The world is now running at two speeds. Flicking through our top stories today and there is a raft of news about US President Donald Trump’s aggressive moves to “Make America Great Again” which for the countries he is using to do that is very bad news. It seems the strategy is not to actually improve America, but to make everywhere else so miserable that the US is in front because everyone else has fallen away.

Look at the countries that he has interacted with. The top story today is Cuba is about three weeks away from complete collapse as it runs out of energy. The headline is that one tanker has made it to Havana this year and without fresh supplies the economy will collapse. A tanker is on its way from Africa, but it remains to be seen if it will get through a US naval blockade – which is an act of war, by the way.

Iran is in panic mode as Trump builds up a “massive armada” in the Gulf and is now contemplating how to hit Iran: either a massive bombardment or a more surgical set of strikes against government buildings and the like. The rial is still in freefall and you need a wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread.

Having taken over Venezuela and promising to “fix” its oil industry, it turns out that is going to be harder than it first appeared. The government has put through a bunch of changes to the oil laws to make the sector “attractive” to foreign investors as it needs about $100bn spent on modernization. Except Venezuela remains “un-investable.” I wonder why that is? Maybe something to do with a rogue America that will bomb your investment destination if your president happens to tweet something Trump doesn’t like?

This is relevant to Ukraine as it needs even more money than Venezuela: an estimated $800bn for the “Prosperity Package” proposal. This number is breathlessly widely reported together with the fact that Blackrock, “the biggest fund in the world with trillions under management” is going to help. But it skips over the fact that most of that money is supposed to come from the private sector. As someone that has been writing about investments into emerging markets all my adult life, and Russia and Ukraine in particular, I can tell you raising $800bn from fund managers to invest into Ukraine is a fantasy. Like Venezuela, the political risks are extreme as any one of Trump, Putin or even a new hardline Ukrainian president could restart the war at any point. Why invest your capital in Ukraine, which admittedly has an excellent investment story from an assets point of view, when you can much more safely invest in, say, Vietnam or Guyana, which are both booming. At least in Ukraine, it will have access to tens of billions of EU taxpayer money and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the EBRD and EIB.

On the reverse side of the coin is a multi-vector foreign policy. The zeroth and unspoken tenant of this policy is “don’t screw with Trump” but beyond that it is “make friends with everybody.” It sounds simple, but it is not so easy to do. It was very successfully pioneered by former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who found himself squeezed between Russia and China, but managed to bring in the major US countries to develop the extensive oil resources (Caracas, are you taking notes?) that are the bedrock of Kazakhstan’s prosperity.

In a little reported fact, Kazakhstan overtook Russia in GDP capita terms last summer. That doesn’t mean everyone in Kazakhstan is now better off than everyone in Russia as Kazakhstan has a lot of oil and very few people, but still, it’s pretty impressive. If you have ever been to Almaty (highly recommended) it is a very pleasant, green and modern city. It wasn’t like that when I was first there in the early 1990s. For all the talk of Russia bellicosity, the Kremlin never had a problem with US investors parking themselves in Russia’s backyard. This is another aspect of Russia no one seems to understand: the Kremlin makes a very clear distinction between business and politics. That is why it has no problem with Ukraine joining the EU (it’s just business) but joining Nato is an absolute no-go.

Syrian president Ahmed al-Shaara just arrived in Moscow this morning, trying to cut a similar deal. He fought against the Russians for years, but he has put that behind him and is looking for partners. For their part, Moscow wants to keep its bases in Syria and a foot in the Middle East where it has successfully expanded ties across the region.

The Tartus port is absolutely key as it is the cornerstone of Russia’s return as a naval power in the Mediterranean, as we reported. And the Hmeimim Air Base (aka Latakia) is also a key stepping stone for supporting Russia’s military commitments in Africa.

Al-Shaara can play this card with Putin in exchange for money, technology and help with security. But like Nazarbayev he was also in the US to meet Trump in the White House, has a deal with the EU and is actively engaging with all his regional neighbours who are investing billions into his country which is economically flat on its back. (Ukraine are you taking notes?) Trump is actively dismantling the international rules-based order. That was already happening before he took office as part of the death of the globalisation that happened during the global pandemic and the rise of the rest as countries like China began to flex their new-found economic muscles.

That led analysts to describe a fractured world. But what is emerging now is a patchwork world of complicated multi-vector relations that no longer housed in the likes of the IMF or UN buildings (both in the US, BTW) but the proliferating number of Global Emerging Markets Institutions (GEMIs). These are increasingly regional: al-Shaara is doing a lot more business with his nearby neighbours than the big powers like Russia, but relations with the big powers is still important. Putin gets it and will do everything he can to help. He already stood down his troops at a northern airbase as a gesture of goodwill as the Syrian army tries to take back control of that part of the country from Kurdish troops that de facto control it.

Ukraine is an unfortunate victim here. Before the annexation of Crimea it was also pursuing a multi-vector foreign policy with neutrality enshrined in both its founding documents and then the constitution. However, as a result of the Orange and the EuroMaidan Revolutions it chose a binary pro-Europe, anti-Russia path that set it on a collision course with Russia. This is not entirely Kyiv’s fault as Putin was being very aggressive: his attempt to force Ukraine into his Customs Union (now the Eurasian Economic Union) at that time triggered a show down, but as bne IntelliNews argued, Kyiv should have been a little more conscious of the geography of diplomacy and taken some notes on Kazakhstan’s approach.

What amazes me is that Europe is now in a total state of paralysis as it still thinks in terms of the pre-Trump West-and-the-Rest global set up where it belongs to the rich half that is supposed to run the world. In the English speaking world, the rest is still referred to as “Emerging Markets” something that is less true every day. Indeed, as bne IntelliNews has reported, the combined GDP in PPP terms of the “emerging markets” is now greater than that of the “developed markets.” We now live in the poorer half of the world.

Too many EU leaders are still deluding themselves that there is still some sort of “special relationship” with the Trump administration. Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte said it again this week: ”If anyone thinks here... that the EU or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming,” he told lawmakers on the European Parliament’s Defence and foreign affairs committees. “You can't.”

Then Europe is defenceless.

Trump has walked away from Europe (read the NSS again) and closed the security umbrella. Faith that the US will come to Europe’s Article 5 aid when, according to multiple European security services analysis, Russia invades the Baltics is now naïve. But currently that remains the plan, even if Brussels belatedly is trying to work out a ReArm Plan B. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s trip to India and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s to China are attempts to address the changing realities, but at this point I have little confidence they really understand the nature of the new game.

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