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Global Economy

The World Economy’s Centre Of Gravity Shifts To Asia

On the last day of October 2025, leaders from the 21 nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will meet in the city of Gyeongju in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) for the organisation’s 33rd summit. Since its founding in 1989 in Canberra, Australia, APEC has promoted building a zone of ‘free and open trade’ – a concept outlined by the Bogor Goals, which came out of the summit in Indonesia in 1994. APEC is a creature of its times. First, it emerged as an instrument of Japan’s Pacific Economic Cooperation Council with the goal of building regional supply chains after the Plaza Accord (1985) appreciated the yen against the dollar.

Eurasia’s Re-Alignment In The Face Of Late Stage Barbarism

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s meetings in China last week (September 2 and 3) took a remarkable step forward in defining how the world will be dividing into two great blocks as Global Majority countries seek to free their economies not only from Donald Trump’s tariff chaos, but from the U.S.-sponsored increasingly Hot War attempts to impose unipolar control on the entire world’s economy by isolating countries seeking to resist this control with trade and monetary chaos as well as direct military confrontation. The SCO meetings became a pragmatic forum to define the basic principles that are to replace other countries’ trade, monetary and military independence from U.S. with mutual trade and investment among themselves, increasingly isolated from reliance on U.S. markets for their exports, U.S. credit for their domestic economies, and U.S. dollars for trade and investment transactions among themselves.

How The World Can Free Itself From US Financial Colonialism

We are all living in a time of great change. There are massive geopolitical shifts happening in the world today, and we see the rise of new organizations like BRICs, which now represents more than 50% of the global population. The 20 countries of the extended BRICS+ now also make up more than 40% of world GDP, when measured at purchasing power parity (PPP). These new Global South-led organizations like BRICS represent the Global Majority. But there’s still a problem, which is that the most powerful international organizations today are largely dominated by the United States and the Western powers. This includes institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank. These are organizations where the U.S. is the only country on Earth that has veto power.

How The Global Majority Can Free Itself From US Financial Colonialism

Industrial capitalism was revolutionary in its fight to free Europe’s economies and parliaments from the hereditary privileges and vested interests that survived from feudalism. To make their manufactures competitive in world markets, industrialists needed to end the land rent paid to Europe’s landed aristocracies, the economic rents extracted by trade monopolies, and interest paid to bankers who played no role in financing industry. These rentier incomes add to the economy’s price structure, raising the living wage and other business expenses, thus eating into profits.

Militarism And Organized Crime Against The Development Of Peoples

In recent days, the member governments of the BRICS+ group have met in the capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. This year, compared to last year's meeting in Kazan, Russia, no significant progress is expected due to the apparent lack of full commitment by the Brazilian government to the development of an economic pole truly independent of North American and European dominance. Currently, the year-on-year growth figures of the largest world economies show that the economies of China and India are growing by more than 5% while the North American economy is growing by 2% on a downward trend, Japan and the United Kingdom by less than 2% and countries such as France, Italy and Germany by less than 1%.

A New Asian Triad: ASEAN, China, And The Persian Gulf Align

On 26–27 May, the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, hosted the first-ever Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)–Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)–China summit, bringing together three of the Global South’s most economically dynamic regions for a trilateral meeting of immense strategic consequence. While not formalized as a binding alliance, the summit marks the beginning of a bold realignment – one that unites East and West Asia via economic interdependence, shared development visions, and a collective desire to escape western economic coercion. The summit is historic not only because of its trilateral format, but because it signals the emergence of a flexible Global South bloc capable of recalibrating regional and global power balances.

China-Celac Forum Brings Latin America And China Together

Ten years after its creation, the China-CELAC Forum has consolidated its position as one of the most relevant platforms for dialogue between Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. “The platform has strengthened cooperation between CELAC members and China, based on sovereign equality, mutual respect, plurality, and shared benefits,” states the meeting’s final joint declaration. Under the theme “Planning development and revitalization together, jointly building a China-LAC community with a shared future,” the meeting brought together representatives from more than 30 countries and leaders such as Xi Jinping (China), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Gustavo Petro (Colombia), and Gabriel Boric (Chile).

Is Trump The Last Straw For The Dollar System?

