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Introduction The year 2024 will present new windows of opportunity and obstacles to the acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Below we analyze some trends in the region for 2024 in each of the three dimensions of sustainable development, to which we add consideration of governance elements to help understand a framework that does not look easy and in which critical decisions will have to be made for the future. The social dimension In 2024 we will have presidential elections in six countries in the region. Polls indicate that the incumbent party will remain in power in Mexico, where Claudia Sheinbaum could become the first woman president in its history; El Salvador will renew the mandate of Nayib Bukele despite doubts about the constitutionality of his new candidacy. In Uruguay and the Dominican Republic, where Luis Lacalle Pou and Luis Abinader will seek to renew their mandates, the high levels of approval of their administrations point to a possible reelection. At the other extreme, polls point to a possible defeat of the ruling party in Panama, where former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) leads in voting intentions despite having been convicted in 2023 for a corruption and money laundering case, a sentence that is currently under appeal. In Venezuela, the only country on the list without a date for its electoral process, the controversies surrounding the government of Nicolás Maduro and the lack of transparency in information, added to the imprisonment of opposition leaders, prevent any analysis. The escalation towards an armed confrontation with Guyana over the border region of the Essequibo, rich in oil, minerals and gas, should be closely followed. The result of a long diplomatic and legal dispute between the two countries, its last chapter had taken place in 2018, when Guyana, with the backing of the current UN Secretary General, went to the International Court of Justice to request the reaffirmation of the international arbitration that fixed the border between the two countries in 1899. Maduro's government responded by ignoring the Court's authority to hear the case. Then, in 2020, the court declared itself competent to hear the case, but has not yet rendered its final judgment. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), almost absent from the regional political map in recent years, reappears to mediate between the two countries, the end of which is now uncertain. All these processes are framed in a high level of citizen distrust towards the political sector, accompanied by weakened democracies, as reflected in The Economist's Democracy Index 2022. On the other hand, the arrival of Javier Milei, a political outsider, to the presidency of Argentina raises questions about its future regional positioning and will have far-reaching regional effects with changes in alliances on sensitive issues, from support for regional environmental policies to the redesign of the country's insertion in international trade, with potential major impacts on the Southern Cone. All of the above, together with the low growth and economic difficulties described in the following section, pose challenges for accelerating regional trajectories of poverty reduction, the fight against labor informality and unemployment, and the implementation of public policies to promote equity and gender equality, among others. For these reasons, there will be more pressure on regional environmental resources, which could lead to new protests and social unrest. The economic dimension Implementing actions to promote sustainable development requires financial resources. LAC has long been a low-priority region for international cooperation and foreign investment is limited, so generating its own resources, in a context of global economic restrictions, is essential. The average projected growth for the region in 2024 is 1.5%, distributed by subregion as follows: the Caribbean (excluding Guyana, which is in a special situation due to its recent entry into the "club" of oil-exporting countries), 2.8%; Central America and Mexico, 2.1%; and South America, 1.2%. As a result, employment growth is expected to slow down. In an attempt to recover employment growth, the countries of the region seem to be turning to flexible monetary policies to increase exports. Countries such as Brazil, Chile and Peru, for example, reduced rates in the third quarter of 2023 and Colombia and Mexico are expected to do so at the beginning of 2024, but the slowdown in growth in countries such as the United States and China is resulting in lower demand for primary products, the main export of LAC countries, in international markets. In addition, there are deficiencies in infrastructure for the transportation of goods throughout the region, creating an obstacle to its export capacity. The possible fall in demand for basic goods is accompanied by a forecast that their prices will continue to fall in 2024, with the exception of energy commodities, which will increase pressure on the trade balances of LAC countries. In terms of minerals, the boost to the extractive industry could lead to foreign currency inflows in countries such as Argentina, Chile and Bolivia (the lithium triangle), although the uncertainty regarding the arrival of investments is due to doubts about economic and business policies in those countries and the growing public demand for the regulation of mining activity to reduce its effects on the environment. However, a boost to mineral processing activity to accompany its extraction could come from the global competition between China, the United States and the European Union, as the latter two seek to reduce China's global weight in mineral processing. Finally, it should be noted that the relocation of supply chains that followed the Covid-19 crisis will bring income to only a few LAC countries, such as Mexico and Panama. The environmental dimension Climate change is already being felt strongly in the region: the average temperature in LAC for 2021-2040 is expected to be about 1°C higher than in the period 1985-2014. At the same time, LAC is key to finding solutions to the challenges of climate change: it is home to 40% of the planet's biodiversity and more than 25% of its forests. The region also plays a central role in the sustainable production of food and energy, where more than 30% of the energy production matrix is made up of "green energies", a percentage that for some countries exceeds 90%, and an export profile that is closely linked to potentially polluting extractive activities. Although it contributes less than 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, LAC causes damage whose cost already exceeds 2% of its combined annual GDP as a result of the worsening and greater recurrence of extreme weather and environmental catastrophes. The region is the second most vulnerable to natural disasters, which have affected approximately 190 million people since 2000. The expected climatic effects of the "El Niño" current in the region, with increases in rainfall in some sectors paired with droughts in others, will translate into differentiated opportunities and risks for different countries in the region in 2024. In perspective, Argentina and Paraguay could benefit from more rainfall that will benefit the crop, while Colombia and Central America will be exposed to droughts and the Caribbean to extreme weather effects. It will be precisely the intensity of the climatic extremes that "El Niño" reaches that will define its impact on the production of basic goods, energy generation and transportation, but in any case it could contribute to the inflationary pressures that already exist in LAC. A key issue for the region is what happens at the 28th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Treaty on Climate Change (COP 28), where the aim is to establish a "Loss and Damage Fund" to address the costs of climate change and increase funding for climate change mitigation. However, the central concern of the region will be the adoption of a new "global goal on adaptation to climate change" to guide and finance the actions required to adapt to the changes that climate change has already produced, and to accompany the mitigation goal established in the Paris Agreement. Defining that goal and creating channels to finance its achievement is one of the most complex issues at COP 28 and it is uncertain what the outcome will be. Chile, together with Australia, have been designated as co-facilitators of this negotiation. At the same time, what happens at the COP and the discussions on climate and financial issues that will take place in 2024 should find LAC as a leader around the Bridgetown Initiative, presented by Barbados in 2022, to modify the international financial system and urgently curb climate change, combining two concerns of deep regional significance Governance of sustainable development In 2024, two countries in the region, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, are expected to adopt new national development strategies: In the case of Jamaica, the Medium-Term Socioeconomic Policy Framework 2021-2024 is coming to an end and work is already underway to prepare the document that will give it continuity. This framework guides the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the country's main national planning instrument, Vision 2030 Jamaica, and should ensure its alignment with the SDGs. In the Dominican Republic, the National Multi-Year Public Sector Plan 2021-2024 defines the country's development policies and their financing, along with international cooperation priorities. Brazil, for its part, will once again have its commission for the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs active as of December 2023, after it was deactivated by the Jair Bolsonaro administration and replaced by the current government. In addition, the following countries in the region will submit Voluntary National Reports on SDG implementation: Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras and Peru. It is possible, however, that the position of the recently elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, against the 2030 Agenda, will lead the country to withdraw its offer. On the other hand, in 2024 the sixth forum of Latin American and Caribbean countries will be held in the city of Santiago de Chile, a meeting that will be of special importance for the region given that it will not only serve, as it traditionally does, as a regional preparatory meeting for the follow-up and evaluation process of the 2030 Agenda that concludes at the United Nations High Level Political Forum, but will also be a key moment in the regional path towards the Summit of the Future, which will meet in New York in September 2024. It is important to keep in mind that next year will find LAC countries and officials occupying positions of high capacity to influence global debates on the future of multilateralism: -The presidency of the UN General Assembly is held by Trinidad and Tobago, and that of the Economic and Social Council is held by Chile. -Brazil will chair the G21. -Colombia will host the World Data Forum. -Uruguay's Felipe Paullier has been appointed as the first Under-Secretary-General for Youth Affairs in the history of the UN. -The government of Mexico will be working with its Spanish counterpart in preparation for the Fourth United Nations -Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in 2025. In addition, there is growing activity surrounding the appointment of the person who will succeed the current UN Secretary General. In accordance with the practice of geographical rotation in the exercise of this responsibility, a person from LAC would occupy the position. However, Eastern Europe has pointed out that, in its opinion, its turn was "skipped", given that it was the Secretary General of the organization when Guterres, from Western Europe, was appointed for his first term. Should LAC's position prevail over that of Eastern Europe, we may see the first bids for candidates for the post in 2024. The pressure to have a woman head the UN for the first time in history was scorned when the current Secretary General was chosen, but it is unlikely that the same thing will happen again. Although it is too early to advance names, the current Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, appears to be an unavoidable reference, although there are several candidates in the running.

