Weekend Edition: Thinking beyond the deal
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What is the current geopolitical climate and why is uncertainty the defining word for 2025?
Well this week things seem to have got a bit better, don't they? President Trump is out doing deals, even if geopolitical unrest continues unabated. But how does it all play out? And what as investors should we be doing to navigate our way through this year and beyond? That's this week. The morning call from NAB with Phil Dobby. The weekend edition. And the views you hear on the weekend edition are not to be taken as investment advice, and they don't necessarily reflect the opinions of NAB on anything that is said here either. So just wanted to get that out there right at the very beginning. Now pick a word for twenty twenty five. It's got to be uncertainty, hasn't it? Not necessarily good, not necessarily bad, just destination unknown.
And that is what markets are Grappling with right now. So equity markets, of course, caught short of the beginning of this week by the drop in tariffs between China and the United States. The UK trade deal was rushed through for VE Day. But to add to the confusion, more global conflict. So since the pandemic, which obviously itself had a momentous impact on the global economy, since then Russia has invaded Ukraine, Hamas has attacked Israel, Israel has decimated Gaza, Iran. Has moved into the fray, and now of course India and Pakistan, and then there is the power play in trade and influence between the two biggest economies, the US and China, and the Taiwan question you might have seen recently about how China's fleet of ships includes uh ships with roll on roll off capabilities designed for a land invasion.
Does that make you a bit nervous? So, how do you make investment decisions in a climate like this? This is where politics and politicians have more sway than economic data or the musings of central bankers. Well, Michael Feller is chief strategist at Geopolitical Strategy in Sydney. They're based in in Sydney, but he's actually uh talking to us from uh uh Victoria. So they advise firms about navigating environments just like this. And Michael, it seems that uh that you know you have done it all. Former finance journalists. investment strategist, many years in government as a diplomat in Singapore, uh senior advisor to Malcolm Turnbull as and uh director of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as well.
So obviously your opinion counts a bit more than most everyone's got opinions on this stuff, but I feel like yours is founded on a bit more experience. So we've got two things right now.
How are the recent U.S. tariff moves linked to rising global geopolitical tensions?
We've got tariffs and the deals that are being pursued for that, and then we've got this general atmosphere of global Global unrest as well. So are the two things linked in any way, do you think?
Yes, Phil, they're linked in the sense that uh one feeds into the other. So uh tariffs uh obviously you look through history at previous times when we've seen uh trade policy like this introduced and uh the last big moment of course with the Smoot Harley uh Hawley tariffs of uh the n early nineteen thirties led into the Great Depression and uh as they say the rest is history. And And then if you look into the 19th century previous periods where tariffs have preceded conflict. But also the tariffs follow this feeling of unrest because they're a direct response to the rise in nationalism, particularly in the United States, where people feel like they've been left behind, screwed over by the world. I think that were the terms.
used by Donald Trump of obviously uh forgetting the fact that the US uh essentially designed globalization and has done very, very well out of it, um, there are people who are left behind. As in all economic shifts, the Industrial Revolution, the Computer revolution, automation, but you know, people look for a bad guy and uh if that bad guy is another country far away, or or in fact all countries, that's very convenient for a populist politician.
So that that's Here we are. Yeah, here we are. But that's politics as old as the hills, isn't it? That that that old stunt. Maybe it's just being played a bit more these days. But you talked about the nineteen thirties as though uh that was all cause because of tariffs, cause and effect.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the current geopolitical climate and why is uncertainty the defining word for 2025?
0:01–2:20
2
How are the recent U.S. tariff moves linked to rising global geopolitical tensions?
2:20–5:20
3
Why did the Taiwanese dollar spike and what does it reveal about U.S.–China trade dynamics?
5:20–8:01
4
Are we past the worst of market volatility caused by the latest U.S. trade deals?
8:01–10:33
5
How is China balancing internal economic challenges with external trade pressures?
10:33–13:20
6
Will the United States revive domestic steel and rare‑earth production in response to trade wars?
13:20–15:50
7
Which assets are the safest havens for investors amid global turmoil?
15:50–16:06
8
What might Donald Trump do next and how could it impact markets?
16:06–30:54