As regular viewers of Geopolitical Economy Hour will know, we have done many programmes on the dollar’s shaky basis, and on how and why we can expect its role as world money to unravel. Now, suddenly, the Western press is full of forebodings of the demise of the dollar. The Financial Times alone, normally a loyal proponent of the wonders of the dollar system, has published a series of stories, each marshalling a different reason for the dollar system’s possibly imminent demise — over a dozen in April alone. So let me start us off with the following observations: What is interesting is how much these recent stories attribute to Trump the dollar system’s possible demise – evidenced by the simultaneous sell-off of US stocks, bonds, and dollars, which is surprising given that the latter two are generally considered “safe haven” assets which are bought when there is a sell-off of riskier assets like stocks.

Behind Trump’s Wishful Thinking On ‘Reindustrialization’

In the 1950s, when Japan and much of Europe was in ruins, the U.S. accounted for 50% of the world’s global production. By the 1960s, this was 35%, declining to 25% by the 1980s. By 2025, the U.S. share of global production had fallen to 12% as production grew elsewhere. (itif.org, Feb. 18) The capitalist class in the U.S. has grown frantic about this reversal. Its focus is on China, and it blames China for its spectacular level of modern industrial development. In advanced technology manufacturing the future is clear: China holds 45% of the global share to 11% for the U.S. Higher levels of production need a high-tech infrastructure to move what is produced to global markets. 

Jeffrey Sachs: Trump’s Impoverishing Tariffs

U.S. President Donald Trump is trashing the world trade system over a basic economic fallacy. He wrongly claims that America’s trade deficit is caused by the rest of the world ripping off the U.S., repeatedly stating things such as, “Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has ever been ripped off in history…” Trump aims to close the trade deficit by imposing tariffs, thereby impeding imports and restoring trade balance (or inducing other countries to end their rip-offs of America). Yet Trump’s tariffs will not close the trade deficit but will instead impoverish Americans and harm the rest of the world.

Trump Takes Aim At Globalization On ‘Liberation Day’

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that the United States will impose a 10 percent tariff on all imports and additional, much higher rates for specific nations, in what he called “Liberation Day” for U.S. trade policy.  The universal baseline tariff will begin on April 5 and the added penalties will take effect by April 9. The countries being specifically targeted for being “unfair trade partners” are China (which is being hit with a 34 percent tariff), Japan (24 percent), and the nations included in the European Union (20 percent). There is increasing fear among sectors of the American ruling class and some think tanks that Trump’s tariffs are fueling geopolitical shifts and further jeopardizing U.S. hegemony.

How A War With Iran (For Israel) Could Crash The US Economy

The “winds of war” are blowing toward Iran. This is the war for which Israeli donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, along with pro-Israel organizations such as AIPAC and the ADL, paid US President Donald Trump hundreds of millions of dollars over two election cycles. But it’s not only the Israeli lobby banging the war drums; American Evangelicals – especially groups like “Christians United for Israel” – also support war, believing it will “save Israel” from the “Iranian menace.” Evangelical membership in the 119th Congress (2025–27) is high. War with Iran is not (yet) popular in the US, but – just as with Iraq – consent will be manufactured by Washington elites and the media.

Trump Vs. The Deep State

Wow. In a series of rapid-fire developments last week, the new Trump regime has decisively joined the battle with the deep state on the national security side. This is big, or could be. Either Donald Trump will begin to exert political control over the invisible government or the invisible government will sink Donald Trump just as it did during his first term as president. Let us be attentive. The attack on USAID, the telephone call with Vladimir Putin, the incipient alienation of the Kiev regime, new talk of talks with the Islamic Republic, Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation as director of national intelligence: I don’t know if these events and their timing reflect a concerted plan, back-of-an-envelope inspirations, or the president’s thinking but not necessarily the thinking of those around him.

Musk’s Access To US Treasury Payments Risks Global Financial Meltdown

Whether or not you share the zeal for cuts in government spending embraced by President Donald Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk, you should know that giving Musk and his callow team of computer coders access to payment systems at the U. S. Department of Treasury risks a global financial meltdown. It doesn’t make such an event certain, but it lowers the odds considerably. Here’s why: First, the U.S. Department of Treasury processes some $6 trillion in payments each year. If that system were to come to a halt for even a relatively short period of time, the consequences would be devastating, not only for the U.S. economy but for the global economy as well.

The Boomerang Effect: Shortsighted Policies Cause Decline Of US Hegemony

The world is changing rapidly, driven by the necessity of creating alternative institutions to counter US domination and aggression. As the multipolar world rises, it is a critical time for the United States to re-evaluate and change its policies and practices in order to remain an active member of the global community. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ben Norton of Geopolitical Economy about the ways that US policy, the Washington Consensus, have backfired and what the growing US deficit means. Norton outlines what can be done to counter the current path the US is taking.
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