It is also possible that, in the face of the uncertainty that this 2024 will bring, there may be no other alternative than to tolerate the tense wait that each of these elections entails. But even if this attitude is adopted, we must remember the lessons that history provides us in a context like the current one. During a conversation with foreign academics, one of them joked that, in 2024, we should at best content ourselves with having a quieter year than the previous one. Most agreed on the perplexity of entering a new year while still processing much of what happened in 2023. One of them recalled the assault on the Congress and the Supreme Court in Brazil, or the democratic regressions seemingly consolidating in India, Turkey, or Hungary. Another lamented that the terrorist attack in Israel and the brutal occupation of Gaza had diverted attention from the occupation in Ukraine and obscured the growing tension in the Balkans, the Red Sea, or the Taiwan Strait. Throughout this conversation, the common thread is the same: many events in 2023 reflect a world that has become extremely unpredictable. From this perspective, however, 2024 hardly presents itself as auspicious. By chance, in different electoral calendars, nearly half of the world's population will go to the polls in every corner of the planet, with geopolitical and democratic consequences difficult to anticipate. During 2024, there will be general elections in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Mexico, South Africa, Taiwan, Indonesia, Pakistan, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Rwanda, Mozambique, Uruguay, Namibia, North Macedonia, or Romania. In addition to this, there will be presidential elections in Russia, Venezuela, Finland, Azerbaijan, Iceland, Croatia, Algeria, or Slovakia. There will also be parliamentary elections in Portugal, South Korea, Iran, Bangladesh, Belgium, Austria, Mongolia, Botswana, Georgia, or Lithuania. There will also be regional or municipal elections in Australia, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Spain, Poland, Brazil, Chile, or Bosnia and Herzegovina. This combination represents an unprecedented electoral scenario since the introduction of universal suffrage in the late 18th century. This intricate electoral puzzle will undoubtedly have direct consequences on almost all ongoing or developing geopolitical conflicts. For example, this Saturday, presidential elections will take place in Taiwan, in which one of the three candidates in dispute advocates for a more favorable position towards reunification with China, and another has downplayed the importance of this conflict to focus on public policy issues. It is no coincidence, then, that in his New Year's speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced reunification with the island as inevitable, marking an escalation in the rhetoric used to address the issue compared to the same speech the previous year. Also in Asia, the border conflict between India and Pakistan could take a new turn after the escalation of violence in 2021 and 2022, as a result of the general elections both countries will have between February and May. From India, only a consolidation in its nationalist rhetoric can be anticipated, while from Pakistan, it is difficult to know what to expect, given the deep political crisis the country has been experiencing for almost two years and the political dynamics generated by the humanitarian crisis on its border with Afghanistan. Against all odds, the war in Israel and Palestine has not yet escalated into a regional armed conflict. However, the situation in the Middle East rests on a precarious balance whose pieces could be rearranged in the coming months. Even if Benjamin Netanyahu's government resists the pressure to call general elections, Israel's geopolitical position is likely to be weakened by the almost certain Labour shift in the UK government, a result of the division this conflict generates within the British left. Conversely, a Republican victory in the US elections in November would be a relief for Netanyahu, given the deference with which this party usually approaches the more problematic actions of the Israeli government. The importance of this support should hardly be underestimated, given Israel's increasing marginalization within the international community. This is evident not only in the adverse votes it has faced in the United Nations General Assembly but also in the genocide accusation that South Africa has filed against it before the International Court of Justice. This latter country is also heading for general elections in 2024 after a presidential term characterized by corruption scandals and, for the first time since the end of apartheid, could result in a change in parliamentary majorities that ends the political hegemony of Mandela's party. Finally, there are no major expectations of change in the parliamentary elections of a theocratic autocracy like Iran, even after suffering one of the worst terrorist attacks since the 1979 revolution and undergoing a deep economic crisis that has persisted for years. But attention must be paid to the election of the Assembly of Experts in March, as the resulting balances in it could impact the eventual appointment of the successor to an increasingly elderly Ayatollah Khamenei, with the regional ramifications that this may entail. Calls are growing in Ukraine for President Volodymyr Zelensky to call elections during this year, due to the widespread criticism his handling of the conflict has received. But even discounting this uncertainty, the country will have to face multiple external electoral variables that could compromise its position. For now, in the middle of the year, the election of five out of ten non-permanent positions on the United Nations Security Council will take place. More importantly, a possible Republican victory in the US presidential and parliamentary elections could severely weaken the Ukrainian military position, as indicated by recent debates in the House of Representatives and the Senate. While Vladimir Putin's position within Russia is weaker than before the invasion in 2022 (especially after the failed Wagner Group rebellion last June), everything suggests that the president will be re-elected for a fourth term in March. This geopolitical equation must also consider the election of the European Parliament, in which some predict unprecedented victories for the far right, which, if materialized, would also impact the composition of the European Commission. At the same time, there will be a renewal of the European Council, whose composition could also undergo changes due to new political balances in national governments. It should not be ruled out that Ursula von der Leyen could fail to be re-elected for a new term, despite her recent promise to prioritize aid to Ukraine. However, the advance of the far right may not entail significant changes in the European position toward this conflict. As a recent study suggests, the Russian invasion has marked a shift in sympathy that some populist or far-right parties previously expressed toward the Putin regime, which has now become a toxic association they deliberately seek to avoid. The geopolitical importance of the war in Ukraine, finally, has overshadowed other conflicts that are even brewing on European territory itself. Notably, the growing tension between Serbia and Kosovo - in which the former has threatened military interventions - has multiplied fears of the resurgence of a conflict that between 1998 and 1999 caused an estimated twelve thousand deaths and more than a million displaced. It is in this scenario that general elections will take place in Croatia and North Macedonia, as well as municipal elections in Bosnia & Herzegovina. All this also happens in a year that will be a critical juncture for global democratic development. As all available indicators suggest, the last two decades have witnessed a decline in democracy worldwide. Last year is indicative of this trajectory: in Africa alone, seven coups d'état occurred. And while many of these events also demonstrate the surprising democratic resilience of many countries, it is undeniable that 2024 could be a turning point for liberal democracy. Many of the main democracies show severe democratic erosions. Elections in India - which some question whether it can still be considered a democracy - could end up consolidating a competitive autocracy in that country, as everything indicates that Narendra Modi will remain as prime minister. In Mexico, polls anticipate that in June, the presidential candidate of the ruling coalition will be elected, suggesting that the state dismantling advanced by President López Obrador and his attacks on key institutional checks will continue. Moreover, the eventual election of Donald Trump - if not disqualified by the Supreme Court from running again as a candidate - would pose a serious threat to American democracy, as predicted by the contempt he repeatedly showed as president towards constitutional forms. Just remember his reaction to the Capitol assault or his efforts to subvert the electoral result in 2021. And it is needless to point out that his return to the White House would make any geopolitical balance as unstable as his temperament. There may be those who criticize the excessive pessimism of the outlined horizon. They may use the example of Poland, whose parliamentary election last October offered some optimism in the face of the democratic erosion that the country had experienced over the previous eight years. But even in this case, the path ahead for the Polish government to reverse this illiberal trajectory is long, and it will face multiple challenges. Perhaps the greatest of them in the short term is the municipal election in April, which populist parties could win. The same could be said of Brazil, which, after denying re-election to President Jair Bolsonaro, will return to the polls for the municipal elections in São Paulo. It is also possible that, in the face of the uncertainty that this 2024 will bring, there may be no other alternative than to tolerate the tense wait that each of these elections entails. But even if this attitude is adopted, we must remember the lessons that history provides us in a context like the current one. After all, we must not forget that in August 1914, the world's major powers believed that, in a context of great geopolitical instability, they would be perfectly capable of anticipating the reactions of their adversaries in case conflicts escalated.

