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Highlights The U.S. and China are moving toward formalizing a trade ceasefire that reduces geopolitical risk in the near term. The risk of a no-deal Brexit is finished – removing a major downside to European assets. Spanish elections reinforce our narrative of general European political stability. Go long 10-year Italian BTPs / short 10-year Spanish bonos for a trade. Geopolitical risks will remain elevated in Turkey, rise in Russia, but remain subdued in Brazil. A post-mortem of Canada’s election suggests upside to fiscal spending but further downside to energy sector investment over the short to medium term. Feature After a brief spike in trade war-related geopolitical risk just prior to the resumption of U.S.-China negotiations, President Trump staged a tactical retreat in the trade war. Chart 1Proxy For Trade War Shows Falling Risk Negotiating in Washington, President Trump personally visited the top Chinese negotiator Liu He and the two sides announced an informal “phase one deal” to reverse the summer’s escalation in tensions: China will buy $40-$50 billion in U.S. agricultural goods while the U.S. will delay the October 15 tariff hike. More difficult issues – forced tech transfer, intellectual property theft, industrial subsidies – were punted to later. The RMB is up 0.7% and our own measures of trade war-related risk have dropped off sharply (Chart 1). We think these indicators will be confirmed and Trump’s retreat will continue – as long as he has a chance to save the 2020 economic outlook and his reelection campaign. Odds are low that Trump will be removed from office by a Republican-controlled senate – the looming election provides the republic with an obvious recourse for Trump’s alleged misdeeds. However, Trump’s approval rating is headed south. While it is around the same level as President Obama’s at this point in his first term, Obama’s started a steep and steady rise around now and ended above 50% for the election, a level that is difficult to foresee for Trump (Chart 2). So Trump desperately needs an economic boost and a policy victory to push up his numbers. Short of passing the USMCA, which is in the hands of the House Democrats, a deal with China is the only way to get a major economic and political win at the same time. Hence the odds of Presidents Trump and Xi actually signing some kind of agreement are the highest they have been since April (when we had them pegged at 50/50). Trump will have to delay the December 15 tariff hike and probably roll back some of the tariffs over next year as continuing talks “make progress,” though we doubt he will remove restrictions on tech companies like Huawei. Still, we strongly believe that what is coming is a détente rather than the conclusion of the Sino-American rivalry crowned with a Bilateral Trade Agreement. Strategic tensions are rising on a secular basis between the two countries. These tensions could still nix Trump’s flagrantly short-term deal-making, and they virtually ensure that some form of trade war will resume in 2021 or 2022, if indeed a ceasefire is maintained in 2020. Both sides are willing to reduce immediate economic pain but neither side wants to lose face politically. Trump will not forge a “grand compromise.” Our highest conviction view all along has been – and remains – that Trump will not forge a “grand compromise” ushering in a new period of U.S.-China economic reengagement in the medium or long term. China’s compliance, its implementation of structural changes, will be slow or lacking and difficult to verify at least until the 2020 verdict is in. This means policy uncertainty will linger and business confidence and capex intentions will only improve on the margin, not skyrocket upward (Chart 3). Chart 2Trump Needs A Policy Win And Economic Boost Chart 3Sentiment Will Improve ... Somewhat The problem for bullish investors is that even if global trade uncertainty falls, and the dollar’s strength eases, fear will shift from geopolitics to politics, and from international equities to American equities (Chart 4). Trump, hit by impeachment and an explosive reaction to his Syria policy, is entering into dangerous territory for the 2020 race. Trump’s domestic weakness threatens imminent equity volatility for two reasons. Chart 4American Outperformance Falls With Trade Tensions Chart 5Democratic Win In 2020 Is Market-Negative First, if Trump’s approval rating falls below today’s 42%, investors will begin pricing a Democratic victory in 2020, i.e. higher domestic policy uncertainty, higher taxes, and the re-regulation of the American economy (Chart 5). This re-rating may be temporarily delayed or mitigated by the fact that former Vice President Joe Biden is still leading the Democratic Party’s primary election race. Biden is a known quantity whose policies would simply restore the Obama-era status quo, which is only marginally market-negative. Contrary to our expectations Biden's polling has not broken down due to accusations of foul play in Ukraine and China. Nevertheless, Senator Elizabeth Warren will gradually suck votes away from fellow progressive Senator Bernie Sanders and in doing so remain neck-and-neck with Biden (Chart 6). When and if she pulls ahead of Biden, markets face a much greater negative catalyst. (Yes, she is also capable of beating Trump, especially if his polling remains as weak as it is.) Chart 6Warren Will Rise To Front-Runner Status With Biden Second, if Trump becomes a “lame duck” he will eventually reverse the trade retreat above and turn into a loose cannon in his final months in office. Right now we see a decline in geopolitical risk, but if the economy fails to rebound or the China ceasefire offers little support, then Trump will at some point conclude that his only chance at reelection is to double down on his confrontation with America’s enemies and run as a “war president.” A cold war crisis with China, or a military confrontation with Iran (or North Korea, Venezuela, or some unexpected target) could occur. But since September we have been confirmed in believing that Trump is trying to be the dealmaker one last time before any shift to the war president. Bottom Line: The “phase one” trade deal is really just a short-term ceasefire. Assuming it is signed by Trump and Xi, it suggests no increase in tariffs and some tariff rollback next year. However, as recessionary fears fade, and if Trump’s reelection chances stabilize, U.S.-China tensions on a range of issues will revive – and there is no getting around the longer-term conflict between the two powers. For this and other reasons, we remain strategically short RMB-USD, as the flimsy ceasefire will only briefly see RMB appreciation. BoJo's Brexit Bluff Is Finished Our U.K. indicator captured a sharp decline in political risk in the past two weeks and our continental European indicators mirrored this move (Chart 7). The risk that the U.K. would fall out of the EU without a withdrawal agreement has collapsed even further than in September, when parliament rejected Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s no-deal gambit and we went long GBP-USD. We have since added a long GBP-JPY trade. Chart 7Collapse In No-Deal Risk Will Echo Across Europe Chart 8Unlikely To See Another Tory/Brexit Rally Like This The risk of “no deal” is the only reason to care about Brexit from a macro point of view, as the difference between “soft Brexit” and “no Brexit” is not globally relevant. What matters is the threat of a supply-side shock to Europe when it is already on the verge of recession. With this risk removed, sentiment can begin to recover (and Trump’s trade retreat also confirms our base case that he will not impose tariffs on European cars on November 14). Since Brexit was the only major remaining European political risk, European policy uncertainty will continue to fall. The Halloween deadline was averted because the EU, on the brink of recession, offered a surprising concession to Johnson, enabling him to agree to a deal and put it up for a vote in parliament. The deal consists of keeping Northern Ireland in the European Customs Union but not the whole of the U.K., effectively drawing a new soft border at the Irish Sea. The bill passed the second reading but parliament paused before finalizing it, rejecting Johnson’s rapid three-day time table. The takeaway is that even if an impending election returns Johnson to power, he will seek to pass his deal rather than pull the U.K. out without a deal. This further lowers the odds of a no-deal Brexit as it illuminates Johnson's preferences, which are normally hidden from objective analysis. True, there is a chance that the no-deal option will reemerge if Johnson’s deal totally collapses due to parliamentary amendments, or if the U.K. and EU have failed to agree to a future relationship by the end of the transition period on December 31, 2020 (which can be extended until the end of 2022). However, the chance is well below the 30% which we deemed as the peak risk of no-deal back in August. Johnson created the most credible threat of a no-deal exit that we are likely to see in our lifetimes – a government with authority over foreign policy determined to execute the outcome of a popular referendum – and yet parliament stopped it dead in its tracks. Johnson does not want a no-deal recession and his successors will not want one either. After all, the support for Brexit and for the Tories has generally declined since the referendum, and the Tories are making a comeback on the prospect of an orderly Brexit (Chart 8). All eyes will now turn toward the impending election. Opinion polls still show that Johnson is likely to be returned to power (Chart 9). The Tories have a prospect of engrossing the pro-Brexit vote while the anti-Brexit opposition stands divided. No-deal risk only reemerges if the Conservatives are returned to power with another weak coalition that paralyzes parliament. Chart 9Tory Comeback As BoJo Gets A Deal Chart 10Brexit Means Greater Fiscal Policy Whatever the election result, we maintain our long-held position that Brexit portends greater fiscal largesse (Chart 10). The agitated swath of England that drove the referendum result will not be assuaged by leaving the European Union – the rewards of Brexit are not material but philosophical, so material grievances will return. Voter frustration will rotate from the EU to domestic political elites. Voters will demand more government support for social concerns. Johnson’s own government confirms this point through its budget proposals. A Labour-led government would oversee an even more dramatic fiscal shift. Our GeoRisk indicator will fall on Brexit improvements but the question of the election and next government will ensure it does not fall too far. Our long GBP trades are tactical and we expect volatility to remain elevated. But the greatest risk, of no deal, is finished, so it does make sense for investors with a long time horizon to go strategically long the pound. The greatest risk, of a no deal Brexit, is finished. Bottom Line: Brexit posed a risk to the global economy only insofar as it proved disorderly. A withdrawal agreement by definition smooths the process. Continental Europe will not suffer a further shock to net exports. The Brexit contribution to global policy uncertainty will abate. The pound will rise against the euro and yen and even against the dollar as long as Trump’s trade retreat continues. Spain: Further Evidence Of European Stability We have long argued that the majority of Catalans do not want independence, but rather a renegotiation of the region's relationship with Spain (Chart 11). This month’s protests in Barcelona following the Catalan independence leaders’ sentencing are at the lower historical range in terms of size – protest participation peaked in 2015 along with support for independence (Table 1). Table 1October Catalan Protests Unimpressive Our Spanish risk indicator is showing a decline in political risk (Chart 12). However, we believe that this fall is slightly overstated. While the Catalan independence movement is losing its momentum, the ongoing protests are having an impact on seat projections for the upcoming election.  Chart 11Catalonians Not Demanding Independence Chart 12Right-Wing Win Could Surprise Market, But No Worries Since the April election, the right-wing bloc of the People’s Party, Ciudadanos, and Vox has been gaining in the seat projections at the expense of the Socialist Party and Podemos. Over the course of the protests, the left-wing parties’ lead over the right-wing parties has narrowed from seven seats to one (Chart 13). If this momentum continues, a change of government from left-wing to right-wing becomes likely. However, a right-wing government is not a market-negative outcome, and any increase in risk on this sort of election surprise would be short-lived. The People’s Party has moderated its message and focused on the economy. Besides pledging to limit the personal tax rate to 40% and corporate tax rate to 20%, the People’s Party platform supports innovation, R&D spending, and startups. The party is promising tax breaks and easier immigration rules to firms and employees pursuing these objectives. Chart 13Spanish Right-Wing Parties Narrow Gap With Left Another outcome of the election would be a governing deal between PSOE and Podemos, along with case-by-case support from Ciudadanos. After a shift to the right lost Ciudadanos 5% in support since the April election, leader Albert Rivera announced in early October that he would be lifting the “veto” on working with the Socialist Party. If the right-wing parties fall short of a majority, then Rivera would be open to talks with Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez. A governing deal between PSOE, Podemos, and Ciudadanos would have 175 seats, as of the latest projections, which is just one seat short of a majority. As we go to press, this is the only outcome that would end Spain’s current political gridlock, and would therefore be the most market-positive outcome. Bottom Line: Despite having a fourth election in as many years, Spanish political risk is contained. This is reinforced by a relatively politically stable backdrop in continental Europe, and marginally positive developments in the U.K. and on the trade front. We remain long European versus U.S. technology, and long EU versus Chinese equities. We will also be looking to go long EUR/USD when and if the global hard data turn. Following our European Investment Strategy, we recommend going long 10-year Italian BTPs / short 10-year Spanish bonos for a trade. Turkey, Brazil, And Russia Chart 14Turkish Risk Will Rise Despite 'Ceasefire' Turkey’s political risk skyrocketed upward after we issued our warning in September (Chart 14). We maintain that the Trump-Erdogan personal relationship is not a basis for optimism regarding Turkey’s evading U.S. sanctions. Both chambers of the U.S. Congress are preparing a more stringent set of sanctions, focusing on the Turkish military, in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northeast Syria. At a time when Trump needs allies in the senate to defend him against eventual impeachment articles, he is not likely to veto and risk an override. Moreover, Turkey’s military incursion into Syria, which may wax and wane, stems from economic and political weakness at home and will eventually exacerbate that weakness by fueling the growing opposition to Erdogan’s administration and requiring more unorthodox monetary and fiscal accommodation. It reinforces our bearish outlook on Turkish lira and assets. Chart 15Brazilian Risk Will Not Re-Test 2018 Highs Brazil’s political risk has rebounded (Chart 15). The Senate has virtually passed the pension reform bill, as expected, which raises the official retirement age for men and women to 65 and 63 respectively. This will generate upwards of 800 billion Brazilian real in savings to improve the public debt profile. Of