Category: Middle East / Asia

The current dynamics in the Middle East are creating an opportune time for U.S. leadership to strategically shift priorities on the global stage, especially as the U.S. is not entangled in any war…

U.S. President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must come together for a long awaited rendezvous in the desert…ideally the two leaders can employ some modern rules of dating in making the alliance work…

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is worsening a food crisis in the North African region, as Ukraine and Russia are leading exporters of agricultural products to North Africa, while also forcing countries to do a geopolitical dance to avoid picking a side, especially when the countries have military and diplomatic ties to either Russia or the US or sometimes both countries. The conflict also presents opportunities for exporters who can fill gaps in the global supply chain, in particular energy…but then again, those gaps are the result of both economic and political challenges with the political challenges never being so simple to solve.

To think many people predicted 2021 couldn’t get any worse than 2020. Little did they know that 2021 would bring delta, omicron, and inflation with a lot of messiness in-between. The result is 2022 will be volatile with a covid overhang and inflation coupled with aggressive interest rate hikes (by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other similar authorities across the globe) to combat the inflation – as a result, 2022 may present more distress than 2021. These are the markets distressed investors will, as a result, be watching in 2022.

Vaccines gave hope going into 2021…fast forward a year later and the omicron variant is not providing the same confidence, especially with much of the globe still not fully vaccinated and / or without a booster shot. Such a reality has created renewed economic uncertainty. As we enter 2022, there are several countries whose economic trends will provide some insight into the global economy going forward…

Modi may have appeared brash in his approach and his words at COP26…but that cannot overshadow the hard truths raised by his speech…

The world is chaotic: Covid-19, economic uncertainty, and war. Amid the signs of chaos, it is said that the obvious signs of danger or opportunity can be missed. But no one is missing the power grab being made by Tunisia’s President Kaïs Saïed, following the recent dismissals of ministers, including Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, and Minister of Economy, Finance and Investment Support Ali Kooli, and the suspension of parliament. Saïed also recently announced plans to strip legislators of immunity and assume power of the state prosecutor’s office. But is this danger or opportunity? The most obvious comparison to this situation is Lebanon…but to what extent is Tunisia like Lebanon?

On a global scale, people are angry at the current health and economic environment with protests becoming increasingly prevalent. The question for political analysts and investors is whether the anger and unrest boils to an unsustainable level for some countries….

Oil recently touched above $70 and continues to hover above $60 today. The uptick is a welcome breath of fresh air into the Middle East (financial) ecosystem. The new cash inflow is and will continue to allow the regional states to underwrite new financing in their banking sectors and evade the 2009-esque fallout as banks today effectively bridge finance regional corporates to 2022 (…or potentially 2023)…