The Trump machine has once again dominated the media environment across the world. But don’t rule out America’s other electoral races in the US Congress, which will prove pivotal to US foreign relations. For observers of American politics, the onset of 2024 marked the commencement of the much-anticipated election year. Though political tensions in the US have not mellowed much in the last decade, the international community has ramped up its commentary on the predicted presidential rematch. Less covered in the media are the 438 house seats and 34 senate seats up for grabs in US Congress. Foreign audiences often confuse congressional powers with presidential powers. Though there are many, the most misperceived pertain to Congress’s ability to control the national budget and defence spending, declare war, and ratify treaties. With the potential for such a large shift in the electorate, the outcome of the Congressional elections is potentially a more significant issue than even another Trump presidency and will undoubtedly include important issues such as aiding Ukraine in its war against Russia, sustaining American commitments in the Indo-Pacific, and pushing back against China. Campaign strategists for both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) are acutely aware of the power that Congress can wield. For many of the individual campaigns – some 472 – strategists are required to lean on the spectacle of the presidential election and what is called the “coattail” effect. Popular presidential candidates or political party leaders attract votes for other candidates in his or her party and influence down ballot races. This becomes notably easier in a US election landscape where, in some states, voters can click a single “straight-ticket” button to vote at the top of the ballot. This instantly votes for every down ballot race (Presidential, Congressional, local, and otherwise), on the basis of political party. While it may seem as though Americans are more divided along party lines than ever, polls increasingly indicate that the political tumult that has encompassed high-level candidates over the last several election cycles has caused a rise in independent and indecisive voters. A survey conducted by Pew Research in September 2023 found that a record number of (28 percent) of Americans are expressing unfavourable views of both parties. This figure is similar (nearly 33 percent) for young voters who are undecided on who they will vote for in the 2024 elections. As the research on undecided voters continues to accumulate, a crucial question is how consequential the coattail effect will be for congressional elections. Senatorial elections unfold on a six-year cycle, introducing a staggered re-election pattern. This leads to certain election years showing a greater preference for one party in the Senate compared to others, as not all seats are up for re-election simultaneously, and contested seats are occasionally situated in states with strong partisan leanings. This election round, with 34 seats on the ballot, it is the Republican’s election to lose. While Democrats presently hold a slim 51-49 majority in the body, the electoral landscape suggests that Republicans are poised to retain all 11 of their currently held seats in staunchly red states. The Democrats face a more challenging landscape, with all 11 of their seats situated in contested states, along with 2 independents in states that remain uncertain. The Republicans are favoured to pick up at least two seats, with a majority of polls showing a 50-47 Republican control. The House race will be much more unpredictable. Congressional House members must campaign every two years, and with such numbers, the House races are not skewed by which seats are up for grabs or affected by the electoral college. For this reason, the House race is considered much more of a reflection of American political sentiment. It’s authorities cover the defence budget, the regulation of trade and tariffs, and the allocation foreign aid, among other important roles. On this basis, the House plays a pivotal role in shaping how the US government engages with its foreign allies. In a scenario where a polarising candidate such as Trump secures the presidency and the Senate, the balance of government can still be influenced by the outcomes of the popular vote for the House. If the majority of voters support a Democratic House, Democrats will have the ability to impede the Trump administration’s decisions on these critical issues for at least the next two years. The House races will serve as the definitive indicator of the success or demise of the coattail effect. Out of the 435 seats, 218 seats are required to control the House. The Democrats are expected to secure around 204 seats, with Republicans around 211. The remaining 20 highly contested seats, then, will determine who controls the lower house. With Republicans favoured to win the presidency and the Senate, this nail-biting unpredictability will be the difference between a smooth sailing Republican government and a bureaucratic deadlock until 2026. Of course, polls have been wrong in the past. For the time being, the Democrats (as well as the rest of America and the world) have much to be concerned about. Even if a party fails to gain the White House, the coattail effect will still be useful in mobilising party voters for lower-level races. Partly for this reason, spending on congressional and presidential races from external sources has reached US$318 million, marking a 600 percent surge compared to this same period in 2020. As a strategic financial approach, strategists will look to big and small donors who contribute to the presidential race to influence outcomes in down ballot elections. This fact that Congressional races will be influenced by elites and other powerful entities underscores the necessity for the general public to closely monitor and engage with these electoral contests. The substantial impact congressional races will have on American foreign affairs emphasizes the attention the international community must pay to broader electoral outcomes. Often overshadowed by the reality tv-esque drama of presidential elections, the powers vested in the US Congress are equally, if not more, consequential for global affairs. In 2017, and again in 2018, the Trump administration sought to defund the Department of State and would have succeeded if not for Congress. Similar scenarios are envisioned for Trump 2.0, particularly on the Ukraine question. Though comprehending the intricacies of down-ballot races and the coattail effect is a challenge, it stands as one of the most substantial stabilisers for foreign nations seeking to foster lasting relations with an unstable United States. By actively learning and being more conscious of the distinctive powers held by the president, in comparison to other bodies, the international community can facilitate more accurate and resilient policy responses.

