BackPolitical upheavals leaving global finance leaders in policy limbo
The global political rumblings may be a key topic of conversation for the policy makers who gather this week for spring meetings of IMF and World Bank
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Washington: Politics will be a much bigger factor than usual in the latest get-together of finance ministers and central bankers to discuss the world economy.
From the rise of populist anti-trade presidential candidates in the US to inroads by anti-immigration parties in Europe and a crippling corruption scandal in Brazil, political upheaval is casting an outsize shadow over global growth. That means officials who are more accustomed to charting gross domestic product than tracking opinion polls are being forced to contemplate the economic aftershocks of a world with Donald Trump as US president or without Angela Merkel as German chancellor.
The rumblings across the globe, while not necessarily on the official agenda, may be a key topic of conversation for the policy makers from 188 countries who gather in Washington this week for spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. IMF managing director Christine Lagarde has acknowledged the issue: In a speech in Frankfurt last week, she said political and other threats, including terrorism, are feeding “uncertainty and fear" and exacerbating the risks to the global economy.
“We’re experiencing the most geopolitical risk probably since the Cold War," said Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting and research firm. “You can have a meeting with all these finance ministers from all these countries around the world, yet you’re not going to resolve a lot unless you fix the politics."
Lagarde has signalled the Washington-based fund will downgrade its global forecast when it releases its latest World Economic Outlook on Tuesday. In her speech last week, Lagarde highlighted how politics and the economy are intertwined. Persistently mediocre growth has consequences for the social and political fabric of many countries, she said.
‘Stacked’ deck
While inequality is declining between countries, within nations “perceptions abound that the cards are stacked against the common man—and woman—in favour of elites," leading people to question “established institutions and international norms," Lagarde said. “As history has told us—time and again—this would be a tragic course."
The US presidential election is a case in point. Tapping into anger among voters who believe they’re falling behind, Republican front-runner Donald Trump has opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade deals. The same goes for both contenders for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
“The one that I think would be the most disruptive is a Donald Trump presidency, because some of the things he’s said are so unsettling and destabilizing that the spillover calculus is almost unimaginable," said Douglas Rediker, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington and a former US representative on the IMF’s executive board. “You’ve got 188 countries that have to respond to a new paradigm about which they don’t have a clue."
The political stress is not having a big effect on financial markets yet. The MSCI All-Country World Index of Stocks has rebounded more than 11% from this year’s low in February. Brazil’s real is up 13% against the dollar this year, the most of 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Malaysia, another nation with an embattled leader, has seen the ringgit rise about 10% in 2016.
While political issues likely won’t be discussed in the formal sessions of the IMF meetings, they may be the hot topics on the sidelines, Rediker said.
Refugee crisis
In Europe, a flood of refugees from the war in Syria and terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels are threatening to upend the political order. Last month, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union suffered defeats in two states, losing ground to an anti-immigration party that has told Germans to have more children to avoid the need for foreign nationals.
Opposition to the European project is also coming to a head in the UK, whose voters will decide on 23 June whether the country should remain a member of the European Union. The referendum has opened a rift in the cabinet of Prime Minister David Cameron, who is campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU.
Parties that oppose European integration and immigration have made unprecedented electoral gains in countries including Austria, Denmark, Finland and France, Standard Chartered Plc analysts said in a research report last month. The war in Syria is “engulfing" Europe, with the refugee crisis threatening the free flow of residents that lies at the heart of the European Union, the investment bank warned.
“Political debate is becoming increasingly polarized across many developed countries, raising new uncertainties and undermining the consensus politics that fostered efficient decision-making at both the national and international levels," according to the Standard Chartered report. Bloomberg
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