‘Forgive us that we change the rules by which the game of life is played,
and never learn to wield the tools which could see joy and hope remade.’
Verse from a hymn by Martin Leckebusch (b. 1962)
Our commentary ‘Walking into the Unknown’ on 11th November, shortly after the U.S. election, set out a clear warning which is increasingly turning into a reality. Financial markets may have displayed short periods of euphoria, but their continual reassessment process has led not to only significant market price falls, as we have seen over the past fortnight, but also major business realignments.
There have been a couple of business decisions which are distinctly strategic in character, both involving China. The first is the purchase by BlackRock of the port facilities at either end of the Panama Canal, and the second is to accelerate the transfer of chip manufacturing from Taiwan to Intel factories within the United States. The former underpins Trump's determination to secure his own sphere of influence, Central and North America, but the latter will send shivers down the spines of the Taiwanese people. Roger Boyes' article in The Times on 5th February headed, 'Why it might suit Trump to sell out Taiwan' gave a foretaste of what might be expected.
So much media focus has been taken by Ukraine over the past fortnight that little notice has been paid to the fact that BRICS is very much in the ascendancy, and Trump's actions are accelerating that to the extent that it may spell the end for the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If that happens, and bearing in mind the huge scale of the U.S. national debt burden at $35 trillion, there will be all hell to pay in the financial markets.
As we've said in the past, short-termism is democracy’s Achilles heel; and King Donald is deploying short-termism as if there is no tomorrow. Meanwhile his opposite numbers, particularly in China, play a very long game.
The combined GDP of BRICS nations now exceeds that of the G7 by comfortable margin, and more and more countries are queuing up to join that group of nations. They are a motley crew of mainly autocratic regimes, but they share a common distaste for western democracy, and the United States in particular.
The Renminbi provides the core currency for the group whilst at the same time having its exchange rate against the U.S. dollar tightly controlled, as we commented on 10th February 2025. Trump's imposition of tariffs with China may well bring this unstable situation to a halt but, if it does, the Renminbi may well emerge the stronger as a result.
As in the U.S., European nations are also saddled with far too much debt; the recent resolve to commit a further €800 billion to defence spending will only worsen the Euro's position as a potential alternative reserve currency, if things do go downhill for the U.S. dollar. Again, short-termism has driven our economies for decades and has seriously handicapped European capacity to respond to global challenges. The suggestion in last Friday’s Times that ‘Trump could actually Make Europe Great Again’ by Emma Duncan contains a fair amount of euphemism, notwithstanding the determined and common sense response taken by European leaders to the chaos coming out of Washington.
What action could sensible western democracies take to deliver a long-term coherent and civilised response to the rise of the BRICS group of nations?
Firstly, they need a long-term governance counterbalance to the short-term structure of their executive and parliamentary arrangements. In the United Kingdom, this means replacing the second chamber with representatives elected on the basis of how people would like to see the country — and the world — in fifty years’ time.
Secondly, political parties need to make proper accommodation for those most in need. This means, from the social democrat and Labour standpoints, dispensing with universality. This 75-year-old welfare concept — that governments should provide key elements of welfare such as health, social care and education free of charge to everyone, no matter what their ability to pay — has to go. As Emma Duncan points out in her article, Europe accounts for just 7% of the world’s population but half of its welfare spending. The ending of universality will strengthen our ability to provide targeted support where it's most needed, and it will enable efficient, competing services to emerge in order to replace current dysfunctional welfare monopolies.
Thirdly, and particularly during what will be quite a long period of rebuilding European defence capacity, governments need to work in partnership with philanthropists in order to ensure that key long-term aims or building a more equitable society — such as more focus on inter-generational rebalancing — can be delivered. This will require regulation and logistic support from government, but the funding must come from philanthropists prepared to walk alongside those most in need.
Fourthly, urgent steps must be taken to strengthen global governance, even if the United States does not wish to be part of it. This means that representatives need to be directly elected to the United Nations, not appointed, and that the UN must develop an international police force which can ensure that due respect is given to international law without resorting to military action. It will also allow different groupings of countries, including BRICS and the G7, to build reliable working relationships for the future as opposed to the current jockeying for power.
Above all, this must be accompanied by a genuine respect for others no matter how different they are.
When I was running The Share Centre, we adopted a set of core values to guide the business forward. One of these was ‘Respect for Others’, and I recall a significant board debate about the inclusion of ‘for Others’. I'm pleased to say that my colleagues understood fully the gulf between the two.
‘Am I being shown respect?’ is the bully’s demand, and it was much in evidence in that awful meeting between Trump and his team and Zelensky when they met at the White House in Washington on Friday 28th February.
In contrast, ‘Am I showing respect to others?’ challenges us not to elevate our own position: not just to encourage civilised social relationships between different people, but also to apply when support is given to those in a weaker position. It is critical that people are not stigmatised or downgraded by receiving support, and that can only be achieved by removing every hint of condescension.
We need to remember that we all come into this world with nothing, and we leave with nothing. Also, we all share the same mix of potential and intelligence, no matter what our background. These are the enduring features of equitable humanity and, so far as possible, we need to reflect them in the way we relate to others.
So, rather than encouraging a splintered approach to human endeavour and groupings across the world, let's use our democratic heritage to find global maturity in a new respect for others, which can cope with those human stupidities of which we wrote a fortnight ago.
Gavin Oldham OBE
Share Radio