Ecuador was until relatively recently seen as one of the safest countries in Latin America. That reputation has surely now been destroyed. On Jan. 9, 2024, images of hooded gunmen storming a TV studio were broadcast around the world. It was one of a number of violent incidents that took place that day, including prison riots, widespread hostage-taking, the kidnapping of several police officers and a series of car explosions. I have been tracking how gang crime has affected states in Latin America for 38 years. When I started, few would have projected that Ecuador would descend into the crisis it finds itself today. But the story of Ecuador reflects a wider story of how countries across Latin America have struggled with organized crime and transnational drug gangs and how they have responded. Ecuador now looks set to follow the recent path of El Salvador under President Nayib Bukele’s leadership in trying to crack the gang problem through the use of military and the suspension of democratic norms. In the aftermath of the Jan. 9 violence, Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa named 22 gangs as terrorist organizations – a designation that makes them legitimate military targets. He has also imposed a 60-day state of emergency, during which Ecuadorians will be subject to curfews while armed forces try to restore order in the streets and the country’s gang-controlled prisons. Ecuador: Victim of geography To understand why Ecuador has become the epicenter of gang violence, you need to understand both the geography and history of Latin America’s drug trade. Ecuador, a nation of 18 million people, is situated between Colombia in the north and Peru in the east and south. Colombia and Peru are the two top producers of cocaine in the world. Further, Ecuador has a near-1,400 mile (2,237-kilometer) coastline through which drugs from the continent can be taken to markets in Europe and the United States. But it wasn’t until the U.S.-led “war on drugs” put the squeeze on cartels in other countries that Ecuador became the preserve of narco gangs. Plan Colombia In the 1980s and 1990s, Colombia was the center of the international illegal drug trade. This is hardly surprising, given that it was the top producer of coca leaves. But beginning in 2000, a joint initiative between Colombian authorities and the U.S., known as Plan Colombia, pumped billions of dollars into an effort to clamp down on the Colombian cocaine trade. While it may have been successful in supressing drug cartels in Colombia itself, it has had a balloon effect elsewhere in the region: Squeeze in one place, the bulge appears elsewhere. In this case, it was Mexico’s cartels that “bulged” first. Over the past decade, there has been a massive growth in Mexican cartels, led by the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación, or Jalisco New Generation. In fact, a study last year found that Mexican cartels were in effect the country’s fifth-largest employer. These cartels came to dominate the illegal drug trade in Latin America, not just for cocaine, but also the trafficking of heroin and more lately fentanyl. Aligning themselves with Clan Del Golfo – a Colombian paramilitary organization formed from the remnants of the gangs dismantled under joint Colombian-U.S. operations – the cartels helped traffic drugs through Ecuador and out of South America. They were joined by European gangs, notably from Albania, who began to show up in Ecuador. The impact locally of these outside gangs has been disastrous for Ecuador. Prior immunity European and Mexican organizations ran local operatives as enforcers and transporters. And these are the people who have become the backbone of Ecuador’s gang problem today. Ecuadorian gangs such as Los Choneros developed as a de facto subsidiary of the Sinaloa and other cartels. The escape from jail of Los Choneros’ leader, Jose Adolfo Macias, on Jan. 7, 2024, set off the latest explosion of violence. But Ecuador’s descent into violence and chaos has also been aided by the very fact that for so long it was immune from the worst of the gang violence of the region. For many years, Ecuador had one of the lowest homicide rates in Latin America – an indicator of low gang activity. As a result, it hadn’t developed a robust police and military response to gangs. Ecuador, in comparison to Colombia, El Salvador and other countries, was seen as a “soft touch” to organized crime bosses. This became ever more the case in 2009 when former President Rafael Correa closed down the U.S. air base in Manta, from where American AWAC surveillance planes had been monitoring and trying to disrupt drug trafficking. Militarizing the response Explaining how Ecuador became the epicenter of drug gang violence is one thing. Trying to find a way out for the country now is another. Across Latin America, countries have employed different models to counter organized crime, with varying degrees of success. Colombia, with extensive U.S. assistance, transformed its military and police and went to war with the cartels. The strategy somewhat successfully dismantled organized crime groups in the country, even if it failed to halt drug trafficking itself or lower the high levels of violence in Colombia. Mexican authorities have tried a different approach and have been reluctant to confront the country’s drug cartels head-on. Instead, Mexico has employed a more hands-off approach, allowing drug gangs to essentially govern their states – the state of Sinaloa is run largely by the cartel that shares its name. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has touted this “hugs not bullets” approach, but under it the power of the cartels has only grown. And then there is the Salvadoran model. For many years, El Salvador suffered from organized crime, with the Maras gang behind much of the country’s violence. Then in 2019 the electorate voted in Nayib Bukele on a law-and-order platform. Since then, he has militarized the country, adopted draconian security measures and jailed some 72,000 alleged gang members, often without due process. As a result, El Salvador is now perceived as one of the safest places in Latin America. This has been achieved at the expense of human rights, critics say. But, nonetheless, Bukele’s methods have enormous popular appeal. Path of El Salvador With an unprecedented wave of violence in Ecuador, it looks like President Noboa is looking to take his country down the same path as El Salvador. He has ordered the Ecuadorian military to “neutralize” the criminal gangs that operate in the country. Whether the approach will work is another matter; Ecuador is in a weaker position than El Salvador. Whereas many of the gangs were imported into El Salvador – many members of Maras had been deported from the U.S. – in Ecuador, they are homegrown and have become more sophisticated. Further, Noboa – despite taking office in December – has only 15 months of his presidency left before a general election takes place in May 2025. Yet, the adoption of Bukele’s methods might be seen as an election winner. Like in El Salvador, the majority of Ecuador’s citizens appear ready for an iron fist approach to counter the gangs – even at the expense of some civil liberties. If you speak to the average Ecuadorian, many would no doubt tell you that talk of human rights violations is bogus at a time when they live under the fear of being murdered simply by leaving their homes. As one man told The Associated Press in the aftermath of Jan. 9’s violence, the government needs to employ “a firmer hand, to have no mercy, no tolerance or (respect for) the human rights of criminals.”

There were smiles for the camera, handshakes, warm words and the unveiling of a couple of agreements. But beyond the optics of the first meeting in over a year between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies, not an awful lot had changed: There was nothing to suggest a “reset” in U.S. and China relations that in recent years have been rooted in suspicion and competition. President Joe Biden hinted as much just hours after the face-to-face talks, confirming that he still considered his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, a “dictator.” Beijing hit back, with foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning telling reporters Biden’s remark was “extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation.” As a scholar of U.S.-China relations, I believe the relationship between the two countries can be best described as an “enduring rivalry” – a term used by political scientists to denote two powers that have singled each other out for intense security competition. Examples from history include India and Pakistan, France and England, and the West and the Soviet Union. Over the past two centuries, such rivals have accounted for only 1% of the world’s international relationships but 80% of its wars. History suggest these rivalries last around 40 years and end only when one side loses the ability to compete – or when the two sides ally against a common enemy. Neither scenario looks likely any time soon in regards to China and the U.S. How enduring rivalries end China “is a communist country … based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said after his meeting with Xi. That comment gets to the heart of why diplomacy alone cannot reset the U.S.-China relationship. Washington and Beijing are not rivals due to any misunderstanding that can be sorted out through talks alone. Rather, they are rivals because of the opposite reason: They understand each other only too well and have come to the conclusion that their respective world outlooks cannot be reconciled. The same is true for many of the issues that divide the two countries – they are framed as binary win-lose scenarios. Taiwan can be governed from Taipei or Beijing, but not both. Similarly, the East China and South China seas can be international waters or Chinese territory; Russia can be crippled or supported. For the United States, its Asian alliances are a force for stability; for China, they’re hostile encirclement. And both countries are right in their respective assessments. Diplomacy alone is insufficient to resolve a rivalry. At best, it can help manage it. When the US calls, who picks up? Part of this management of the U.S-China rivalry involves finding areas of agreement that can be committed to. And on Nov. 15, Biden and Xi announced deals over curbing China’s production of the deadly drug fentanyl and the restoring of high-level, military-to-military dialogue between the two countries. But the fentanyl announcement is very similar to the one Xi gave to then-President Donald Trump in 2019. The U.S. administration later accused China of reneging on the agreement. Similarly, committing to restarting high-level dialogue is one thing; following up on it is another. History is dotted with occasions when having an open line between Beijing and Washington hasn’t meant a whole lot in times of crisis. In 2001, when a U.S. surveillance aircraft collided with a Chinese jet over Hainan Island, Beijing didn’t pick up the phone. Likewise, during the Tiananmen Square massacre, then-President George H.W. Bush urgently tried to call his counterpart Deng Xiaoping but was unable to get through. Moreover, focusing on what was agreed to in talks also highlights what wasn’t – and is unlikely to ever be – agreed to without a substantial shift in power that forces one side to concede to the other. For example, China wants the U.S. to stop selling arms to Taiwan. But Washington has no intention of doing this, as it knows that this will make the disputed island more vulnerable to Beijing. Washington would like China to end its military displays of strength over the Taiwan Strait; Beijing knows doing so risks seeing Taiwan drift toward independence. American policymakers have long said what they want is China to “change” – by which it means to liberalize its system of governance. But the Chinese Communist Party knows that doing so means self-liquidation – every communist regime that has allowed space for alternative political parties has unraveled. Which is why American attempts to engage China are often met with suspicion in China. As former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin commented, engagement and containment policies have the same aim: to end China’s socialist system. For similar reasons, Xi has shunned attempts by the U.S. to bring China further into the rules-based international order. The Chinese leader saw what happened when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to integrate the Soviet Union into the Western order in the late 1980s – it only hastened the demise of the socialist entity. Instead, Xi calls for a massive military buildup, the reassertion of Chinese Communist Party control and an economic policy based on self-reliance. Actions speak louder … The encouraging words and limited agreements hammered out in the latest meeting between Xi and Biden should also not distract from the actions that continue to push the U.S. and China further apart. China’s show of force in the Taiwan Strait has been sustained for three years now and shows no sign of abating. Meanwhile, Beijing’s navy continues to harass other nations in the South China Sea. Similarly, Biden has continued the U.S. path toward military alliances aimed at countering China’s threat. It recently entered a trilateral agreement between the U.S., Japan and South Korea. And that came two years after the establishment of AUKUS, a security partnership between the the U.S., Australia and the U.K. that has similar aims. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration will continue to tighten the screws on China’s economy through investment restrictions. Biden is well aware that easy flowing money from Wall Street is helping China weather choppier economic waters of late and is keen to turn off the tap. The point of diplomacy This isn’t to say that diplomacy and face-to-face talks are pointless. They do, in fact, serve a number of interests. For both men involved, there is a domestic upside. For Biden, playing nice with China projects the image of a statesman – especially at a time when, due to U.S. positions on Ukraine and the Middle East, he is facing accusations from the political left of being a “warmonger.” And encouraging Beijing to tread softly during the U.S. election year may blunt a potential line of attack from Republicans that the administration’s China policy is not working. Meanwhile, Xi is able to showcase his own diplomatic skills and present China as an alternative superpower to the U.S. and to potentially cleave the Western business community – and perhaps even major European nations – from what he would see as the U.S. anti-China coalition. Moreover, summits like the one in San Francisco signal that both the U.S. and China are jointly committed to at least keep talking, helping ensure that a rocky relationship doesn’t descend into anything more belligerent – even it that doesn’t make them any friendlier.

