A very serious game of poker

Nick Thomas, Communications Specialist

In January of each year at IBC, we get together to preview world business climates for the year ahead. A key part of this, is our “Faites Vos Jeux - Place Your Bets” IBC World Poker game, where our members get $1,000,000 in play money to play on the countries they think will have the highest percentage growth in GDP over the year. When all the bets are placed, we have a good snapshot of what our IBC peers are thinking. As with the extraordinary times we are living in, the IBC World Poker results this year were extraordinary.

It was perhaps a shade ironic that there was a skyscraper of poker chips placed firmly on China by IBC members and guests as the most likely country globally to target for economic growth and business opportunities in 2021.

After all, it has been about a year since the COVID-19 pandemic originated in the same country and led to economic and societal devastation around the world in a year whose experiences most of us have never lived through before.

China, however, despite optimism about its continuing economic opportunity and the reality of its global clout, remains a “maligning factor” in the words of Ambassador Christopher Hill, former Dean of the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and seasoned diplomat.

And, after the negation of diplomacy generally under former U.S. President Trump, it was incumbent upon the U.S. under now President Biden to re-establish good relationships with its allies so as to unify and counter such a threat, Hill said.

“We need to do a much better job diplomatically,” he added.

 Other speakers pointed to an optimistic start by the new U.S administration with Canadian and British observers agreeing their governments were on the same page in terms of policies being shaped by the Biden cabinet.

 Canada, for example, was fully behind a greater focus on climate change initiatives as well as co-operating more fully on the COVID-19 issue, said Kathryn Burkell, Senior Trade Commissioner at the Canadian Consulate in Denver.

 The U.K would also have an opportunity this year to work with the Biden administration on aspects of climate change given its current presidency of the G-7 and the holding of a leadership meeting in Cornwall later this year as well as, more specifically, the staging of the 26th UN climate change event, COP26, in Glasgow in November, said Erin Kuhn, British Consul in Denver.

U.S Political Situation Remains Threat Post-Election

 What was perhaps new about the global outlook was the ongoing threat posed by a politically unstable United States, warned Hill.

 Such instability was not going to go away just because of Biden’s election even though the new administration had been encouragingly successful in a bipartisan way in getting some of its cabinet nominations approved in its opening days.

 The refusal by Trump to accept the November 2020 election results is continuing to have “enormous consequences” which included the events of January 6 when the Capitol was ransacked by some Trump supporters.

 “We have to end this uncivil war,” he said. “The January 6 events were a very serious blow to U.S. prestige and not yesterday’s news as some would have it.”

 With eventual success in rebuilding trust in domestic institutions paramount, the U.S. also has at the same time to reach outwards by healing damaged relationships with allies to deal better with global threats like the COVID-19 pandemic and the likes of a malign China, as noted before.

 Iran, too, would need strong allied strategies to counter its threat as well as the “hardy perennial” trouble spot of North Korea, Hill said.

 Russia also continues to pose a threat to global stability, though a different one than China.

 “Russia is a space to watch because it is looking at its own decline and making a lot of noise in the short run,” Hill said.

 The COVID crisis remains a huge problem and the countries that deal best with it in 2021 will have a huge advantage, he added.

 “Their political stability will depend on how they handle COVID-19,” Hill said. “There is a huge question about the pace of recovery, there are a lot of big questions.”

 As usual, there are a lot of unresolved issues globally threatening the world’s prosperity and peace, with COVID-19 expected to dominate thoughts and priorities this year. Such uncertainty as to that issue’s outcome is perhaps the only constant.

 “We certainly have a strange number of months ahead of us,” noted Bill Graebel, CEO of relocation company Graebel.