The new Trump era begins, with risks and fatal choices. In Europe, time has run out

Trump's return to the presidency of the United States represented a historic turning point, opening up scenarios of great change: the return of the power of states, globalisation that is unlikely to return at least as we have known it, the development of international trade that will have to come to terms with a new era of tariffs and protectionism. Equally certain is the increasingly evident polarisation between the United States and China, with Europe increasingly a crock pot between two iron pots, forced to come to terms with Germany in recession, France's increasingly evident difficulties, and the dramatic lack of adequate leadership. All this against a backdrop of geopolitics as the determining variable, with some sixty wars underway and the lacerations induced by the conflict in Ukraine and the carnage in the Middle East. That is why the advisory board of the Trento Festival of Economics decided on the following title for the 20th edition: Risks and fatal choices. Europe at the crossroads.

Never as at this stage have the certainties of the past given way to great questions, made ominous by the fact that in the atomic age even chance can make all of humanity pay the price. Peoples arrive at the rendezvous in the worst conditions. The waning of ideologies has left a cosmic void, religions have lost their grip or are the breeding ground of the worst fanaticism, social networks have won the battle of superficiality and lost the opportunity to represent an expansion of democracy. What is more, the shadow of a new protagonist whose contours have yet to be clarified is looming over us: artificial intelligence, which has what it takes to represent a new revolution, not only industrial, the most important of all.

Fatal risks because balances on which the future of mankind depends are at stake, and all this without adequate levels of awareness and knowledge. That is why events such as the Festival of Economics, to be held from 22 to 25 May 2025, represent an exceptional occasion to ask questions, to debate, to reflect. The Roman Empire dominated the world. Yet it has dissolved.

Today, the primacy of the West is being challenged and the pendulum swings to the East, with India overtaking China in population growth and economic development. Trump's America thinks mainly of itself. Europe has a full belly, is divided, packed with bureaucracy, lacks adequate leaders and is unable to counteract the demographic winter while at a stone's throw Africa, a young continent rich in raw materials, is trying to make its way by doubling its population.

Therefore, in Europe as in Italy, the time for choices has come. Here too, the proverb never too late applies. Our future, everyone's future, is linked to choices that must be made, that are not taken for granted but that can be the start of a turning point. Perhaps the key to success, and to hope, is first of all the rediscovery of a new humanism, which rejects war as a means of conflict resolution, exactly as it is written in the Italian Constitution. Respect for others and sharing the primary value of peace must be the premise for an economic development that reduces the differences between the very rich and the very poor, between the successful and the unsuccessful. The paths to follow are the development of the economy and of doing business as an antidote to decadence, the production of energy from renewable and sustainable sources, and gender equality as a common goal and means of mobilising available resources.