course, the country will still run primary deficits and thus the public debt-to-GDP ratio will still rise. Now the question shifts to President Jair Bolsonaro and his governing coalition. Bolsonaro’s approval rating has ticked up as we expected (Chart 16). If this continues then it is bullish for Brazil because it suggests that he will be able to keep his coalition together. But investors should not get ahead of themselves. Bolsonaro is not an inherently pro-market leader, there is no guarantee that he will remain disciplined in pursuing pro-productivity reforms, and there is a substantial risk that his coalition will fray without pension reform as a shared goal (at least until markets riot and push the coalition back together). Therefore we expect political risk to abate only temporarily, if at all, before new trouble emerges. Furthermore, if reform momentum wanes next year, then Brazil’s reform story as a whole will falter, since electoral considerations emerge in 2021-22. Hence it will be important to verify that policymakers make progress on reforms to tax and trade policy early next year. Our Russian geopolitical risk indicator is also lifting off of its bottom (see Appendix). This makes sense given Russia’s expanding strategic role (particularly in the Middle East), its domestic political troubles, and the risks of the U.S. election. The latter is especially significant given the risk (not our base case, however) that a Democratic administration could take a significantly more aggressive posture toward Russia. Political risk in Turkey and Russia will continue to rise. Bottom Line: Political risk in Turkey and Russia will continue to rise. Russia is a candidate for a “black swan” event, given the eerie quiet that has prevailed as Putin devotes his fourth term to reducing domestic political instability. Brazil, on the other hand, has a 12-month window in which reform momentum can be reinforced, reducing whatever spike in risk occurs in the aftermath of the ruling coalition’s completion of pension reform. Canada: Election Post-Mortem Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned to power at the head of a minority government in Canada’s federal election (Chart 17). The New Democratic Party (NDP) lost 15 seats from the last election, but will have a greater role in parliament as the Liberals will need its support to pass key agenda items (and a formal governing coalition is possible). The NDP’s result would have been even worse if not for its last-minute surge in the polls after the election debates and Trudeau’s “blackface” scandal. Chart 17Liberals Need The New Democrats Now The Conservative Party won the popular vote but only 121 seats in parliament, leaving the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan aggrieved. The Bloc Québécois, the Quebec nationalist party, gained 22 seats to become the third-largest party in the House. Energy investment faces headwinds in the near-term. The Liberal Party will face resistance from the Left over the Trans Mountain pipeline. Trudeau will not necessarily have to sacrifice the pipeline to appease the NDP. He may be able to work with Conservatives to advance the pipeline while working with the NDP on the rest of his agenda. But on the whole the election result is the worst-case scenario for the oil sector and political questions will have to be resolved before Canada can take advantage of its position as a heavy crude producer near the U.S. Gulf refineries in an era in which Venezuela is collapsing and Saudi Arabia is exposed to geopolitical risk and attacks. More broadly, the Liberals will continue to endorse a more expansive fiscal policy than expected, given Canada’s low budget deficits and the need to prevent minor parties from eating away at the Liberal Party’s seat count in future. Bottom Line: The Liberal Party failed to maintain its single-party majority. Trudeau’s reliance on left-wing parties in parliament may prove market-negative for the Canadian energy sector, though that is not a forgone conclusion. Over the longer term the sector has a brighter future.   Matt Gertken Geopolitical Strategist mattg@bcaresearch.com Ekaterina Shtrevensky Research Analyst ekaterinas@bcaresearch.com Appendix GeoRisk Indicator U.K.: GeoRisk Indicator France: GeoRisk Indicator Germany: GeoRisk Indicator Spain: GeoRisk Indicator Italy: GeoRisk Indicator Canada: GeoRisk Indicator Russia: GeoRisk Indicator Turkey: GeoRisk Indicator Brazil: GeoRisk Indicator Taiwan: GeoRisk Indicator Korea: GeoRisk Indicator What's On The Geopolitical Radar? Section III: Geopolitical Calendar

Highlights Geopolitical risks are starting to abate as a result of material constraints influencing policymakers. China needs to ensure its economy bottoms and a debt-deflationary tendency does not take hold. President Trump needs to avoid further economic deterioration arising from the trade war. The U.K. is looking to prevent a recession induced by leaving the EU without an agreement. Iran and the risk of an oil price shock is the outstanding geopolitical tail risk. Feature Readers of BCA’s Geopolitical Strategy know that what defines our research is our analytical framework – specifically the theory of constraints. Chart 1The Electoral College – An Overlooked Constraint The theory holds that policymakers are trapped by the pressures of their office, their nation’s global position, and the stream of events. These pressures emerge from the material world that we inhabit and as such are measurable. If a leader lacks popular approval, cannot command a majority in the legislature, rides atop a sinking economy, or suffers under stronger or smarter foreign enemies, then his policy preferences will be compromised. He will have to change his preferences to accommodate the constraints, rather than the other way around. Case in point is the U.S. electoral college: it proved an insurmountable political constraint on the Democratic Party in 2016. The college is intended to restrain direct democracy or popular passions; it also restrains the concentration of regional power. In 2012, Barack Obama won a larger share of the electoral college than the popular vote, while in 2016 Hillary Clinton won a smaller share (Chart 1). Clinton’s lack of appeal in the industrial Midwest turned the college and deprived her of the prize. The rest is history. In this report we highlight five key constraints that will shape the direction of the major geopolitical risks in the fourth quarter. We recommend investors remain tactically cautious on risk assets, although we have not yet extended this recommendation to the cyclical, 12-month time frame. China’s Policy: The Debt-Deflation Constraint We have a solid record of pessimism regarding Chinese President Xi Jinping’s willingness and ability to stimulate the economy – but even we were surprised by his tenacity this year. His administration’s effort to contain leverage, while still stimulating the economy, has prevented a quick rebound in the global manufacturing cycle. The constraint limiting this approach is the need to avoid a debt-deflation spiral. This is a condition in which households and firms become pessimistic about the future and cut back their spending and borrowing. The general price level falls and drives up real debt burdens, which motivates further cutbacks. A classic example is Japan, which saw a property bubble burst, destroying corporate balance sheets and forcing the country into a long phase of paying down debt amid falling prices. China has not seen its property bubble burst yet. Prices have continued to rise despite the recent pause in the non-financial debt build-up (Chart 2). Looser monetary and fiscal policy have sustained this precarious balance. But the result is a tug-of-war between the government and the private sector. If the government miscalculates, and the asset bubble bursts, then it will be extremely difficult for the government to change the mindset of households and companies bent on paying down debt. It will be too late to avoid the vicious spiral that Japan experienced – with the critical proviso that Chinese people are less wealthy than the Japanese in 1990 and the country’s political system is less flexible. A Japan-sized economic problem would lead to a China-sized political problem. This is why the recent drop in Chinese producer prices below zero is a worrisome sign (Chart 3). Policymakers have loosened monetary and fiscal policy incrementally since July 2018 and they are signaling that they will continue to do so. This is particularly likely in an environment in which trade tensions are reduced but remain fundamentally unresolved – which is our base case. Chart 2China's Property Bubble Intact Chart 3China's Constraint Is Debt-Deflation Are policymakers aware of this constraint? Absolutely. If the trade talks collapse, or the global economy slumps regardless, then China will have to stimulate more aggressively. Xi Jinping is not truly a Chairman Mao, willing to impose extreme austerity. He oversaw the 2015-16 stimulus and would do it again if he came face to face with the debt-deflation constraint. Is China still capable of stimulating? High debt levels, the reassertion of centralized state power, and the trade war have all rendered traditional stimulus levers less effective by dampening animal spirits. Yet policymakers are visibly “riding the brake,” so they can remove restraints and increase reflation if necessary. Most obviously, authorities can inject larger fiscal stimulus. They have insisted that they will prevent easy monetary and credit policies from feeding into property prices – and this could change. They could also pick up the pace when it comes to reducing average bank lending rates for small and medium-sized businesses.1 In short, stimulus is less effective, but the government is also preferring to save dry powder. This preference will be thrown by the wayside if it hits the critical constraint. The implication is that Chinese stimulus will continue to pick up over a cyclical, 12-month horizon. There is impetus to reduce trade tensions with the U.S., discussed below, but a lack of final resolution will ensure that policy tightening is not called for. Bottom Line: China’s chief economic constraint is a debt-deflation trap. This would engender long-term economic difficulties that would eventually translate into political difficulties for Communist Party rule. If a trade deal is reached, it is unlikely alone to require a shift to tighter policy. If the trade talks collapse, stimulus will overshoot to the upside. Trade War: The Electoral Constraint The U.S. and China are holding the thirteenth round of trade negotiations this week after a summer replete with punitive measures, threats, and failed restarts. Tensions spiked just ahead of the talks, as expected. Immediately thereafter President Trump declared he will meet with Chinese negotiators to give a boost to the process and reassure the markets.2 Trump’s major constraint in waging the trade war is economic, not political. Americans are generally sympathetic to his pressure campaign against China. Public opinion polls show that a strong majority believes it is necessary to confront China even though the bulk of the economic pain will be borne by consumers themselves (Chart 4). Yet Americans could lose faith in Trump’s approach once the economic pain fully materializes. Critically, the decline in wage growth that is occurring as a result of the global and manufacturing slowdown is concentrated in the states that are most likely to swing the 2020 election, e.g. the “purple” or battleground states (Chart 5). Chart 4Americans To Confront China Despite The Costs? Chart 5Trump Faces Pressure To Stage A Tactical Trade Retreat Furthermore, a rise in unemployment, which is implied by the recent decline in the University of Michigan’s survey of consumer confidence regarding the purchase of large household goods, would devastate voters’ willingness to give Trump’s tariff strategy the benefit of the doubt (Chart 6). Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, two critical states, have seen a net loss of manufacturing jobs on the year. The fear of an uptick in U.S. unemployment will prevent Trump from escalating the trade war. An uptick in unemployment would be a major constraint on Trump’s trade war – he cannot escalate further until the economy has stabilized. And that may very well require tariff rollback while trade talks “make progress.” We expect that Trump is willing to do this in the interest of staying in power. As highlighted above, the Xi administration is not without its own constraints. Our proxies for China’s marginal propensity to consume show that Chinese animal spirits are still vulnerable, particularly on the household side, which has not responded to stimulus thus far (Chart 7). Since this constraint is less immediate than Trump’s election date, Xi cannot be expected to capitulate to Trump’s biggest demands. Hence a ceasefire or détente is more likely than a full bilateral trade agreement. Chart 6Waning Consumer Confidence On Big Ticket Items Foreshadows Rise In Unemployment Trump’s electoral constraint also suggests that he needs to remove trade risks such as car tariffs on Europe and Japan (which we expect he will do). We have been optimistic on the passage of the USMCA trade deal but impeachment puts this forecast in jeopardy. Chart 7China's Trade War Constraint? Animal Spirits   Bottom Line: Trump will stage a tactical retreat on trade in order to soften the negative impact on the economy and reduce the chances of a recession prior to the November 3, 2020 election. China’s economic constraints are less immediate and it is unlikely to make major structural concessions. Hence we expect a ceasefire that temporarily reduces tensions and boosts sentiment rather than a bilateral trade agreement that initiates a fundamental deepening of U.S.-China economic engagement. U.S. Policy: The Economic Constraint The 2020 U.S. election is a critical political risk both because of the volatility it will engender and because of what we see as a 45% chance that it will lead to a change in the ruling party governing the world’s largest economy. Will Trump be the candidate? Yes. If Trump’s approval among Republicans breaks beneath the lows plumbed during the Charlottesville incident in 2017 (Chart 8A), then Trump has an impeachment problem, but otherwise he is safe from removal. Judging by the Republican-leaning pollster Rasmussen, which should reflect the party’s mood, Trump’s approval rating has not broken beneath its floor and may already be bouncing back from the initial hit of the impeachment inquiry (Chart 8B). The rise in support for impeachment and removal in opinion polls is notable, but it is also along party lines and will fade if the Democrats are seen as dragging on the process or trying to circumvent an election that is just around the corner. Chart 8ARepublican Opinion Precludes Trump’s Removal Chart 8BRepublican-Leaning Pollster Shows Support Holding Thus Far How will all of this bear on the 2020 election? Turnout will be high so everything depends on which side will be more passionate. A critical factor will be the Democratic nominee. