This might sound assertive to you, but global economy is on the verge of one of the biggest disasters in history. The reason for this is the trade wars which the U.S. administration has been thoroughly fueling for some time now. When the process first started, I warned those who were quick to call it “economic protectionism” and stated that this is beyond protectionism, that it could even be classified as “economic racism” and that this mindset could drag the world into an “economic disaster.” To be honest, I too had no clue in the beginning that the process would run so quick.
In order to identify the problem, the terms need to be defined properly. According to commonly accepted theories, economic crises are a natural outcome of the established capitalist system. Some economists see crises as a necessity for the continuation of the capitalist system. In this sense, economic crises emerge as a result of flawed or deficient operations. Yet the risk the world is currently facing is very much beyond a crisis. Ignoring international law, the U.S. administration is sabotaging global trade through embargoes and sanctions, preventing money transfers that need to be made as a result of trade, making illegal tariff hikes and applying destructive customs tax amounts, making statements that are capable of causing exchange rate shocks in ally countries, supplying thousands of trucks full of weapons to terrorist organizations, trying recklessly to intervene in judicial processes, and finally, applying policies that will use religion for global politics. In brief, it is dragging the world to the verge of an inexplicable disaster. Let us not forget that crises may be compensated, but disasters will cause irreparable damages.
Like I have always been saying, the world's economic center of gravity is rapidly shifting from the West to the East, and the U.S. is extremely disturbed by this. What's more, the world is becoming increasingly multipolar and the U.S. is not able to act as freely as it used to in the rest of the world. Unable to fully overcome the 2008 crisis, U.S. is increasingly panicking. The U.S., which is starting to lose its strategic power, is trying to turn the odds in its favor again by using muscle power. In this aspect, I see the reason behind these destructive attitudes as the panic of an actor that is losing its power, rather than an overly confident country's caprice.
The whole world saw what the U.S. did to Halkbank with an arbitrary practice. It has started to do even more against Turkey now by disregarding international law. What it is doing to Iran, China and the European Union in general is obvious. These unlawful and arbitrary practices have, to be honest, triggered a major "global awakening" as well. Currently, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Russia, and China, among several other countries, are saying that confidence in the U.S. and the dollar is increasingly dissipating.
For example, Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is claiming that in order to save the nuclear deal with Iran, the EU needs to form a "payment system" that is independent from the U.S.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov points out that Russia has currently largely reduced its dollar-based investments and that the dollar used to be known as an international currency until recently, but in the current period it has come to an extremely dangerous position. What's more is that it is giving signals that it may give up using the dollar in its oil sales. Our Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak says that the dollar has lost confidence and almost turned into a tool for political punishment. There is more, but in short, the world is in pursuit of an alternative payment mechanism, countries are encouraging trade using local currencies, central banks are making new swap agreements among each other and taking their gold reserves out of the U.S.
We know who started the process and how. Therefore, it is clear how this disaster can be prevented by reversing the process. Using an extremely smart strategy, Turkey placed the entire process on the grounds of "international law" and included the rest of the world in it. Now, governments are making statements at the highest level, stating the U.S.'s lawlessness. In this sense, the people and institutes in the U.S. that have common sense need to swiftly carry the process to legal grounds and withdraw all unlawful applications, primarily those against Turkey
