THE World Economic Forum commenced its annual meeting at the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos this week with US president Donald Trump due to deliver his latest threats to the world.
It is beyond ironic that at the time of the greatest crisis confronting world capitalism, with the US declaring economic and shooting wars on the rest of the world, that the organisers chose the heading: ‘A Spirit of Dialogue’ as the theme for this year’s meeting.
Trump has made it clear that dialogue is the last thing he has in mind.
Yesterday, Trump doubled down on his threats to ‘take over’ Greenland vowing that there is ‘no going back’ on his goal to take complete control of the country, and refusing to rule out taking it by force.
This ambition by US imperialism to wrest sovereignty from Denmark, a fellow NATO member, has blown apart the imperialist alliance, pitting the US against former allies in the UK and Europe.
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of 10% on goods imported by the US on any country that dares stand up to him.
Indeed, he went so far as to threaten France with 200% tariffs on wines and champagne after French president Emmanuel Macron refused Trump’s ‘invitation’ to join the so-called ‘Board of Peace’, which the US clearly intends to extend from Gaza to resolve all global conflicts in the interests of US imperialism.
Macron has called on fellow EU leaders to activate the ‘big bazooka’, the common name for the anti-coercion law which enables the EU to impose punitive economic measures on any country seeking to force a policy change.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday issued a grave warning that Trump’s threats over Greenland risk triggering a ‘spiral of escalation’ that would damage the world economy and inevitably lead to a collapse in the world financial markets.
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, said a ‘spiral of escalation’ between the US and Europe would have a ‘material impact’ that would inflict pain on households in both the US and Europe.
The threat of trade wars between the US and Europe, along with the US’s contempt for international law exposed in its kidnapping of Venezuelan president Maduro, isn’t the only fear the IMF has about the precarious state of world capitalism.
Gourinchas highlighted the fact that Trump’s previous trade wars against the world last year had failed to dent the rise of the stock market in the US.
However, the IMF stressed that global stock market growth is founded on the ‘narrow base’ of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) investment boom in the US, and that if all the wild expectations of AI-driven productivity advances prove overly optimistic, there is a risk of a ‘sharp drop’ in investment and a stock market reversal.
From AI-generated boom to bust overnight, as the trillions of dollars poured into building the massive infrastructure required for AI fail to produce the returns in terms of the excess profits that have been promised.
Gourinchas added that the increasing reliance on debt by the multi-billionaire companies to fund their investment spree is also causing concern.
Separate research on Monday from the international professional service company PwC revealed the overwhelming majority of companies are struggling to make any financial benefits from AI.
A survey of over 4,000 chief executives from 95 countries showed only 26% of firms have managed to drive down costs through AI spending.
An AI debt-fuelled bubble set to explode will bring down Wall Street and the world stock markets, leading to a global crash.
With the US, EU and UK ruling classes tearing each other apart in a desperate struggle over the huge mineral and oil wealth of Greenland while the global capitalist economy is on the verge of collapsing into recession and depression, the time has come for the working class to use its power.
Workers in the US, UK and EU must demand their trade unions mobilise the strength of the working class by calling general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments, and bring in workers’ governments and socialism.
Dumping bankrupt capitalism in the dustbin of history is the way forward.