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the establishment pick, has broken beneath his floor in the polling. His rambling debate performances have reinforced the narrative that he is too old, while the impeachment of Trump will fuel counteraccusations of corruption that will detract from Biden’s greatest asset: his electability. According to a Harvard-Harris poll from late September, 61% of voters believe it was inappropriate for Biden to withhold aid from Ukraine to encourage the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor even when the polling question makes no mention of any connection with Biden’s son’s business interest there. Moreover, 77% believe it is inappropriate that Biden’s son Hunter traveled with his father to China while soliciting investments there. With Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s candidacy now defunct as a result of his heart attack and old age, Elizabeth Warren, the progressive senator from Massachusetts, will become the indisputable front runner (which she is not yet). In the fourth primary debate on October 15, she will face attacks from all sides reflecting this new status. Given her debate performances thus far, she will sustain the heightened scrutiny and come out stronger. This is not to say that Warren is already the Democratic candidate. Biden is still polling like a traditional Democratic primary front runner (Chart 9), while Warren has some clear weaknesses in electability, as reflected in her smaller lead over Trump in head-to-head polls in swing states. Nevertheless Warren is likely to become the front runner. Chart 9Biden Polling About Average Relative To Previous Democratic Primary Front Runners The recession call remains the U.S. election call. Two further considerations: Impeachment and removal of President Trump ensure a Democratic victory. There are hopes in some quarters that President Trump could be impeached and removed and yet his Vice President Mike Pence could go on to win the 2020 election, preserving the pro-business policy status quo. The problem with this logic is that Trump cannot be removed unless Republican opinion shifts. This will require an earthquake as a result of some wrongdoing by Trump. Such an earthquake will blacken Pence’s and the GOP’s name and render them toxic in the general election. Not to mention that Pence’s only act as president in the brief interim would likely be to pardon Trump and his accomplices. He would suffer Gerald Ford’s fate in 1976. Which means that a significant slide in Trump’s approval among Republicans will translate to higher odds of a Democratic win in 2020 and hence higher taxes and regulation, i.e. a hit to corporate earnings expectations. We expect this approval to hold up, but the market can sell off anyway because … The market is overrating the Senate as a check on Warren in the event she wins the White House. It is true that relative to Biden, Warren is less likely to carry the Senate. Democrats need to retain their Senate seat in Alabama, while capturing Maine, Colorado, and Arizona (or Georgia) in addition to the White House in order to control the Senate. Biden is more competitive in Arizona and Georgia than Warren. But this is a flimsy basis to feel reassured that a Warren presidency will be constrained. In fact, it is very difficult to unseat a sitting president. If the Democrats can muster enough votes to kick out an incumbent and elect an outspoken left-wing progressive from the northeast, they most likely will have mustered enough votes to take the Senate as well. For instance, unemployment could be rising or Trump’s risky foreign policy could have backfired. Chart 10Business Sentiment Threatens Trump Re-Election In our estimation the Democrats have about a 45% chance of winning the presidency, and Warren does not significantly reduce this chance. The resilient U.S. economy is Trump’s base case for success. But Trump’s trade policy and the global slowdown are rapidly eating away at the prospect that voters see improvement (Chart 10). This speaks to the constraint driving a ceasefire with China above, but it also speaks to the broader probability of policy continuity in the U.S. As Warren’s path to the White House widens, there is a clear basis for equities to sell off in the near term. Bottom Line: Trump’s approval among Republicans is a constraint on his removal via impeachment. But the status of the economy is the greater constraint. The recession call remains the election call. While we expect downside in the near term, we are still constructive on U.S. equities on a cyclical basis. War With Iran: The Oil Price Constraint The Senate will remain President Trump’s bulwark amid impeachment, notwithstanding the controversial news that Trump is moving forward with the withdrawal of troops from Syria, specifically from the so-called “safe zone” agreed with Turkey, giving Ankara license to stage a larger military offensive in Syria. This abandonment of the U.S.’s Kurdish allies at the behest of Turkey (which is a NATO ally but has been at odds with Washington) has provoked flak from Republican senators. However, it is well supported in U.S. public opinion (Chart 11). Trump is threatening to impose economic sanctions on Turkey if it engages in ethnic cleansing. The Turkish lira is the marginal loser, Trump’s approval rating is the marginal winner. The withdrawal sends a signal to the world that the U.S. is continuing to deleverage from the Middle East – a corollary with the return of focus on Asia Pacific. While the Iranians are key beneficiaries of this pivot, the Trump administration is maintaining maximum sanctions pressure on the Iranians. The firing of hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton did not lead to a détente, as President Rouhani has too much to risk from negotiating with Trump. Instead the Iranians smelled U.S. weakness and went on the attack in Saudi Arabia, briefly shuttering 6 million barrels of oil per day. The response to the attack – from both Saudi Arabia and the U.S. – revealed an extreme aversion to military conflict and escalation. Instead the U.S. has tightened its sanctions regime – China is reportedly withdrawing from its interest in the South Pars natural gas project, a potentially serious blow to Iran, which had been hyping its strategic partnership with China. This reinforces the prospect for a U.S.-China ceasefire even as it redoubles the economic pressure on Iran. As long as the U.S. maintains the crippling sanctions on Iran, there is no guarantee that Tehran will not strike out again in an effort to weaken President Trump’s resolve. The fact that about 18% of global oil supply flows through the critical chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s ace in the hole (Chart 12). It is the chief constraint on Trump’s foreign policy, as greater oil supply disruptions could shock the U.S. economy ahead of the election. Trump can benefit from minor or ephemeral disruptions but he is likely to get into trouble if a serious shock weakens the economy at this juncture. Chart 11U.S. Opinion Constrains Foreign Policy Chart 12Oil Price Constrains U.S. Policy Toward Iran An oil shock does not have to originate in Hormuz shipping or sneak attacks on regional oil infrastructure. Iran is uniquely capable of fomenting the anti-government protests that have erupted in southern Iraq. The restoration of stability in Iraq has resulted in around 2 million barrels of oil per day coming onto international markets (Chart 13). If this process is reversed through political instability or sabotage, it will rapidly push up against global spare oil capacity and exert an upward pressure on oil prices that would come at an awkward time for a global economy experiencing a manufacturing recession (Chart 14). Chart 13Iran's Leverage Over Iraq Chart 14Global Oil Spare Capacity Constrains Response To Crisis Bottom Line: Iran’s power over regional oil production is the biggest constraint on Trump’s foreign policy in the region, yet Trump is apparently tightening rather than easing the sanctions regime. The failure of the Abqaiq attack to generate a lasting impact on oil prices amid weak global demand suggests that Iran could feel emboldened. The U.S. preference to withdraw from Middle Eastern conflicts could also encourage Iran, while the tightening of the sanctions regime could make it desperate. An oil shock emanating from the conflict with Iran is still a significant risk to the global bull market. Brexit: The No-Deal Constraint The fifth and final constraint to discuss in this report pertains to the U.K. and Brexit. We do not consider the October 31 deadline a no-deal exit risk. Parliament will prevail over a prime minister who lacks a majority. Nevertheless the expected election can revive no-deal risk, especially if Boris Johnson is returned to power with a weak minority government. Chart 15U.K.: Public Opinion Constrains Parliament And No-Deal Brexit While parliament is the constraint on the prime minister, the public is the constraint on parliament. From this point of view, support for Brexit has weakened and the Conservative Party is less popular than in the lead up to the 2015 and 2017 general elections. The public is aware that no-deal exit is likely to cause significant economic pain and that is why a majority rejects no-deal, as opposed to a soft Brexit. Unless the Tory rally in opinion polling produces another coalition with the Northern Irish, albeit with Boris Johnson at the helm, these points make it likely that a no-deal Brexit will become untenable when all is said and done (Chart 15). If Johnson achieves a single party majority the EU will be more likely to grant concessions enabling him to get a withdrawal deal over the line. We remain long GBP-USD but will turn sellers at the $1.30 mark. Investment Implications The path of least resistance is for China’s stimulus efforts to increase – incrementally if trade tensions are contained, and sharply if not. This should help put a floor beneath growth, but the Q1 timing of this floor means that global risk assets face additional downside in the near term. We continue to recommend going long our “China Play” index. U.S.-China trade tensions should decline as President Trump looks to prevent higher unemployment ahead of his election. China has reason to follow through on small concessions to encourage Trump’s tactical trade retreat, but it does not face pressure to make new structural concessions. We expect a ceasefire – with some tariff rollback likely – but not a big bang agreement that removes all tariffs or deepens the overall bilateral economic engagement. Stay long our “China Play” index. We remain short CNY-USD on a strategic basis but recognize that a ceasefire presents a short term (maximum 12-month) risk to this view, so clients with a shorter-term horizon should close that trade. We are long European equities relative to Chinese equities as a result of the view that China will stimulate but that a trade ceasefire will leave lingering uncertainties over Chinese corporates. U.S. politics are highly unpredictable but constraint-based analysis indicates that while the House may impeach, the Senate will not remove. This, combined with Warren’s likely ascent to the head of the pack in the Democratic primary race, means that Trump remains favored to win reelection, albeit with low conviction (55% chance) due to a weak general approval rating and economic risks. The risk to U.S. equities is immediate, but should dissipate. The U.S. is rotating its strategic focus from the Middle East to Asia Pacific, which entails a continued rotation of geopolitical risk. However, recent developments reinforce our argument in July that Iranian geopolitical risk is frontloaded relative to the China risk. This is true as long as Trump maintains crippling sanctions. Iran may be emboldened by its successes so far and has various mechanisms – including Iraqi instability – by which it can threaten oil supply to pressure Trump. This is a tail risk, but it does support our position of being long EM energy producers.   Matt Gertken, Vice President Geopolitical Strategist mattg@bcaresearch.com Footnotes 1 Please see BCA Research, China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, “Mild Deflation Means Timid Easing,” October 9, 2019, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 2 China knows that Trump wants to seal a deal prior to November 2020 to aid his reelection campaign, while Trump needs to try to convince China that he does not care about election, the stock market, or anything other than structural concessions from China. Hence the U.S. blacklisted several artificial intelligence companies and sanctioned Chinese officials in advance of the talks. The U.S. opened a new front in the conflict by invoking China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which is also an implicit warning not to create a humanitarian incident in Hong Kong where protests continue to rage. These are pressure tactics but have not yet derailed the attempt to seal a deal in Q4.

特別レポート

ハイライト 冷戦は米中対立の限定的な類推に過ぎない; 多極化する世界では、貿易の完全な二分化は困難、いや不可能に近い; 歴史は、ライバル同士の貿易は最小限の障害しかなく継続すると示唆している; 長期的には、防衛株、欧州、キャップエックス、非同盟国を買う。 特集 中国と米国が冷戦へ突き進んでいるという見方が強まっている。BCA Researchは、少なくとも投資コミュニティに関しては、この合意形成に一役買った — 2012年9月に「Power and Politics in East Asia: Cold War 2.0?」を掲載したことである。1 この10年の大部分において、ジオポリティカル・ストラテジーは地政学リスクがますます無関係になりつつある中東から、ますます重要性を増すであろう東アジアへと回帰しているという説に焦点を当ててきた。 この仮説はなお示唆に富むが、それが必ずしも「シリコン・カーテン」が世界を二つの分断された資本主義圏に分けることを意味するわけではない。貿易、資本フロー、人の交流は中国と米国の間で継続し、場合によっては拡大するだろう。しかし、軍事的なものを含む紛争のリスクは低下しない。 本報告では、まず米中緊張の背後にある地政学的論理を概観する。次に、貿易および経済関係の観点から両国の関係がどのように展開するかに関する手がかりを得るために学術文献を精査する。政治理論からの証拠は意外であり、投資に極めて関連性が高い。その後、投資家にとって意味するところを探るために歴史を遡る。 結論として、米国と中国が地政学的ライバルであり続ける可能性が高いと考える。ただし、多極化という地政学的文脈のために、結果として「分断された資本主義」が生じるとは考えにくい。むしろ、地政学が評価、モメンタム、ファンダメンタルズ、マクロ経済と並んで投資機会とリスクを決定する要因群の歴史的な位置を占める、刺激的で変動の大きい環境が投資家を待ち受けると予想する。 トゥキディデスの罠は現実である … 1897年にライヒスタークで演説したドイツの外相ベルンハルト・フォン・ビューローは、ドイツが「太陽の下での自らの場所」を要求すべき時であると宣言した。2 これは東アジアに対するドイツの政策を巡る討議の場であった。ビューローは間もなくカイザー・ヴィルヘルム2世の下で首相に就き、ドイツ外交政策をリアルポリティークからヴェルトポリティークへと進化させる過程を監督した。リアルポリティークがビスマルク首相下で慎重に列強の均衡を保つ姿勢を特徴としたのに対し、ヴェルトポリティークはビューローとヴィルヘルム2世が攻撃的な外交・貿易政策を通じて現状を書き換えようとした。 帝政ドイツは、アテネから現代の中華人民共和国に至るまでの敵対者の長いリストに加わり、人類史の悲劇的な劇とも呼べる「トゥキディデスの罠」に名を連ねた。3 Chart 1 帝国の過剰拡張 帝国の過剰拡張 帝国の過剰拡張 この基本概念は世界史を学ぶ者にはよく知られている。その名はギリシャの歴史家トゥキディデスと彼の代表作History of the Peloponnesian Warに由来する。トゥキディデスはなぜスパルタとアテネが戦争に至ったのかを説明するが、同時代の他者のように道徳化したり神々を非難したりはしない。むしろ、改革を志向するアテネと既存勢力であるスパルタの対立が不信の連鎖によって不可避になったことを冷静に描写している。 米国の国際関係論を代表する学者の一人、グラハム・アリソンは、現状勢力と挑戦者の相互作用はほとんど常に紛争を導いたと主張している。彼が調査した16例のうち12例で実際の軍事衝突が発生した。戦争に至らなかった4例のうち3例は、深い文化的親和性と既存の制度への尊重を共有する国間の移行を伴っていた。4 これらのケースでは、移行は新しい経営陣がほぼ同じ組織構造を運営するようなものだった。そして、戦争に至らなかった4例のうちの一つはまさにソ連と米国の冷戦であった。 現状勢力にとって根本的な問題は、その帝国または「勢力圏」が最盛期と同じ大きさのままである点にある。しかし、相対的な衰退は古典的な「帝国の過剰拡張」の問題を引き起こす。覇権的または帝国的な勢力は、もはや維持できない現状を誤って固持しようとする（Chart 1）。 挑戦者側も責めを免れない。挑戦者は覇権国の弱さを感じ取り、地域的な勢力圏を形成し始める。問題は、地域覇権が世界的覇権への跳躍台になり得る点だ。挑戦者の意図が限定的で抑制的であったとしても（しばしば野心的で横柄であるが）、現状勢力は意図ではなく能力に反応せざるを得ない。能力は物質的かつ実在のものであるのに対し、意図は認知された一時的なものである。 挑戦者には常にその野心を正当化する内的論理がある。中国の場合、今日のエリートの間には国家が長い歴史の多くの世紀にわたってあったあり方へ単に平均回帰しているにすぎないという感覚がある（Chart 2）。言い換えれば、中国は過去300年を現状と定義するならば「挑戦者」だが、もっと昔に遡れば「既存」の強国である。したがって、中国の合意形成では、現代の状況は西洋の帝国主義による既存の中国および地域秩序への「挑戦」の結果に過ぎないため、現状に対して従属すべきではないとされる。 Chart 2 中国の平均回帰的な物語 19世紀に戻る 19世紀に戻る 加えて、中国は少なくとも米国と同等に世界経済にとって重要であり、したがって国際ガバナンスにおいてより大きな発言権に値するという正当な主張を持っている。米国がなお世界経済のより大きなシェアを占めている一方で、中国は過去20年で世界の増分GDPに対して23％を寄与しており、米国の13％と比べて大きい（Chart 3）。 Chart 3 北京コンセンサス 19世紀に戻る 19世紀に戻る 結論： 中国と米国の間で顕在化している緊張は、トゥキディデスの罠の理論的かつ実証的な枠組みにきれいに当てはまる。我々は、両国が世俗的または予測可能な範囲で闘争と対立を回避する方法はないと見ている。 では、投資家にとって何を意味するか。ひとつには、防衛株の背後にある長期的な追い風は持続するだろう。しかしそれ以外は？ 世界経済は完全に二分化され、シリコン・カーテンで隔てられた二つの軍事陣営に分かれる運命にあるのか？ アリババとアマゾンの協定は、冷戦時代のNATOとワルシャワ条約機構のように互いに疑いのまなざしを向け合うのか？ 答えは、慎重に言えば、否である。 …しかし経済の二分化には至らない トランプ大統領の強硬な通商政策も、ある程度までは政治理論に整合する。 政治学におけるリアリズムは、貿易を含むすべての関係において絶対利得より相対利得に焦点を当てる。なぜなら、貿易は経済的繁栄をもたらし、繁栄は経済剰余の蓄積へ、経済剰余は軍事費、研究開発へとつながるからである。競争を重視し相対利得のみを気にする国家同士はゼロサムゲームを生み出し、協力の余地はなくなる。これは協力を選ばないことで両側が非最適な経済結果を招く「囚人のジレンマ」である。 米中対立は世界経済の完全な二分化をもたらさないだろう。 図表1は、国家の貿易行動に対する相対利得計算の影響を示している。地政学が存在しない場合、需要（Q3）は国内生産（Q0）がそれを満たせないため、貿易（Q3-Q0）によって満たされる。 Diagram 1 双極世界における貿易戦争 19世紀に戻る 19世紀に戻る しかし、地政学的外部性—すなわち他国とのライバル関係—は輸入の限界的社会コストを引き上げる。すなわち貿易はライバルにより多くの利得を与え、地政学的能力の面で「追いつかせる」。したがって、貿易する国家はこの外部性を関税（t）で除去し、国内生産をQ1へ引き上げ、需要をQ2へ縮小させ、輸入を（Q2-Q1）のみに削減する。これは地政学が問題とならない世界での水準の一部にすぎない。 相対利得の力学は、弱まって再考を迫られる覇権国にも強く作用する。政治学者ダンカン・スナイダルは1991年の論文で次のように論じた。 世界システムが初めて構築されるとき、覇権国は小国と取引を行う。覇権国は絶対利得をより重視し、小国は相対利得をより重視するため交渉は厳しくなる。小国を有利にする協力体制は相対的な覇権の衰退に寄与する。利益の不均等配分が小国の追いつきを助けると同時に、小国が覇権国に対して相対利得の重みを下げることになる。同時に相対的優越の低下は覇権国の他国、特に台頭する挑戦者に対する相対利得への関心を高める。結果として最大の行為者から既存システムを変えて協力利益のより大きなシェアを得ようとする圧力が増す。5 小国が当初相対利得をより気にする理由は、覇権国よりも国の安全保障に対してはるかに敏感だからだ。覇権国は力の優位性を持ち、安全保障に対して比較的余裕がある。