1. The best UN Secretary General in decades
Considering Donald Trump’s foreign policy ideas, Jacob Zuma’s and Nicolás Maduro’s grasp of economics or London’s difficulties to spell out a coherent Brexit strategy, some commentators argue we have entered the ‘Age of Incompetence‘. Indeed, it seems like discussing policy options in a substantive way is a recipe for electoral disaster in many countries. António Guterres, the new UN Secretary General, provides a welcome contrast — combining expert knowledge (he served as High Commissioner for Refugees for ten years) with the political skill and charisma his predecessors sorely lacked. The challenges he faces, including the worst refugee crisis in history and bloody civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and South Sudan are enormous and he can impossibly solve them alone. However, Guterres could go a long way in creating a new narrative about an institution many around the world no longer believe in.
2. Germany resists the populist trend
Angela Merkel can be expected to bag a record fourth election victory (after 2005, 2009 and 2013), even though her party is likely to lose seats. For the first time in post-war Germany, a right-wing party will be represented in parliament, but Germany is not as vulnerable to populist and nationalist tendencies as Poland, Hungary or even France, where Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the presidency. Even a potential continuation of terrorist attacks throughout 2017 is unlikely to change this reality, and Europe’s biggest economy will play the much-needed role of stabilizer across the continent. This is good news for the continued existence of the European Union, and Merkel is set to play a crucial leadership role in the West — and a much-needed voice that will reliably speak out against President Trump’s excesses on the international stage.
3. China increasingly assumes global responsibility; especially vis-à-vis climate change
With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, many Western observers believe today’s global order will not survive the withdrawal of US-American leadership. Indeed, President Trump could become a source of global instability if his staff allows him to take foreign policy decisions. Yet we must be careful not to be trapped by a parochial Western-centric narrative that blindly assumes that only Western powers can take the lead and provide global public goods. Our Western-centric worldview thus leads us to underappreciate not only the role non-Western actors have played in the past and play in contemporary international politics, but also the role they are likely to play in the future. Since Trump’s election victory China has taken a relatively constructive approach, and it can be expected to provide ever more global public goods, especially in the realm of climate change, where Beijing will mark a welcome contrast to Trump’s views.
4. Immigrants around the world will continue to help their host societies prosper
Immigrants make societies not only more diverse, but also more dynamic, entrepreneurial and prosperous. The United States serves as a powerful example, where a brief look at the statistics shows the massive impact immigrants have on the US economy’s capacity to innovate and generate jobs: some 40% of Fortune 500 firms were founded by immigrants or their children. So were the firms behind seven of the ten most valuable brands in the world. Although the foreign-born are only an eighth of the US population, a quarter of high-tech start-ups have an immigrant founder. Apple, Google, AT&T, Budweiser, Colgate, eBay, General Electric, IBM and McDonalds, owe their origin to a founder who was an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, is a child of an immigrant parent from Syria. Walt Disney also was the child of an immigrant (from Canada), as well as the founders of Oracle (Russia and Iran), IBM (Germany), Clorox (Ireland), Boeing (Germany), 3M (Canada) and Home Depot (Russia). In 2017, migrants, both those with and without proper documentation, will continue to enrich their host societies both culturally and economically.
5. The Iran nuclear deal will survive
Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to undo Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement: the historic Iran nuclear deal signed with Tehran and six world powers. That would be a tremendous setback to political stability in the Middle East. Yet while Trump may seek to undermine the deal, China, Russia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom will work against him. What is often overlooked is that even if Trump withdraws from the treaty, it will continue to stand, as specified in the UN Security Council resolution.
6. Elections in Ecuador; Correa does not cling to power (unlike Bolivia’s Morales)
Democracy is non-existent or under threat in several countries in Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, where Evo Morales recently announced that he would ignore the results of a referendum and run for a fourth consecutive presidential term, violating his country’s constitution. Rafael Correa, by contrast, who came to power in 2007, agreed to step down next year to allow for a change of power. This is particularly good news because Correa is known to possess an authoritarian streak, having repeatedly attempted to undermine civil society and independent media during his time in office. Just like Lula’s decision not to seek another term in 2010, Correa’s attitude to leave power to allow for someone else to take over is to be welcomed.
7. Ghana’s new government can be expected to do a good job
Ghana’s surprising opposition triumph in December 2016 was, above all, a victory for democracy. Nana Akufo-Addo, the new President, will preside a country that has held seven consecutive free elections since Ghana became a democracy in 1992, underlining how important the small country (of less than 30m people) is as a symbol for democracy both in the region and in the Global South in general. In nearby Gambia, by contrast, Yahya Jammeh resisted conceding defeat after losing a presidential election to his opponent. Akufo-Addo, a former Attorney-General and Foreign Minister, is largely thought to be qualified and can be expected to continue Ghana’s democratic and economic success story.
8. Trump will be unable to implement many of his campaign promises
Hopes for a “Trump presidency light” are often criticized as wishful thinking. The truth is that Donald Trump poses a real threat to the strength of US institutions and to its democracy as a whole. In addition to weakening the social fabric of US society and viciously attacking any non-white minorities, boasting about sexual assault against women and mocking disabled people, Trump’s systematic verbal attacks on the judiciary, threats to prosecute journalists and allusions to voter fraud significantly undermined democratic culture in the United States. However, there is a silver lining: Trump will be unable to implement many of his bizarre ideas, such as the forced deportation of more than 10 million undocumented workers, the construction of a border wall in the South (Trump will most probably do little more than add a few kilometers of fence), or start a trade war with China. Finally, there is a reasonable chance that Trump will be impeached if Congress turns against him.
9. China will finally join the fight against the commerce in ivory
After the United States ended its domestic ivory trade in 2016, Beijing finally announced that it would ban all commerce in ivory by the end of 2017. This will be crucial to reduce demand for the material in the Middle Kingdom and go a long way to protect elephant populations. Over 100,000 elephants have been killed across Africa due to Chinese demand over the past decade. Illegal poaching and trade, of course, will continue, but the new law is a major victory for civil society groups that have put pressure on China for years.
10. A milestone in the battle against Ebola
After the disastrous Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 that killed more than 10,000 in West Africa and a few isolated cases in Europe and the United States, the creation of the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine is a significant step towards reducing the risks of global pandemics, and a boost for a region that suffered enormously in the aftermath of the crisis. It is also an important, if belated, step towards reducing the risk of a global pandemic that could wreak havoc with the global, ultra-connected economy. The application of the vaccine, expected to start in the coming months, shows what can be done if the global scientific community unites around a common aim.
Read also:
International Politics in 2017: Ten Predictions
Brazil’s top 10 foreign policy challenges in 2017
Post-Western World’s Ten Most Read in 2016
Photo credit: Salvatore di Nolfi/EPA
