Trump’s return to the White House, the biggest fear for the future. ideas

Thirty-five years is a lifetime. 1989 was a year in which, as now, geopolitics was placed at the first level of analyzes carried out, surpassing only economic analyses. As at any time, there were suggestive but minor international political factors in the future of humanity: the end of the terrible Stroessner dictatorship in Paraguay; The victory of the democratic opposition in free elections in Pinochet’s Chile; Its top leader Ayatollah Khomeini is buried in Iran; Preparations are underway to release Nelson from jail in South Africa soon…

Thirty-five years is a lifetime. 1989 was a year in which, as now, geopolitics was placed at the first level of analyzes carried out, surpassing only economic analyses. As at any time, there were suggestive but minor international political factors in the future of humanity: the end of the terrible Stroessner dictatorship in Paraguay; The victory of the democratic opposition in free elections in Pinochet’s Chile; Its top leader Ayatollah Khomeini is buried in Iran; Preparations to release Nelson Mandela from jail in South Africa soon, etc. But there were two elements that stood above the rest and that changed the course of things all over the world: in China, the Tiananmen Square massacre under the orders of the reformist Deng Xiaoping, and, above all, the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the great symbol of the Cold War. Which has ravaged the planet since the end of World War II.

A great exhibition in Madrid (The Berlin Wall. a world divided) now collects the history of one of the greatest symbols of division in history as a global conflict between two systems, communism and capitalism, which brought the planet to the brink of nuclear destruction between 1961 and 1989, which he Phase during which the Berlin Wall remained in place. It also describes the processes that the city’s citizens had to use to survive in a place that offered no respite.

Since the seventies, the World Economic Forum has been held in Davos (Switzerland), which tries to analyze from a very specific perspective the trends of what is happening or what is going to happen. Today, almost 35 years after the Wall fell stone by stone, the situation is characterized by geopolitics and misinformation as a weapon of war. Then, in 1989, everything became known about how East German citizens were violating inter-German borders almost overnight. When asked by reporters at a live radio and television press conference, an obscure official of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Günter Schabowski, now gone down in history) replied stammering: “As far as I know, “It is possible to put this (passage from one Germany to another) into effect immediately without any delay. And the great defeat began.”

In contrast, from the Tiananmen Square massacre, when tanks moved in to suppress the pro-democracy movement, it is still unknown today how many people died at the hands of the Chinese military and other security forces: officials never provided a figure whether they were hundreds or thousands. Could have happened.

Among the risk factors that have emerged in Davos this year, geopolitical factors are more prominent than purely economic ones. It is surprising that many analysts put the possibility above others that Donald Trump (who won the Republican primary elections in the Iowa caucuses at the same time as the first Davos meetings were taking place) could return to the White House, What this would mean is isolationism in the face of conflicts like Ukraine or the existence of a strong NATO, protectionism and the spread of false information as one of the biggest threats ahead of the confluence of increased tariffs, climate denialism and elections. Many published analyzes have focused more on the Trumpian prospect of the United States than on tensions with China over Taiwan’s sovereignty and future, or the future of Ukraine and Gaza.

The risk map is growing, but some of them are located closer to friendly territory than Russia or China, whose capacity for persuasion is already known. Geopolitics as a central variable for the behavior of governments, economic and social agents and citizens.

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