In 2024, the global economy stabilized following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, although growth in many countries remained below pre-2020 levels.
Amid a patchy recovery, more than 2 billion people were eligible to vote this year, and economic issues, particularly rising costs of living, have been a top concern for voters around the world.
Meanwhile, governments grappled with how to regulate potentially transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence, and Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential election signaled a sharp shift toward protectionism.
Here are seven of the biggest events that shaped the global economy in 2024:
Trump announces new trade wars
Trump has indicated he will pursue an even more aggressive version of the “America First” protectionism that fueled his rise to power during his second term in the White House.
During the campaign, Trump promised to impose tariffs of 60 percent or more on Chinese goods and a flat tariff of 20 percent on all other imports.
Trump has also targeted friendly nations and recently threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, raising questions about the future of the tripartite free trade agreement between the countries.
Economists say Trump’s proposals for sweeping tariffs would raise the cost of everyday items in the U.S. and upend supply chains around the world.
Most recently, earlier this month, Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on the BRICS nations – China, Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates – if they did not commit to no tariff to launch a new currency that will compete with the US dollar.
Regulating Big Tech
Governments around the world have spent 2024 regulating Big Tech.
At the beginning of the year, the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act came into force. They introduced new rules for how social media and other online platforms work, while giving users more control over their personal data.
In March, the European Parliament passed the groundbreaking AI law, which regulates the use of artificial intelligence based on the level of perceived risk.
The rules, which came into effect in August, exempt models manufactured for national security and military purposes or purely scientific research.
Svea Windwehr, deputy director for EU policy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights group, said global efforts to regulate AI will remain largely a patchwork until 2025.
“As we have seen with the case of the UN Convention against Cybercrime, we are far from having globally shared commitments to protect fundamental rights online, and a global approach to regulating AI currently appears to be a long way off,” Windwehr told Al Jazeera.
Brazil went head-to-head with tech mogul Elon Musk – the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X – and won, at least for now.
In August, Brazil’s Supreme Court suspended it
Ultimately, Musk complied with the court’s demands and also paid a $2 million fine.
In November, Australia imposed a ban on social media for children under 16 amid concerns about its negative impact on young people’s mental health.
Platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram have a year to figure out how to comply with the legislation.
Critics, including the EFF and the Australian Human Rights Commission, said the law was rushed and violated freedom of expression.
From the start of next year, Britain’s controversial online safety law will come into force in phases.
Among the most contentious aspects of the law is whether authorities will require messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal to undermine encryption to restrict their use by extremist groups and child sex offenders.
Donald Trump’s victory in November’s presidential election could mean a reprieve for the popular video-sharing app TikTok, which faces a US ban from January unless its Chinese owner ByteDance sells the platform.
On the campaign trail, the president-elect promised to “save” the app but gave no details on how he would get around the ban, which was put into effect by a law passed earlier this year with broad bipartisan support.
ByteDance refused to sell the platform and instead began a legal battle that could take years to resolve.
Meanwhile, social media in the US saw even greater social and political segregation.
Since Musk purchased the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022, X has shifted sharply to the right.
According to a recent study from Australia’s Queensland University of Technology, the platform’s algorithm appears to encourage posts from Republicans and Musk himself to increase the prominence of conservative perspectives.
Trump’s Truth Social also gained greater notoriety as the president-elect’s preferred megaphone for expressing his views.
Alternative platforms such as Instagram Threads have been able to further expand their user base with varying degrees of success.
Meanwhile, liberal social users abandoned X in favor of Blue Sky.
In the week after Trump’s election victory, the platform reported an increase of more than a million users.
Incumbents are penalized because of the cost of living
Elections have been painful for incumbents almost everywhere.
As voters cast their ballots in more than 60 countries, from North America to Europe and Africa, economic issues and concerns about the cost of living were particularly high on the agenda.
Voters in numerous countries, including Britain, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Japan and India, have either dismissed ruling parties outright or severely restricted their mandates.
In the US, Trump’s decisive victory was largely attributed to public dissatisfaction with the ongoing impact of the pandemic-related rise in inflation under President Joe Biden.
Ireland was one of the few exceptions to the anti-establishment trend, where voters gave the incumbent parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail enough seats to begin negotiations to form a coalition with smaller parties or independents.
Oligarchs on the rise
Business interests and government power have always been closely linked, but Trump’s return to the White House will dramatically increase the influence of some of America’s most powerful moguls.
First up is Musk, one of Trump’s most ardent supporters during the election, who is set to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency alongside fellow businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Musk has made no secret of his disdain for government bureaucracy, allegedly targeting wasteful agencies and initiatives ranging from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Internal Revenue Service to the F-35 fighter jet.
Trump’s other top picks from his circle of ultra-wealthy friends and allies include billionaire hedge fund founder Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary; Howard Lutnick, CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, as Secretary of Commerce; hedge fund manager Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior; Chris Wright, CEO of an oilfield services company, as Energy Secretary; and Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, as education minister.
Outside the U.S., the influence of oligarchs was also evident in the U.S. Department of Justice’s indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, on bribery and fraud charges.
Adani is widely seen as a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose development goals align with the tycoon’s portfolio in infrastructure, food production and clean energy.
Bitcoin is roaring back
Bitcoin’s price rebounded in the weeks following Trump’s victory, rising from around $68,000 on Election Day to over $100,000 earlier this month.
While Trump was critical of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies during his first term, he emerged as a vocal supporter of digital currencies in his most recent campaign, promising to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.”
The president-elect has promised to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve and has picked several high-profile crypto enthusiasts for his new administration, including former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks as crypto czar and Paul Atkins as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which cracked down on the sector under outgoing boss Gary Gensler.
China is hesitant about economic stimulus programs
China watchers waited all year to see what steps Beijing would take to help revive the world’s second-largest economy, amid challenges ranging from weak consumption to a declining population and a sustained slump in the real estate market.
While China’s leadership has traditionally avoided large stimulus spending, some analysts had hoped Beijing would reconsider its cautious stance to revive growth.
Beijing announced a series of measures to boost growth, especially on the monetary policy side, including cutting interest rates and reducing requirements for how much money banks must hold in reserve, raising 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion ) of loans were released.
But many economic analysts said the measures were insufficient to keep the economy on track, especially if Beijing is to meet its growth target of about 5 percent in 2024.
