The race for the presidency in the United States depicts a divided country in danger of collapse. However, the economy indicates the opposite and the stock markets are experiencing the euphoria caused by artificial intelligence.
Historians assure that it is a country in the process of political and institutional decomposition. Investors, on the other hand, have never felt so happy: Wall Street has set 22 daily historical records in the last quarter. Political scientists speak of a very polarized society in which basic consensuses have been broken. Economists, in contrast, rub their hands over the benefits that the manna of artificial intelligence can bring.
Stock markets do not always reflect the real economy. But can a country be subject to such extreme diagnoses? In theory no. But if we talk about the United States, the answer is yes.
The country of the stars and stripes is perceived today abroad as a tired pachyderm lacking reflexes in international politics, forced to listen to the voice of actors like China and medium powers. Gone is the decade of the 90s, in which Washington ruled the world alone.
However, although there are those who view the United States as an empire that is collapsing, the truth is that its soft power has never been so effective. Thanks, in part, to the influence of social networks, which since the 2010s have changed the way we consume culture and entertainment in the world.
The collapse of a social system is sometimes preceded by a great internal division. Joe Biden, an unpopular and apparently fragile president, is today the only obstacle in Donald Trump's race towards a second presidency in the White House. Only a few tens of thousands of votes in some key states will separate the winner from the challenger in next November's election.
Trump has already said what he will do if he wins. In his first term (2017-2020) he caused a first dislocation of the international order with winks and praise to Putin and other autocrats. Now the damage could be greater. If he breaks with Ukraine, as he warns, he will leave Europe alone against an emboldened Russia. And he will cause a serious crisis in NATO, an organization that he dislikes because he has always thought that the Europeans do not pay for its defense (and in that, he is somewhat right).
The United States can also leave agreements such as climate change: Trump is a denier and defender of fossil industries. The relationship with China will not improve. Finally, he threatens a universal 10% tariff that would change world trade.
Behind closed doors, Trump wants revenge and take to court his political enemies (Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton) and those who served with him but whom he considers traitors, such as Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Heritage Foundation, the think tank preparing Trump's return, talks about purging the upper echelons of the administration, security and military and replacing them with faithful.
This is the plan if Trump wins. But if he loses, nothing guarantees that he will accept defeat and we will not witness a second version of the assault on the Capitol like the one on January 6, 2021. That is, chaos and unpredictability are the trademark of the house. Chaos is the strategy that Steve Bannon, the closest thing to his ideologue, prescribed him in his beginnings in politics. Chaos is the most coveted gift for Vladimir Putin, who hopes that the United States of 2025 will resemble something like the Soviet Union of 1989, the one that collapsed. And, like him, the entire continental extreme right attacked the European Parliament.
Now take a breath. Breathe. The country where such terrible things can happen has, on the other hand, a solid economy. In better condition than the rest of other large economies. Better than Germany, of course, in a situation of stagnation, and with it half of Europe. Better than China, immersed in a very risky model change. The United States has overcome the worst omens. Employment grows. Salaries are growing. And where it was written that a recession was going to occur, now there is what economists call a “soft landing.”
The best-lit showcase of that strength is a stock market doped with the promise of the Magnificent Seven (the group of technology companies that includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla) that artificial intelligence will inflate their profits and cause a formidable leap in the productivity of the economy.
Artificial intelligence requires enormous amounts of energy and water to thrive. And not everyone is convinced of it: there are those who think that there is more speculation than tangible reality behind it. But nothing will scare investors, already accustomed to living with uncertainty. They have learned to live with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, with a cold war with China or with a devilish geopolitics that causes situations like that of TikTok, threatened by the US Congress. They are not going to stop to think if the euphoria because of that technology it is actually a new bubble.
Silicon Valley is the talisman of American resilience. Three causes converge in the open gap between the economies of the United States and Europe in the last two decades (until 2000, they were very equal). The first is immigration, huge there, converted into a threat here. The second is energy, cheaper there due to fracking, scarce or non-existent in Europe. The third is technology, in which the United States seems to have left Europe behind.