これが、ジョージ・ブッシュ（父）、ビル・クリントン、ジョージ・ブッシュ（子）がいずれも「誤った取引」を中国と行った理由を説明する。 スナイダルは30年近く前に、この米中貿易戦争を的確に描写した。彼は来たる無秩序の十年を記述していると思っていた。しかし彼と同時代の政治学者たちは米国の力を過小評価していた。アメリカの覇権の「一極の瞬間」は終わったのではなく、始まっていただけだった！ したがって、スナイダルが描いた力学は実を結ぶまでに30年を要した。 米国の覇権からの移行を考えるとき、多くの投資家は冷戦にアンカーを置く。冷戦は彼らが知る非一極的世界の唯一の例であり、単純な双極の力配分はゲーム理論で容易にモデル化できるからだ。もし我々がこれから住む世界が米国と中国が米ソのように地球全体を勢力圏に分ける世界ならば、スナイダルの論文から抜き出した段落が結末になるだろう。アメリカはグローバリゼーションを完全に放棄し、中国の周囲に厳しいシリコン・カーテンを敷き、同盟国にそれに従うことを強制するだろう。 しかし、近代史の大部分は双極ではなく多極の勢力配分によって定義されてきた。用語としての「冷戦」は、軍事力の比較的均衡が全面的な「熱戦」を防ぐ可能性があるという意味で米中に適用できる。しかし最終的に、米ソ冷戦は今日の世界に対する貧弱な類推に過ぎない。スナイダルは結論として、「協力しない国家は、互いに協力する他の相対利得最大化者に遅れをとる。これは、ライバルが多国間で協力している場合、協力こそが最良の防御（および最良の攻撃）となる」と述べている。彼はプレイヤー数が2から増えるにつれて相対利得感受性が急速に低下することを形式的モデルで示している。6 米中関係は真空中で起きているわけではなく、世界的文脈によって緩和される。今日の世界的文脈は多極化である。多極化とは、地政学的な力の配分がもはや一つか二つの大国に支配されていないことを指す（Chart 4）。例えば欧州や日本は強力な経済力と軍事能力を有している。ロシアは依然として強力な軍事大国であり、一方でインドは総合的な地政学的力の面でロシアを上回りつつある。 Chart 4 世界はもはや二極ではない 世界はもはや二極化していない 世界はもはや二極化していない 多極化した世界は最も「秩序だっていない」そして最も不安定な世界システムである（Chart 5）。理由は三つである： Chart 5 多極化は混沌としている 多極化は混沌としている 多極化は混沌としている 数学的観点: 多極化は紛争につながり得る潜在的な「紛争ダイアド」をより多く生む。単極の世界では規範と行動規則を決める国は一つだけである。紛争は可能だが、それは覇権国が望む場合に限られる。双極世界では紛争は可能だが、それは二つの支配的勢力の軸に沿わなければならない。多極世界では同盟は常に移り変わり、新たな紛争ダイアドを生む。 調整の欠如: 多極化の時期には「拒否権プレイヤー」が増えるため、世界的な調整が損なわれる。これは攻勢的な改革勢力が武力を使う場合や世界が経済危機に直面する場合など、ストレスの高い時期に特に問題となる。チャールズ・キンドルバーガーは、覇権の不安定性がまさに大恐慌を第二次世界大戦へと陥らせたと指摘している。7 誤算: 単極・双極世界では同時に振られるサイコロの数が非常に限られているため、悲劇的な誤算の確率は低く、複雑な正式関係（例えばゲーム理論に基づく米ソの相互確証破壊）があれば軽減できる。しかし多極世界では、要人の暗殺のようなランダムな出来事が世界大戦の引き金になることがある。多極システムははるかに動的であり、したがって予測不可能である。 多極化した世界では、米国は中国を国際システムから排除することはできない。 図表2は多極化した世界に合わせて修正したものだ。すべては同じだが、我々は他の大国に失われる貿易を強調している。ライバルとの貿易に関する限界的社会コストを下げるために関税を用いることを検討する国家は、この「失われた貿易」を考慮しなければならない。今日の中国との貿易戦争の文脈では、これは欧州のすべてのエアバスやブラジル産大豆が米国の輸出の代わりに中国に販売される分の総和となる。中国にとっては、アジアの残りから生産され米国に出荷されるすべての機械、電子機器、資本財の総和である。 Diagram 2 多極世界における貿易戦争 19世紀に戻る 19世紀に戻る ワシントンは、欧州、日本、韓国、台湾などの同盟国に対して、中国との貿易で失われる（Q3-Q0)-(Q2-Q1)という潤沢な貿易を利用しないよう要請できるだろうか？ もちろんだ。しかし実証研究は、彼らがそのような結束の訴えを無視する可能性が高いことを示している。同盟が双極システムで生まれると二国間貿易フローに統計的に有意で大きな影響を与える一方で、その関係は多極化の文脈では弱まる。これはジョアン・ゴーワとエドワード・D・マンフィールドが1993年に示した結論である。8 著者らは1905年から始まる80年間の期間を用いて結論を導いており、これは数十年にわたる世界の多極性を含んでいる。 米国が同盟関係を徹底的に締め付け、貿易制裁を強制するという全力の外交努力を行わない限り—現政権下ではほとんど想定しがたい—、米国の同盟国は自らの利害に基づき中国との貿易を継続するだろう。米国は中国を国際システムから排除することはできないし、中国が習近平氏の誇る「自給自足」を達成することもできないだろう。 我々の見方へのリスクは、1990年代初頭の政治学者たちが世界システムを誤判断したのと同様に、我々も世界システムを誤判断している可能性があるという点だ。その点を踏まえ、Chart 1とChart 4が世界が均衡した多極状態にあるという見解を真に支持しているわけではないことを認める。米国は明らかに世界で最も強力な国であり続けている。しかし問題は、相対的な衰退が進んでいること、そしてその勢力圏がグローバルであるため非常に費用がかかる一方で、ライバルは当面地域的な野心しか持っていないということである。したがって、我々はアメリカの覇権が比較的速やかに再主張される可能性は認めるが、それは他の極のどれかで重大な大災害が発生することを必要とするだろう。例えば、中国の国内安定が崩壊し、同時に米国の政治的安定が回復するような場合だ。 結論： 米中間の貿易戦争は地政学的に持続不能である。それが継続し得る唯一の状況は、残りの国家が両超大国の背後に厳密に結集するような双極世界である。我々は現時点で世界が—当面のところ—多極化しているとの確信度が高い見解を持っている。アメリカの同盟国はワシントンの「中国孤立」要求を逃れ、抜け道を探すだろう。これは、米国が1990年代末から2000年代初頭に享受したような圧倒的な力の優位をもはや持っていないからである。 ここまでの洞察は政治学の形式理論に由来する。では歴史は何を教えてくれるか？ 敵と貿易する 1896年、英国でベストセラーとなったパンフレット『Made in Germany』は不吉な絵を描いた: 「巨大な商業国家が台頭して我々の繁栄を脅かし、世界の貿易を巡って我々と争うだろう。」9 著者E.E.ウィリアムズは読者に自宅を見渡すよう促した。「あなたの子供が遊んでいるおもちゃや人形、童話の本はドイツ製だ：いや、あなたのお気に入りの（愛国的な）新聞の紙だって、同じ出生地を持つかもしれない。」ウィリアムズは後に関税が解決策であり、それが「ドイツをひざまずかせ、我々の寛容を乞わせるだろう」と書いた。10 1890年代後半には、ドイツが英国にとって最大の国防上の脅威であることは明らかだった。1898年と1900年のドイツ海軍法は、地理的制約であるユトランド半島からドイツ帝国を解放することを単一の目的として大規模な海軍建造を開始した。1902年までに王立海軍のファースト・ロードは「新しく大きくなったドイツ海軍は我々との戦争の観点から注意深く築かれている」と指摘した。11 ドイツが英国にとって最も深刻な国防上の脅威であったことは疑いようがない。その結果、ロンドンは1904年4月にフランスと一連の協定を締結し、それはエントント・コルディアルとして知られるようになった。このアンタントは1905年の第一次モロッコ危機でドイツにより即座に試され、同盟はむしろ強化された。ロシアは1907年にこの協定に組み込まれ、三国協商が成立した。 振り返れば、この同盟構造は1871年の統一からのドイツの急速な台頭を考えれば明白だった。しかし、英国とフランスが数世紀にわたる対立を解消し、1904年に同盟を正式化したことの規模を過小評価してはならない。それは歴史、根深い敵意、イデオロギーの流れに逆らって行われた地殻変動的なシフトであった。12 歴史は、ライバル間や戦時中でも貿易は行われると教えてくれる。 政治学者と歴史家は、地政学的敵対が冷戦で見られたような経済関係の二分化を生むことは稀であると指摘してきた。実証研究と形式的モデリングの両方が、ライバル同士や戦時中でも貿易は行われることを示している。13 これは英国とドイツの間では確かに当てはまり、両国の貿易は第一次世界大戦勃発直前まで着実に増加した（Chart 6）。これは英国のレッセフェール経済へのイデオロギー的なコミットメントで説明できるのか？ あるいはロンドンは保護主義に転じれば軽装備の植民地に対する動きが起きることを恐れたのか？ これらはもっともな議論だ。しかし、それだけではロシアとフランスが同期間にドイツ帝国との総貿易を伸ばし続けた理由を説明しない（Chart 7）。三国ともに戦争の到来を見抜けなかった無能な政策立案者に率いられていた—というのはありそうにない—か、あるいは互いにドイツとの貿易の利得を奪われる余裕がなかったのだ。 Chart 6 同盟国はドイツと貿易していた… 19世紀に戻る 19世紀に戻る Chart 7 …第一次世界大戦直前まで 19世紀に戻る 19世紀に戻る Chart 8 日本と米国は貿易を落とさなかった 19世紀に戻る 19世紀に戻る 第二次世界大戦前も同様の力学が働いていた。1930年代に米国と日本の関係は悪化し、1931年の満州事変が起きた。1935年、日本は1922年のワシントン海軍条約を離脱し、太平洋の勢力均衡の基盤を崩して大規模な海軍建造を開始した。1937年、日本は中国へ侵攻した。明らかな差し迫った危険があったにもかかわらず、米国は1941年7月26日まで日本との貿易を続けた — これは日本がインドシナ南部に侵攻した数日後のことである（Chart 8）。12月7日、日本は米国を攻撃した。 懐疑論者は主張するかもしれない。第一次・第二次世界大戦で政策担当者が戦争に向かって無自覚に進んだのは事実であり、今回は同じ誤りを犯さない（あるいは犯すべきではない）だろう、と。 第一に、我々は政策提言を行う立場ではなく、したがって「あるべき」ことに関心はない。第二に、20世紀前半の政策立案者が現代の啓蒙された指導者と比べて欠陥があったと考える見方には強く懐疑的である。我々の制約に基づくフレームワークは、指導者の行動に対して制度的な理由を求めることを促す。 政治学は、ロンドンやワシントンが明白な脅威にもかかわらず敵と貿易を続けた理由を明確に説明する。答えは制約の制度的性質にある：多極世界は、同盟関係の変化と同盟国の行動を統制する難しさにより集団行動の問題を導入し、政策立案者の相対利得への感受性を低下させる。 米中の場合、これはトランプ大統領が多国間外交を回避し、（貿易赤字への執着のような）重商主義的な力の測定に強く焦点を当てる戦略を採っていることでさらに顕著になっている。もし反中国通商政策が同盟国との寛大な貿易関係を伴っていれば、北京に対する「志願者の連合」を生むことができただろう。しかし、関税とEU、日、カナダへの脅しの2年間を経て、トランプ政権は世界に対して古い同盟と協調の道筋が見直しの対象であることを既に示している。 次の10年の間に現れると我々が見ている結果は二つある。 第一に、米国の指導部は自らが動いている制度的制約を認識し、対中国貿易は制限や変動を伴いながらも継続する。しかし、そのような貿易は地政学的緊張を減少させることはなく、軍事衝突を阻止もしない。実際、貿易が維持される一方で軍事衝突の確率は増す可能性すらある。 第二に、米国の指導部が自らが多極化した世界で行動していることを正しく評価できず、図表2で示した貿易利得を欧州や日本といった経済ライバルに譲り渡すことになる。 我々は制約に基づく予測法を採用しているため、後者のシナリオが起こる可能性は低いと強く考えている。 結論： 米中対立は冷戦の再演ではない。世界的多極性からの制度的圧力は、米国に中国との貿易を続けさせる。とはいえ、中国が他の技術的に先進した国から依然として入手する新興の二重用途技術に関しては交換が制限されるだろう。これは、地政学が投資に対して外生的なものと見なされなくなる複雑で興味深い世界を生み出す。 楽観的な結論に対するリスクは、歴史的記録は今日に適用できるが、時間が遅くなっている可能性があるという点だ。すでに1941年7月26日、すなわち米国が日本とのすべての貿易を破棄した時点に近い — 1930年代の初めではない。したがって、米中間のもう10年の貿易が残されているわけではなく、我々はサイクルの終わりにいるのかもしれない。 これはリスクだが、起こりにくい。米国の政策立案者は、日本に対して行ったのと同等のレベルで貿易戦争を中国に対して拡大するために軍事衝突のリスクを取ることを受け入れる必要があるだろうという点だ。客観的事実として、中国は地域における攻撃的な外交を明確に強化してきた。しかし1941年の日本とは異なり、中国は過去10年で他国を明確に侵略してはいない。したがって、そのような衝突を支持する大衆の意欲は不透明であり、米国民のうち中国を米国にとって最大の脅威と考える者はわずか21％に過ぎない。 投資への示唆 本分析は楽観的であることを意図しているわけではない。第一に、米国と中国は経済関係が世界的な二分化につながらないとしてもライバルであり続ける。ひとつには、中国は20世紀初頭のドイツのように外部市場へのアクセスを懸念しており、その経済の19.5％が依然として外需に依存している。したがって中国は近隣圏を支配しようとして現代的な海軍と軍隊を整備しており、これは世界を支配したいからではなく、むしろ近隣を支配したいからである。これはモンロー主義を始めとする米国の欲求に類似する。このことは南シナ海や東シナ海での中国の攻撃性を引き起こし、米海軍との衝突の確率を高める。 トゥキディデスの罠の物語がなお妥当であることを踏まえ、投資家はグローバル株式市場に対してS&P 500の航空宇宙・防衛株をオーバーウエイトすることを検討すべきである。本仮説を別の方法で活用するならば、グローバルの防衛株のバスケットを構築することだ。多極化は貿易保護主義への制約を生むかもしれないが、地政学的変動性を助長し、防衛支出を支えるだろう。 第二に、グローバリゼーションが再び上昇することは期待しない。多極化は国がライバルとの貿易を完全に閉ざすことを難しくするかもしれないが、グローバリゼーションは単にライバル間の貿易だけで成り立つわけではない。グローバリゼーションは大国間の高度な調整を必要とし、それは覇権的条件下でのみ可能である。Chart 9は、英国とその後のアメリカの覇権が過去200年にわたり貿易に強力な追い風を与えたことを示している。 Chart 9 グローバリゼーションの頂点は過ぎ去った グローバリゼーションの頂点はすでに過ぎている グローバリゼーションの頂点はすでに過ぎている 「Apex of Globalization」は既に過ぎ去った—ここからは下り坂である。しかしこれは二分法的な見方ではない。外国貿易がゼロになることはない。米国と中国が互いの勢力圏をシリコン・カーテンで完全に封鎖することはないだろう。 代わりに、我々は多極化、米中地政学的対立、グローバリゼーションの頂点という三つの潮流によって特徴づけられる世界から派生する五つの投資テーマに注目する。 欧州が利益を得る: 米中の敵対関係が深まるにつれて、いくつかの欧州企業が恩恵を受けると予想する。投資コミュニティはすでにこのトレンドを察知しており、貿易緊張が2019年に高まるたびに欧州株が米国株をややアウトパフォームした証拠がある（Chart 10）。しかし我々の仮説からすると、米国が中国市場で欧州に完全に市場シェアを奪われる可能性は低い。したがって我々は特にテクノロジーに注目している。ここでは、システム上の圧力があっても米中は非関税障壁を強化すると予想するからだ。したがって、欧州のテクノロジー企業を米国の同業と比較して戦略的にロングすることは理にかなっているかもしれない（Chart 11）。 Chart 10 欧州：貿易戦争の避難所 欧州：貿易戦争のセーフヘイブン 欧州：貿易戦争のセーフヘイブン Chart 11 欧州は本当にこれほど無能なのか？ ヨーロッパは本当にここまで無能なのか？ ヨーロッパは本当にここまで無能なのか？ 米ドルの強気相場は終焉する: 貿易戦争は貿易関係を調整する非常に破壊的な手段であり、報復を招き相対的損失を被る可能性がある。したがって我々は、米国が2018年の引き締めを積極的に反転させるか、貿易ライバルに自国通貨を強化させることを強制することで、最終的に米ドルを減価させると予想する。そのような動きは米ドル離れの追い風となり、ユーロに利益をもたらすだろう。 キャップエックスの強気相場: グローバルな製造チェーンの再配線は引き続き行われる。悪いニュースは、多国籍企業が利益率を切り崩してサプライチェーンを移転する必要があることだ。良いニュースは、それを達成するために製造キャップエックスに投資する必要があることである。このテーマの一つの表現は、半導体向け資本財企業の指数を買うことだ（AMAT、LRCX、KLAC、MKSI、AEIS、BRIKS、TERなど）。資本財企業は景気循環性が高いため、エントリーポイントは貿易緊張が緩和し世界成長の芽が見え始めたときに検討することを勧める。 「非同盟」市場が恩恵を受ける: 世界が最後に多極だったとき、大国は帝国主義を通じて競争した。今回は同様のダイナミクスが発展し、中国の「一帯一路」構想を模倣しようとする国々が現れるだろう。これはフロンティア市場にとって好材料である。輸出とサービスを提供するためのラッシュは供給を増やしコストを下げるため、これまで忘れられていた市場に投資のブームをもたらすだろう。インドや中国を除くアジアは、グローバル製造チェーンの再配線を利用するために積極的な改革を行っている現在の政権下で、魅力的な中国の代替先として立っている。 資本市場はグローバル化を維持する: 先進国の多くで金利がゼロ近傍にあり、人口動態上の負担が年金により高いリターンを強く求めさせているため、利回り探索は資本市場をグローバルに保ち続ける強力な動機となるだろう。制限は増える可能性が高く、特に二重用途技術への越境プライベート投資に関してはそうだ。しかし資本市場の完全な二分化はありそうにない。 我々が描写する世界は、地政学がグローバル投資家にとってますます重要な役割を果たす世界である。世界が単純に二つの交戦陣営に分かれ、投資家が地政学を無視できるようなきれいに分かれた区分けができるというのは都合が良いが、それは起こりそうにない。むしろ世界は19世紀末の動的な時代に似ており、粗野で混沌とした時代であって、投資には学際的なアプローチが求められるだろう。   Marko Papic, コンサルティング編集者、BCAリサーチ チーフ・ストラテジスト、Clocktower Group Marko@clocktowergroup.com 脚注 1 BCAリサーチ ジオポリティカル・ストラテジー、「Power And Politics In East Asia: Cold War 2.0?」（2012年9月25日）、「Sino-American Conflict: More Likely Than You Think」（2013年10月4日）、「The Great Risk Rotation」（2013年12月11日）、および「Strategic Outlook 2014 – Stay The Course: EM Risk – DM Reward」（2014年1月23日）、「Underestimating Sino-American Tensions」（2015年11月6日）、「The Geopolitics Of Trump」（2016年12月2日）、「How To Play The Proxy Battles In Asia」（2017年3月1日）など。これらはgps.bcaresearch.comで入手可能、またはリクエストに応じて提供。 2 German Historical Institute、「Bernhard von Bulow on Germany’s ‘Place in the Sun’」（1897年）参照。http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ 3 Graham Allison、Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?（New York: Houghton Miffin Harcourt, 2017）参照。 4 戦争とならなかった三例は、16世紀のポルトガルからスペインへの移行、20世紀の英から米への移行、そして21世紀におけるドイツの地域覇権への台頭である。 5 Duncan Snidal、「Relative Gains and the Pattern of International Cooperation」、The American Political Science Review, 85:3（1991年9月）、pp. 701-726。 6 本稿ではスナイダルの優れたゲーム理論による形式モデルを詳細に再検討しないが、興味のある読者には原著を推奨する。 7 Charles P. Kindleberger、The World In Depression, 1929-1939（Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013）参照。 8 Joanne Gowa and Edward D. Mansfield、「Power Politics and International Trade」、The American Political Science Review, 87:2（1993年6月）、pp. 408-420。 9 Ernest Edwin Williams、Made in Germany（再版、Ithaca: Cornell University Press）参照。https://archive.org/details/cu31924031247830。 10 Margaret MacMillan、The War That Ended Peace（Toronto: Allen Lane, 2014）に引用。 11 Peter Liberman、「Trading with the Enemy: Security and Relative Economic Gains」、International Security, 21:1（1996年夏）、pp. 147-175。 12 フランスとロシアは、共和制と暴力的蜂起に基づく共和国—フランス—と貴族的権威主義体制—ロシア—というイデオロギー的差異を乗り越えた点でさらに大きな溝を克服した。 13 James Morrow、「When Do ‘Relative Gains’ Impede Trade?」、The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 41:1（1997年2月）、pp. 12-37；および Jack S. Levy and Katherine Barbieri、「Trading With the Enemy During Wartime」、Security Studies, 13:3（2004年12月）、pp. 1-47 を参照。

ハイライト トランプ大統領が共和党内で支持され、決定的な証拠がないことは罷免を阻むだろう。 弾劾手続きでトランプ氏の支持率が恩恵を受け、米国経済が底堅ければ、貿易リスクは高まるだろう。 欧州本土の政治リスクは低下している。しかしロシアとトルコには注意が必要で、英国の10年物対2年物ギルトをショートせよ。 スペインの新選挙は政治的膠着を解消しない可能性がある。 香港ハンセンのショートで利益を確定する。 特集 米国のドナルド・トランプ大統領に対する弾劾手続き、露骨なイランによるサウジ攻撃、貿易戦争リスクの残存、そして中国と欧州からの追加の弱いデータは、投資家は当面リスク回避の姿勢を維持すべきであることを示唆している。具体的には、トランプ氏の弾劾は彼を国外での気晴らしに駆り立てる可能性があり、始まったばかりの積極的な対外・貿易政策からの戦術的撤退を放棄することになり得る。 ホットスポット以外の地政学リスクは低下しており、特に欧州で目立つ。ノーディール・ブレグジットのリスクは当社の予想に沿って急落した。イタリアとドイツは市場を安心させるためにポピュリズムなき財政刺激を提示し、市場を喜ばせた。フランスではエマニュエル・マクロン大統領の人気が回復している。そして本レポートで論じるように、スペインの選挙は重大な懸念材料を追加しないだろう。 以下では新しいGeoRisk指標を紹介し、過去1か月にわたる当社のすべての指標からのシグナルを概観し、その後スペインに焦点を当てる。 恐れるべきは米国政治であって弾劾自体ではない 下院民主党によるトランプ氏の弾劾決定は、投資家がリスク資産に対して慎重であり続けるもう一つの理由を与える。なぜ強気になれないのか？確かに、弾劾が決定的な証拠なしに行われれば、トランプ氏の再選確率は高まりうる。これは民主党の勝利に比べれば市場にとってプラスである。トランプ大統領は、共和党が引き続き91%の支持率で支える限り、事実上民主党の弾劾手続きに対して無敵である（チャート1）。このような状況では上院議員が離反することはなく、トランプ氏は職を追われることはないだろう。 共和党の支持が高い限り、トランプ氏は弾劾手続きに対して無敵である。 さらに、ウクライナ大統領ヴォロディミル・ゼレンスキーとの電話会話の議事録は決定的な一撃にはならなかった。トランプ大統領が軍事支援を差し止める代わりにジョー・バイデン前副大統領やその息子ハンターに関する捜査を要求するという明確な「見返り」は示されていない。従って不正行為があったかどうかは、さらなる証拠を待つまでは議論の余地がある。これは「内部告発者の申し立て」を超える証拠を含み得るもので、同申し立てはトランプ陣営が前述の電話議事録の情報を抑えようとした可能性を示唆している。重要なのは、草の根の共和党と上院がこの議論の最終的な裁定者であるという点である。 問題は、スキャンダルと弾劾が株式市場のボラティリティに供給されることが依然として考えられることである（チャート2）。下院民主党は弾劾に全面的に注力し、情報機関の内部告発者からの証言を聴取する過程で新たな証拠を掘り起こす可能性がある。 チャート1 共和党はまだトランプを弾劾する用意がない 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの短期滞在 – GeoRisk Update: 2019年9月27日 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの短期滞在 – GeoRisk Update: 2019年9月27日 弾劾はまた、民主党の大統領予備選を通じて市場にネガティブな影響を与える。エリザベス・ウォーレンはまだ初期の民主党予備選でバイデンを押しのけていない。 チャート2 弾劾手続きはボラティリティを高める可能性 弾劾手続きはボラティリティを高める可能性が高い 弾劾手続きはボラティリティを高める可能性が高い もし彼女（ウォーレン）がバイデンを追い落とせば、市場には大きなネガティブ・インパクトが生じるだろう。トランプ大統領は依然として再選で僅かに有利であるに過ぎない。いかなる場合でもこの選挙は極めて接戦であり、財政政策と規制に対して重大な影響を持ち、従って2020年11月まで多くの不確実性を生むだろう。内部告発者を巡る一連の出来事は、この不確実性をむしろ悪化させている。 レポート冒頭でも述べたように、もし弾劾手続きが何らかの勢いを得れば、それはトランプ氏を国外での気晴らしに駆り立てる可能性があり、始まったばかりの積極的な対外・貿易政策からの戦術的撤退を放棄させることになり得る。 最後に、トランプ氏の再選は代替案より市場に優しいため安心ラリーを引き起こす可能性が高いが、一見したほど強気ではない。第2期のトランプ政策は第1期ほど企業に有利ではないだろう。選挙上の懸念から解放されつつも下院が民主党であるという状況では、減税は実現困難だが、対外・貿易政策をさらに攻撃的に進める可能性が高い。これは米国の長期的利益に資するか否かに関わらず、市場にとってプラスの見通しではない。 結論：トランプ大統領の共和党有権者間での支持率が重要な指標である。彼らが信頼を捨てない限り上院は反転せず、トランプ氏の支持はむしろ上がる可能性がある。しかしそれは強気転換の理由にはならない。今後1年は米国の政治的機能不全の恐怖劇が不可避であり、ボラティリティと潜在的に海外での紛争エスカレーションを引き起こすだろう。 発表…当社の米中貿易リスク指標 今週、米中貿易戦争のための新しいGeoRisk指標を導入する（チャート3）。この指標は、全体の先進国株式が中国エクスポージャーの高い銘柄群に対してどの程度アウトパフォームしているか、および中国の民間クレジット成長（「社会総融資」）に基づいている。チャートの説明が示すように、この指標は貿易戦争を通じた事象の推移と整合している。また、報道記事中の重要語のカウントなど別の貿易リスクの測度ともかなり相関している。 チャート3 ここから貿易リスクは上昇するだろう 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの短期滞在 — GeoRiskアップデート：2019年9月27日 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの短期滞在 — GeoRiskアップデート：2019年9月27日 執筆時点で当社の指標は貿易戦争関連のリスクが増加していることを示唆している。過去1か月、トランプ氏は選挙前の経済リスクを抑えるために対外・貿易政策で戦術的撤退を行ってきたが（経済リスク管理のため）、当社の指標はこれが既に織り込まれていることを示している。 問題は、トランプ再選のリスクが中国にとって一層厳しい交渉を可能にすることであり、これはFedExの従業員拘束（米企業を困らせ得るシグナル）やモンタナ、ネブラスカでの農場視察のキャンセルにより暫定的に確認されている。これらは大事件ではないが、中国がトランプの躊躇を嗅ぎ取り、交渉で攻勢に出ていることを示唆している。 主要交渉担当者は10月上旬に極めて重要な協議ラウンドで会合する予定である。これが実質的な進展の公表や、4月にほぼ完成しているドラフト文書が仕上がることを示せば、11月のAPECサミット（チリ・サンティアゴ）で習近平国家主席とドナルド・トランプ大統領の首脳会談が設定される可能性がある。この時点で、我々は2020年11月までに合意が成立する確率を上方修正する必要があるだろう（当社は40%と見積もっている）。 もし協議が前向きな公的成果で終わらなければ、投資家はそれを軽視すべきではない。第4四半期の交渉は米国選挙前の最後の合意の試みである可能性があり、トランプ＝習の首脳会談の話がない場合、我々のエンドゲームに対する悲観的見通しが裏付けられることになる。 米中貿易協議が決定的で持続的な合意を生む可能性は低い。 最終的に我々は、米中貿易協議が貿易戦争リスクと不確実性を実質的に取り除くような決定的かつ持続的な合意を生むとは考えていない。特に世界的な金融緩和の中で金融市場・経済圧力が十分に強くなく、政策決定者を妥協に駆り立てない場合にはその可能性は低い。しかし、弾劾手続きがトランプの戦術的撤退を持続させ、中国からの相互措置を引き出している兆候があれば、見通しはより楽観的になるだろう。 結論：大統領の支持率が民主党の弾劾手続きから恩恵を受け、かつ我々が予想するように米国経済が底堅ければ、トランプ氏は中国との浅い合意に屈することを回避できる。ここから貿易リスクは上昇し得る。 同様に、弾劾手続きは最終的にトランプ氏に再び戦術を変えさせ、対外政策でより攻撃的な姿勢を取らせる可能性がある。弾劾に勢いがつくか、ベアマーケットが発生すれば、彼は大統領就任以降で最も攻撃的になることがあり得る—その攻撃は中国（あるいはイラン、北朝鮮、ベネズエラ、その他の国）に向けられるかもしれない。 我々の見方に対するリスクは、中国が自国経済の猶予を得るためにトランプの貿易姿勢を受け入れ、両者がAPECサミットで合意に達することである。 欧州のリスクは低下、ロシアとトルコのリスクはこれ以上ほとんど下がらない その他の地域では、当社の地政学リスクの測定は多数の先進国および新興国で緊張の低下を示している（付録参照）。ドイツではリスクは現状からやや上昇し得るが概ね抑制されている—これは短期を除けば英国では当てはまらない。ロシアとトルコでは、これ以上リスクが下がる余地はほとんどない。 まずドイツだが、メルケル首相の与党連立が気候変動対策として500億ユーロの財政支出パッケージで合意したことで政治リスクは低下した。この合意は、ドイツ政治が基本的に安定している一方で、行政は刺激策を先取りして打つというよりは反応的に行動するだろうという当社の評価を裏付けるものだ。 欧州がドイツの財政政策における真の「ゲームチェンジャー」を待つには、世界的な危機、あるいは新たなドイツ政府が必要だろう。世論調査で急伸している緑の党が、メルケルを気候支出へ駆り立てたため、そのような展開を可能にするかもしれないが、まだ早すぎる。 一方で、メルケルの退任間際の状態と外部要因が政治リスクを完全には収束させないだろう。我々は、米国車の関税が現状より高まる確率を30%以下と見ている—少なくとも米中の緊張が続く限りは。 対照的に、英国の政治リスクは今月大きく改善したにもかかわらず、抑制されているとは言えない。9月25日の最高裁判所による首相ボリス・ジョンソンの議会休会（プログ）無効判決は、合意なきEU離脱で国を引き裂くという彼の脅しの棺にもう一打を加えた。これはEUから譲歩を引き出すための賭けだったが、完全に失敗した。1 これが、最も説得力のあるノーディール離脱の脅威であったため、その失敗は英国と近隣国の政治リスク低下の一歩を意味するはずだ。 しかし逆説的に、我々のGeoRisk指標は夏を通じておよび現在のポンドの急落を裏付けられなかった。理由は、夏の間ポンドの減価率は比較的横ばいであった一方、当該指標の説明変数の一つである英国製造業PMIは世界的な製造業の急落に伴いもっと速く低下したためである。その結果、当社の指標は政治リスクの低下としてこれを記録した。世界はノーディールよりも景気後退を恐れており、市場の判断は正しかった。しかし状況は逆転し得る：世界成長が改善し、新たな英国選挙が予定されれば、後者はノーディールのリスクを再燃させる可能性がある（特にトーリー党が薄い過半数で連立政権として戻った場合はなおさらだ）。 真実は、ブレグジットの物語は終わっておらず、英国は選挙、左派政権の可能性、そして最終的には離脱も残留も中間層の不安を解決しないことが明らかになればポピュリズムの粘り強さに直面するだろう。我々のGBP-USDのロング推奨は必然的にタクティカルであり、1.30ドルで売りに転じる予定である。 新興市場では、ロシアとトルコの政治リスクは非常に低下しており、何らかの政治展開が起こらない限りこれ以上低下するのは難しい。最新の評価に基づけば、トルコは近い将来リスクが急上昇する可能性が高い。これはエルドアン大統領に対する国内政治的連携の形成や、脆弱な米国とトルコのシリア協定を巡る外的リスクの高まりによって生じ得る。イランとの緊張はオイルショックを引き起こし、経済を弱体化させ野党を勢いづける可能性もある。 ロシアについては、我々のベースケースはロシアが対外目的を軽視して国内問題に注力し続けることであり、これが地政学リスクを低位に保つのに寄与するというものだ。米国の政治が混乱し、対イランの紛争が視野に入る中で、モスクワが自ら敵対的注目を浴びる理由はない。しかしながら、プーチン時代を通じてモスクワは予測不可能で攻撃的であり、トランプに対する忠誠心は本物ではなく民主党の怒りの標的となり得るし、中東やアジア太平洋で火種を煽る誘因も持つ。したがって地政学リスクがこれ以上大幅に下がることを期待するのは運を天に任せることになる。 結論： 欧州の政治リスクは低下している が、メルケルの退任間際の状態と貿易戦争により、政権基盤が安定しているにもかかわらずドイツのリスクはここから上昇し得る。 英国は今夏のノーディール・リスクの回避という幸運な結論にもかかわらず、世代的に高まった政治リスクに直面している。英国の10年物対2年物ギルトをショートしなさい。 ロシアは当面静かであり続けるべきだが、トルコはほぼ確実に政治リスクの上昇を経験するだろう。 