uh, economic issues that I think, uh, is something that we've wanted to see, uh, people who are rooting for Africa and Africa's countries and their, and African people have wanted to see for years. 34:29 And I think we're seeing more of that, again, with all the caveats that, uh, sometimes they're less effective than others. 34:34 And, um, but that, that to me is the, the story, uh, in Africa that continues to be somewhat optimistic, even if some of the other indicators are, uh, are maybe changing direction. 34:46 Um, and then I guess to wrap it up, uh, we, we wanna take a look at the United States because, uh, in some ways we, we use, we, we're used to covering the U.S. 34:58 as a foreign policy actor and, and, and now there's quite a few reasons to cover the U.S. as a, as a site and location of political shifts that, uh, internal to the U.S. 35:09 that have tr- pretty significant, uh, implications for the world and the global order. 35:14 Obviously, I'm talking about the presidential election and, uh, the outcome, uh, the surprise election of Donald Trump, uh, or maybe not so surprising, uh, the beginning of the Trump era with all the uncertainty that introduces. 35:27 Um, we've also looked a lot at the potential for U.S. retrenchment from the world, which we already discussed quite a bit under, uh, the Obama administration. Uh, this question of the U.S. 35:38 not really being in a position to do everything everywhere and picking its battles. 35:43 Um, we've looked a lot at, uh, the impact of trade and liberalized trade and, uh, how, uh, maybe we need to, uh, or we do need to recalibrate the impact that has. Um, 35:56 I guess, uh, to try to, to, to limit the discussion a little bit, because I think we could probably spend hours, uh, just going over, uh, the, the, the issues and implications of the, the incoming Trump administration. 36:11 Uh, I'm gonna ask each of you for one area of uncertainty, uh, in the world introduced by the Trump presidency, uh, particularly some of the, the lack of clarity, uh, the, uh, the question of whether there's a, a, 36:31 a method behind the apparent madness, uh, the impulsivity. One area of uncertainty, why you think it's the, why you think it's important. 36:41 Um, I mean, I, I guess I'll just go with what's in the news often, but also is im-extremely important, and that's Russia. Um, I think there's been a whole lot of 36:51 caricatures, uh, about the nature of, of, of Russia's ties to Trump. Um, it's nice to joke that he's a Manchu... 37:00 Not nice, but it's, it's, it's a good joke, uh, when, when they make jokes about him being a Manchurian candidate, uh, which SNL did last week, even though SNL, I c- I'll say it's not that funny all the time anymore. 37:10 But, uh, you know, he, i- Trump is his own candidate. He wasn't elected with Russian, uh, connive, uh, it, connivance necessarily, although Russia has certainly meddled in the, in the US election. And I think that, um, 37:25 we have no idea what Trump will do when there is a crisis with Russia, and I think that's the biggest, for me, uncertainty with im-with implications not just for the United States, but for the US' allies in Europe. 37:39 Um, and that that crisis could be in Syria, that crisis could be in Eastern Europe, that could be over the future of Ukraine if, if there's another military escalation there. We just don't know how Trump will respond. 37:50 Is he gonna give away the store and basically implement, uh, Vladimir Putin's foreign policy or, or maybe, uh, feel like he's, uh, been insulted or if, uh, or taken for a sucker by Putin and maybe, uh, lash back, lash out? 38:05 We don't know. Another major area of uncertainty that also was a big feature in the campaign is the question of free trade, uh, moving forward. 38:13 It's kind of hard to assess right now because a lot of the people that Trump is appointing in his cabinet aren't necessarily as against free trade as he presented himself to be to his, to his base throughout the campaign. 38:27 Um, but what will be interesting is to see whether or not perceptions of trade within the United States shift over the course of his administration. 38:34 Because in the same way that Freddy mentioned that some of the people who voted for Brexit are going to ultimately be hurt by the UK's withdrawal from the EU, a lot of the people who might have voted for Trump based on his opposition or presented opposition to free trade will be hurt by a decline in, in US trade policies, so. 38:55 Uh, maybe a, a best case, uh, scenario or best outcome would be, uh, not necessarily, uh, abandoning liberalized trade, but addressing some of the, the imbalances that it's created in a way that satisfies, uh, the people who, uh, who have suffered from it. 39:12 And doing a better job to explain the way that free trade actually can benefit household incomes. Sure. Maria? I, I think relations with China under Trump will be very interesting. 