The meeting at San Francisco between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping offers a short respite in the broader strategic conflict that both states have been waging since at least 2017. The friends and trade partners of both nations now have an opportunity to employ middle power diplomacy to advocate for their interests and also the moderation of competition. In his book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, Graham Allison provided historical examples of when a status quo power met a rising power and whether and why it resulted in war. Unlike his peer John Mearsheimer, author of the Tragedy of Great Power Politics, who concludes that competition and conflict between the US and China are inevitable due to the structure of the international system, Allison’s book provides a warning to both the US and China that the decisions they make could be positively or negatively consequential, leaving room for agency to be the final arbiter of the fate of bilateral relations. The pre-APEC meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping was an invitro international relations experiment testing the premises of Allison and Mearsheimer as to whether US-China strategic competition will be shaped by the agency of leaders or the structure of the system. Superficially, the 15 November 2023 meeting allowed for an agreement limiting the precursors of fentanyl coming into the United States and, importantly, reviving regular talks under what is known as the military maritime consultation agreement. These modest but important agreements followed a throng of high-level cabinet visits to Beijing and reciprocal visits by Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, that were meant to stabilise US-China relations. These agreements suggest that leaders in both countries can find diplomatic crosswalks to stabilise the relationship in functional areas. It also intimates that other window of cooperation such as climate change, anti-terrorism, transnational disease prevention, and poverty alleviation may be fertile ground for collaboration if leaders choose to move forward. While the modest takeaways from the meeting in San Francisco underscores that agency does have a role in bilateral relations, we should be realistic that they also reflect the deep structural challenges that exist between the United States and China. Moreover, they also represent the intractable nature of the structural challenges in the relationship, placing friends and allies of the United States and major trading partners of China, such as Australia, Japan, Canada, and Southeast Asian nations, with a difficult quandary: How to balance their economic prosperity and stability through a vibrant and beneficial trade relationship with China while maintaining a strong, comprehensive relationship with the United States as it deepens its strategic competition with China? In the US, there is bipartisan consensus that China represents a challenge to US leadership that needs to be dealt with comprehensively. Under the Biden administration, we have seen a systemic, sequential, and allied-first approach to competing with China. It has brought accolades from friends and allies and, predictably, criticism from China that Biden has not only adopted a continuation of policies towards China from the Trump administration, but that his policies are even more severe. The Biden administration has reinforced and reified its alliance partnerships with South Korea and Japan. It then enhanced its commitment to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and demonstrated substantial leadership in terms of pushing back against Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. More recently, the Biden administration forged a new trilateral partnership between South Korea, Japan, and the United States, under the so-called Camp David Principles. It also strengthened the quadrilateral security dialogue and its efforts to provide public goods to the Indo Pacific region. And we’ve gradually seen a more coherent AUKUS strategy that aims to create synergy between the UK, Australia, and the United States in the areas of AI research, quantum computing, hypersonic missiles, cyber, and importantly nuclear power submarines. Last, but not least, the adoption of the Chips Act, limiting the sale of sophisticated semiconductor chips to China and the associated technologies, suggests that the United States is not stepping down from its competition with China, but stepping up in the same way that the United States transformed every aspect of its governance following the 911 attacks. Similarly, there seems to be consensus in the Chinese political elite that the US and its allies are intent on containing China and attenuating its development. Xi Jinping’s 20th Workers Party Report at the 20th Party Congress highlighted the concerns China has about its external environment and advocated for strengthening the PLA to deal with separatist forces and external threats, while consolidating it political, social, economic, and ideological systems. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the expansion of the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the advocacy of the Global Development/ Security and Civilization Initiatives, China under the leadership of Xi Jinping is aiming to transform itself, its periphery, and the international system such that all are more conducive to China’s core interests, including preserving its political system. These realities suggest that rather than fostering a reset in bilateral relations, what we are seeing is both China and the United States taking a tactical pause in their strategic competition to amass the resources they need to compete successfully in the Mearsheimer world of great power politics and the maximisation of power. In closed-door discussions on China with Japanese, South Koreans, Australians, Canadians, Southeast and South Asians, as well as Europeans, we hear similar refrains: while China represents a “systemic challenge” in the case of the Europeans and NATO, or is a “disruptive power” in the case of Canada, or as Japan writes in its 2022 National Security Strategy, “the greatest strategic challenge in ensuring the peace and security of Japan and the peace and stability of the international community,” China is also an important and largely irreplaceable economic partner and essential player in dealing with global challenges such as climate change. The question for friends and allies of the United States is how to balance the increasingly difficult and competitive relationship between China and the United States in a way that ensures that they can continue to have strong economic relationships with China while building resilience into their economies and into their economic relationship, such that the economic weaponization of supply chains and the monopolisation of resources cannot negatively affect trading partners of China. Part of these states’ responses to protect their national interests from the structural realities of Sino-U.S. strategic competition will be a middle power diplomacy that aims to shape the competitive nature of the relationship between the US and China. This will be implemented through coordinating their diplomacy and proactively lobbying, insulating, and investing in rulemaking in the realms of security, trade, and international law alongside their like-minded ally the US, but at times also in opposition to the US. This will require investing in diplomatic resources in both the US and China, in the broader Indo-Pacific region, and at the subnational level to forge strong state to state relations to effectively lobby US policy makers to inculcate the interests of allies and friends of the US in their strategic rivalry with China. Similarly, through forging stronger relations with Chinese provincial leaders though trade and investment, middle powers and stakeholders in the US-China strategic competition may be able to have their interests reflected in a moderation of China’s approach to competition with the US.