スペイン：選挙は驚きをもたらすかもしれないがリスクは低い 政党幹部が恒久的な政府樹立で合意できなかったため、スペインの有権者は11月10日に4年で4度目の投票に向かうことになる。 スペイン社会労働党（PSOE）は4月の解散総選挙で350議席中123議席を獲得して以降、暫定政権を務めている。 新たなスペインの選挙は現在の政治的膠着を解消しないだろう。 首相でありPSOE党首のペドロ・サンチェスは7月に承認を得られず、それ以来左派の反体制政党ポデモスと政権協定を模索してきた。ただしPSOEは完全な連立を求めているわけではなく、単に少数与党として引き続き統治するための外部支持を求めているに過ぎない。したがって交渉でPSOEはポデモスに閣僚ポストではなく非閣僚の機関を提供する程度にとどめ、ポデモスや他党は選挙の準備を整えている。 今後の選挙の結果は4月の選挙と大きくは変わらないかもしれない。スペインの有権者は変化を求めていない。失業と不完全雇用は減少しており、賃金上昇は2014年以降プラスで推移している（チャート4）。世論調査では各党への支持は大きく変動していない（チャート5、上段）。PSOEは依然としてかなりの差でリードしている。 チャート4 スペイン有権者は変化を求めていない スペインの有権者は変化を求めていない スペインの有権者は変化を求めていない とはいえ選挙は不都合な時期に不確実性を高め、驚きを生む可能性がある。PSOEの支持は7月下旬以降わずかに低下しており、これはポデモスとの交渉がこじれ始めた時期に一致する。 チャート5 世論調査に大きな変化はない… 世論調査に大きな変化なし... 世論調査に大きな変化なし... たとえPSOEとポデモスが統治協定を結んだとしても、両者の合計支持は主要な保守系3党の合計支持を大きく上回るわけではない。保守系は国民党（Partido Popular）、シウダダノス（Ciudadanos）、Voxであり（チャート5下段）、彼らはマドリードの地域政府を共同で支配することで協力できることを最近示した。 チャート6 …しかし投票率低下は左派に打撃を与える可能性 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの滞在 – GeoRiskアップデート：2019年9月27日 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの滞在 – GeoRiskアップデート：2019年9月27日 社会党はシウダダノスから際どい有権者を取り込むことを望んでおり、特にシウダダノスの右派ポピュリズムへの転向やカタルーニャ問題に対する強硬姿勢に懐疑的な有権者を狙っている。しかしシウダダノスの有権者の半分を取り込めたとしても、PSOEの支持は約37%にとどまり、単独過半数政権を形成するには程遠い。 PSOEに打撃を与え得るもう一つの要素は投票率である。スペインの有権者は4月選挙以降、いずれの党も支持することへの関心が薄れている。投票率の低下は左派にとって最も打撃になり得る。なぜなら有権者は政府形成失敗をポデモスとPSOEの責任と見なす割合が、PPやシウダダノスよりも高いからである（チャート6）。 最も可能性の高い結果は現状維持か、あるいはPSOE–ポデモス連合だ。しかし保守派の勝利を排除することはできない。前者2ケースでは短期的にはやや拡張的な財政が実施されやすくなるが、長期的には改革の勢いを失うリスクがある。 文脈を示すと、スペインの政治は国内志向であり、欧州統合への脅威とはなっていない。スペインの有権者は通貨やEU加盟に関して大陸で最も親欧的な層の一つである（チャート7）。スペインはイタリアとともにEU予算配分の主要な受益国である。極右のVoxですら「強硬なユーロ懐疑主義者」と見なされてはいない。 ただし国内に目を向けると政治的分断が問題である。不平等や社会的流動性の欠如はイタリア、英国、米国ほど極端ではないにせよ懸念材料だ。さらにカタルーニャ独立問題は対立を生む。新たなカタルーニャ州議会選は2022年まで予定されていないが、共和主義左派（Republican Left of Catalonia）とカタルーニャ・シーの親独立連合は世論調査で勢いを増しており、シウダダノスの支持は今年初めに同党がカタルーニャに対する姿勢を強硬化して以来急落している（チャート8）。カタルーニャが独立するという状況では全くない—独立支持は2013年にピークに達している—が、それでもスペイン政治の原動力であり続けている。 チャート7 スペイン人は欧州を好む スペイン人はヨーロッパを愛している スペイン人はヨーロッパを愛している チャート8 カタルーニャは分裂を招く問題 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの滞在 — GeoRiskアップデート：2019年9月27日 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの滞在 — GeoRiskアップデート：2019年9月27日 ごく短期的には、選挙の麻痺は財政政策にクロスウインドを生む。一方では地方政府は支出削減を強いられる可能性がある。地域は昨年より50億ユーロ多く受け取ると期待しており、その一部は医療や教育に使われる予定だった。安定（あるいは少なくとも暫定）政権が2019年予算を承認できるまでは、地域は2019年予算を昨年の数値に基づいて作成するため、予定されていた支出増加を削らざるを得ない。 しかし他方で、税収が回収できないため予算赤字は拡大するだろう。2018年末にスペインは年金、公務員給与、最低賃金の引き上げを法令で実施したが、2019年予算で実施されるはずだった対応する歳入増加は政権が確立するまで実現しないため、赤字は上方圧力を受ける。 選挙を越えれば、大陸の景気減速を受けてやや大きめの財政的押し上げが期待される。スペインには多少の財政余力があり、2019年に財政赤字は2%、2020年に1.1%へ低下すると見込まれている。2 欧州委員会のより保守的な見積もりでも2019年と2020年の赤字はそれぞれ2.3%と2%と予想されている（チャート9）。これは、スペインが過去10年の緊縮の後に歓迎される変化として、2020年に過度の赤字手続きを起動させることなく追加で約100～150億ユーロ分の刺激を提供できることを意味する。 リスクは、スペインの構造改革の勢いが失われ、長期的に悪影響を及ぼす可能性があることだ。2012年、スペインは痛みを伴う労働市場と年金改革を実行し、それが印象的な経済回復を支えた。我々の報告が示す通り、経済は同業国平均より速く成長し続け、失業は過去6年で12%低下し、輸出競争力は2008年以降ヨーロッパで最も急速に回復した国の一つである（チャート10）。この回復は現在減速し始めており、現時点の政治的膠着は改革が市場の望むより深く巻き戻されるリスクを生んでいる。 チャート9 スペインにはある程度の財政余地がある スペインにはいくらかの財政余地がある スペインにはいくらかの財政余地がある 保守派が政権に戻るという驚きが起これば、これは回避される可能性が高いが、その場合は短期的に緩和的な政策は少なくなるだろう。 チャート10 回復は減速し始めている 回復が鈍化し始めている 回復が鈍化し始めている 結論：当社の地政学リスク指標はスペインに関して抑制されたリスク水準を示している。これは、選挙が大きな変化をもたらさない可能性があり、いずれにせよ同国は不安定な均衡状態にとどまるだろうという点に適合している。政治は米国、英国、イタリアのようなポピュリズムに侵された国々よりも基本的に安定している。しかし、左派政権が生じれば短期的にはより大きな財政的緩和が行われ、その代償としてスペインが最近達成した構造改革の進展が損なわれるというリスクがある。 事務連絡 香港ハンセンのショートで利益を確定している。混乱はまだ終わっていないが、10月1日の中華人民共和国建国記念日が近づくにつれてピークに達し、北京は強硬な介入を避けようとするだろう。   エカテリーナ・シュトレヴェンスキー、リサーチ・アナリスト ekaterinas@bcaresearch.com マット・ガートケン、副社長 地政学ストラテジスト mattg@bcaresearch.com 脚注 1 最高裁はジョンソン政権による議会休会が、正当な理由なく議会の主権的立法者としての役割および政府監視の役割を不当に骨抜きにする違法な手段であると判断した。通常より大規模な11人の裁判官が全会一致で休会の無効を判決した。歴史的に見て休会の使用例や、議会が10月31日のブレグジット日までに行動する時間がまだあったこと、そして首相の対外関係や条約に関する歴史的権限を考えれば、我々は少なくとも判決は接戦になると予想していた。しかし最高裁はブレグジットの混乱の中で議会の麻痺によって生じた権力の真空を埋める役割を果たし、首相が重要な局面で議会の役割を縮小できるという新たな前例になり得るものを「打ち砕いた」。実務的な短期的帰結はノーディール退出の政治的・経済的リスクの低下であるが、長期的帰結は英国の絶えず進化する憲法制度における司法の重要性の高まりかもしれない。 2 「Stability Programme Update 2019-2022, Kingdom of Spain」を参照、入手先は www.ec.europa.eu。 英国：GeoRisk指標 英国：GEORISK 指標 英国：GEORISK 指標 フランス：GeoRisk指標 フランス：GEORISK指標 フランス：GEORISK指標 ドイツ：GeoRisk指標 ドイツ：GEORISK指標 ドイツ：GEORISK指標 スペイン：GeoRisk指標 スペイン：GEORISK指標 スペイン：GEORISK指標 イタリア：GeoRisk指標 イタリア：ジオリスク・インジケーター イタリア：ジオリスク・インジケーター ロシア：GeoRisk指標 ロシア：ジオリスク・インディケーター ロシア：ジオリスク・インディケーター トルコ：GeoRisk指標 トルコ：GEORISKインジケーター トルコ：GEORISKインジケーター ブラジル：GeoRisk指標 ブラジル：ジオリスク・インディケーター ブラジル：ジオリスク・インディケーター 台湾：GeoRisk指標 台湾：GEORISK指標 台湾：GEORISK指標 韓国：GeoRisk指標 韓国：GEORISKインジケーター 韓国：GEORISKインジケーター 地政学的レーダー上の注目点は？ 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの短期滞在 — GeoRisk アップデート：2019年9月27日 弾劾、貿易戦争、そしてスペインへの短期滞在 — GeoRisk アップデート：2019年9月27日 第III部：地政学カレンダー

特別レポート

ハイライト イギリス経済は政治的不確実性の影を抱えつつも、かなり持ちこたえている。 しかし、イギリスが実際にＥＵを離脱する前であっても、ブレグジットは高まった不確実性、企業の投資支出の深刻な弱さ、停滞する生産性を通じてイギリス経済に持続的な足跡を残した。 その結果、潜在成長率の低下、構造的に弱い為替レート、および比較的高い国内インフレという経済になっている。 ブレグジットは10月31日を越えて延期されるだろう。早期に総選挙が行われボリス・ジョンソンの立場が強化されない限り、ノーディール・ブレグジットは過大評価されたリスクである。それは起こりそうにない。 英ポンドとイギリス・ギルト（ギルトはギルト）の投資見通しは二極化している：いわゆる「スムーズな」ブレグジットはポンドにとって強気でギルトにとって弱気、一方でノーディールならポンドとギルト利回りの双方をさらに低下させるだろう。 特集 2016年に英国が欧州連合からの離脱を決めて以来、経済および金融資産の見通しは、離脱が秩序だった形で行われるかどうかという二分類の結果に結びついてきた。これは計り知れない不確実性の源であり、イングランド銀行（BoE）を中央銀行が直面した中で最も扱いにくい立場の一つに置いてきた。 本週のレポートでは、いくつかのハイレベルな問いに答えようとする。第一に、イギリス経済の減速は世界的な製造業の景気後退を考えればありふれたものだったのか？それとも政治的不確実性の高まりを考えると不当に長引いているのか？後者であれば、「ノーディール」以外の結果になった場合に反発する可能性はどれほどか？最後に、遅延した投資によって既に経済に修復不能な損害が生じ、EUとの関係の結果にかかわらず長期的な影響が出ているのか？ 雇用ブーム イギリスは現在、第二次世界大戦以来の最良の雇用回復を経験している。この10年間で420万人の新規雇用が創出され、雇用対人口比はほぼ50年ぶりの高水準へと押し上げられた。注目すべきは、この回復は労働市場の状況が非常に堅調な米国の回復よりもさらに印象的に見える点である。例えば米国の雇用率は60.9％で、イギリスよりわずかに低いが、それでも危機前のピークから約4ポイント下回っている（チャート 1）。ユーロ圏と比べても、英国の労働市場のアウトパフォームは明白である。 それにもかかわらず、賃金上昇はブーア戦争以来もっとも鈍いものである。 雇用の質も優れている──フルタイム雇用の創出がパートタイムを上回り、女性の労働参加率も急増している。雇用の好況は地域や産業に広く行き渡っている。確かに製造業はやや変動を見せているが、イースト・ミッドランド地域を除き、失業率は英国全体で下方へと収斂している（チャート 2）。 チャート 1 雇用ブーム 雇用ブーム 雇用ブーム チャート 2 回復は広範囲に及ぶ 回復は幅広く進んでいる 回復は幅広く進んでいる     それにもかかわらず、賃金上昇はブーア戦争以来もっとも鈍いものである。7月の演説でBoEのチーフエコノミスト、アンディ・ホルデインは、賃金の失われた10年は主要な英国地域全てに等しく影響を与える災害であると正しく指摘した。1950年代から大不況まで、英国の実質賃金は年率約2％で成長していたが、大不況以降は実質賃金は年率-0.4％で停滞している（チャート 3）。1 チャート 3 賃金は最近まで停滞していた 賃金は最近まで停滞していた 賃金は最近まで停滞していた これにはいくつかの理由がある。まず、自営業やゼロアワーズ契約、派遣労働の成長が強かった。したがって、ポスト危機期にフルタイムの割合は上昇しているとはいえ、それは危機前の高水準を大きく下回っている。これが労働市場の流動性を高め、企業の雇用コストを引き下げている。自営業者やゼロアワーズ契約労働者の報酬は、常勤の従業員よりも著しく低い。好ましい点は、この現象が英国特有ではなく、特に労働市場の硬直性を解きほぐす構造改革が進んだヨーロッパを中心に世界的に起きていることである。 今後の鍵となる問いは、賃金の初期的な上昇が継続するかどうかである。景気循環の時間軸では、雇用のプラスのトレンドが続くならば、英国はかなり強い賃金圧力を経験し始める可能性があると我々は考えている。その理由は4つある： 求職者数を上回る仕事のオファーが継続している。指標によっては、求職者より20％〜40％多い求人が存在する（チャート 4）。この行き詰まりは、雇用率をさらに上げること（すでに世俗的高水準）や失業率を下げることで簡単に解決できるものではない。 BoEは英国のNAIRUを4.4％と推計しており、これは失業率が構造的水準を明確に下回っていることを意味する。企業の調査は引き続き熟練労働力の不足を企業が直面する主要な問題の一つとして示唆している。 英国のフィリップス曲線はここ数年で平坦化したが、最近賃金成長は上向きに反転し始めている。他の多くの国同様、英国のフィリップス曲線は折れ曲がっており、失業ギャップが縮小するにつれて賃金成長の凸性が増す。 ジョブ・トゥ・ジョブ・フローとしても知られる雇用市場の循環速度が上がっている。これは歴史的に賃金成長にとってプラスである（チャート 5）。これには2012年以降加速している退職率の上昇も反映されている。 チャート 4 賃金圧力は高まるべき 賃金上昇圧力は強まる見込みだ 賃金上昇圧力は強まる見込みだ チャート 5 英国の雇用循環速度が上昇 英国の雇用増加ペースが加速 英国の雇用増加ペースが加速 現時点では、逼迫した労働市場から賃金上昇への伝達メカニズムが政治的不確実性によって阻害されており、これが中長期の採用計画に短期的な影を落とし続けるだろう。例えば、英国が金融センターであるという議論はあるものの、銀行・保険業における人員流出は根強く残っている（チャート 6）。英国は特に外国為替市場でかなりの金融取引を引き付け続けているが、2016年のブレグジット国民投票の年には出来高に明確な打撃があった（チャート 7）。一方、製造業にとっては、景気信頼感を再び取り戻し、直接投資を再誘引するには時間がかかるだろう。 チャート 6 製造業と金融の雇用における離職 製造業および金融業の雇用における離職 製造業および金融業の雇用における離職 チャート 7 英国は重要な金融センターである 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な停滞か？ 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な停滞か？ とはいえ、英国経済は主にサービスに依存しているため、賃金はなお上向きの圧力を受けるだろう。サービス部門の賃金成長は堅調であり、製造業の景気後退がより深刻になり他の部門に波及しない限り、賃金の下押し圧力は限定的であり、賃金の進む最も抵抗の少ない道は上昇である。 結論：政治的不確実性の影響を受けつつも、英国経済はかなり持ちこたえている。 支出の好循環 英国の所得総額は拡大する可能性がある一方で、信頼感の欠如が支出を抑制している。チャート 8は、英国の消費者信頼感が米国およびユーロ圏のトレンドから負の乖離を示していることを示す。だが、ブレグジットの不確実性の雲が晴れれば支出は再び加速する可能性を示すいくつかの相殺要因が存在する。 逼迫した労働市場から賃金上昇への伝達メカニズムは政治的不確実性によって阻害されており、これは短期的に影を落とし続ける。 英国の小売売上の大きなドライバーは観光客の来訪であり、弱いポンドは訪問者の流入を引き続き促す可能性が高い（チャート 9）。 チャート 8 信頼感が回復の鍵となる いかなる回復においても、信頼が鍵となる いかなる回復においても、信頼が鍵となる チャート 9 安いポンドは外国人購買を促す 安いポンドは外国人の買い物を促す 安いポンドは外国人の買い物を促す 英国は世界を代表する多くのブランドを抱えており、安い通貨から恩恵を受ける。 家計の債務削減はかなり進んでおり、借入と住宅ローン申請の仮初めの回復が英住宅価格の下落を緩和している。これは英国のモーゲージ借入コストが利回りの低下とともに崩壊したことに支えられている（チャート 10）。とはいえ、借入の増加があっても英家計の債務対GDPは多くの先進国より高いままであるため、増加は緩和されるだろう。 チャート 10 低金利は住宅を支えるはず 低金利は住宅市場を後押しするはずだ 低金利は住宅市場を後押しするはずだ チャート 11 コストプッシュ型インフレ コスト・プッシュ・インフレーション コスト・プッシュ・インフレーション インフレ期待は部分的に通貨安に反応して急上昇している。注目すべきは、ポンドは購買力平価（PPP）の基本的な水準よりもはるかに大きく下落したことである。これが輸入インフレをもたらすだろう（チャート 11）。 結論：英国経済の大きなリスクはスタグフレーションに陥ることである。BoEの調査によると、ノーディール・ブレグジットの場合の生産への損失はGDPの約3％と見積もられているが、これらは見積りに過ぎず、経済調整の大部分は為替を通じて起きる可能性が高い。ノーディールの経済的影響の推計レンジ（表 1）は、偶然ではないが20世紀の英国の景気後退の範囲と類似している（チャート 12）。これがBoEを特に不快な「待って見守る」モードに置いている。例えば、ハードな離脱がポンドの下落とインフレ期待の上昇を招けば、BoEの金融政策委員会がインフレ目標の下で利下げを行うかは明確ではない。 表 1 ノーディール・ブレグジットの影響に関する広い推計レンジ 英国：景気の循環的減速か、それとも構造的低迷か？ 英国：景気の循環的減速か、それとも構造的低迷か？ チャート 12 過去の英国の景気後退はノーディール影響の指針を示す 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な停滞か？ 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な停滞か？ ブレグジット不確実性は既に英国の成長に持続的なダメージを与えている 過去3年間の英国の経済成長に対する大きな足かせは、企業信頼感の崩壊とそれに伴う資本支出の縮小である（チャート 13）。 2016年のブレグジット投票以降、企業投資は過去の同様の英国の景気循環の時点と比べて実質的に弱くなっており、BoEによれば累積で26％もの下振れとなっている（チャート 14）。2019年に見られる弱さの一部は世界経済の減速や米中貿易戦争に関連する不確実性にも帰せられるが、英国の資本支出は他の先進国と比べても著しく弱い（チャート 15）。 2016年のブレグジット投票以降、企業投資は過去の同様の時点と比べ累積で26％も弱い。 これは、ブレグジットの不確実性だけで既に英国経済に与えられた長期的なダメージを判断する際に重要な点である。この損害を評価する最良の方法は資本支出の視点であり、その成長は生産性の変化や潜在経済成長率と高い相関を持つ（チャート 16）。 チャート 13 悲観的な英国企業は投資を止めた 悲観的な英国企業は投資を停止した 悲観的な英国企業は投資を停止した チャート 14 歴史と比べて大幅に劣後する英国の設備投資… 英国：景気循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な低迷か？ 英国：景気循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な低迷か？ チャート 15 …そして世界の同業他社と比べても ...そして世界の同業他社と比較して ...そして世界の同業他社と比較して チャート 16 ブレグジット不確実性による英国経済への持続的打撃 ブレグジットの不確実性が英国経済に与える持続的な打撃 ブレグジットの不確実性が英国経済に与える持続的な打撃     先月BoEが発表した重要な研究論文—現行のBoE金融政策委員会メンバーであるベン・ブロードベントとシルヴァナ・テネイロが共著した—は、ブレグジット不確実性、資本支出、英国の生産性間の連鎖を論じている。2著者らは、ブレグジット国民投票の結果の経済効果は、英国の貿易可能部門の生産性成長が恒久的に低下すると予想されるという「ニュース」への反応として分類できると結論付けた。その枠組みでは、ブレグジット投票という「ニュース」が発表された後、次の一連の事象が生じることになる： チャート 17 資源の誤配分 資源の誤配分 資源の誤配分 貿易不可部門の実質価格が貿易可能部門に対して即時かつ恒久的に低下する、すなわち実質実効為替レートの下落。 価格の相対的な上昇を利用するために資源は貿易可能部門へ移転し、生産と輸出が増加する。 その後、ブレグジット投票によって予告された通り、貿易可能部門の生産性成長が低下し、資源はより高い生産性を持つ非貿易部門へ再度移転する。 英国の金利は世界に対して低下する。金融市場は英国の生産性が相対的に低速で推移することを織り込むからである。 企業の総投資成長は鈍化するが、全体の雇用成長は 回復力を保つ。 これはまさに2016年のブレグジット投票以降の英国経済の推移である： BoEの貿易加重ポンド指数は名目・実質双方で下落している。 英国の実質GDPに占める輸出シェアは27％から30％へ上昇し、一方で投資の比率は実質GDPの10％から9％へ低下した（チャート 17、上段）。 英国のサービス（非貿易）における年間雇用成長率は2.1％から2018年末にはゼロまで低下したが、その後は回復し始めている。製造（貿易）雇用成長はブレグジット投票から1年以内に0.5％から2.7％へ上昇した後、2018年には再び0％に鈍化し、その後も上昇し始めている（チャート 17、第3パネル）。 生産性成長は1.9％からゼロへと低下したが、賃金成長は低失業の状況での堅調な労働需要により加速している（チャート 17、下段）。 産業別では、実現された生産性成長の最も悪い伸びは金属製品や金融サービスのような貿易可能産業で起きており、最高の生産性成長は専門サービスや小売のような非貿易産業で見られる（チャート 18）。3 チャート 18 最新の英国産業別生産性成長率 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な低迷か？ 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な低迷か？ まとめると、BoEの研究論文の分析枠組みによれば、ブレグジット国民投票の結果は、ポンドの急落によって示された信号として、英国の資源を高生産性の非貿易産業から低生産性の貿易可能産業へ誤配分させることを促した。これが真ならば、我々は次の事象も観測するはずである： チャート 19 ブレグジット不確実性のインフレ上の帰結 ブレグジットの不確実性によるインフレへの影響 ブレグジットの不確実性によるインフレへの影響 サービスや賃金のような国内志向の指標でより高いインフレ率。 賃金加速と生産性停滞のギャップにより名目労働単価の成長が加速すること。 構造的に高いインフレ期待。 他の先進国よりも英国の実質金利が低いこと。 為替レートの長期的な弱さ。 これらはすべて英国で現実のものとなっている（チャート 19）： サービスのCPIインフレは現在2.2％で、総合CPIインフレの1.7％を上回っている。 労働単位当たりコストの成長はブレグジット国民投票前にはマイナス圏にあったが、2016年末以降は2％〜3％の範囲へと加速している。 実質10年ギルト利回り（10年CPIスワップでデフレート）は現在-3.1％で、同期間の米国債の実質利回りは0％である。 貿易加重の英国ポンドは依然としてブレグジット国民投票後の安値圏に近い。 ブレグジット不確実性は構造的に弱く、よりインフレ圧力の高い英国経済をもたらしたことは明らかである──これはノーディールを回避できたとしてもすぐに逆転するとは限らない。この点はBoEの将来の金融政策判断やポンドおよびイギリス・ギルト（ギルト）への投資見通しに重要な示唆を与える。 結論：イギリスが実際にＥＵを離脱する前であっても、ブレグジットは高まった不確実性、企業投資支出の深刻な弱さ、停滞する生産性を通じて英国経済に持続的な影を残した。結果として、潜在成長が低下し、為替は構造的に弱く、国内インフレは比較的高いという経済になっている。 政治的不確実性が支配的 チャート 20 国民はノーディール・ブレグジットに反対 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な低迷か？ 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な低迷か？ 本レポートで行ったように英国経済の循環的および構造的な状況を考慮したとしても、短期の見通しは依然としてブレグジットの結果に完全に依存している。 政府による議会の休会の是非を巡る最高裁判決と、ボリス・ジョンソン首相が10月31日の離脱期限延長を求めるよう議会の命令に従うことを拒否していることにより、ブレグジットの現状はこれまでになく不確実である。疑う余地がないのは、議会が無秩序なノーディール・ブレグジットに反対していることである。そして世論調査の最良の結果は国民もノーディールに反対していることを示している（チャート 20）。 議員たちは9月にボリス・ジョンソン首相の交渉戦略を痛烈に拒否した──彼らはノーディール・ブレグジットを禁止し、早期総選挙の実施にも二度にわたり反対票を投じた（チャート 21）。ジョンソンは連立の多数を失い、それでも議会が戻るまでは新たな選挙に行けないため、立場が制約されている。 結果にかかわらず起こりそうなのは、財政支出の大幅な増加である、 英国は17世紀のスチュアート王朝ではない──議会は憲法上の最高の政治機関であり、その決定を永続的に無視したり従わなかったりすることはできない。議会が再開すれば、おそらく10月14日、離脱期限の延長を確保する能力を持つだろう。ＥＵは離脱を遅らせるか取り消すことがＥＵ自身の利益になるため、延長を認める可能性が高い。そうなれば総選挙が行われるだろう。 チャート 21 ボリス・ジョンソンの交渉戦略は失敗した 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な停滞か？ 英国：循環的な減速か、それとも構造的な停滞か？ チャート 22 ハング・パーラメントがより可能性が高い結果 ハング・パーラメントが最も可能性の高い結果だ ハング・パーラメントが最も可能性の高い結果だ 世論調査は保守党が躍進し、リベラル・デモクラットが労働党を追い越し、ブレグジット党が優勢を保つことを示している（チャート 22）。これらを議席に変換するのは一筋縄ではいかない。なぜなら小選挙区制では小党が主要党から重要な票を奪い、その結果として第2位や第3位の党が議席を得ることがあるからである。 重要な点は、ブレグジット党は単一課題の党であり、ジョンソン下の保守党は現在同じ問題を独占していることである。この動態が続けば、リベラル・デモクラットは保守票を分裂させるよりも労働党票を分裂させる脅威となるだろう。その結果、保守党が多数を得る可能性は依然として残るが、325議席以上が必要であり、問題のある議員を排除しスコットランドで指導力を失った結果、保守党は288議席にまで落ちているため不確実である。ハング・パーラメントの方がより可能性が高い。 ハング・パーラメントは優柔不断と不確実性を長引かせるが、ノーディール・ブレグジットに対しては結束を保つ可能性が高い。野党連合政府であればノーディールを阻止するだろう。単一党の保守党多数であっても必ずしも最悪の結果ではなく、それはジョンソンの対EUに対する交渉力を高め、EUが離脱協定を通すためにいくつかの譲歩を与える可能性を高め、結果として協定に基づく秩序ある離脱につながるだろう（具体的には北アイルランドに対するバックストップの制限、あるいはサンセット条項や同様の撤退メカニズム）。ジョンソンにとって、そのような協定は彼が政権に復帰した直後に不況を招くことを避ける上で最善の利害となる。これらの結果は、離脱協定か議会が新たな国民投票を求める新章のいずれかに向かうことを示唆している。 チャート 23 財政支出の増加を予想せよ 財政支出の増加が見込まれる 財政支出の増加が見込まれる 市場にとって最悪のシナリオは、合意できないアイルランド問題や離脱協定を通せない弱い保守党連合多数が生まれることであり、これはテリーザ・メイ政権時と同様に麻痺を招きうる。首相が何が何でも離脱を実現しようとする時にこれは致命的である。このシナリオではノーディールが再び現実的なリスクとなる。主観的に我々はノーディールのリスクを約30％と推計しているが、これは9月の議会の強い反対多数の結果として現在は上昇しておらず低下している――そしてこの状況を変え得るのは総選挙のみである。 ブレグジット物語の結末を知らずに英国の将来の政治地図を予測するのは無益である。結果にかかわらず起こりそうなのは、財政支出の大幅な増加であり、大不況後の「緊縮」からの反転である。この傾向はジョンソンが今秋の保守党大会で寛大な社会支出パッケージを提示しようとしていることからすでに明白であり、もし総選挙でこれが承認されれば保守党の財政政策の転換を示すことになる（チャート 23）。 より多くの財政支出は、無秩序な離脱の負の影響に対抗するため、またEU離脱が英国の問題の万能薬でないことが明らかになった際に中産階級を宥めるため、あるいは野党政権が実現した際にその議題を実行するために必要となるだろう。 もしノーディール・ブレグジットが発生した場合、英国は混乱した経済の余波に直面するだけでなく、北アイルランドへの悪影響やスコットランド独立運動の再燃の可能性により三王国間の憲法上の争いが再燃するだろうし、スコットランド独立の復活もあり得る。 結論：英国は独裁国家ではなく、首相は議会の意思に従うことを拒否できない。議会はノーディールを延期することを明確に投票で示しており、今後もそうするだろう。無秩序な離脱は依然リスクであるが、最終的に総選挙が保守党を政権に戻す可能性がある場合に限られる。しかしそうであっても、EUは議会が離脱法案を通過させられるよう譲歩を提示する可能性が高い。ノーディールの確率は30％を超えない。結果にかかわらず構造的な教訓は、財政支出が増えるということである。 投資上の結論 1992年のポンド崩壊を巡る一連の出来事は今日にも重要な教訓を与える。4 重要なのは、ポンドの調整の大部分は迅速に起きたことであるが、今日との重要な違いは、欧州為替相場メカニズム（ERM）からの離脱が予期されていなかったのに対し、ブレグジットは予測されていた点である。外国為替市場は非常に流動的であり期待に応じて素早く調整する。ピークから谷まで、ケーブルはすでに概ね30％下落しており、下方調整の大部分は既に済んでいることを示唆している。 チャート 24 ギルトに対する二極化したブレグジット結果 ギルツにとってのブレグジットの二者択一的結果 ギルツにとってのブレグジットの二者択一的結果 英通貨はフローティングであり、固定為替レート期と比べて「隠れた罪」は少ない。それでもポンドのフェアバリューは構造的に弱くなっている。私たちのバイアスは、もしハードなブレグジットが起きればポンドは容易に1.10〜1.15ゾーンまで下落しうるということである。この動きの一部はアンダーシュートになるだろう。ソフトなブレグジット（あるいは離脱なし）の場合、ポンドは歴史的な実質実効為替レートのレンジの中点へ収束し、15%〜20%高くなる、すなわち約1.50あたりに位置づくと想定される。リスク・リワードの観点からこれは魅力的に見える。 イギリス・ギルト（ギルト）の利回りの方向もまたブレグジットの結果に依存する。なぜなら英国のOISカーブに織り込まれている政策金利の変化はほとんどないからである（チャート 24）。 「スムーズな」ブレグジットはBoEが英国の高まったインフレ期待と戦うことに再び焦点を戻すことを可能にするだろう。それは将来のBoE利上げを織り込む中でギルト利回りの上昇とギルト利回り曲線のフラット化、そして長期のインフレ期待の低下をもたらす可能性が高い。上昇するケーブルはインフレ期待も抑制するだろう。このシナリオではギルトもインフレ連動債も良いパフォーマンスを示さないだろう。 一方で「ノーディール」ブレグジットは、企業・消費者信頼感への潜在的打撃を相殺するためにBoEが利下げを行うきっかけとなるだろう。これはポンド安でインフレ期待が高止まりするかさらに上昇したとしても起こり得る。そうなればギルト利回りは低下し、ギルト曲線はスティープ化するだろう。この結果に備える最良のポジションは、ギルトにオーバーウェイトしつつインフレ連動債をロングすることだろう。 前述の財政緩和シナリオもギルト曲線の形状に影響を与え、ギルト曲線は将来のより大きな財政赤字と高い将来インフレを織り込む中でいくらかのベアリッシュなスティープ化を示すだろう。 Robert Robis, CFA チーフ・フィクスト・インカム・ストラテジスト rrobis@bcaresearch.com Chester Ntonifor, フォーリン・エクスチェンジ・ストラテジスト chestern@bcaresearch.com Matt Gertken, ジオポリティカル・ストラテジスト mattg@bcaresearch.com Ray Park, CFA, リサーチ・アナリスト ray@bcaresearch.com 脚注 1 Andrew G Haldane, “Climbing the Jobs Ladder,” Bank of England, 2019年7月23日 2 Bank of England External MPC Unit Discussion Paper No. 51, “The Brexit vote, productivity growth and macroeconomic adjustments in the United Kingdom”, 2019年8月 3 ロンドンの主要な世界的金融センターとしての役割は、英国の金融サービス産業を「貿易可能」部門にしており、その産出の相当部分が英国以外の利用者に「トレード」されている。 4 Mathias Zurlinden, “The Vulnerability of Pegged Exchange Rates: The British Pound in the ERM,” Economic Research, Vol. 75, No. 5 (September/October 1993).

