G20 Leaders will meet in Rome starting today
Leaders from the Group of 20 (G20) will convene today in Rome for an in-person two-day summit.
On the top of the agenda is the global economic recovery from COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccination, the climate crisis and supply chain issues which have captured headlines in recent weeks. G20 leaders are also expected to discuss better global cooperation on security issues, such as the ongoing Afghan crisis, and US counter-terrorism operations in Africa’s Sahel region.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will be video teleconferencing into the meetings, so, more nuanced cooperation between China, Russia and the US is unlikely to materialize over the weekend. Despite this, the G20 leaders are expected to sign off on a global tax rate of 15% for major companies. The global tax aims to discourage large companies from relocating to global “tax havens”, and stimulating the home country’s economy. The leaders also hope to set in place a vaccination plan to achieve 70% global vaccination rates by mid-2022. These measures will likely jumpstart individual large economies, but will likely hurt small economies that cannot afford large quantities of vaccines. Furthermore, “tax haven” countries will likely face economic difficulties as corporations may relocate under the new measures.
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