This fall, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is slated to lead a bipartisan group of U.S. senators to China. The planned trip, like other recent visits to China by high-ranking U.S. officials, is aimed at improving the relationship between the U.S. and China. Such efforts to ameliorate U.S.-China diplomatic relations come amid growing tensions between the two economic giants. They also run parallel to U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with Indo-Pacific countries to limit Beijing’s influence. Take, for example, President Joe Biden’s September 2023 trips to India for the G20 summit and to Vietnam, where U.S. competition with China was a focus of Biden’s discussions. While he was in Asia, Biden made several agreements in science, technology and supply chain security designed to bolster U.S. relations with India and Vietnam. “I don’t want to contain China,” the president told reporters in Hanoi on Sept. 10, 2023, shortly after meeting with Vietnam’s communist party leader. U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi echoed similar sentiments during an event held by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York City the following day. But even if the U.S.’s stated goal isn’t to limit China’s global influence, its recent agreements with India, Vietnam and other countries may do exactly that. What US-led G20 deals mean for China The U.S. is actively looking for ways to blunt one of China’s best tools of influence: international loans. During the G20 summit Sept. 9-10 in New Delhi, the U.S. pledged to help reform the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to make them more flexible in lending to developing countries to finance renewable energy, climate mitigation and critical infrastructure projects. Biden committed the first US$25 billion to make those reforms possible and secured additional financial pledges from other countries totaling $200 billion in new funding for developing countries over the next decade. The U.S. also signed onto a deal with the European Union, Saudi Arabia and India that will help connect the Middle East, Europe and Asia through rails and ports. Characterizing it as a “real big deal,” Biden said the rail and ports agreement would help stabilize and integrate the Middle East. These plans are aimed at providing an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Commonly referred to as BRI, the initiative is China’s international infrastructure loan program. Over the past decade, Chinese government agencies, banks and businesses have loaned more than $1 trillion abroad, and 60% of the recipient countries are now in debt to these Chinese entities. The U.S. and other countries have long criticized BRI as “debt trap diplomacy.” One study suggests that the trillions of dollars in infrastructure loans to countries by the government and quasi-government bodies in China typically lead to debt problems that the borrowing countries can’t manage. As China grapples with a slowing domestic economy, it may become more difficult for Chinese entities to keep shelling out funding for big-ticket overseas projects. The new U.S.-led agreements that come out of the G20 could fill the coming gap. These G20 plans complement existing Western economic initiatives to compete with the BRI, including U.S. trade pacts for the Indo-Pacific region and the Americas, the EU’s Global Gateway and the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. What the US’s agreement with India means for China In their meeting on the sidelines of the G20, Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to deepen collaboration on developing critical and emerging technology, such as quantum computing and space exploration, as well as 5G and 6G telecommunications. This will help India compete with China in the technological arena in the Indo-Pacific. The telecommunications portion of a joint statement by Biden and Modi specifically mentions the U.S.’s Rip and Replace program. It is about helping smaller telecommunications companies rip out technology from Chinese companies like Huawei or ZTE and replace them with network equipment from the West that will protect users’ data. The U.S. has banned Huawei and ZTE equipment from its telecommunication networks, deeming those companies national security risks. The U.S. and India’s pledge to support Rip and Replace is a direct counter to China’s telecommunication technology expansion. What the US’s agreement with Vietnam means for China In Vietnam, Biden elevated the bilateral relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, expanding the relationship in everything from economics to education to technology in a country that has long counted China as its top trading partner. The enhanced partnership includes the U.S. providing $2 million to fund teaching labs and training courses for semiconductor assembly, testing and packaging. One company in Arizona and two in California have already pledged to set up semiconductor factories and design centers in Vietnam, and the U.S. artificial intelligence company Nvidia will help Vietnam integrate AI into automotive and health care systems. All these investments will make Vietnam even more attractive to U.S. and Western companies that don’t want China to be the sole source of their supply chain. As Vietnam becomes a key player in the semiconductor market, it will shrink China’s share of the market as well as its regional technological advantage. The U.S. also agreed to provide nearly $9 million to help Vietnam patrol the waters around its borders and beef up port facility security, as well as boost efforts to fight illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, or IUUF. While not explicitly mentioned, China is the target of this initiative; China and Vietnam continue to be at loggerheads over disputed claims over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and Chinese industrial fishing vessels are the largest culprits of IUUF around the globe. By inking these agreements at the G20 in India and in Vietnam, the U.S. broadened its circle of allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific that can help counterbalance China. Along with similar diplomatic accomplishments by Vice President Kamala Harris at the recent ASEAN summit in Indonesia; security partnerships like AUKUS, between the U.S., Australia and the UK, and the Quad, between the U.S., India, Australia and Japan; increased military sales and training to Taiwan; and the recent Camp David meeting Biden held with Japan and South Korea, the U.S. is building partnerships all across Asia. These actions are aimed at restraining China’s political, economic and military might, even if U.S. leaders don’t explicitly say that is their intention. Regardless of rhetoric, actions speak louder than words.

While it is prudent to be cautious, it may also be wise to explore cooperation in those areas where there are shared interests rather than assume that the BRICS and the West are strategic rivals on all fronts. This analysis was first published in the Global Observatory, 30 August 2023. When Jim O’Neill coined the BRIC acronym in 2001, the point he was trying to convey was that the global economic system needed to incorporate the world’s largest emerging economies. His advice fell on deaf ears and in 2009, Brazil, China, India and Russia decided to take matters into their own hands and formed the BRIC grouping. South Africa joined the group in 2010 to form the BRICS. This July, the group held its 15th summit in South Africa, where they decided to add six new members: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. More are likely to join in the future, including countries like Indonesia and Nigeria.  What these countries have in common is a frustration, if not a grievance, about being side-lined to the periphery of the world economy. Together, the BRICS represent approximately 40% of the world’s population. The combined size of their economies are approaching approximately 30% of the world’s GDP, which puts them roughly on par with combined size of the economies of the G7 countries, depending on whether size is measured in GDP or PPP.  More importantly, in the next few decades, the combined size of the BRICS economies will surpass that of the G7. Despite this growing parity, all the members of the BRICS, with the exception of Russia, self-identifies as being part of the Global South, i.e., they feel excluded from a global system dominated by the Global North. Their stated aim is to work towards a future system of global governance where they will have equal political and economic say in global institutions, and where no one state will dominate others. In pursuit of this aim, BRICS countries have established their own development bank, set up their own contingency reserve arrangement, are developing their own payment system, and have started to trade with each other in their own currencies.  The BRICS want to free their economies from the dollar-based international financial system. They feel exposed to United States interest rates that can have a negative effect on their economies, for no domestic reasons. The dollar-based financial system also provides the US with significant advantages in the global economy, which the BRICS see as unfair. They also feel a dollar-based financial system gives the US hegemonic influence in global affairs, through for example, exerting US jurisdiction on all dollar-based trade or investments that flow through US banks or financial institutions.  While the BRICS countries have these clear shared macro-economic interests, many of the members also have competing interests in other domains. China and India are geopolitical rivals in South Asia. Egypt and Ethiopia are at loggerheads over the Nile. Brazil, India, South Africa and the newly-added Argentina are democracies, while other countries in the group are governed by a diverse set of autocratic regimes, which could set up an irreconcilable clash of values on some issues. Many of the members of the BRICS also have close ties to the United States and Europe, including Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a televised statement to the nation on the eve of hosting the BRICS summit in South Africa, explained that South Africa remains non-aligned, and he announced that in 2023 the country will also host a major United States-Africa trade meeting and an EU-South Africa summit. South Africa will also host the G20 in 2025, the first in Africa. For many countries, membership of the BRICS does thus not necessarily imply aligning themselves with one global alliance versus another, but rather cooperation in a group around a series of shared interests.  