特別レポート

HighlightsEuropean fiscal stimulus will not drive European equity outperformance – Europe needs China to open the stimulus taps.Our mega-theme of European integration continues – the continent is politically stable.The U.S.-China trade war is an opportunity for Europe. Any Sino-American trade deal is unlikely to resolve tech disputes. Go long European tech stocks versus American.The euro has room to grow as a global reserve currency given the dollar’s mounting structural flaws. Look for an opportunity to go long EUR/USD on a strategic basis within the near future.FeatureTalk of European fiscal stimulus is accelerating as investors look for reasons to take advantage of depressed European valuations (Chart 1) and traditional late-cycle outperformance relative to the U.S. (Chart 2). We are skeptical of the thesis. Chart 1European 'Cheapness' An Obvious Inducement  Chart 2Euro Stocks Outperform Late In The Cycle Europe is a price taker, not a price maker, when it comes to global growth. In order for investors to generate alpha from an overweight Europe position, the rest of the world needs to pick up the slack and reverse the current decline in economic fundamentals. That will require policy action on the behalf of the Fed, the Trump administration, and – most relevant to Europe – Chinese fiscal policy.That said, long-term investors should start thinking about increasing exposure to Europe. Not only is the continent well priced relative to the rest of the world, but it may have two more things going for it. First, political risks remain low. Second, Europe stands to gain in any prolonged China-U.S. confrontation. The flipside risk is that it stands to lose enormously in any temporary resolution as well.Europe Is A Derivative – Not A Source – Of Global Growth…Despite accounting for 16% of global GDP, the Euro Area generates an ever-shrinking proportion of the annual incremental change in global GDP (Chart 3). This is not surprising, given that the world has undergone significant transformation due to China’s industrialization and the growth of EM economies. Chart 3Europe’s Contribution To Global Growth Declining China’s imports today drive Euro Area manufacturing PMI broadly and Chinese retail sales drive German manufacturing orders specifically (Chart 4). As such, it is critically important to watch Chinese total social financing (TSF) impulse, which closely leads Europe’s exports to China by six months (Chart 5). Chart 4Europe And Germany Rely On China  Chart 5China's Credit Cycle Drives EU Exports  The problem is that the Chinese credit impulse has only tepidly recovered and implies more downside to European exports ahead. In addition, hopes of a rebound in Chinese retail sales have been dashed (Chart 6). The jump in auto sales in June was the result of heavy discounts offered by manufacturers and dealers to clear inventory before new emission standards came into effect on July 1. Due to the frontloading, car sales are now declining in what is traditionally an off-season for car purchases in China. While the worst may be over, weakness could linger for months. Chart 6China's Retail Sales Flashing Red The bottom line is that without an upturn in global growth, Europe will remain in the doldrums. The good news is that BCA’s Chief Strategist Peter Berezin expects precisely such a development in the second half of 2019.1 The bad news is that Chinese credit stimulus appears to be weighed down by a combination of impaired transmission mechanisms and policymaker unwillingness to launch an old-school credit orgy (Chart 7). This is creating a highly unusual – for this cycle – development where China is not playing its usual counter-cyclical role amidst the global manufacturing cycle (Chart 8). Chart 7China's Credit Stimulus Restrained Thus Far  Chart 8Beijing Goes On Strike As Global Spender Without more Chinese stimulus, European fiscal spending won’t be that meaningful.As such, it is difficult to get excited about European growth. As we discussed in last week’s missive, Europe is moving gingerly towards more fiscal spending. However, it has already done so this year, with fiscal thrust at 0.46% of GDP, the highest figure since 2009 (Chart 9). Did anyone notice? Not really. Chart 9Headwinds Overpower EU's Strong Fiscal Thrust Moreover Euro Area countries have to submit their 2020 budgets in early Q4 to the European Commission. It is unlikely that these proposals will be meaningful, given that there is not yet enough panic to spur massive stimulus.Bottom Line: Yes, Europe will provide more fiscal spending in 2020. But it will remain at the mercy of global growth given its high-beta nature.…But At Least It Is Not Falling Apart!   That said, not all is disappointing on the Old Continent. For one, the aforementioned fiscal thrust at least prevented a deeper slowdown this year – and the drop-off in thrust next year will be less dramatic as budgets turn more accommodative.Meanwhile political risk is falling. Anti-establishment parties are either cleaning up their act, putting on a tie, and becoming part of the establishment, or they are losing power. Our long-held thesis that European integration would persist into the next decade remains well-supplied with empirical evidence.2On the Euroskepticism front, much of the hype today surrounds the collapse of the Five Star Movement (M5S) coalition with the League in Italy. The formerly Euroskeptic M5S has shed its critique of European integration and has decided to partner with the center-left and pro-establishment Democratic Party (PD).This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Several key developments throughout 2019 have signaled to investors that the Euroskeptic moment has passed. For a plethora of data and polling to support this view, please refer to our May report on the European Parliament (EP) election. Here we merely survey the latest developments:European Parliament Election: As expected in our EP election forecast, the May contest was a non-event. Support for the euro and the EU is trending higher (Chart 10 and 11), and 73% of Euroskeptic seats are held by Eastern European or U.K. MEPs (Chart 12), both irrelevant for EU policy.3  Chart 10Even Italy Swings In Favor Of Euro  Chart 11Public Opinion Supports The Union  Chart 12Euroskepticism Overstated Random Elections: We rarely cover politics in Denmark or Finland, but the two Nordic countries have been at the forefront of the anti-establishment, right-wing, evolution in Europe. As such, the elections in Denmark (in June) and Finland (in April) were relevant. The Danish People’s Party (DPP) – one of the original “People’s Parties,” founded in 1995 – was massacred, losing 21 seats in the 179-seat legislature.In Finland, the moderately Euroskeptic Finns similarly saw a disappointing – if not as disastrous – performance.Finally, Austrian election on September 29 will likely see the other Europe’s prominent right-wing, Euroskeptic, party – the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) – decline below 20% for the first time since 2008. Chart 13Macron Recovering In Polls France: Our high conviction view in February that the Yellow Vest protest would ultimately dissipate proved correct. President Emmanuel Macron has also seen a recovery in polling. Although tepid, at least he appears to be diverging from the trajectory of his disastrously unpopular predecessor François Hollande (Chart 13).The good news for Macron is that he continues to lead Marine Le Pen by double digits in the theoretical 2022 second round. While this represents a considerable improvement for Le Pen from her 2017 performance, the fact is that she has had to adjust her policies and rebrand the National Front in order to close the gap with Macron. The party is now called the National Rally and has publicly revised its stance towards both the EU and the euro.4The events in France, Denmark, Finland, and Austria have largely gone unnoticed amidst the China-U.S. trade war, attacks against Federal Reserve independence, and general breakdown in global institutions and paradigms. But they reveal that Euroskepticism in Europe is evolving from a definitive one – in or out – to a much more nuanced position.For students of history, this is not a surprise. European integration has always been a push-pull process. Charles de Gaulle famously caused a total breakdown in integration during the 1965 “Empty Chair Crisis” when France recalled its representative in Brussels and refused to take its seat on the Council.De Gaulle was a Euroskeptic in so far as he believed that European integration was a national, not a supra-national process.5 It could proceed apace, but only if controlled by national capitals. As such, he warred with the Commission all the time. However, de Gaulle did not want to eliminate European integration as he understood its geopolitical and economic imperative. He simply wanted to shape the process to fit French interests.Absolutist Euroskepticism – the idea that all European institutions ought to be replaced by national ones – is an alien idea to the post-World War Two continent, one imported from the nineteenth century. The irony of Brexit, therefore, is that the most vociferous supporters of an absolute end to the EU integrationist project are now abandoning their fellow absolutists on the continent.Geopolitical and structural factors are also pushing European Euroskeptics to evolve from absolutists to modern-era Gaullists. We have identified most of these factors before, but they are worth repeating:Europe has a geopolitical imperative to integrate. In a multipolar world dominated by global powers like the U.S. and China – and with Russia, India, Japan, Iran, and Turkey playing an increasingly independent role – European states are not large enough on their own to defend their economic and geopolitical interests. Chart 14Geopolitical Forces Behind Integration The purpose of integration is to aggregate the geopolitical power of Europe’s individual states amidst rising global multipolarity. Chart 14 is a stylized visualization of what European integration is attempting. It illustrates that the average BCA Geopolitical Power Index (GPI) score of an EMU-5 country is well below that of a BRIC state.6 By aggregating their geopolitical power, European states retain some semblance of relevance in the world.Obviously this is merely a thought experiment as European integration is not aggregation and never will be. Not only is aggregation politically unfeasible, but there is also a lot of double counting in simply adding GPI scores of European states. Nonetheless, the point is that European countries are asymptotically moving from the average to the aggregate score. Chart 15No Basis For Fascism In Great Recession No, the Nazis are not coming. Europe has managed to recover from a generational financial crisis. Pessimists point to the depth of the crisis to explain why Europe is unsustainable, with angst matching the severity of the downturn. However, analogizing to the 1930s is folly. First, Europe’s shared memories of the ravages of populism act as antibodies preventing precisely the same infection from breaking out on the continent.7 Second, the European financial crisis was simply nowhere close to the depth of the Great Depression that rocked Germany as it descended into National Socialism (Chart 15). As for the argument that the European Central Bank fed populism through unorthodox policy easing, the tide of populism would have been much more formidable if Europe had been allowed to sink into deeper recession and deflation.Europeans are just not that desperate. Europe scores much better than the U.S. (or the U.K.) when it comes to the balance between the median income and middle-income share of total population. Chart 16 shows that most Euro Area economies have around 70% of their population in the middle-income bracket. Those that fall short nonetheless hug the line of best fit closely (Italy, Spain, Greece, and the Baltic States). The U.S., on the other hand, has one of the highest median income levels, but with barely 50% of the population considered in the middle-income. Meaning that a lot of the people below the median line are far below it. This is a recipe for actual populist political outcomes (President Trump), as opposed to artificial ones (Italy). Chart 16U.S. At Greater Risk Of Populism Than EU European populism is artificial, U.S. populism is actual.What of the risks in Europe? For example, investors are concerned about mounting Target2 imbalances. Here we agree with our colleague Dhaval Joshi, who has pointed out that growing imbalances in Europe’s monetary system will only further constrain centrifugal forces among the nations.Target2 has seen a steady outflow of Italian cash to German banks as the ECB’s QE saw respective central banks purchase domestic bonds (Chart 17). This means that the Bank of Italy holds assets – BTPs – denominated in Italian euros, while the Bundesbank has a new liability to German banks denominated in German euros. EMU dissolution would be too painful due to this mismatch. Target2 is therefore not a threat to the EMU, but rather a Gordian Knot that can only be unraveled with immense pain and violence.That said, there may be an upcoming headline risk in Europe: the end of Chancellor Merkel’s reign. In our view, Merkel’s role in stabilizing Europe is greatly overstated. Her dithering and lack of conviction caused several crises to descend into chaos amidst the sovereign debt imbroglio. As such, an infusion of new blood will be positive for Europe. The populist threat is also overstated, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) performing relatively tepidly in the polls. In fact, the liberal, Europhile, Greens are starting to gain votes (Chart 18). As such, an early election in Germany would create volatility and uncertainty but would not undermine our secular thesis on Europe. Chart 17Gordian Knot Supports Integration  Chart 18Germany Not Falling To Populism Bottom Line: There is an ever-strengthening case for the sustainability of the Euro Area and European integration well into the next decade.From Geopolitical Gambit To A Geopolitical Safe-Haven?At this point, we have built a strong case for why Europe will remain a high-beta play on global growth that is unlikely to collapse. As such, investors should plow into Europe when the rest of the world is doing well with confidence that the continent will not descend into chaos.The U.S.- China trade war offers an intriguing opportunity for Europe.This is largely underwhelming as an investment thesis. Could there be something more exciting to the story given a slew of well-known headwinds to European growth from demographics, low productivity, and regulatory malaise?The trade war between the U.S. and China does offer an intriguing opportunity for Europe.There appears to be an interesting development where European equities outperform those of the U.S. during periods of trade war turbulence (Chart 19). The outperformance is not major, but it is highly counterintuitive. Chart 19Europe Outperforms Amid Trade War Shocks As is understood, Europe is a high-beta play on global growth. Presumably, investors should abandon high-growth derivative plays when trade war accelerates. It is one of the reasons that EM equities and EM FX suffer whenever trade war accelerates.So why is Europe different? Because European exporters generally compete with their American counterparts (and Japanese and South Korean) for Chinese market share. And if China retaliates against U.S. companies, European companies stand to benefit, potentially massively.Take Boeing and Airbus. Boeing expects China to demand 7,700 new airplanes over the next two decades, an order valued at $1.2 trillion. It would be disastrous to the U.S. airline industry if the entirety of that order went to Airbus and its subsidiaries.8 According to the latest news reports, China has slowed down its airplane procurement to a crawl as it awaits the outcome of the dispute with the U.S.9 It is predictably using the procurement decision as leverage in the negotiations. Chart 20Europe To Lose If China Strikes U.S. Deal Yet this “substitution effect” thesis is a double-edged sword for Europe. A resolution of the trade war between the U.S. and China would likely include a massive purchase of U.S. agricultural, commodity, and manufacturing goods: the so-called “Beef and Boeings” deal. China bears often point out that such a massive purchase will negatively impact China’s current account, which is barely in surplus thanks to China’s trade surplus with the U.S. (Chart 20). This is false. Chinese policymakers are not suicidal. The last thing China needs is a balance of payments crisis due to a trade deal with the U.S.China would simply rob Peter to pay Paul, pulling its orders of soy from Brazil and Airbus from Europe in order to make a deal with the U.S. As such, it is highly likely that European capital goods exporters would suffer in any trade war resolution between China and the U.S.That said, a substantive trade deal that resolves all U.S.-China tensions is extremely unlikely. The U.S. and China are not just commercial rivals, they are also geopolitical rivals. As such, the tech conflict between the U.S. and China will continue well beyond any resolution of the trade war. This could create an opportunity for Europe’s traditionally beleaguered tech stocks to finally outperform their American counterparts (Chart 21). Chart 21Go Long EU Tech Versus U.S. Tech Bottom Line: A deterioration of the U.S.-China trade relationship would be a boon for European exporters. Short of a total breakdown of U.S.-China trade, however, European tech stocks may finally begin outperforming their U.S. counterparts thanks to the open distrust between U.S. and China.In addition, U.S. technology firms are likely going to face a slew of regulatory challenges over the next decade. While not necessarily negative, these challenges will nonetheless create new headwinds for the sector.10 We are therefore initiating a structural theme of being long European tech relative to U.S.Investment ImplicationsAre there any broader themes to be extracted from the combined geopolitical forecasts presented in this report? Europe will not collapse, and it may benefit from the souring of U.S.-China geopolitical and economic relations.Long euro is an obvious theme. As our colleague Dhaval Joshi has recently pointed out, the chasm between monetary policies of the Fed and the ECB has become a major geopolitical risk. This is because it has depressed the euro versus the dollar by at least 10 percent – based on the ECB’s own competitiveness indicators. The exchange rate distortion stemming from polarized monetary policies is the culprit for the euro area’s huge trade surplus with the United States (Chart 22).In the short term, EUR/USD may have reached its practical (and geopolitically acceptable) lows. Yes, the ECB is readying another round of monetary stimulus on September 12, but the fiscal policy counterpart is likely to be tepid and thus fail to (yet again) take advantage of historically depressed borrowing costs on the continent. The September 12 ECB meeting may therefore be a “sell the rumor, buy the news” event for EUR/USD. Chart 22Monetary Policy Accounts For Bilateral Surplus  Chart 23U.S. Rivals Buying Gold, Ditching Dollar On the more cyclical and secular horizon, we see an opportunity for the euro to reestablish some of its lost reserve currency status due to the geopolitical conflict between China and the U.S. Washington’s willingness to use trade and financial sanctions for geopolitical benefit has given pause to central bank authorities around the world in using dollars as a reserve currency. Purchases of gold for FX reserve have surged, particularly among America’s geopolitical rivals (Chart 23), as our colleague Chester Ntonifor has recently pointed out.As we argued in a report entitled “Is King Dollar Facing Regicide?” the euro has some catch-up potential. In 1990, the combined currencies of the countries that today comprise the Euro Area accounted for 35% of total composition of global currency reserves. Today, the figure is merely 20% (Chart 24). Chart 24Euro Has Plenty Of Room To Grow As Reserve Currency Could Europe supply the world with enough euros to replace USD as a reserve currency? This is highly unlikely. However, at the margin, an expansion of European liquidity is possible, particularly if Germany finally learns to love fiscal expansion and if European policymakers capitulate on the issuance of Eurobonds. However, such a lack of euro liquidity is not negative for the euro. The world could soon experience a situation where the demand for non-USD liquid assets dramatically increases due to the politicization of America’s reserve currency status while the supply of USD-alternatives remains relatively low. This should be positive for the only true alternative to the USD as a global reserve currency: the euro.As such, we will be looking to initiate a strategic long EUR/USD position, potentially sometime this fall as the ECB and FOMC meetings take place and the risk of a no-deal Brexit is averted. We do not expect the massive monetary policy divergence between Europe and the U.S. to continue, while the Euro Area’s political stability, and the broader geopolitical demand for a non-USD reserve currency, create more long-term tailwinds for the euro.Marko PapicConsulting Editor, BCA Research              Chief Strategist, Clocktower GroupHousekeepingOur high-conviction view that no-deal Brexit odds were overrated has been confirmed by the recent events in the U.K. parliament. We are going long GBP-USD with a tight stop-loss of 3%. Since we expect further volatility – with an election likely and the Conservative Party performing well in the polls and monopolizing the Brexit vote in a first-past-the-post system – we will sell at the $1.30 mark.Footnotes1 Please see Global Investment Strategy, “Trade War: The Storm Before The Calm,” dated August 9, 2019, available at gis.bcaresearch.com.2 Please see Geopolitical Strategy, “Europe's Geopolitical Gambit: Relevance Through Integration,” dated November 3, 2011, available at gps.bcaresearch.com.3 The reason we extracted the U.K. Euroskeptics from the calculation is because with Brexit nigh, the U.K. members of European Parliament are no longer policy relevant. As for Central European Euroskeptics, we extracted them because they are irrelevant for EU policy as they hail from member states that – in truth – nobody seriously thinks would ever leave the EU.4 Ahead of the May EP election, National Rally electoral platform focused on “local, ecological, and socially responsible production." The party advocates combining environmentalism with protectionism, creating an ecological custom barrier at the EU’s doorstep which would defend the European market from products manufactured or produced with less environmentally friendly processes. On the matters of EU membership, the party now advocates a more traditionally Euroskeptic line, a purely Gaullist form of Euroskepticism that seeks to curb – or, at best, abolish – the EU Commission and replace its legislative prerogative by giving the Council of the EU all legislative powers. 5  Please see Julian Jackson, De Gaulle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2018).6 We chose to use EMU-5 in the chart because it focuses on the top-five economies in the Euro Area: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. If we focused on the overall average EMU score, even one we weighed by population, the results would be even more stark in terms of loss of importance.7 And, worryingly, the U.S. lacks precisely the same shared memory of how wild pendulum swings of polarization can descend into extreme nationalism or left-wing extremism.8 Airbus would not have the capacity to fulfill that entire order today. However, demand creates its own supply, giving Airbus a reason to surge capex and reap the profits.9 Please see Reuters, “Exclusive: Boeing CEO eyes major aircraft order under any U.S.-China trade deal.”10 Please see Geopolitical Strategy, “Is The Stock Rally Long In The FAANG?,” dated August 1, 2018 and “Surviving A Breakup: The Investor’s Guide To Monopoly-Busting In America,” dated March 20, 2019, available at gps.bcaresearch.com.

Highlights Four ghosts of 2016 are knocking at the door: Brexit, Trump, Brazil, Italy. President Trump and U.S. trade policy are keeping uncertainty high. Upgrade the odds of a no-deal Brexit to about 33%. Expect limited stimulus from Italy and Germany – for now. Brazil’s pension reform is entering its final stretch – buy the rumor, sell the news. Feature Four major political events of 2016 are returning to affect the global investment landscape this fall – though only two of these ghosts are truly frightening. In order of market relevance: Trump: The election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president, November 8, 2016 Brexit: The U.K. referendum to leave the European Union, June 23, 2016 Italy: The Italian constitutional referendum, December 4, 2016 Brazil: The removal of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, August 31, 2016 Italy and Brazil are producing market-positive political results in the short run. Brexit and Trump pose substantial and immediate risks to the global bull market. A pivot by Trump is the headline risk to our view that no trade agreement will be concluded by November 2020, as we outlined in a Special Report last week. At the moment tensions are still escalating. President Trump has ordered an increase in tariffs (Chart 1) and threatened to invoke the International Economic Emergency Powers Act of 1977, which would give him the ability to halt transactions, freeze funds, and appropriate assets. China is retaliating proportionately and virtually incapable of softening its tone prior to its National Day celebration on October 1. The next round of negotiations, slated for Washington in September, could be a flop like the talks in July, or it could be canceled. Investors should stay defensive. The equity market will have to fall to force Trump to stage a tactical retreat. Meanwhile China could intervene violently in Hong Kong SAR. That possibility, the nationalist military parade on October 1, and U.S. actions toward the South China Sea and Taiwan, show that sabers are rattling, causing additional market jitters. Chart 1Trump's Latest Tariff Salvo U.S.-China tensions underpin our tactical safe-haven trade recommendations. But we are not shifting to a cyclically bearish stance until we get clarity on Trump’s and Xi’s handling of their immediate predicament. Brexit is the other acute short-term risk. This was true even before Prime Minister Boris Johnson opted to prorogue parliament from September 10 to October 14, shortening the time that parliament has to either pass a law forbidding a no-deal exit or bring down Johnson’s government in a vote of no confidence. We are upgrading the odds of “no deal” to no higher than 33%, using a conservative decision-making process (Diagram 1). No-deal is not our base case because parliament, the public, and even Johnson himself want to avoid a recession, which is the likely outcome, even granting that the Bank of England will not stand idly by. We are upgrading the odds of “no deal” Brexit to about 33%. Diagram 1Brexit Decision Tree (Revised August 29, 2019) From a bird’s eye point of view, the pound is very attractive (Chart 2). But in the near-term the twists and turns of Britain’s political struggle imply that we will see wild volatility. Our foreign exchange strategists expect that a no-deal Brexit would cause GBP/USD to collapse to 1 after October 31. Assuming our one-in-three odds of such an outcome, the probability-weighted average of cable is about 1.2. Hence investors should not short sterling from here, unless they strongly believe we are underrating the odds of no-deal exit. In the worst-case scenario, a no-deal Brexit will cause an economic shock at a time when Europe is on the brink of recession – Italy and Germany are virtually there. This means there is a substantial risk of additional deflationary pressure piling onto German bunds and sustaining the global bond rally. This pressure will be sharply reduced if Johnson loses an early no confidence vote, but that is a 50/50 call so we would not call time on this rally yet. Stay cautious. Chart 2Pound Can Only Go So Low   Italy: Stimulus … Without A Bruising Brussels Battle Italy has avoided a new election by producing an unusual tie-up between the establishment Democratic Party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). The coalition still needs to clear some internal hurdles and an online vote by Five Star members, but an agreement is to be presented to President Sergio Mattarella as we go to press. This is the most market-friendly outcome that could have been expected, as is clear through the sharp drop in Italian government bond yields (Chart 3). Our GeoRisk indicator for Italy is also collapsing. Chart 3Markets Cheer New Italian Coalition This development marks the climax of a story line that we outlined in 2016, when Prime Minister Matteo Renzi lost a constitutional referendum that aimed to strengthen Italian governments to enable deeper structural reforms (he subsequently resigned). At that time we argued that Italy would emerge as a market-relevant political risk due to rampant anti-establishment sentiment, but that this risk would subside when Italy’s populists were shown to be pragmatic at heart, i.e. unwilling to push their conflicts with Brussels to a point that truly reignited European break-up risk. This view is now vindicated – and not only for the short-term. The new coalition comes at the nick of time, with Europe teetering on recession and the risk of a no-deal Brexit rising. The new government will have to deliver the 2020 budget to the European Commission by October 15. The budget will aim to provide fiscal support, including a delay of the legislatively mandated hike in the Value Added Tax from 22% to 24.2%, already rolled over from 2019. The Five Star Movement will demand as a price for its participation in the coalition that social spending go up; the Democratic Party will have learned a lesson while out of power and will be more fiscally permissive and strike a tougher tone with Brussels. The Italian budget talks will be a non-issue: the coalition will cooperate with Brussels. The episode demonstrates that the Italian risk to financial markets is overrated. This point goes beyond the fact that the Democrats and Five Star were able to cooperate. Italy’s leading populist parties have already shown that they are pragmatic and will play the game with Brussels to avoid a financial breakdown. In May 2018, the newly formed populist coalition proposed a gigantic “wish list” budget that would have increased the budget deficit to roughly 7.3% of GDP in 2019. They also appointed a euroskeptic economy minister who almost prevented government formation. The ensuing conflict with Brussels triggered considerable turmoil (Chart 4). Ultimately, however, the populists did precisely what we expected: they bowed to the severe financial constraint on Italy’s banking system. They agreed to a 2019 and 2020 deficit of 2.04% and 2.1%, respectively (Chart 5). Chart 4Italian Populists Prove Pragmatic Chart 5Even Salvini Compromised On Budget Clash At present, the market is relieved that an election was avoided that might have seen Salvini and the League form a government with a much smaller right-wing party (Fratelli D’Italia) (Chart 6) – but the truth is that Salvini had already capitulated to the EU, both on budget matters and the euro currency. He was hardly likely to push for a budget more aggressive than that of the initial proposal in 2018. The clash with Brussels would have been a flash in the pan; the result would have been greater fiscal thrust, which would have been market-positive in the current environment. Chart 6Election Would Have Meant More Stimulus ... And More Political Risk M5S will also push for more spending and has also moderated their stance on the euro. A coalition with the Democrats will not work if the purpose is to push a euroskeptic agenda. There will be a focus on counter-cyclical fiscal policy, pragmatic reforms that the two can agree on, and fighting corruption. The budget talks will be a non-issue: the Democratic Party is an establishment party and the coalition will cooperate with Brussels. Furthermore, the context has changed since 2018 in a way that will reduce budget frictions. There is a need for countercyclical fiscal policy in light of the global slowdown, so the European Commission will have to be more flexible on the budget. This is particularly true if Germany itself loosens its belt on a cyclical basis. The risk to the above is that the coalition shaping up between the Democrats and Five Star is an alliance of convenience that will break down over time. Five Star will remain hard-line on immigration, which is driving anti-establishment sentiment. Italian elections are a frequent affair. Salvini and the League will be waiting in the wings, especially if Brussels proves too tight-fisted or if the Democrats do not toughen their stance on immigration. But as outlined above, Salvini’s own evolution on the euro, on northern Italy, and on the budget and financial stability shows that the economy will have to get a lot worse before Italian euroskepticism presents a renewed systemic risk. Bottom Line: The tentative coalition taking shape in Italy will produce a modest increase in fiscal thrust with minimal frictions with Brussels. As such it is the most market-friendly outcome that could have occurred from Salvini’s push to seize power. Beneath this episode of government change is the political arrangement taking shape in Italy, and across Europe, which calls for a commitment to the European project and currency. The price of this commitment is a tougher line on immigration from European leaders. Germany: Fiscal Loosening, But Not For The States (Yet) Our GeoRisk indicator for Germany is pointing to an increase in risk in recent weeks. Germany is threatened by a potential technical recession and while fiscal stimulus is in preparation, there will not be a fiscal game-changer until Merkel steps down in 2021 – barring a total collapse in the economy that forces her hand in the meantime. The outlook is not improving (Chart 7, top panel). The economy shrank by 0.1% in Q2 2019, exports are falling, and passenger car production is at the lowest level ever recorded (Chart 7, bottom panels). Chart 7German Economy Gets Pummeled Chart 8Germany: Expect Orthodox Stimulus For Now Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has announced that Germany could increase government spending by $55 billion within the context of European and German budget constraints. Split proportionally between 2019 and 2020, this additional spending would not put Germany in violation of the “black zero” rule – a commitment to a balanced budget that limits the federal structural deficit to 0.35% of GDP – even without any additional revenue (Chart 8).   