A momentous US Presidential election outcome and a potential global trade war were up for discussion at the Autumn event of the Board Leadership Centre (BLC) in Dublin, by veteran journalists Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel, co-hosts of the hit current affairs podcast, The News Agents.
Analysis of the year's events
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“When we started the BLC in Ireland 18 months ago, we said we’d like to bring the best insights and experts from around the world, to board members,” said Ryan McCarthy, the KPMG Partner who leads the BLC in Ireland. “In thinking about deep analysis of the events of the year, in particular the period after the US election, there really were only two people for the job.”
The duo scarcely needs any introduction. Emily Maitlis was the lead anchor on BBC’s Newsnight, lauded for her 2019 interview with Prince Andrew over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Five years on, it is the subject of a new series, A Very Royal Scandal.
Jon Sopel spent four decades at the BBC, in a career that saw him report on major stories such as the 2003 Iraq War and culminated in him being BBC North America editor from 2014. That included covering all of Donald Trump’s first presidency and the January 6th 2021 insurrection at Capitol Hill.
Maitlis and Sopel were on the ground in Pennsylvania as the results of the US election came in, showing Donald Trump as the clear winner of the presidency. Just weeks on from an outcome that “has kind of blown our minds a bit”, there is room to reflect, said Maitlis.
Spotting the sentiment
Know who your stakeholders are, of course, but you also need to pay attention to how they’re feeling.
Acknowledging the benefit of the “rear-view mirror”, Maitlis noted the Democratic Party messaging was too niche and ignored negative sentiment about the performance of the US economy. Everything the Democrats did, came up against a sentiment that gas and groceries are more expensive than they had been under Donald Trump.
Crucially, that sentiment was being constantly reinforced by the ‘Stop the Steal’ narrative put forward by the Republicans since even before the 2020 presidential election. Against that, the Democrats lacked direction, said Sopel.
“From the Second World War until 2016, they were the party of blue-collar America,” he said. “Since 2016, they’re no longer that. The Democrats have to define who they represent. Have they got a core message that engages working class voters?”
That could serve as a lesson for business leaders and board members everywhere: know who your stakeholders are, of course, but you also need to pay attention to how they’re feeling. That involves listening, offering counterpoints and even changing your message if necessary.
Affirmed or informed
Maitlis revealed her favourite political cartoon of recent weeks, depicting Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator who Donald Trump once dubbed “little rocket man”, in tears because Trump has a new rocket man: Elon Musk. Post-election, the Tesla and SpaceX founder, who will jointly run Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, is arguably the most influential man in the world.
“He is far and away the most influential, unelected person in America by a mile,” said Sopel. “The relationship between Musk and Trump is extraordinary.”
Musk’s influence is amplified by his ownership of X, where he has over 205 million followers. In that context, Maitlis observed it is time to leave behind old distinctions between ‘media’ and ‘social media’. “It’s just media. More people are getting their media now from X than any TV station.”
Maitlis also highlighted the role played by podcasts such as War Room, presented by Steve Bannon, who is credited with orchestrating Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. For Sopel, the risk is that people only occupy echo chambers of opinions that they support.
“The number of people who are listening to news, to be affirmed, rather than to be informed is a really dangerous development in democracy,” he said. “We've got to all be able to listen to views that we might not like, that we don't agree with, that are challenging us.”
There is a message there for everyone, not least board members who must always be willing to question what’s put in front of them, even if it’s awkward.
Uncomfortable choices ahead
When Joe Biden won the 2020 election, his message was ‘America is back’. Trump’s victory puts an end to that era, said Sopel, who suggests Donald Trump’s picks for key roles – such as vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy, as Health Secretary – could be seen as indicative of the bigger picture.
“Maybe an isolationist, nativist, pull-up-the-drawbridge America is what we've got to get used to for the years ahead,” he said. “That has profound consequences, I think, for all of us.”
In the US, that will likely feed through to anti- ‘woke’ capitalism that pushes back progress in diversity and inclusion. At the same time, Europe will remain on the ESG path. “Companies are going to find themselves in a position where they have to make uncomfortable choices,” said Sopel.
Beyond business, there is going to be pressure, on where people stand politically. With the Trump administration, those dynamics are going to become real,” Sopel said. For board members, these are big new issues to address.
China and the crinks
Who, then, has the power in the world? I don’t know that that’s obvious anymore.
Predicting Israel will find “a very firm friend” in Trump, Maitlis used a new acronym, CRINKs, to describe the alignment between China, Russia, India and North Korea with “Iran in the middle”. In terms of population, that is a sizeable axis ranged against so-called Western interests.
“Who, then, has the power in the world?” Maitlis asked. “I don’t know that that’s obvious anymore.”
Sopel predicts that Trump will aim to deal with each element of that axis differently, potentially doing a deal with Russia in relation to the Ukraine war and taking a firm stand on Iran. Economically, the relationship with China is “the big one”, he said. “You've got Trump saying, ‘I want to impose 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods coming in’. That starts a trade war.”
Sopel highlighted a crucial difference from the original Cold War, when there was virtually no trade between the Eastern bloc and the West. “Now the plumbing of the global economy is so interlinked. How do you attack China economically without there being huge damage to the Western economy?”
Sopel also posed a question: where do EU companies sit in all this, especially if the European bloc is also facing Trump tariffs? Are China and the EU aligned against America? “These are the things that are really head-spinning stuff, where we just don't know where the pieces will settle,” he said.
Issues for incumbents
Sopel and Maitlis raised the possibility that an “anti-incumbency” trend in elections around the world may not just be down to voter anger about inflation or other issues. In a reality TV era, there is a risk that people are inclined to vote against whoever happens to be in charge; if that is the case, it doesn’t particularly matter what a government manages to achieve.
“If there is a really vocal force on the opposite side saying, ‘these people are all terrible, they don't understand you’, then there’s going to be a revolving door,” said Maitlis. “That is a big problem for democracy.”
Sopel said a feeling that conventional politics is not delivering for citizens has prompted the rise of populist politicians promising simple solutions to complex problems. “They get power, they can't deliver the simple solutions to complex problems and so you get more disenchantment,” he said.
The Irish question
With so much change, what does the geo-economic new world order look like for Ireland? Trump’s pick for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, Chief Executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, recently posted on X: “It’s nonsense that Ireland of all places runs a trade surplus at our expense.”
There were knowing nods when Maitlis asked if plans by Trump to cut corporation tax in the US and lure American firms home, were a worry in Ireland. “Ireland has paved the way in terms of corporation tax [and] attracting in these big US firms,” she said.
Sopel offered some optimism that Ireland may be out of the immediate firing line at least. “I think Trump will have bigger fish to fry,” he said. “If he's taking on China, if he's taking on the EU, is he really going to be concerned about Ireland that much?”
He also offered an observation from his years living in Washington. “I have never, ever seen soft power like the Irish have,” he said. “I'm not making a glib or flippant point but the affection in which Ireland is held in the US is immense. There is a genuine affection and also a worry about taking on the Irish-American lobby in Congress which is still powerful.”
Time will tell how the new Trump presidency reshapes the reality for Irish business. For businesses and board members, the messages are clear: be prepared for change, stay close to stakeholders and always base your decisions on good information.
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