The liberal world order is a shambles. The coronavirus pandemic will spell the end of full-spectrum dominance by Britain, the United States, and those in the European Union tethered so inextricably to the NATO alliance. A quote below from a Reuters report citing French President Emmanual Macron, it sums up the fall of the mediocre empire created after World War 2.
“What’s at stake is the survival of the European project.”
It’s too bad my country has no statesmen to herald the coming of the end. I wonder when the first American governor will tell my countrymen what is at stake for them?
Macron was cited after the Reuters report framed the catastrophe in Italy, and how the European Union left the Italians to fend for themselves like castaways. To be honest, I never thought Macron had it in him, but he’s surprised even me. And when Russia and China came to the rescue, it was NATO and Poland that closed airspace to the Russian aid transports. Italy will never forget or forgive this. The story in Spain is a similar one, as is the one here in Greece. If not for the Greek authorities quick action to close businesses and borders, Europe’s summer vacationland would already be overwhelmed.
At a time when Germany and the Netherlands have split the EU into two parts by blocked a call from Italy, Spain, and France to issue joint debt to help finance a recovery, President Donald Trump and his opposition have splintered America into similar desperate parts. In the United States, hard-hit places like New York City cannot even get the needed equipment to treat the spiraling number of COVID-19 cases. ICU units are full, almost everyone has been exposed, and Governor Cuomo is begging for respirators that will never come. And this is just New York.
In the state of Georgia, Republican Governor Brian Kemp just held a “town hall” meeting with constituents before extending school closings. However, although Georgia’s COVID-19 spread is one of the fastest-growing and deadliest in the nation, Kemp has not expanded the state effort. This is a mistake on the level of criminal negligence if you factor in mathematical projections of how the disease is gripping the United States. While Donald Trump panders a “beautiful Easter” as his motivation to open back up sections of the U.S., it seems like the Republican party is willing to follow the unpredictable president over a cliff.
A report entitled “Hell is Coming: Here is the Mathematical Proof”, from a Wall Street expert, Inan Dogan, Ph.D., shows us the incontrovertible magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic, both in terms of human suffering, and where the mid-term economy of the world is concerned. Dogan puts forward the facts of the geometric spread of the disease along with the death spiral that only levels off after countries take drastic measures. The most telling figures, the fact the infection and death rates double every three days, is a metric that cannot be hidden. Simple math can be applied to any of the COVID-19 pandemic charts online. Dogan says 2 million Americans are already infected with the virus, and that testing and delay factors obscure the real gravity of the situation. The United States passed China and Italy with the most number of COVID-19 cases, and the disease spread curve confirms the totals doubling every three days. Dr. Dogan predicted the U.S. death toll on March 26th would be 900, the actual number was 1,201. I followed the trend and did the math too. Unless President Trump takes more drastic measures, America’s government will have fallen behind the rest of the world in the worst possible way, by letting her people down totally. As for the economic impacts, the situation is already far beyond estimating.
Anyone can follow the Bloomberg predictions or Wall Street ticker to determine the world is in a mess. Trump and the Congress printing out an extra $2 trillion is monumental enough to show this. But the macro-level view does not show the depth or scope of this pandemic. For instance, at the micro-economic level, farms and other producers around the world will be smashed by the pandemic. Here on Crete island, small farmers cannot ship their produce to places like Italy or the rest of the Balkans, since tight border restrictions prevent the trucks from rolling in. Many are already selling their products below the cost to produce them, just to keep their businesses alive. And this situation will only worsen in the months to come. What about American exports and imports?
The only good news Americans can cling to is the fact the United States is not nearly so dependent on exports as most other countries. Farms in America, for instance, are mostly owned by huge corporations that are far more capable of handling market fluctuations and individual farmers who once fed the country. Oil and gas are a huge problem, as are the travel, tourism, food, and entertainment sectors. The biggest problem for Trump and the other politicians is the joblessness that is about to shatter the incumbent president’s hopes of reelection. This is why Trump is so keen to reboot the country before Easter. He says he thinks it’s a “beautiful time” and that he thinks it would be a super timeline to try and reopen the U.S. by then, but what he means is that millions of Americans being jobless when the Easter Bunny shows up… Well, this is the level of “Trump” disasters the American leadership considers dire. This Moody’s outlook for China may be a premonition for America in the coming weeks:
“In recently released data from China (A1 stable) offers a glimpse into the impact of the unfolding consumption shock. The official data suggests a sharp contraction relative to last year in retail sales (-20.5%), industrial production (-13.5%), fixed-asset investment (-24.5%), and job losses (5 million) in January and February.”
Here’s the gist. President Trump and most of the leadership in the U.S. are dealing with this crisis from a “fantasy” perspective, or as if the country was somehow prepared for catastrophes like COVID-19. The United States spends untolled trillions on national defense, homeland security, cybersecurity, and an unspeakable list of programs. Pharmaceutical companies in the country rake in trillions as well, and when the American people call on the industry in a crisis?
“Easter would be a beautiful timeline. It’s a beautiful time of year.”
The connective tissue of America is about to be put under coronavirus stress, whether or not every citizen comes down with the bug, every man, woman, and child will be affected. A $1200 loan from Uncle Sam is not going to help. And yes, the stimulus checks are a loan from the world central banks. The stock market rallied on the announcement of the stimulus package by the government, but the U.S. passing China in the number of cases is already pushing the Dow Jones back down as of Friday, March 27. And once the “lag” numbers start coming in, when Easter rolls over families because of the employment situation, and as more families are touched by the death toll, the situation is NOT going to get better anytime soon.
There is no happy ending to the story of the American hegemony that failed. Being a ruler can be a great thing when the sun is shining, but when catastrophe dashes hope kings usually head for asylum. It will be interesting to see where Donald Trump and the EU’s mediocre heads of state end up.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”