2025: WILL CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE & MAGA, TRUMP NECESSARY REFORMS?
In a world where global institutions are crumbling as we witness the consistent disintegration of the post-war international order, global cooperation is at its lowest in decades, and is expected to grind even lower as national or even individual agendas and interests prevail. Post-pandemic in particular, traditional leaders and global institutions have been failing to resolve disputes or avoid disasters, demonstrating that reform of global institutions and power dynamics, if not creative destruction, is necessary.
More than 70 countries held elections last year, with more than 1.7 billion people voting — quite possibly the most ever — at a global average voter turnout of 61%. This year will be the biggest election year ever for the Caribbean, with Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguilla, Belize, Bermuda, Curaçao, the Turks and Caicos Islands (completed), and the Cayman Islands all holding general elections this year. Cost of living will feature heavily in election campaigns, and will drive higher levels of poverty and hardship, and greater outward migration, possibly compounding major global demographic shifts.
This shift in population domination in the global south has already brought significant change to global power dynamics, including the strengthening of the BRICS institution, which now includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE. At their Oct 2024 summit in Russia, BRICS members introduced a cross-border interbank payment and settlement system called BRICS Pay as an alternative to the SWIFT system, further eroding the dominance of the USD — which used to account for about 80% of global reserves half a century ago, but is now about 60%. Thirteen nations have been added as partner countries of BRICS: Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. India will continue to be the most populous country basically forever. Roughly 80% of the population of India identifies as Hindu, but the dominant religion of the other most populous countries — Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, 50% of Nigeria, One-third of Tanzania and 31% of Ethiopia, is Islam.
President Trump’s trade, or anti-trade policies, tariffs etc. are expected to drive US inflation higher this year, and this supply side inflation is unlikely to respond to any hikes in the Fed Funds rate, but hike they will in the face of inflation, and the cost of living for the average American will again take flight and be imported by Caribbean people. Already this region has faced the highest inflation globally for the past 10 years, and the social, economic and demographic implications of this inflation are not positive.
WHY AREN’T MORE CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES JOINING BRICS AND SUPPORTING THE UN TAX CONVENTION?
One in 4 persons globally live in a country whose population has already peaked, such as China, Germany, Japan, and Russia. Caribbean countries whose populations have already peaked include Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Martin, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Bermuda, and the US Virgin Islands. The rest of the Caribbean will see its population peak in the next 30 years, in 2054, except for: The Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Guyana, Haiti, Suriname, and the Cayman Islands. In other words, these 6 countries are the only Caribbean countries expected to see their population continue to grow beyond 2054. These demographic shifts will continue to deeply affect our societies.
The IMF considers a global growth rate at or below 3% a global recession, and expects 3.3% for 2025 and 2026, consistent with the World Bank, the UN, etc. The global economy will continue limping precariously along the edge of the recession precipice for some time, and while we are NOT in a global recession or a stagnation, we are in that maddening and boring place where meaningful improvement is unlikely in the foreseeable future. Arguably, global and local growth forecasts matter little now. It’s everything else that’s happening, that we need to either mitigate or take advantage of. And it’s the creation of a new global world order that Caribbean people must actively participate in and support, including BRICS and the UN Tax Convention. Otherwise, we will end up being benign bystanders to the creation or destruction of our own future.
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