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Philippe Gijsels - Chief Strategist At BNP Paribas Fortis

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The following is with Philippe Gijsels, the Chief Strategy Officer at BNP Paribas Fortis - he co-wrote a book last year called The New World Economy in 5 Trends - which within, reveals much of the new map we now inhabit, especially in light of the perplexing chaos of spearheaded by America’s sloppy leadership in the last weeks. 

The following was written by Philippe in the last week of march, 2025.

“There are decades that nothing happens, and then there are weeks that decades happen. The last couple of weeks were in the latter ballpark, big time. 

The magnificent 7 are correcting and the dollar is sliding, raising questions whether we are witnessing the end of US exceptionalism. 

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean European policy makers start to realize that riding the waves of global change in the sidecar of the US is no longer an option. Germany is preparing to start running deficits not seen since the re-unification to boost its investments in defense and infrastructure. Maybe in 10 to 15 years-time we will look back at this time in history as the moment that Europe took its fate into its own hands. However, it will not be a walk in the park. The road that the old continent will have to travel to be once again a voice on the world stage will be long, hard and winding. 

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, China is still struggling with its balance sheet recession. The Japanese experience teaches us that monetary stimulus does not work when companies and consumers will do anything to restore their balance sheet after the real estate market crashed. Saving and not investing nor consuming is the name of the game. The only way to get the engine of the second largest economy in the world running again will be through good old fashioned Keynesian stimulus, fiscal stimulus that is. There is a very big chance that this will be exactly the medicine that will be administered by the Chinese government in the coming months, probably after they have a little more visibility on what the exact measures by the Trump administration will be in their trade war with China. However, using visibility and Donald Trump in one sentence maybe is not the best of ideas. 

In short, we are looking at a world in which the only constant will be change and volatility. This volatility originates from the geopolitical as well as from the economic domain”

Philippe is an erudite bookophile and a banker, a combination that seems not uncommon among the best investors. He and I have been speaking since last year in anticipation of recording this podcast today. I hope you enjoy it. 

I wanted to get the interview into the meat of the book as quickly as possible, therefore, took more liberties with editing than I usually do and have excised a part of the podcast to the end of the discussion, in an effort to address the trends of the book more quickly. The excised component  was an explanation and brief discussion on the idea of Reflexivity, which although is simple to understand theoretically, still something I’m trying to get my head around in practice. 

I posted on LinkedIn in an effort to find distribution on a social media platform. Follow me there if you’re on LinkedIn.

Consider sharing this interview with a mate, colleague, brother, sister, whoever you think might be interested in this as well.