39:24 Obviously, trade is a major part of that relationship, and Donald Trump's claims that we're losing and China is winning and how he's going to try to change that. 39:34 But then looking at the events of the past week with China, you know, taking the US underwater drone and Trump tweeting about how they should just keep it, you know, what sort of security calculus is Trump going to take with China? 39:50 Is he going to be more aggressive, or is he going to take a wait and see approach? It's gonna be very interesting to see what he actually does come January. I'll sort of, uh, take the luxury of, of having two areas. 40:04 The first would be regional in terms of Europe. Uh, it's an offshoot of the question of Russia ties, but also the, the, uh, the approach and relationship to the European Union. Uh, I've read reports that, uh, that, uh, 40:18 some of Trump's advisors are hostile to the European Union and might try to use bilateral trade agreements with the US to, to offers of, to pick off, uh, various countries and, uh, ultimately perhaps even with the goal of disbanding the European Union. 40:33 The question of the NATO alliance, uh, and the commitment to it, uh, particularly relevant in the context of Russia and what's going on in Eastern Europe, but also just in general in terms of the relationship. 40:43 So I would say the, in terms of a regional, uh, aspect of uncertainty, I would, I would put it in, in Europe, especially since you all took the, all the other parts of the world. Uh, but then the... 40:55 I th- I think I would add one last thing, which is, um, this sense that I have of, uh, uh, the, the just general broad uncertainty when you have a point of reference that disappears. 41:09 Uh, it's like when you're leaning against a wall and all of a sudden the wall moves. Uh, 41:15 the US has in some ways been, uh, the gold standard for the world's currencies, uh, geopolitical currencies, not necessarily their money because obviously we're off the gold standard. 41:26 But people have had a, a pretty stable and relatively predictable US foreign policy for the good part of a generation or two. Uh, 41:37 uh, certainly since the Cold War and before the Cold War as well, obviously, even though there were changes after the Cold War. 41:43 And now all of a sudden there's this, this sense that we have a president who values, uh, surprise, unpredictability, secrecy, uh, and, and the lack of clarity in some of his messaging. 41:56 And so it's almost like you're going to a dictionary to translate, uh, what you're reading, uh, into language you understand and the words have all been shuffled or the definitions have been re-removed. 42:09 So it makes for, uh, quite a bit of, uh, opportunity for the US to knock a couple relationships off balance and maybe get some advantage. 42:19 But it also create, creates quite a bit of risk where people, uh, are making calculations based on, uh, based on new formulas or unfamiliar formulas or, uh, maybe based on old formulas and are surprised that they're no longer relevant or applicable. 42:34 So I think that would be, uh, perhaps my, my, my f- my first point of concern, this uncertainty about the, the broad, uh, 42:44 predictability of American foreign policy, uh, which constrains obviously America's strategic choices, but it creates a stable foundation for, for the world order as, as, as, uh, as we've seen it over, over the last, uh, twenty-five years at least. 43:00 Well, I, I guess that just about does it for us. Thanks everyone. It was a lot of fun. Thanks. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Jay. 43:06 If you like what you hear on Trendlines, go ahead and subscribe to it in the podcast app of your choice. That will save you the trouble of downloading each new episode. 43:14 Trendlines is produced and edited by Peter Dury, who also conducts the report interviews. 43:19 You can follow him and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to pieces covering the issues we talked about in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 43:28 Have a great holiday, everyone, and see you next week for a new episode of Trendlines. [outro jingle]