Where does this place the BRICS on the Russian war in Ukraine? The BRICS summit in Johannesburg steered clear of taking a position on the war, other than welcoming mediation aimed at resolving it through dialogue and diplomacy. Some BRICS members like Iran are clearly supporting Russia, while most others have stopped short of either supporting or condemning Russia. For many such as Egypt, the war has adversely affected their economy. Two of the BRICS members, Egypt and South Africa, are part of an African initiative to seek a mediated end to the conflict, which is perhaps the first African initiative to mediate an international conflict. Overall, however, the BRICS have their eyes on the medium- to long-term transformation of the global macro-economic and financial system, and countries like China are probably frustrated that the Russian war in Ukraine has drawn attention away from this larger objective.  Are the BRICS and the West headed for a new cold war? The shift in the center of gravity of the global economy to the East is an unstoppable fact driven by demographics and economic factors like the cost of production. At the same time, Europe and the United States will remain major economic players. In tandem with these changes in the global economy, it is clear that the global political order will become more multipolar, with China, Europe, India, and the United States representing some of the major centers of influence.  In an August 27 article, Jim O’Neil argues that the influence of the BRICS will be determined by their effectiveness, not their size. An expanding BRICS will most likely succeed in helping its members to break free from a dollar-based international financial system, but that will take several decades of incremental change before it reaches a tipping point. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on the degree to which your economy is tied to the United States. Many of the BRICS countries, including China, Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa all have economies whose prosperity are closely tied to the Unites States. They will thus have an interest in a slow, stable freeing up of the international financial system, and this should give everyone that is prudent time to adapt.  The same logic also applies to changes in global governance architecture. Apart from Russia, all the other BRICS countries have an interest in making sure that changes in the global order are managed at a slow steady pace that does not generate instability. All the BRICS countries, apart from Russia, are also strong supporters of multilateralism, with the United Nations at its center. Many Western countries and BRICS members may thus have more shared interests than the doomsday headlines suggest. While it is prudent to be cautious, it may also be wise to explore cooperation in those areas where there are shared interests rather than assume that the BRICS and the West are strategic rivals on all fronts.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems to have changed course on his country’s foreign relations. At the last NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, he finally lifted his veto on Sweden’s proposed membership in the alliance; but his agreement is still incomplete as it requires the approval of the Turkish Parliament. And Erdoğan has apparently made parliamentary approval contingent on the US Congress approving his country’s purchase of F-16 fighter jets, which many assume may now be a done deal. Moreover, during the talks on Sweden’s accession, Erdoğan reiterated Turkey’s desire to join the European Union (EU) and hoped for a revival of the long-dead EU membership process. Prior to the Vilnius summit, Erdoğan further showcased his foreign policy outreach by hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ankara, signaling support for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.  On the domestic front, Erdoğan has formed a new cabinet that signals better relations with the West, as the most ardent anti-western member of the previous cabinet, former Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, has been left out. Additionally, the president aims to instill confidence in western markets by appointing respected figures like Mehmet Simsek as economy minister and Hafize Gaye Erkan as Central Bank governor. These appointments are seen as positive signals of an effort to strengthen economic ties with the West. This series of moves has triggered the hope, especially in western circles, that Turkey could return to the western fold and that Turkish-Russian relations will cool in parallel. However, pessimists, who see Turkey’s departure from the West as a done deal, disagree and are right to believe that Turkey’s relations with both the United States and European countries have fundamentally changed. It is no longer possible to go back to the early 2000s when Erdoğan was steering the country toward EU membership. The EU has no intention of admitting Turkey; but even if it did, the process would not be in Erdoğan’s favor. Nor is it possible to go back to the Cold War era, when Turkey was firmly embedded in the western geopolitical system. Turkey no longer sees Russia as a threat or an adversary in the sense that most western countries do. The fact that Turkey has resisted approving Sweden’s NATO membership for more than a year and that it will only do so in exchange for the delivery of F-16s shows how badly damaged Turkish-European and Turkish-American relations truly are. Therefore, pessimists point out that rather than signaling Turkey’s return to the West, the whole debacle proves how problematic and transactional Turkish-western relations have become. But these analysts overlook the fact that Erdoğan is pushing for a reorientation in foreign policy, and in his relations with the West in particular. This reorientation started long before the most recent presidential elections in May; but the president’s victory gave him a stronger hand to reboot his foreign policy, which is not aimed at bringing Turkey back into the West’s orbit, but rather at building better functioning relations with it. Turkey’s Departure from the West Turkey’s divergence from the West has taken place at the level of both political values and geopolitics. Over the last decade, Turkish democracy has been in serious decline. Especially after the transition to a hyper-presidential system in 2018, which eliminated all checks and balances in the political system, Turkey’s has become an increasingly autocratic regime. Turkish foreign policy has also become increasingly militarized, much to the chagrin of western capitals. Not only has Turkey used its military power in Syria, Iraq, and Libya but it has also deployed its navy to the Eastern Mediterranean, aggressively threatening the sovereignty of two EU countries: Greece and Cyprus. These aggressive policies were backed by an expansionist naval doctrine called Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland), whose ideology has disturbed western policymakers. The naval officers who created and developed the Blue Homeland concept never concealed their pro-Russian leanings and deliberately propagated an anti-American and anti-western narrative. These officers, and the political circles associated with them—dubbed Eurasianists in Turkey—have become an integral part of Turkey’s ruling coalition. Turkey’s purchase of S-400 missiles from Russia took place in such a context and represents the culmination of Turkish-American tensions. Turkey’s autocratic turn at home and its militarized foreign policy, which often work against the interests of its western allies, were simultaneous and mutually-reinforcing processes. But said foreign policy reached its limits toward the end of 2020. Turkey became regionally isolated with an overextended military, and its aggressive foreign policy, the rise of authoritarianism, and the subsequent decline of the rule of law plunged it into a protracted economic crisis. This economic downturn began to undermine Erdoğan’s meticulously-built power, as evidenced by his party’s defeat in the 2019 local elections. Unable to sustain autocratic rule, anti-westernism, and an aggressive foreign policy all at the same time, Erdoğan began to seek a new direction. The essence of the new approach is to maintain his authoritarian rule at home while becoming a less confrontational actor in foreign relations. Reorientation in Foreign Policy This reorientation began first in the Middle East, where Turkish authoritarianism was never going to be a cause for concern. Turkey began to mend fences with Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, while at the same time aligning itself with the emerging Abraham Accords framework in the region. While accommodating western geopolitical interests, Turkey’s relations with Iran began to enter a more confrontational phase. One of the main motivations for this regional restructuring was economic: Turkey continues to receive significant form of foreign investment from Gulf states. Another motivation was geo-strategic: Turkey hoped that normalization with Israel, and to a lesser extent with supposedly pro-western Arab regimes, would help ease tensions with the United States. While reconciling with its Middle Eastern rivals, the Erdoğan administration was also looking for opportunities to curry favor with Washington and increase its own importance in the eyes of the Biden administration. One of the early opportunities came in the summer of 2021 after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan when Turkey immediately stepped in and offered to take over the protection of Kabul International Airport. This initiative earned Erdoğan his first personal meeting with Biden. However, the unprecedented rapid collapse of the Kabul government prevented Ankara from using the Afghanistan front as a base to build its relations with the United States. A second opportunity arose in February 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. New Opportunities for Erdoğan The war in Ukraine has had contradictory effects on Turkey’s foreign policy and on Turkish-western relations. On the one hand, it increased Turkey’s strategic value and facilitated its reengagement with the West. On the other hand, it created additional difficulties as western countries demanded that Turkey sever its ties with Russia, a demand that Turkey rejected. Erdoğan ultimately managed to spread the idea that perhaps it would be better for everyone if Turkey remained relatively neutral. Erdoğan’s personal ties with Putin and the complex and highly interdependent Turkish-Russian relations placed Turkey in a special position among NATO countries. Turkey therefore tried to maintain a pro-Ukrainian line without being anti-Russian. So far, Erdoğan has managed to maintain this seemingly paradoxical position. Turkey has given full military support to Ukraine, and especially in the early days of the war Turkish drones were vital for Ukraine’s defense. To be sure, this support was better than that of many European countries. Politically, however, and while condemning Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory since 2014, it has not joined in imposing sanctions on Russia, and the two countries have maintained good diplomatic relations. Erdoğan clearly enjoyed his balancing role. His