September 1, 2023: Global News Roundup
“Coups are contagious”—Western powers struggle to maintains spheres of influence in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East
The Global News Roundup collects news stories from entirely international (non-US) media sources on variety of pressing global issues and events.
Good morning! Over the past two weeks, governments and political factions around the world continued to push back against Western power and influence. Less than a month after a military junta seized control of Niger’s government and began severing the country’s neocolonial ties to France (the military government ceased gold and uranium exports to France and expelled the French ambassador to Niger), another coup occurred in another former French colony, Gabon, following the reelection of now-deposed President Ali Bongo this past Saturday. Gabon—which sits on the Atlantic Ocean, shares borders with Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of Congo, and is 88% covered in rainforest—has a population of about 2.3 million people, 50% of whom are under the age of 20. The army officers who staged the coup said “that the election results were invalidated, all state institutions dissolved and all borders closed until further notice”.
Bongo’s opponents claimed the election held this past weekend was fraudulent and further accused Bongo of “getting rich on the country’s resource wealth while many of its citizens struggle to scrape by” (according to one source, the wealthiest 20% in Gabon control 90% of the country’s wealth). Ali Bongo, who came to power in 2009, is the son of Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon continuously for from 1967-2009. “Mr. Bongo's overthrow ended his family's 55-year hold on power in the Central African state,” reported the BBC on Thursday. Gabon’s new “transition” leader, General Brice Oligui Nguema, is a former head of Bongo’s presidential guard and is “believed to be related to the deposed president”.
(Image: “This video grab taken from Gabon 24 shows Gabonese soldiers appearing on television on August 30, 2023 announcing they were “putting an end to the current regime” of President Ali Bongo Ondimba.” From The Observer, 8/30/23, here).
Noting that “coups are contagious” and also that two thirds of African coups since the 1990s have been in former French colonies, the Economist meekly opined this week that “France’s Africa policy is in tatters”. Euronews reported yesterday on some of what’s at stake for France as the new government takes power: “France currently has hundreds of troops permanently deployed in Gabon, which like other former French colonies in the region uses the Central African Franc, a currency pegged to the Euro and backed by guarantees from the French treasury. French mining company Eramet is Gabon’s second-largest private employer; it has announced that given the current unrest, it is suspending its operations.”
Eramet is the world’s largest producer of high-grade manganese ore and operates several mines in Gabon (produces 14% of the world’s manganese ore) and has manganese alloy processing facilities in Gabon, France, Norway, and the US. Manganese is the 4th most widely used metal in the world, after iron, aluminum and copper, and, among other applications, it is an essential input in the steel-making process. According to the US Geological Survey, the US imported 70% of its manganese ore from Gabon in 2015-18, while OEC reports that France is the world’s 12th largest exporter of manganese and relies heavily on Gabon for the raw ore it processes for export (in 2021, 51% of French manganese ore imports came from Gabon, with the remainder mostly from South Africa). Eramet suspended mining operations in Gabon briefly on Wednesday owing to security concerns, but, after its share price dropped 17% in trading on Paris exchanges, the company posted notice that they will be resuming normal operations.
In addition to manganese, Gabon also produces and exports oil, which accounted for 39% of exports and 71% of GDP in 2020. With production of roughly 200,000 barrels per day, the country is OPEC’s 2nd smallest producer. French oil giant Total Energy dominates oil extraction in Gabon, but other major multinationals, including the US-based Carlyle Group, also have investments in the sector. Oil production has continued since the coup occurred, though prices rose modestly on the news.
I’m still unclear on the Great Power dynamics lying behind the coup. While France’s position and interests appear rather straightforward, the roles, if any, being played by other major powers are not. This article details the international responses to the coup so far, including from the African Union, EU, UN, and governments of the US, UK, France, Russia, and China. It’s a mix of condemnation (mostly from the EU, France, and UK), and then “concern” from the others, along with calls for diplomacy and stability. Stay tuned.
Moving on, during the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa last week, the organization agreed to invite six new members to join: Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Argentina. The graphic below from Al Jazeera maps the new configuration. Formal accession to the organization will occur in January for governments that accept the invitation.
Image: “BRICS admits 6 new members”, Al Jazeera, 8/24/2023, here).
As I noted in my Roundup from August 18, prior to the summit, this particular group of invited countries includes several geopolitically provacative selections (in some ways, all 6 choices are pretty provacative). For example, the inclusion of 3 major Middle Eastern oil producers is especially interesting given the BRICS focus on de-dollarization and the critical role of global oil trading in propping up the value of the US dollar (for decades, global oil trading has been priced and conducted in dollars, creating demand for the US currency—this is where the term “petrodollar” comes from). With the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran, the BRICS share of global oil production doubles to around 45%, meaning that the BRICS will likely soon have power over a very large share of global oil trading and could, if they wanted to, price and trade it in other currencies.
Further, for many decades, US dominance in the Middle East has partly relied on a “divide and conquer” strategy of sorts in which animosity between Iran and Saudi Arabia played a critical role. Like Egypt, Saudi Arabia is a traditional US ally and major recipient of US military aid. By contrast, Iran has long been regarded by the US as an enemy state and has been subject to US sanctions and other punitive policies on and off for decades since the Iranian Revolution in 1978. On the heels of a Chinese-brokered thaw in Iran-Saudi relations this past spring, the inclusion of both in BRICS is a sure sign of the US’s waning influence in the region.
Along these lines, and speaking to Saudi Arabia’s growing power and leverage over the US (including its power over the US dollar), Al Jazeera reported that the Saudi government will likely try to use the BRICS invitation to extract concessions from the US:
According to analysts, the kingdom’s ironclad alliance with the US has already loosened on a number of fronts; its entry into BRICS would be another unravelling – but still far from doing away with ties.
