NYPD officers detain a protester during a protest during New York’s 2020 presidential election.
Photographer: Stephanie Keith / Bloomberg
Photographer: Stephanie Keith / Bloomberg
With the global economy still in the throes of the Covid-19 crisis, the Eurasia group sees the divided US as a key risk this year for a world without leadership.
“In the past decades, people have been looking to the United States to restore predictability in times of crisis. But the world’s leading superpower is facing major challenges, “said Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer and President Cliff Kupchan in a key risk report for 2021.
Given the difficulties facing the Biden administration in a divided US, the report signals 10 individual geopolitical, climate and country risks that could derail the global economic recovery. An extended Covid-19 impact and K-shaped recoveries in both developed and emerging economies is the second largest risk factor cited in the report.
Biden will have difficulty gaining new confidence in the US global leadership as he struggles to manage internal crises, the report said. With a large US segment questioning its legitimacy, political effectiveness and longevity of its “asterisk presidency,” the future of the Republican Party and even the legitimacy of the American political model are all in question, he added.
“A superpower overthrown in the middle cannot return to business as usual. And when the strongest country is so divided, everyone has a problem, “said Bremmer and Kupchan.
The report lists the following main risks in 2021:
| Top risks 2021 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | US Presidency | 6. | Cybernetic conflict |
| 2. | Covid-19 expands to 2021 | 7. | Turkey |
| 3. | Implications of zero net emission targets | 8. | Cheap oil |
| 4. | US-China tensions | 9. | Europe after Merkel |
| 5. | Global data control | 10. | Latin America |
The report warns that the pandemic and its wide impact will not go away with the expansion of vaccination. Uneven recoveries, improved access to vaccines and incentive plans that will not reach debt levels will leave workers displaced and fuel opposition to incumbent leaders.
For the US, this will increase the polarization that fueled support for Donald Trump. For emerging economies, the debt crisis could lead to financial problems, the report said.
Some concerns are more likely to be risks of “red herring” that have overlapped, the report adds. These include relations between Biden and “Trump’s traveling colleagues”, such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Britain’s Boris Johnson and Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu. The Biden administration will work on common interests and leaders will adapt to the new status quo, the report said.
Fears of a global backlash against major US technology and an Iran-US confrontation are also seen as lower risks.