There will not be a fiscal game-changer in Germany until Merkel steps down – barring a crisis. The German Chancellery reports that it does not see the need for stimulus in the short term – as long as trade tensions do not escalate and there is no hard Brexit. At present, however, trade tensions are escalating and the odds of a no-deal Brexit are increasing. Moreover China’s economy and stimulus efforts continue to disappoint. In this context Germany’s ruling coalition is putting together a climate change package that would entail additional spending (while stealing some thunder from the increasingly popular Green Party). Given the European Commission’s forecast of Germany’s 2020 budget surplus, 0.8% of GDP, the government could ultimately go further than Scholz’s ~$50bn. This is because the black zero rule provides for exceptions in case of recession (or natural disasters or other crises out of governmental control) with a majority vote in the Bundestag. Hence we are not so much concerned about the magnitude of the stimulus as its timing. First, Merkel and her coalition typically move slower than the market would like in the face of financial and economic challenges. Second, according to the black zero rule, which is transcribed in the German constitution (the Basic Law), the Länder cannot run budget deficits from 2020. Amending the constitution to delay this deadline requires a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and the Bundesrat – a much taller order than the simple majority needed to boost federal deficits. The governing coalition currently holds 56% of the seats in the Bundestag. If the Greens were brought on board, which they would be inclined to do, this number falls just short of two-thirds at 65.6%. In order to obtain a two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat, the Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, and the Greens would need the support of another party, either the Left or the Free Democrats. This could be done but it would require political will, which is only likely to be sufficient if the German and global economy get worse from here. Meanwhile financial markets will have to settle for the gradual implementation of a stimulus package on the order of 1% of GDP – the one the government is planning. Bottom Line: While Germany will likely roll out a stimulus package by Q4, if third quarter GDP data confirm that the country is in a technical recession, Merkel’s hesitation and budget limits mean that this stimulus will likely be moderate. A marginal upside surprise is possible but it will not represent a true “game changer” on fiscal policy in Germany. The game changer is more likely after Merkel steps down in 2021. The Green Party is surging in Germany and could possibly lead the next government. Even if it doesn’t, its success and Europe-wide developments are pushing German leaders to become more accommodative. Brazil: Reform Or Bust Political turmoil in Brazil over the past five years has ultimately resulted in a right-wing populist government under President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is pursuing a pension reform that is universally acknowledged as necessary to straighten out Brazil’s fiscal books, but that the previous government tried and failed to pass. On this front the news is market-positive: having cleared the lower Chamber of Deputies, the pension reforms are now likely to pass the senate. This will lift investor confidence and give Bolsonaro an initial success that he may then be able to translate into additional economic reforms. The Brazilian economy and financial markets are moving in opposite directions. The currency and equities staged a mid-year rally despite negative data releases – shrinking retail sales and industrial production amid high unemployment (Chart 9). More recently these assets relapsed despite tentative signs of improvement on the economic front (Chart 10). All the while, chaos and controversies surrounding Bolsonaro’s government have weighed on his approval rating, ending the honeymoon period after election (Chart 11). Chart 9Brazil: Signs Of Improvement   Chart 10Brazil: Markets Sold Despite Pension Progress Chart 11Bolsonaro’s Honeymoon Is Long Gone The mid-year equity re-rating was driven by an improvement in sentiment on the back of the government’s pension reform. The relapse occurred despite the passage of the pension reform bill in the lower house, indicating that global economic pessimism has dominated. The bill’s next step goes to the senate where it faces two rounds of voting before enactment (Diagram 2). It should clear this hurdle by a large margin, though we expect delays. Diagram 2Brazil: Pension Reform Timeline In the second round vote in the lower house on August 6 – which had a smaller margin of victory than the first round – deputies voted largely in line with party alliances (Charts 12A & 12B). Assuming legislators in the senate behave in the same way, the reform should gain the support of 64 of the 81 senators – easily surpassing the 49 votes needed. Even in a more pessimistic scenario where all opposition parties and all independent parties vote against the bill – along with two defecting senators from government-allied parties – the reform would pass by 56-25. Chart 12APension Bill Sailed Through Lower House ... Chart 12B... And Should Pass Senate In Time This favorable outlook is also supported by popular opinion, which indicates that the majority of those polled agree that pension reforms are necessary (Chart 13). This leaves two questions: How soon will the bill clear the senate? According to senate party leaders’ proposed timetable, the bill will undergo its first upper house vote on September 18 with the second round slated for October 2. This is ambitious. The strategy of Senator Tasso Jereissati – who has been appointed senate pension reform rapporteur – is to approve the text in its current form and create a parallel proposed amendment to the constitution (PEC) which will bring together the amendments that senators make to the original text. Dozens of amendments have been filed with the Commission on Constitution and Justice. These will prolong the enactment of the final bill and dilute its impact. We doubt the senate will let Jereissati have his way entirely and hence expect delays and dilution. Chart 13Brazil: Public Now Favors Pension Reform Chart 14Brazil: Pension Reform Not Enough How much savings will the bill generate? Will the reforms be sufficient to improve public debt dynamics in Brazil? The Independent Fiscal Institute of the senate estimates that the reform will generate BRL 744 billion of savings. This is significantly less than the BRL 1.2 trillion initially proposed, and lower than the BRL 860 billion that Economy Minister Paulo Guedes has indicated as the minimum fiscal savings required. Our Emerging Markets strategists argue that the bill falls short of what is needed. While the plan will reduce the fiscal deficit and slow debt accumulation, it will be insufficient to generate primary surpluses over the coming years (Chart 14).1 Moreover, estimated savings in the final bill will likely be further revised down as the bill undergoes more amendments in the senate. What comes after pension reform? The market has focused almost exclusively on this issue to the neglect of Bolsonaro’s wider economic reform agenda. The agenda includes privatization, trade liberalization, tax reforms, and deregulation. Here we are more skeptical. First, Bolsonaro will have spent a lot of political capital on pensions. Second, while the economy and unemployment are always important, they are not the foremost concern for Brazilians (Chart 15). Chart 15Bolsonaro Will Lose Political Capital After Pension Bill Third, the economic agenda is often at odds with Bolsonaro’s social, foreign, and environmental policies: The new Mercosur-European Union trade agreement and ongoing trade negotiations between Mercosur and Canada are positive developments. However the G7 summit in France highlighted that the deal with the EU is at risk due to dissatisfaction with Bolsonaro’s response to the Amazon fires. France and Ireland have threatened to withhold support of the ratification. With world leaders concerned about the political risks of trade liberalization, and with Trump having issued a license to foreign leaders for trade weaponization, an escalation of tensions between the Europeans and Bolsonaro could lead to punitive measures even beyond the delay to the Mercosur-EU deal. Brazil’s China problem: Bolsonaro has been cozying up to President Donald Trump while striking a more aggressive tone with China. This is a risky strategy as it may undermine Brazil’s economic interests. The country’s exports are much more leveraged to China than to the U.S. and have been benefitting on the back of the trade war as China substitutes away from the U.S. (Chart 16). The president’s planned trip to China in October reveals an attempt to mend ties after having accused China of dominating key Brazilian sectors during his election campaign. But it is not clear yet that Bolsonaro will stage a retreat. And if President Trump backtracks on his trade war in order to clinch a deal, Bolsonaro may have lost some goodwill with China without receiving the benefit of China’s substitution effects. Hence Bolsonaro will have to soften his approach to China to make progress on the trade aspect of the reform agenda. Chart 16Brazil: Time To Mend Ties With China Bottom Line: We expect the passage of a diluted pension reform bill that will slow the growth of public debt to some extent. However global headwinds are persisting. And any success on pensions should not be extrapolated to other items on the economic reform agenda. Bolsonaro’s trade liberalization faces difficulties on the surface. Other domestic reforms are even more difficult to achieve in the wake of painful pension cuts. Reforms that enjoy public support and do not require a complicated legislative process are the most likely to be implemented, but even then, legislation and implementation are likely to be long-in-coming in Brazil’s highly fractured congress. As a result we share the view with our Emerging Markets Strategy that the pension reform is a “buy the rumor, sell the news” phenomenon. Housekeeping We are booking gains on our long BCA global defense basket for a 17% gain since inception in October 2018. The underlying thesis for this trade remains strong and we will reinstitute it at an appropriate time, though likely on a relative basis to minimize headwinds to cyclical sectors. We are also finally throwing in the towel on our long rare earth / strategic metals equity trade. The logic behind the trade is intact but it was very poorly timed and the basket has depreciated 24% since inception.   Matt Gertken, Vice President Geopolitical Strategist mattg@bcaresearch.com Roukaya Ibrahim, Editor/Strategist Geopolitical Strategy RoukayaI@bcaresearch.com Ekaterina Shtrevensky, Research Analyst ekaterinas@bcaresearch.com   Footnotes 1      Please see BCA Research’s Emerging Markets Strategy Weekly Report “On Chinese Banks And Brazil,” dated July 18, 2019, available at ems.bcaresearch.com. France: GeoRisk Indicator U.K.: GeoRisk Indicator Germany: GeoRisk Indicator   Italy: GeoRisk Indicator Spain: GeoRisk Indicator Russia: GeoRisk Indicator   Korea: GeoRisk Indicator Taiwan: GeoRisk Indicator Turkey: GeoRisk Indicator Brazil: GeoRisk Indicator What's On The Geopolitical Radar? Geopolitical Calendar

Highlights So What? Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s threat to take the U.K. out of the EU without a withdrawal deal in place is a substantial 21% risk. Why? The odds of a no-deal exit could range from today’s 21% to around 30%, depending on whether Johnson manages to obtain some concessions from the EU in forthcoming negotiations. It is far too early to go bottom-feeding for the pound sterling, as Brexit risks are asymmetrical. We maintain our tactically cautious positioning, despite some cyclical improvements, due to elevated geopolitical risks in the United States, East Asia, and the Middle East. Feature Thank you Mr. Speaker, and of course I should welcome the prime minister to his place … the last prime minister of the United Kingdom. – Ian Blackford, head of the Scottish National Party in Westminster, July 25, 2019 Chart 1No-Deal Brexit Would Come At A Very Bad Time The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time since the global financial crisis in 2008 on July 31. The Fed suggested that the door is open for future cuts, though Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that the cut should not be seen as the launch of a “lengthy rate cutting cycle” but rather as a “mid-cycle adjustment” comparable to cuts in 1995 and 1998. President Donald Trump responded by declaring a new 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of imports from China! He resumed criticizing Powell for insufficient dovishness – and Trump could in fact fire Powell, though the decision would be contested at the Supreme Court. The Fed’s move shows that Trump’s direct handle on interest rates comes from his ability to control trade policy and hence affect the “the external sector.” The trade war with China has exacerbated a global manufacturing slowdown that is keeping global growth and U.S. inflation weak enough to justify additional rate cuts with each future deterioration (Chart 1). Improvements in global monetary and fiscal policy suggest that the U.S. and global economic expansion will be extended to 2021 or beyond, which is positive for equities relative to government bonds or cash, but we remain defensively positioned in the near-term due to a range of geopolitical risks, highlighted by the new tariffs. The unconvincing U.S.-China tariff ceasefire agreed at the Osaka G20 has fallen apart as we expected; the period of “fire and fury” between the U.S. and Iran continues; and the U.S. is entering what we expect to be a period of socio-political instability in the lead up to the momentous 2020 presidential election. Moreover the risk of a “no deal” Brexit, in which the U.K. exits the European Union and reverts to basic World Trade Organization tariff levels, is rising and will create acute uncertainty over the next three months despite the world’s easy monetary policy settings (Charts 2A & 2B). In June we upgraded our odds of a no-deal Brexit to 21%, up from 7% this spring. While not our base case, the probability is too high for comfort and the critical timing for the rest of Europe warns against taking on additional risk. The risk of a “no deal” Brexit ... is rising and will create acute uncertainty. Chart 2AUncertainty And Sentiment Getting Worse ... Chart 2B... Despite Easy Monetary Policy BoJo’s Gambit Boris Johnson – aka “BoJo” – former mayor of London and foreign secretary, cemented his position as the U.K.’s 77th prime minister on July 24. He immediately launched a gambit to renegotiate the U.K.’s withdrawal. He is threatening not to pay the “divorce bill” (the U.K.’s outstanding budget contributions for the 2014-20 budget period and other liabilities in subsequent decades) of 39 billion pounds. He insists that the Irish backstop (which would keep Northern Ireland or the U.K. in the EU customs union to prevent a hard border between the two Irelands) must be abandoned. He has stacked his cabinet with pro-Brexit hardliners who share his “do or die” stance that Brexit must occur on October 31 regardless of whether an agreement for an orderly exit is in place. These developments were anticipated – hence the decline in our GeoRisk indicator – but the pound sterling is falling now that the confrontation is truly getting under way (Chart 3). Parliament is adjourned in August, so Johnson’s hardline negotiating tactics will get full play in the media cycle until early September, when the real showdown begins. Crunch time will likely run up to the eleventh hour, with Halloween marking an ominous deadline. There is plenty of room for the pound to fall further throughout this period, according to our European Investment Strategy’s handy measure (Chart 4), because the success of Boris’s gambit depends entirely upon creating a credible threat of crashing out of the EU in order to wring concessions that could conceivably pass through the British parliament. Chart 3Our Market-Based Indicator Suggests Still Some Complacency On Brexit Risks Chart 4GBP-EUR Still Has Room To Fall Under BoJo's Gambit Geopolitically, the United Kingdom is not prohibited from exiting the EU without a deal. Though the empire is a thing of the past, the U.K. remains a major world power. It has Europe’s second-largest economy, nuclear weapons, a blue-water navy, a leading voice in global political institutions, and is a close ally of the United States. It mints its own coin. It is a sovereign entity that can survive on its own just as Japan can survive on its own. This geopolitical foundation always supported our view that there was a 50% chance of the referendum passing in 2016, and today it supports the view that fears over a no-deal Brexit are not misplaced. Investors should therefore not confuse Johnson’s bluster with that of Alexis Tsipras in 2015. A British government dead-set on delivering this outcome – given the popular mandate from the 2016 referendum and the government’s constitutional handling of foreign affairs as opposed to parliament – can probably achieve it. However, the probability of a no-deal Brexit may become overstated in the next two-to-three months. Economically and politically, a no-deal exit is extremely difficult to follow through on – hence our 21% probability. Estimates of the negative economic impact range from a 2% reduction in GDP growth to an 11% reduction (Table 1). The 8% drop cited by Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford in his denunciation of Prime Minister Johnson’s strategy is probably exaggerated. The U.K.’s recorded twentieth-century recessions range from 2%-7% (Chart 5). These offer as good of a benchmark as any. While a no-deal exit is probably not going to create a shock the same size as the Great Depression or the Great Recession, the recessions of 1979 and 1990 would be bad enough for any prime minister or ruling party. Table 1Wide Range Of Estimates For Impact Of No-Deal Brexit A small recession could also spiral out of control – it could create a vicious spiral with the European continent, which is already on the verge of recession. And it could damage consumer confidence more than anticipated – as it would be accompanied by immediate social and political unrest due to the half of the population that opposes Brexit in all forms. Politicians have to pay attention to the opinion polls as well as the referendum result, since opinion polls impact the next election. These show a plurality in favor of remaining in the EU and a strong trend against Brexit since 2017 – a factor that the currency markets are ignoring at the moment (Chart 6). While the evidence does not prove that a second referendum would result in Bremain, it is highly likely that a majority opposes a no-deal exit, given that at least a handful of pro-Brexit voters do not want to leave without a deal. The results of the European parliamentary elections in May (Chart 7) and the public’s preferences for different political parties (Chart 8) both support this conclusion. Chart 6Plurality Of Voters Still Favors Bremain Over Brexit Chart 8Voters Favor Bremain-Leaning Political Parties Parliament is also opposed to a no-deal Brexit. Though the Cooper-Letwin bill that forbad a no-deal exit initially passed by one vote in April (Chart 9A), the final amended version passed with a majority of 309 votes. Further, in July, with the rise of Boris Johnson, parliament passed a measure by 41 votes that requires parliament to sit this fall (Chart 9B), thus attempting to prevent Boris from proroguing parliament and forcing a no-deal Brexit that way. Technically Queen Elizabeth II could still prorogue parliament, but we highly doubt she would intervene in a way that would divide the nation. Johnson himself will have to face the reality of parliament and public opinion. Parliament has one crystal clear means of halting a no-deal exit: a vote of no confidence in Johnson’s government.1 Theresa May only survived her vote of no confidence by 19 seats. Yet Johnson is entering 10 Downing Street at a time when parliament is essentially hung. The Conservative Party’s coalition with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Union Party has been reduced to a majority of two, which is likely to fall to a single solitary seat after the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, which is taking place as we go to press. Johnson has purged several Tories from his cabinet, and there are a handful of Conservatives who are firmly opposed to a no-deal Brexit. It would be an extremely tight vote as to whether these Tory rebels would be willing and able to bring down one of their own governments – a careful assessment suggests that there are about half a dozen swing voters on each side of the House of Commons.2 But 47 Conservatives contrived to block prorogation (see Chart 9B). The magnitude of the crisis members of parliament would face – an unpopular, self-inflicted no-deal exit and recession – is essential context that would motivate rebellious voting behavior. Parliament’s actions so far, the reality of the economic impact, and the popular polling suggest that MPs are likely to halt the Johnson government from forcing a no-deal exit if he makes a mad dash for it. More likely is that Johnson himself pushes to hold an election after securing some technical concessions from Brussels. He is galvanizing the Conservative vote and swallowing up the single-issue Brexit vote (UKIP and the Brexit Party), while the opposition remains divided between the Labour Party under the vacillating Jeremy Corbyn and the resurgent Liberal Democrats (Chart 10). In a first-past-the-post electoral system, this provides a window of opportunity for the Conservatives to improve their parliamentary majority – assuming that Johnson has renegotiated a deal with the EU and has something to show for it. Chart 10BoJo Could Call Election With Deal In Hand Chart 11Ireland Can Compromise For Stability's Sake This would require the EU to delay the deadline yet again (September 3 is the last date for a non-confidence vote to force a pre-Brexit October 24 election). The European Union has a self-interest in preventing a no-deal Brexit, as it needs to maintain economic stability. It ultimately would prefer to keep the U.K. in the bloc, which means that delays can ultimately be granted, especially to accommodate a new election. As to what kind of compromises are available, the Irish backstop can suffer technical changes to its provisions, time frames, or application. In the end, the Irish Sea is already a different kind of border than the other borders in the U.K. and therefore it is possible to enact additional checks that nevertheless have a claim to retaining the integrity of the United Kingdom. The Democratic Unionists could find themselves outnumbered on this issue. Certainly the Republic of Ireland has an interest in preventing a no-deal Brexit as long as a hard border with Northern Ireland is avoided, and Boris Johnson maintains that it will be (Chart 11). The risk of a no-deal Brexit is around 21% Our updated Brexit Decision Tree in Diagram 1 provides the outcomes. Former Prime Minister Theresa May failed three times to pass her Brexit deal. We allot a 30% chance, higher than consensus, that Boris Johnson can do it through galvanizing the Conservative vote – given that he is operating with a hung parliament and is at odds with the median voter on Brexit. We give 21% odds to a no-deal Brexit based on the difficulty of parliament outright halting Johnson if his government is absolutely determined to follow through with it. This is clearly a large risk but not our base case. We would upgrade these odds to around 30% in the event that negotiations with the EU completely fail to produce tangible outcomes. It is far more likely that a delay occurs and leads to new elections (49%) – and these odds rise to 70% if Johnson fails to extract concessions from the EU that enable him to pass a deal through parliament. Diagram 1Brexit Decision Tree (Updated As Of June 21 For Boris Johnson) A final constraint on Johnson comes from Scotland, as highlighted in the epigraph at the top of the report: the demand for a new Scottish independence referendum is reviving as a result of opposition to Brexit in general and specifically to Prime Minister Johnson’s hardline approach (Charts 12A & 12B). The SNP is also improving its favorability among Scottish voters relative to other parties (Chart 13). We have highlighted this risk in the past: support for Scottish independence does not have a clear ceiling amid the antagonism over Brexit, especially if an economic and political shock hits the union as a result of a forced no-deal exit. Chart 13Scottish Nationals Resurgent Bottom Line: The risk of a no-deal Brexit is around 21%, though a complete failure of negotiations with the EU could push it up to 30%. If it occurs it will induce a recession and eventually could result in the breakup of the union with Scotland. China And Investment Recommendations What can investors be certain of regardless of the different Brexit outcomes? The United Kingdom will reverse the fiscal austerity of recent years (Chart 14). Fiscal stimulus will be necessary either to offset the shock of a no-deal exit in the worst-case scenario, or to address the ongoing economic challenges and public grievances in a soft Brexit or no Brexit scenario. These grievances stem from the negative impact on the middle class of globalization, post-financial crisis deleveraging, low real wage growth, and the decline in productivity. Potential GDP growth is set to fall if immigration is curtailed and restrictions on trade with the EU go up. The government will have to offset this trend with spending to boost the social safety net and encourage investment. Chart 14Fiscal Austerity To Go Into Reverse The pound is clearly weak on a long-term and structural basis (Chart 15). Based on our assessment of the British median voter – opposed to a no-deal Brexit – and the fact that parliament is also opposed to a no-deal Brexit Chart 15Deep Value In Sterling and is the supreme lawgiving body in the British constitution, we expect that an enormous buying opportunity will emerge when Prime Minister Johnson’s gambit has reached its apex and he is either forced to accept what concessions the EU will give. But if forced out of office, election uncertainty due to a potential Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn will prolong the pound’s weakness. Brexit is not the only risk affecting Europe this summer – a critical factor is Europe’s own economic status, which in great part hinges on our China view (Chart 16). The Chinese Communist Party’s mid-year Politburo meeting struck a more accommodative tone relative to the April meeting that sounded less dovish in the aftermath of the Q1 credit splurge. The emphasis of the remarks shifted back to the need to take additional measures to stabilize the economy, as in the October 2018 statement. This fits with our view since February that Chinese stimulus will surprise to the upside this year. Chart 16Chinese Reflation Positive For Europe Policymakers’ efforts are working thus far, with signs of stabilization occurring in the all-important labor market (Chart 17). There is some evidence that Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is moderating, which also supports the view that policy settings in the broadest sense are becoming more supportive of growth (Chart 18). Chart 17China Will Reflate More Chart 18Relaxing Anti-Corruption Campaign Another Form Of Easing Chart 19Hong Kong Equities Have Farther To Fall We still are long European equities versus Chinese equities and are short the CNY-USD. From a geopolitical point of view, the U.S.-China conflict is intensifying with President Trump’s threat to raise an additional 10% tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports despite the resumption of talks. In addition, the Hong Kong protests are intensifying, with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warning that it may have to intervene. There is high potential for violence to erupt, leading to a more heavy-handed approach by Hong Kong security forces and even eventual PLA deployment. This suggests there is downside in the Hang Seng index (Chart 19) – and PLA intervention could lead to broader investor concerns about China’s internal stability and another reason for tensions with the United States and its allies. The U.S.-China conflict is intensifying. Our alarmist view on Taiwan in advance of the January 2020 election is finally taking shape. Not only has the Hong Kong unrest prompted a notable uptick in Taiwanese people’s view of themselves as exclusively Taiwanese (Chart 20), but Beijing has also announced additional restrictions on travel and tourism to Taiwan – an economic sanction that will harm the economy (Chart 21). These actions and escalation in Hong Kong raise the odds that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party will remain in power in Taiwan after January and hence that cross-strait relations (and by extension Sino-American relations) will remain strained and will require a higher risk premium to be built in. The latest trade war escalation could easily spill into strategic saber-rattling, as the U.S. blames China for North Korea’s return to bad behavior and China blames the U.S. for dissent in Hong Kong and likely Taiwan. Chart 21Beijing To Sanction Taiwan Tourism Again The U.S.-China trade negotiations are falling apart at the moment. We had argued that China’s stimulus and stabilization would create a negative reaction from President Trump, who would regret the Osaka ceasefire when he saw that China’s bargaining leverage had improved. This has come to pass, vindicating our 60% odds of an escalation post-G20. The U.S. Commerce Department could still conceivably renew the Temporary General License for U.S. companies to deal with Chinese tech firm Huawei on August 19, in order to create an environment conducive to progress for the next round of trade talks in September, but with the latest round of tariffs we think it is more likely that we will get a major escalation of strategic tensions and even saber-rattling. China’s new announcements regarding reforms to make local officials more accountable and to make it easier for companies to go bankrupt, including unprofitable “zombie” state-owned enterprises, could be a thinly veiled structural concession to the United States, but it remains to be seen whether these will be implemented and reinforced. Beijing rebooted structural reforms at the nineteenth national party congress but we expect stimulus to overwhelm reform amid trade war. We are converting our long non-Chinese rare earth producers recommendation to a strategic trade, after it hit our 5% stop-loss, as it is supported by our major theme of Sino-American strategic rivalry. The secular nature of this rivalry has been greatly confirmed by the fact that President Trump is now responding to American election dynamics. The U.S. Democratic Party’s primary debates have revealed that the candidates most likely to take on President Trump (Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) are adopting his hawkish foreign policy and trade policy stance toward China. The frontrunner former Vice President Joe Biden is the exception, as he is maintaining President Obama’s more dovish and multilateral approach. Trump’s clear response is to ensure that he still owns the trade and manufacturing narrative, to call Biden weak on trade, and to prevent the left-wing populists from outflanking him. Short the Hang Seng index as a tactical trade and close long Q1 2020 Brent futures versus Q1 2021 at the market bell tonight.   Matt Gertken, Vice President Geopolitical Strategist mattg@bcaresearch.com Footnotes 1 See Maddy Thimont Jack, “A New Prime Minister Intent On No Deal Brexit Can’t Be Stopped By MPs,” May 22, 2019, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk. 2 See Dominic Walsh, “Would MPs really back a no confidence motion to stop no-deal?” The New Statesman, July 15, 2019, www.newstatesman.com.

