by Vincenzo Petrone (*)
ROMA (ITALPRESS) – Diplomats from all over the world know by heart the phrase of their colleague, who represented His British Majesty at the Serenissima in the early 1600s, Lord Henry Wotton. He defined the figure of the Ambassador as “a gentleman sent abroad to lie for the benefit of his government.” The Secretary of State Marco Rubio, given to diplomacy by American domestic policy, probably this is about to do, perhaps with less elegance, when in Denmark next week, he will talk about Greenland with the direct interested parties, the faithful allies of Denmark and the peaceful Greenland. Rubio has announced to them that Washington would like to buy their gigantic icy island and will not exclude, in case of refusal, that America can pass to the streets.
Lord Wotton will be smiling in his grave, because Rubio in Denmark and Greenland will go and tell a half lie that will naturally illustrate to journalists as the yet another success of his president’s resolve. In other words, the microphones will tell the world that America has obtained that the American base of Pituffik, already existing and operating for decades in Greenland, is expanded and perhaps build other similar ones in different locations of the boundless coast of Greenland, better if NATO will pay the cost of new investment and new charges. Presumably, the Secretary of State will argue that in reality, Pituffik was built secretly in 1951 on the basis of a Treaty still alive and well, concluded between the United States and Denmark, after Denmark refused the American proposal to buy the island.
And that Treaty has been establishing for a long time that the US can “build, install and manage military bases in Greenland” and can “control the Greenland movements of ships, planes and any other boat”. In Pituffik Base, the Air Force is already doing space surveillance and missile alerting. And now he’ll do a lot more. But then, why does Washington get so much noise on Greenland, if as it usually happens, it would be enough to put privately around the NATO table the ambassadors of the countries who are members to make them approve in a whale a plan of infrastructure and monitoring of the Alliance in Greenland to avoid the risk of an invasion of spy ships flying the flag of China or Russia?
Everyone would agree, we Italians first, as our President of the Council announced with great intelligence when he said a few days ago that the problem of Greenland must be dealt with in the context of the Alliance. And it is urgent to do so now because the routes of the far north of the Atlantic have become vital for NATO security, as a consequence of the growing navigability of the Arctic Sea. Europeans and Americans would all be happy and the poor Danes would gladly pay with us and allies all the costs of the new Basi. Then why so much noise? The answer to this question is quite simple and trivial. On the other hand, in Trump’s outreach to journalists and social media, this answer is seen. On condition of looking at the American context of today, even in the mist of hammering communications about the Venezuelan oil that belongs to America, the NATO allies that are ungrateful, Canada that is destined to remain a great sovereign country. And so on.
Significantly, between a threat and a Trump hyperbole at the microphones also said “we must absolutely win the mid term elections in November, otherwise the Democrats will find the way to incriminate me.” He could also add that there are several district judges who would willingly reopen the files of the 32 crimes for which Trump could be tried if he had not been elected to the presidency. What the Trump press could not say explicitly is that if in the American economy things remain as they are today and as they seem to be projected in the coming months, the Republican Party can already give them almost lost. And with them the block majority in Congress to protect the President.
And yet, his first year of presidency, on 2025, opened with the expectation that the American Stock Exchange would have made increases equal to a multiple of those who could carry out European and Asian stock exchanges. And instead at the end of the year 2025, Wall Street had increased its indexes by just over a modest 5% against the excellent results recorded in Asia, for example in Seoul with 76%, and in Europe, for example in Madrid with 49% and in Milan with 31%. In the same year, the dollar lost 11% on the Euro and more land is constantly losing this year. And the experience teaches that when the dollar devalues the bags of the rest of the world run faster than Wall Street. But what even more worries the American President for the purpose of the November elections is the “affordability crisis”, that is the constant and unstoppable reduction of the capacity of consumption, which is making life really very difficult for the American middle-low class, in which over a third of the families now spend 95% of their income just to buy food and fuels and pay insurance policies.
And it comes to wonder what could happen on the financial level, if in these 9 months separating us from the mid-term elections, the river of 1,36 trillion dollars of resources that European and Asian invested last year, on stocks listed on Wall Street and the Bonds of the Treasury, saving among other things the balance of American payments. That river of money was expected a remuneration that last year did not receive and could go elsewhere at least partly. In domestic politics, the “catch 22”, the solutionless dilemma that hangs on Trump while he promises to finally bring America back great in the world, you can try to synthesize it in a few consequential concepts.
Hossia, if he loses the November elections, the next day Trump becomes a target for Congress and judges. But in order not to lose the elections, the Administration must renounce rigor in public accounts and above all must impose on the next President of the Central Bank that Trump himself will appoint in May, to continue to reduce interest rates although already for 55 months here, the inflationary rate in the USA remains above the level of 2% that is the optimal historical goal of the FED.
But let us take the chance that the new FED Presidency will listen to Trump and therefore give up inflation under 2%. And we say that as Trump himself has already announced he wants to do the Treasury, decides to issue subsidies to the extent of $2,000 per person to all indistinctly Americans. In this case, it all makes fear that the trust of international investors in the perspective of financial stability of the United States could seriously fall for the first time. And those 1,36 trillion investments from abroad received in 2025 would be greatly reduced, the rates on the treasury Bonds as a result would rise, and the budget deficit would result in the already high 6% of current GDP. The Congressional Budget Office has already defined “unsustainable” the level of deficit. Finally, the markets could take seriously the announcement of the President of wanting to bring in 2027 to 1,5 trillion dollars the defense budget, an astronomical level of expenditure also difficult to realize views for example the bad conditions of the American military shipbuilding and the overbooking in the missile industry that already today prevents America to send to Ukraine all the anti-aircraft weapons that Europeans are ready to buy on behalf of Kiev.
The combined arrangement of all these considerations is that the United States could quickly incur a wave of sales on stocks and bonds. This would force Trump to do exactly the opposite of what he needs to do to save himself from electoral defeat. The President should cut expenditure and emphasize that the EDF increases interest rates. This normally happens throughout the world under similar conditions. Without wanting, Trump could decree this year the end of the historical “excepcionalism” enjoyed by the United States. Only he interpreted it as an absolute license to do what he wants, as he wants and where he wants, both in America and outside the borders. The problem is that an American economic crisis would pay very dear to us in Europe as has always happened, from 1929 to the 2007-2008 disaster of Lehmann Brothers.
Even worse, on the political and international level, the risk is that China and Russia can interpret these neo-imperial deficits of the President of the United States as an implicit consensus on Russian and Chinese speculative behaviours in Europe and Asia. After all they are also great countries and have for this reason the right to their new imperial projects.
And it would be a mess with unpredictable outcomes. “We will think about it tomorrow, tomorrow…” we say in Europe. A bit like the splendid and melancholy Scarlett of “Via col Vento”. Meanwhile, immediately the challenge of Macron of Merz and Meloni is to contain Trump and keep him engaged in support of Europeans in Ukraine and NATO. At least for another 3-5 years, the time necessary to bring to critical mass the European rearmament and the sharing of the European industry. There is no other choice.
(*) ambassador
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
