Every: Geopolitical Calendar

Rabobank

"We need a geopolitical AND data Calendar"

Market comments

A kind request to Bloomberg and other global assemblers of the weekly data calendars around which so many in markets still pivot: can we please get a geopolitical addition rather than just the numbers and the option of the warbling of endless central bankers? Right now, what political leaders say, especially when they meet, matters far more for markets than a run-of-the-mill number or “jazz hands, yada yada yada” from an expert on monetary policy.

Yesterday, on its third anniversary, the US voted against a resolution at the UN blaming Russia for starting the Ukraine War. Obviously, that’s a slap in the face for Ukraine and Europe, who in the latest White House foreign policy pivot have been left clinging to the fuselage of a departing Airforce One like Afghanis on the runway at Bagram Airbase.

President Macron visited President Trump, where we heard that a push for a peace deal with Russia is on; and Trump said he’d like it in the economic sphere too. Russia then floated that it might mean rare earths and aluminium. Trump added President Putin has agreed to allow European peacekeepers into Ukraine, which Macron said he would send - if not to the front line.

Turkey backed Ukraine’s NATO membership. That’s a very powerful lever behind that cause, but Europe keeps failing to find the second-largest military power in NATO on a map or in any of its discussions.

Moreover, the US is reportedly close to an economic deal with Ukraine which will guarantee it as “free, sovereign, and secure.” This can be seen as predatory from the US side. It’s also the inverse of the ‘invade, then throw hundreds of billions at a country while failing to generate any profit from its resources, then get kicked out’ strategy employed in Afghanistan. It at least appears to cement US economic interests in keeping Ukraine viable despite apparent Russian appetites.