(Mike Segar/Reuters)
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is worried about the future of the free world.
"The geopolitical situation is probably the most complicated and dangerous since World War II," said Dimon during a talk at the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday.
Dimon pointed to the Ukraine war, where "300,000 Russian troops invaded a democratic nation on the border of NATO and threatened nuclear blackmail," as an example of the unprecedented global climate. "You also have the terrorist activity in Israel, which is now a little bit of a powder keg in the Middle East," he added.
All of this conflict, he said, is affecting "oil, gas, trade and military relationships."
On top of that, he said, the US-China relationship has become even more complex because of their different positions on the war in Ukraine.
"The world order that formed after WWII, Bretton Woods, WTO [the World Trade Organization], and the UN is kind of being challenged," he said. "If this doesn't go the right way, you could easily see a world that goes into more chaos as people realign their allies and relationships."
Dimon said on Tuesday that he was surprised things haven't gotten worse for oil and gas prices.
A recent increase in gas prices is reversing as the Middle East fears gradually unwind. The national average for a gallon of regular fell by a penny to $3.67 a gallon Tuesday, according to AAA. That's still 14 cents higher than a month ago, but it's flat from a year ago.
"It doesn't take a lot to send oil and gas prices back up to $120," he said. US oil currently sits around $83 per barrel.
But the current geopolitical landscape, said Dimon, is far more important than the current state of the economy.
"I don't even like talking about them in the same breath," he said. "One of them is about the future of the free world and one is about something we're all used to, like the weather."
If Russia does win in Ukraine, said Dimon, NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization founded in 1949 to guarantee the freedom and security of its member states through political and military means – would be tested.
"That's really dangerous," he said.
This is not the first time Dimon has warned that the world is on the brink of a massive realignment.
In his annual letter to shareholders earlier this month Dimon rang the alarm, warning that geopolitical worries should come before any economic concerns.
A growing deficit: Dimon also expressed concern about the growing US deficit and debt on Tuesday.
The country's national debt is now over $34.5 trillion, or about $103,000 for every American. That means the country spends nearly $2.4 billion in interest each day.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell noted earlier this year that "the US is on an unsustainable fiscal path… the debt is growing faster than the economy."
The US now spends more on debt service than on national defense and security.
Historian Niall Ferguson has also warned that empires often collapse when the costs of servicing their debt exceed the costs of national security. "Any great power that's spending more on debt service than defense is probably not going to be great for much longer," he said in a recent interview.
Dimon, who joked that he would like to be president only if he didn't have to campaign, referenced Ferguson's remarks on Tuesday, adding that he worried that excessive government borrowing would keep inflation higher for longer.
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