U.S. Vice President JD Vance listens to U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner as they attend a quadrilateral meeting between the U.S., Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar at the Lake Lucerne Summit, aimed at advancing a deal to end the Middle East conflict, at Buergenstock Resort Lake Lucerne, near Stansstad, Switzerland, June 21, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
President Donald Trump's war with Iran put the global economy on the brink of collapse, and one economist warns that it could get worse if one sector of the economy begins to show signs of weakness.
Liaquat Ahamed, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former World Bank investment chief, said during a recent episode of "The Court of History" podcast on the Legal AF Network that Trump's unilateral decision to impose tariffs on America's trading partners had already weakened the global economy before his war with Iran began. After the Iranian regime closed the Strait of Hormuz, the economy came exceedingly close to the brink, Ahamed argued.
The only thing that saved Trump from collapsing the global economy was the enormous amounts of money tech companies are spending to build data centers around the world, Ahamed added. Without that, the economy would be in a "dark place," he continued.
"The tech companies are spending trillions of dollars to build these data centers, and that is essentially sustaining the global economy," Ahamed said.
Ahamed compared the state of the global economy to recent historical crashes, borrowing the old adage attributed to Ernest Hemingway that economic crises often unfold "slowly, then very quickly."
He noted that the current value of the U.S. stock market is more than double the country's GDP, which he described as similar to the valuations seen during the dot-com bubble.
That is happening at a time when more stress is being injected into the economy. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran appear to be ramping up again after Vice President JD Vance traveled to Switzerland to negotiate a deal with the Iranian regime to end the conflict. The Iranians announced they are closing the Strait of Hormuz once again in response to Israel's continued fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the regime has described as a "red line" in the negotiations.
"Calling an end to this whole thing is very hard," Ahamed said. "On the other hand, I can assure you there will be an end."