Highlights So What? Economic stimulus will encourage key nations to pursue their self-interest – keeping geopolitical risk high. Why? The U.S. is still experiencing extraordinary strategic tensions with China and Iran … simultaneously. The Trump-Xi summit at the G20 is unlikely to change the fact that the United States is threatening China with total tariffs and a technology embargo. The U.S. conflict with Iran will be hard to keep under wraps. Expect more fireworks and oil volatility, with a large risk of hostilities as long as the U.S. maintains stringent oil sanctions. All of our GeoRisk indicators are falling except for those of Germany, Turkey and Brazil. This suggests the market is too complacent. Maintain tactical safe-haven positioning. Feature “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed. “It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed. -Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)   One would have to be crazy to go to war. Yet a nation has no interest in filling its military’s ranks with lunatics. This is the original “Catch-22,” a conundrum in which the only way to do what is individually rational (avoid war) is to insist on what is collectively irrational (abandon your country). Or the only way to defend your country is to sacrifice yourself. This is the paradox that U.S. President Donald Trump faces having doubled down on his aggressive foreign policy this year: if he backs away from trade war to remove an economic headwind that could hurt his reelection chances, he sacrifices the immense leverage he has built up on behalf of the United States in its strategic rivalry with China. “Surrender” would be a cogent criticism of him on the campaign trail: a weak deal will cast him as a pluto-populist, rather than a real populist – one who pandered to China to give a sop to Wall Street and the farm lobby just like previous presidents, yet left America vulnerable for the long run. Similarly, if President Trump stops enforcing sanctions against Iranian oil exports to reduce the threat of a conflict-induced oil price shock that disrupts his economy, then he reduces the United States’s ability to contain Iran’s nuclear and strategic advances in the wake of the 2015 nuclear deal that he canceled. The low appetite for American involvement in the region will be on full display for the world to see. Iran will have stared down the Great Satan – and won. In both cases, Trump can back down. Or he can try to change the subject. But with weak polling and yet a strong economy, the point is to direct voters’ attention to foreign policy. He could lose touch with his political base at the very moment that the Democrats reconnect with their own. This is not a good recipe for reelection. More important – for investors – why would he admit defeat just as the Federal Reserve is shifting to countenance the interest rate cuts that he insists are necessary to increase his economic ability to drive a hard bargain with China? Why would he throw in the towel as the stock market soars? And if Trump concludes a China deal, and the market rises higher, will he not be emboldened to put more economic pressure on Mexico over border security … or even on Europe over trade? The paradox facing investors is that the shift toward more accommodative monetary policy (and in some cases fiscal policy) extends the business cycle and encourages political leaders to pursue their interests more intently. China is less likely to cave to Trump’s demands as it stimulates. The EU does not need to fear a U.K. crash Brexit if its economy rebounds. This increases rather than decreases the odds of geopolitical risks materializing as negative catalysts for the market. Similarly, if geopolitical risk falls then the need for stimulus falls and the market will be disappointed. The result is still more volatility – at least in the near term. The G20 And 2020 As we go to press the Democratic Party’s primary election debates are underway. The progressive wave on display highlights the overarching takeaway of the debates: the U.S. election is now an active political (and geopolitical) risk to the equity market. A truly positive surprise at the G20 would be a joint statement by Trump and Xi plus some tariff rollback. Whenever Trump’s odds of losing rise, the U.S. domestic economy faces higher odds of extreme policy discontinuity and uncertainty come 2021, with the potential for a populist-progressive agenda – a negative for financials, energy, and probably health care and tech. Yet whenever Trump’s odds of winning rise, the world faces higher odds of an unconstrained Trump second term focusing on foreign and trade policy – a potentially extreme increase in global policy uncertainty – without the fiscal and deregulatory positives of his first term. We still view Trump as the favored candidate in this race (at 55% chance of reelection), given that U.S. underlying domestic demand is holding up and the labor market has not been confirmed to be crumbling beneath the consumer’s feet. Still Chart 1 highlights that Trump’s shift to more aggressive foreign and trade policy this spring has not won him any additional support – his approval rating has been flat since then. And his polling is weak enough in general that we do not assign him as high of odds of reelection as would normally be afforded to a sitting president on the back of a resilient economy. This raises the question of whether the G20 will mark a turning point. Will Trump attempt to deescalate his foreign conflicts? Yes, and this is a tactical opportunity. But we see no final resolution at hand. With China, Trump’s only reason to sign a weak deal would be to stem a stock market collapse. With Iran, Trump is no longer in the driver’s seat but could be forced to react to Iranian provocations. Bottom Line: Trump’s polling has not improved – highlighting the election risk – but weak polling amid a growing economy and monetary easing is not a recipe for capitulating to foreign powers. The Trump-Xi Summit On China the consensus on the G20 has shifted toward expecting an extension of talks and another temporary tariff truce. If a new timetable is agreed, it may be a short-term boon for equities. But we will view it as unconvincing unless it is accompanied with a substantial softening on Huawei or a Trump-Xi joint statement outlining an agreement in principle along with some commitment of U.S. tariff rollback. Otherwise the structural dynamic is the same: Trump is coercing China with economic warfare amid a secular increase in U.S.-China animosity that is a headwind for trade and investment. Table 1 shows that throughout the modern history of U.S.-China presidential-level summits, the Great Recession marked a turning point: since then, bilateral relations have almost always deteriorated in the months after a summit, even if the optics around the summit were positive. Table 1U.S.-China Leaders Summits: A Chronology The last summit in Buenos Aires was no exception, given that the positive aura was ultimately followed by a tariff hike and technology-company blacklistings. Of course, the market rallied for five months in between. Why should this time be the same? First, the structural factors undermining Sino-American trust are worse, not better, with Trump’s latest threats to tech companies. Second, Trump will ultimately resent any decision to extend the negotiations. China’s economy is rebounding, which in the coming months will deprive Trump of much of the leverage he had in H2 2018 and H1 2019. He will be in a weaker position if they convene in three months to try to finalize a deal. Tariff rollback will be more difficult in that context given that China will be in better shape and that tariffs serve as the guarantee that any structural concessions will be implemented. Bottom Line: Our broader view regarding the “end game” of the talks – on the 2020 election horizon – remains that China has no reason to implement structural changes speedily for the United States until Trump can prove his resilience through reelection. Yet President Trump will suffer on the campaign trail if he accepts a deal that lacks structural concessions. Hence we expect further escalation from where we are today, knowing full well that the G20 could produce a temporary period of improvement just as occurred on December 1, 2018. The Iran Showdown Is Far From Over Disapproval of Trump’s handling of China and Iran is lower than his disapproval rating on trade policy and foreign policy overall, suggesting that despite the lack of a benefit to his polling, he does still have leeway to pursue his aggressive policies to a point. A breakdown of these opinions according to key voting blocs – a proxy for Trump’s ability to generate support in Midwestern swing states – illustrates that his political base is approving on the whole (Chart 2). Yet the conflict with Iran threatens Trump with a hard constraint – an oil price shock – that is fundamentally a threat to his reelection. Hence his decision, as we expected, to back away from the brink of war last week (he supposedly canceled air strikes on radar and missile installations at the last minute on June 21). He appears to be trying to control the damage that his policy has already done to the 2015 U.S.-Iran equilibrium. Trump has insisted he does not want war, has ruled out large deployments of boots on the ground, and has suggested twice this week that his only focus in trying to get Iran back into negotiations is nuclear weapons. This implies a watering down of negotiation demands to downplay Iran’s militant proxies in the region – it is a retreat from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s more sweeping 12 demands on Iran and a sign of Trump’s unwillingness to get embroiled in a regional conflict with a highly likely adverse economic blowback. The Iran confrontation is not over yet – policy-induced oil price volatility will continue. This retreat lacks substance if Trump does not at least secretly relax enforcement of the oil sanctions. Trump’s latest sanctions and reported cyberattacks are a sideshow in the context of an attempted oil embargo that could destabilize Iran’s entire economy (Charts 3 and 4). Similarly, Iran’s downing of a U.S. drone pales in comparison to the tanker attacks in Hormuz that threatened global oil shipments. What matters to investors is the oil: whether Iran is given breathing space or whether it is forced to escalate the conflict to try to win that breathing space. Chart 4Iran’s Rial Depreciated Sharply The latest data suggest that Iran’s exports have fallen to 300,000 barrels per day, a roughly 90% drop from 2018, when Trump walked away from the Iran deal. If this remains the case in the wake of the brinkmanship last week then it is clear that Iran is backed into a corner and could continue to snarl and snap at the U.S. and its regional allies, though it may pause after the tanker attacks. Chart 5More Oil Volatility To Come Tehran also has an incentive to dial up its nuclear program and activate its regional militant proxies in order to build up leverage for any future negotiation. It can continue to refuse entering into negotiations with Trump in order to embarrass him – and it can wait until Trump’s approach is validated by reelection before changing this stance. After all, judging by the first Democratic primary debate, biding time is the best strategy – the Democratic candidates want to restore the 2015 deal and a new Democratic administration would have to plead with Iran, even to get terms less demanding than those in 2015. Other players can also trigger an escalation even if Presidents Trump and Rouhani decide to take a breather in their conflict (which they have not clearly decided to do). The Houthi rebels based in Yemen have launched another missile at Abha airport in Saudi Arabia since Trump’s near-attack on Iran, an action that is provocative, easily replicable, and not necessarily directly under Tehran’s control. Meanwhile OPEC is still dragging its feet on oil production to compensate for the Iranian losses, implying that the cartel will react to price rises rather than preempt them. The Saudis could use production or other means to stoke conflict. Bottom Line: Given our view on the trade war, which dampens global oil demand, we expect still more policy-induced volatility (Chart 5). We do not see oil as a one-way bet … at least not until China’s shift to greater stimulus becomes unmistakable.   North Korea: The Hiccup Is Over Chart 6China Ostensibly Enforces North Korean Sanctions The single clearest reason to expect progress between the U.S. and China at the G20 is the fact that North Korea is getting back onto the diplomatic track. North Korea has consistently been shown to be part of the Trump-Xi negotiations, unlike Taiwan, the South China Sea, Xinjiang, and other points of disagreement. General Secretary Xi Jinping took his first trip to the North on June 20 – the first for a Chinese leader since 2005 – and emphasized the need for historic change, denuclearization, and economic development. Xi is pushing Kim to open up and reform the economy in exchange for a lasting peace process – an approach that is consistent with China’s past policy but also potentially complementary with Trump’s offer of industrialization in exchange for denuclearization. President Trump and Kim Jong Un have exchanged “beautiful” letters this month and re-entered into backchannel discussions. Trump’s visit to South Korea after the G20 will enable him and President Moon Jae-In to coordinate for a possible third summit between Trump and Kim. Progress on North Korea fits our view that the failed summit in Hanoi was merely a setback and that the diplomatic track is robust. Trump’s display of a credible military threat along with Chinese sanctions enforcement (Chart 6) has set in motion a significant process on the peninsula that we largely expect to succeed and go farther than the consensus expects. It is a long-term positive for the Korean peninsula’s economy. It is also a positive factor in the U.S.-China engagement based on China’s interest in ultimately avoiding war and removing U.S. troops from the peninsula. From an investment point of view, an end to a brief hiatus in U.S.-North Korean diplomacy is a very poor substitute for concrete signs of U.S.-China progress on the tech front or opening market access. There has been nothing substantial on these key issues since Trump hiked the tariff rate in May. As a result, it is perfectly possible for the G20 to be a “success” on North Korea but, like the Buenos Aires summit on December 1, for markets to sell the news (Chart 7). Chart 7The Last Trade Truce Didn't Stop The Selloff Chart 8China Needs A Final Deal To Solve This Problem Bottom Line: North Korea is not a basis in itself for tariff rollback, but only as part of a much more extensive U.S.-China agreement. And a final agreement is needed to improve China’s key trade indicators on a lasting basis, such as new export orders and manufacturing employment, which are suffering amid the trade war. We expect economic policy uncertainty to remain elevated given our pessimistic view of U.S.-China trade relations (Chart 8). What About Japan, The G20 Host? Japan faces underrated domestic political risk as Prime Minister Abe Shinzo approaches a critical period in his long premiership, after which he will almost certainly be rendered a “lame duck,” likely by the time of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The question is when will this process begin and what will the market impact be? If Abe loses his supermajority in the July House of Councillors election, then it could begin as early as next month. This is a real risk – because a two-thirds majority is always a tall order – but it is not extreme. Abe’s polling is historically remarkable (Chart 9). The Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito are also holding strong and remain miles away from competing parties (Chart 10). The economy is also holding up relatively well – real wages and incomes have improved under Abe’s watch (Chart 11). However, the recent global manufacturing slowdown and this year’s impending hike to the consumption tax in October from 8% to 10% are killing consumer confidence. Chart 10Japan's Ruling Coalition Is Strong The collapse in consumer confidence is a contrary indicator to the political opinion polling. The mixed picture suggests that after the election Abe could still backtrack on the tax hike, although it would require driving through surprise legislation. He can pull this off in light of global trade tensions and his main objective of passing a popular referendum to revise the constitution and remilitarize the country. Chart 11Japanese Wages Up, But Consumer Confidence Diving We would not be surprised if Japan secured a trade deal with the U.S. prior to China. Because Abe and the United States need to enhance their alliance, we continue to downplay the risk of a U.S.-Japan trade war. Bloomberg recently reported that President Trump was threatening to downgrade the U.S.-Japan alliance, with a particular grievance over the ever-controversial issue of the relocation of troops on Okinawa. We view this as a transparent Trumpian negotiating tactic that has no applicability – indeed, American military and diplomatic officials quickly rejected the report. We do see a non-trivial risk that Trump’s rhetoric or actions will hurt Japanese equities at some point this year, either as Trump approaches his desired August deadline for a Japan trade deal or if negotiations drag on until closer to his decision about Section 232 tariffs on auto imports on November 14. But our base case is that there will be either no punitive measures or only a short time span before Abe succeeds in negotiating them away. We would not be surprised if the Japanese secured a deal prior to any China deal as a way for the Trump administration to try to pressure China and prove that it can get deals done. This can be done because it could be a thinly modified bilateral renegotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which had the U.S. and Japan at its center. Bottom Line: Given the combination of the upper house election, the tax hike and its possible consequences, a looming constitutional referendum which poses risks to Abe, and the ongoing external threat of trade war and China tensions, we continue to see risk-off sentiment driving Japanese and global investors to hold then yen. We maintain our long JPY/USD recommendation. The risk to this view is that Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda follows other central banks and makes a surprisingly dovish move, but this is not warranted at the moment and is not the base case of our Foreign Exchange Strategy. GeoRisk Indicators Update: June 28, 2019 Our GeoRisk indicators are sending a highly complacent message given the above views on China and Iran. All of our risk measures, other than our German, Turkish, and Brazilian indicators, are signaling a decrease geopolitical tensions. Investors should nonetheless remain cautious: Our German indicator, which has proven to be a good measure of U.S.-EU trade tensions, has increased over the first half of June (Chart 12). We expect Germany to continue to be subject to risk because of Trump’s desire to pivot to European trade negotiations in the wake of any China deal. The auto tariff decision was pushed off until November. We assign a 45% subjective probability to auto tariffs on the EU if Trump seals a final China deal. The reason it is not our base case is because of a lack of congressional, corporate, or public support for a trade war with Europe as opposed to China or Mexico, which touch on larger issues of national interest (security, immigration). There is perhaps a 10% probability that Trump could impose car tariffs prior to securing a China deal. Chart 12U.S.-EU Trade Tensions Hit Germany Chart 13German Greens Overtaking Christian Democrats! Germany is also an outlier because it is experiencing an increase in domestic political uncertainty. Social Democrat leader Andrea Nahles’ resignation on June 2 opened the door to a leadership contest among the SPD’s membership. This will begin next week and conclude on October 26, or possibly in December. The result will have consequences for the survivability of Merkel’s Grand Coalition – in case the SPD drops out of it entirely. Both Merkel and her party have been losing support in recent months – for the first time in history the Greens have gained the leading position in the polls (Chart 13). If the coalition falls apart and Merkel cannot put another one together with the Greens and Free Democrats, she may be forced to resign ahead of her scheduled 2021 exit date. The implication of the events with Trump and Merkel is that Germany faces higher political risk this year, particularly in Q4 if tariff threats and coalition strains coincide. Meanwhile, Brazilian pension reform has been delayed due to an inevitable breakdown in the ability to pass major legislation without providing adequate pork barrel spending. As for the rest of Europe, since European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s dovish signal on June 18, all of our European risk indicators have dropped off. Markets rallied on the news of the ECB’s preparedness to launch another round of bond-buying monetary stimulus if needed, easing tensions in the region. Italian bond spreads plummeted, for instance. The Korean and Taiwanese GeoRisk indicators, our proxies for the U.S.-China trade war, are indicating a decrease in risk as the two sides moved to contain the spike in tensions in May. While Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin notes that the deal was 90% complete in May before the breakdown, there is little evidence yet that any of the sticking points have been removed over the past two weeks. These indicators can continue to improve on the back of any short-term trade truce at the G20. The Russian risk indicator has been hovering in the same range for the past two months. We expect this to break out on the back of increasing mutual threats between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. has recently agreed to send an additional 1000 rotating troops to Poland, a move that Russia obviously deems aggressive. The Russian upper chamber has also unanimously supported President Putin’s decree to suspend the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, in the wake of the U.S. decision to do so. This would open the door to developing and deploying 500-5500 km range land-based and ballistic missiles. According to the deputy foreign minister, any U.S. missile deployment in Europe will lead to a crisis on the level of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Russia has also sided with Iran in the latest U.S.-Iran tension escalation, denouncing U.S. plans to send an additional 1000 troops to the Middle East and claiming that the shot-down U.S. drone was indeed in Iranian airspace. We anticipate the Russian risk indicator to go up as we expect Russia to retaliate in some way to Poland and to take actions to encourage the U.S. to get entangled deeper into the Iranian imbroglio, which is ultimately a drain on the U.S. and a useful distraction that Russia can exploit. In Turkey, both domestic and foreign tensions are rising. First, the re-run of the Istanbul mayoral election delivered a big defeat for Turkey’s President Erdogan on his home turf. Opposition representative Ekrem Imamoglu defeated former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim for a second time this year on June 23 – increasing his margin of victory to 9.2% from 0.2% in March. This was a stinging rebuke to Erdogan and his entire political system. It also reinforces the fact that Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) is not as popular as Erdogan himself, frequently falling short of the 50% line in the popular vote for elections not associated directly with Erdogan (Chart 14). This trend combined with his personal rebuke in the power base of Istanbul will leave him even more insecure and unpredictable. Second, the G20 summit is the last occasion for Erdogan and Trump to meet personally before the July 31 deadline on Erdogan’s planned purchase of S-400 missile defenses from Russia. Erdogan has a chance to delay the purchase as he contemplates cabinet and policy changes in the wake of this major domestic defeat. Yet if Erdogan does not back down or delay, the U.S. will remove Turkey from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, and may also impose sanctions over this purchase and possibly also Iranian trade. The result will hit the lira and add to Turkey’s economic woes. Geopolitically, it will create a wedge within NATO that Russia could exploit, creating more opportunities for market-negative surprises in this area. Finally, we expect our U.K. risk indicator to perk up, as the odds of a no-deal Brexit are rising. Boris Johnson will likely assume Conservative Party leadership and the party is moving closer to attempting a no-deal exit. We assign a 21% probability to this kind of Brexit, up from our previous estimate of 14%. It is more likely that Johnson will get a deal similar to Theresa May’s deal passed or that he will be forced to extend negotiations beyond October.   Matt Gertken, Vice President Geopolitical Strategist mattg@bcaresearch.com Ekaterina Shtrevensky, Research Analyst ekaterinas@bcaresearch.com France: GeoRisk Indicator U.K.: GeoRisk Indicator Germany: GeoRisk Indicator Italy: GeoRisk Indicator Spain: GeoRisk Indicator Russia: GeoRisk Indicator Korea: GeoRisk Indicator Taiwan: GeoRisk Indicator Turkey: GeoRisk Indicator Brazil: GeoRisk Indicator What's On The Geopolitical Radar? Section III: Geopolitical Calendar