policies during the Ukraine war have earned the Turkish public’s respect and helped, at least indirectly, in his reelection as they contributed to his image as a world-renowned statesman. Turkey also enjoyed the economic benefits of its being Russia’s main economic outlet. Not only did Turkish-Russian trade increase, but Putin lent a helping hand in the run-up to the elections by agreeing to delay Turkey’s natural gas payments and depositing much-needed foreign currency in the Turkish Central Bank. Erdoğan justified this unique position by emphasizing his mediating role between Ukraine and Russia and between the latter and the West. In this context, securing the grain deal was a particularly important achievement that helped Erdoğan justify his balancing act. Now the deal appears to be in tatters, raising questions about his ability to maintain his role as mediator. The Turkish president has also raised eyebrows in Moscow by recently hosting President Zelenskyy and increasing his support for Ukraine’s NATO membership. He even tested the Kremlin’s nerve by allowing Azov fighters to return to Ukraine with Zelenskyy, an apparent violation of a prisoner swap deal brokered by Turkey. Despite all this, Erdoğan wants to stick to his original position and continue to play the role of mediator. He is counting on the fact that Putin currently cannot afford a falling-out. Erdoğan has already indicated that he expects to host Putin in Turkey in August for a one-on-one meeting, although so far the Russian side has not confirmed the visit. Russia’s reaction to Turkey’s recent moves, such as ratifying Sweden’s NATO membership and supporting Ukraine’s NATO membership, has also been rather mute. Therefore, Turkey’s pivot to the West does not mean that it will cool its relations with Russia. Erdoğan realizes that the longer he maintains his balancing role, the stronger his hand will be with both the West and Russia. A Revitalization of Turkey-EU Relations? If there is no going back to the Cold War era, there is also no returning to the early 2000s, when Turkey was pushing for EU membership. Despite surprising everyone by rekindling the dormant EU membership process ahead of the Vilnius summit, Erdoğan’s move is unlikely to breathe life into Turkey’s EU accession aspirations. This is primarily due to the fact that EU membership would not align with the president’s personal interests, as it would necessitate a higher standard of the rule of law that might curtail his currently unchecked and absolute authority in the country. The accession process revolves around aligning a nation’s internal standards with EU norms, known as the community acquis. Consequently, becoming an EU member would demand a transformation of Turkey’s domestic political system, which currently concentrates power in Erdoğan’s hands. Given this, how should Erdoğan’s statements on revitalizing the EU process be interpreted? Part of the explanation has to do with his transactional style of policymaking. A master of brinkmanship and bargaining, Erdoğan often raises demands and stakes just to get a better deal. This is why Turkey’s foreign policy disputes are often resolved at the 11th hour, as is still the case with Sweden’s NATO membership. But these tactical moves also reflect Erdoğan’s genuine desire to improve relations with the EU. It is important to note, however, that Erdoğan does not necessarily want Turkey to be inside the EU; he simply wants to do business with it. The EU remains Turkey’s primary economic partner, and Ankara has long been demanding a modernization of the Customs Union agreement with the bloc to boost its trade. Moreover, better relations with European countries are expected to be instrumental in attracting much-needed foreign investment. Gulf money has only carried Turkey so far, and to solve its deep economic problems it is necessary to attract the financial power of the West. Thus, Erdoğan wants more engagement with Europe on the economy, defense, security, and refugee issues, but not in the context of EU membership. In fact, the refugee deal signed between Turkey and the EU in 2016 was designed precisely around the idea that Turkey is not and will not be part of the EU. Accordingly, Turkey continues to block the movement of refugees toward Europe in exchange for financial assistance from the EU. The bloc has recently concluded similar agreements with North African countries, aiming to externalize its refugee problem. For this cooperation with Turkey to work, Turkey needs to be outside the EU, not inside it. Thus, Turkey’s desire to create better working conditions with the EU is emblematic of the nature of its reorientation toward the West. Furthermore, western capitals seem increasingly willing to respond positively to overtures made by the Turkish President. Western Reaction to Erdoğan’s Moves It is not only Erdoğan who has changed his position; the West has also changed its approach to him. Biden and other western leaders were distancing themselves from Erdoğan in anticipation of his loss in the presidential elections. Biden did not invite him to Washington and did not visit Ankara, despite Turkey’s growing importance in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war. Knowing how much Erdoğan values personal meetings, Biden used them as leverage to resolve stalemates like the one over Sweden’s NATO membership. Moreover, having learned Erdoğan’s style of politics over the years, western leaders successfully avoided becoming his punching bag ahead of the elections, as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel did during Turkey’s 2017 constitutional referendum. To achieve this, they followed a policy of ignoring rather than supporting Erdoğan. But when the elections were over and he was set to rule Turkey almost single-handedly for another five years, western leaders rushed to congratulate him. It is also becoming much easier for the West to work with Turkey on a geostrategic and security level. For the United States, Turkish-American security cooperation is shifting from the Middle East to the Black Sea. Turkish-American relations in the Middle East have inevitably taken on a more political and ideological character, with the two countries’ different threat perceptions and respective approaches to the Kurdish issue and to Kurdish actors in northern Syria remaining the biggest challenge in bilateral relations. In contrast, Turkey and the United States are more in agreement on the Black Sea. Moreover, within the Pentagon, EUROCOM’s approach to Turkey is much more friendly than CENTCOM’s, and has a better track record of cooperation. For Europe, Erdoğan’s commitment to the migration deal makes him a valuable partner, especially given the growing anti-immigration stance of the Turkish and European publics. Moreover, Erdoğan’s preference for working with the EU but for simultaneously not genuinely pushing for membership in it fits well with European policies. The EU and Erdoğan are more in agreement on their common desire to keep Turkey out but to simultaneously build better working relations. Overall, it seems clear that Erdoğan is eying a new reorientation in his foreign policy. At the moment he is at the height of his power at home and does not need to use the West as a punching bag for domestic political gains. Furthermore, economic conditions and regional developments are compelling him to lean more toward western powers. As a result, Turkish foreign policy is poised to take a new direction. Nevertheless, any improvement in relations will likely be limited to the geostrategic and economic realms and will not encompass a realignment of political values. Without common political values, the result will be significantly improved but will remain transactional between Turkey and its western partners. This paper was originally published by Arab Center Washington DC. Republished with permission. © Arab Center Washington DC, October 2023.

Good morning.  I want to thank Speaker Kevin McCarthy, my friend Speaker Kevin McCarthy, for this occasion he gave me. I want to say that I’m very glad to be here in the heart of the American democracy and in the place that Thomas Jefferson, at the time Secretary of State of President George Washington, wanted to call Capitol Hill to commemorate the famous Temple of Giove on the Capitoline Hill, il Campidoglio - one of the seven hills of Rome. And I say it for it is another sign of the incredibly strong ties between Italy and the United States, ties that have become even deeper in recent times after the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. More than ever, in this international juncture, our relations are essential. More than ever, we must be able to rely one on the other. Today we had the occasion to exchange views on many international issues, from the war in Ukraine and its effects worldwide, in particular regarding food security, to the stabilisation and development in the Mediterranean area, moreover in Africa, the Indo-Pacific, and Italy’s next Presidency of the G7. I was glad to have this debate with representatives of Congress because it gives me a complete picture of the foreign policy landscape from representatives elected by the American people. I’ve been in politics for most of my life and I’ve been a member of parliament for many, many years, so I perfectly know the importance of parliaments in democracies. That’s why I’m so grateful to Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whom I had the pleasure to meet already in Rome a few months ago, and to the representatives I met today, for the time they wanted to spend with me.  And last but not least, I’m happy to be here in a place decorated by these wonderful frescoes of Costantino Brumidi, another Italian, for this place represents and sums up also the stories of all the Italian-Americans who, with their lives, with their efforts, with their dreams, with their creativity, contributed to strengthening the bonds between our two peoples and contributed to make this democracy the great democracy it is. So, I want to say that I’m proud of these Italians, I’m proud of your grandfather too, Kevin, and I really want to thank them for the contribution they brought to the history and the culture and the identity of this nation. Many of them are today representatives and that shows the role Italy has had for the history of the United States, and that is one reason more to continue strengthening our relations, our cooperation, our friendship, particularly in this tough world, in this tough situation.  Many things are changing around us, but there is something others didn’t expect that we should perfectly prove: that the Western world is united and wants to defend the world based on rules, for without a world based on international law, we would live in a world of chaos, in which who is militarily stronger thinks he can invade his neighbour. That’s not the world we want to live in; we want to live in a world in which we can respect sovereignty and freedom. Thank you very much.