Angelica Donati commented on Cuoreeconomico.
We are still a long way from exiting the pandemic: the growing data of new infections – which return to fill newspapers and television news – remind us of this, but also, dramatically, the economic data. Until a vaccine is found for this invisible enemy we will have to learn to live with this “new normal”.
Masks, distancing and (above all) a sense of collective responsibility can contribute to limiting the viral load, but to avoid the risk – now quite concrete – of a global economic collapse, extraordinary and innovative measures based on new paradigms will be needed.
Let’s stay with the current situation: the GDP of the United States, according to the data just released, fell by -31.7%. An element that, however, does not only concern the stars and stripes economic trend, but will also have inevitable repercussions on our country.
The United States has always represented an important outlet market for Italian exports. Even the third according to the data just before the pandemic (9.2%) and in seventh position among the supply markets for Italy (3.8%), with a trade deficit clearly favorable to our country. The latest data on US GDP must be read in a broader perspective, looking at the global scenario: according to the OECD trade exchanges between G20 countries in the second quarter of 2020 suffered a sharp decline (-17.7% exports, -16.7% imports compared to the January-March period). A heavy contraction, as well as the worst result since 2009, the year since the global financial crisis. In this context, tried by the pandemic and made even more unstable by the fragile geopolitical balances (think of US-China relations), the US administration must return to looking at Italy as a reliable country and an important commercial and economic partner.
There may be many areas of collaboration, starting with the infrastructural and construction sector, but they will have to move in a new logic capable of placing at the center – in addition to people’s safety and health – also the paradigm of sustainable development. A necessity made inevitable and even more pressing by the radical changes affecting our cities, “rewritten” by the new demands imposed by the change in working models.
Building solid international relations and strong commercial partnerships, in a win-win logic that concerns not only trade in goods, but also the flow of projects and ideas, must become one of the pillars for recovery: not only that of individual states (USA , Italy …), but in favor of a global renaissance.