“Riyadh will first gauge the reaction of Washington, and consider any offers from the delegations that [US President Joe] Biden will send to Riyadh, before moving ahead with accepting the invitation,” Sami Hamdi, the managing director at International Interest, a political risk firm focusing on the Middle East, told Al Jazeera.
Still, Saudi Arabia, already a regional leader, also has an ambitious drive to become a heavyweight globally, an ambition for which deeper ties with China are equally as important, according to Michelle Grise, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation.
Argentina’s invitation is also one to follow, for a few reasons. First, Argentina’s recent election saw more support than expected for Javier Milei, who opposes BRICS membership, has proposed closer alliances with the US, and further supports the adoption of the US dollar as Argentina’s domestic currency. Second, Argentina has been struggling with debt and financial crises since the late 1990s under the auspices of various agreements with the Western-led International Monetary Fund (IMF). Given that the BRICS have their own development bank specifically designed to complete with the IMF and World Bank (it’s called the New Development Bank, or NDB), I’m very curious to see how BRICS try to support Argentina financially in the lead up to its potential accession to the organization on January 1, how these measures impact Argentina’s decision to join or not, and how the BRICS success or lack thereof on this front impacts NDB competition with the IMF. Already, BRICS countries have stepped in to offer Argentina financial support outside the IMF umbrella, including injections of yuan from China via currency swap lines (China and Argentina “swap” currencies, so that Argentina can use yuan to pay for imports and service debts, giving China pesos in return). Reuters also reported last week that Brazil has offered to support Argentina with “yuan guarantees”, allowing Argentina to pay for imports from Brazil with Chinese yuan instead of dollars (there is currently a dollar shortage in Argentina and Argentina is Brazil’s 3rd largest trade partner).
The joint declaration that came out of the BRICS summit was a super interesting read, not least because every enumerated item in the document was, more or less, a critique of Western policies, practices, and institutions. The “Johannesburg II Declaration” takes aim at the Ukraine war and the prospect of Western intervention in Niger (the BRICS call for “peace” and “diplomacy”), at US and European sanctions (which the BRICS called “unilateral illegal measures”), at the IMF and World Bank and WTO (they call for “fairer”, more “open” and “transparent” trade and development policy and programming), and reform of the United Nations (to make it more “democratic”), among other criticisms and suggestions.
In related news, there were reports of “clashes” this week in Syria, parts of which have been occupied by the US military since 2015, between “Arab tribal fighters” loyal to Syrian President Assad and US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). While reports differ on the exact figures, dozens of people were killed, including civilians. The US government approved a US$80 million arms transfer to Taiwan under the Foreign Military Finance program (FMF): “The US Department of State on Wednesday notified the US Congress of the aid, saying that the items provided through the FMF would “be used to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities through joint and combined defense capability and enhanced maritime domain awareness and maritime security capability,” reported the Taipei Times. And, the United Nations is considering approving a Kenyan “police mission” to Haiti to assist with spiraling violence and unrest, though “Haitian civil society” was reported to be “wary of a new foreign intervention”.
Things I’m keeping an eye on:
1. South Africa and covid vaccines: As spread of a new covid strain seems to be picking up speed around the world, I wanted to follow up on a story I wrote about a few weeks ago. Recall that the South African government was sued by a nonprofit organization seeking access to documents and contracts related to the government’s procurement of covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and other vaccine manufacturers. The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria recently ruled that the government does indeed have to release the documents. The 10-day window for disclosure ended sometime this past week, so I’ll keep you posted about what I see coming out of it, if anything.
2. North Korea: There have been a lot of missile tests recently, and there were more over the past couple weeks. Last week, “North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile further than ever before…sending one soaring over Japan for the first time in five years, prompting a warning for residents to take cover.” Then, this past Wednesday, the North Korean government “declared carrying out simulated “scorched earth” nuclear strikes on South Korea’s critical military structures. Dummy warheads at a set altitude were exploded by tactical ballistic missiles…”.
3. The US dollar: I’m keeping an eye on this one all the time even if I don’t say so, and have a longer article on the topic, one I wrote with some of my students, coming out later this fall in Dollars & Sense. Right now, I’m following the continued weakening of the US economy in parallel with real estate market trouble in China that has recently garnered a lot of international attention. To be frank, investors don’t seem too excited about either of these superpower economies at the moment. The news about BRICS inviting 3 major oil producers to join coincided with growing momentum to de-dollarize elsewhere, including the introduction of a QR-code based system for cross-border payments in local currencies among ASEAN powerhouses Singapore and Indonesia. (ASEAN = Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
4. Workers: It’s Labor Day in the US on Monday. This article from the WSWS summarizes recent efforts by workers around the world to secure higher wages and better conditions, including nurses in Iran protesting salary delays, bus drivers in the UK on strike against low pay and lack of access to toilet facilities, and shipbuilders in Spain protesting recent layoffs and hiring freezes. The photograph of workers below was taken by Brazilian artist Sebastião Salgado.
(Image: Sebastiao Salgado. “Greater Burhan Oil Field, Kuwait, 1991”. Gelatin silver print. Workers place a new wellhead in an oil well that had been damaged by Iraqi explosives. From, Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age, via Public Delivery, here.)
An amazing collection of Sebastian Selgado’s photographs in Workers. Standing out in my memory are the Gold miners in Serra Pelada, Brazil and the workers collecting solidified sulfur from down in the mouth of a volcano in Java, Indonesia.