Dialogue Session - Vision on the World Political and Economic Prospects

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This report was originally published on the website of the Middle East Institute ( mei.edu) The following study discusses the role of Lebanon’s gold reserves in the establishment of a currency board and evaluates four policy options: a true currency board, constrained central bank reform, full dollarization, and a unified managed float. Gold reserves are relevant under all four. The conclusion is consistent across them: no monetary framework, however carefully designed and howe ...

World trade was more resilient than expected during 2025. Its growth probably resulted from the way the rest of the world reacted to the U.S. tariffs. Other factors also had an impact, including moves by exporters to the U.S. in the first half of 2025 to get ahead of the tariffs, and the boom in global tech capital expenditures driven by investment in artificial intelligence (AI).The trade pattern observed in 2025 and early 2026 could point to a new architecture of world trade. Ther ...

Trade agreements, in earlier eras, were instruments of exchange. In the present one, they have become instruments of order. The EU–Mercosur agreement, after more than two decades of negotiation, reaches a decisive moment—not merely as a framework for tariff reduction, but as a mechanism through which competing visions of economic organization are projected and contested. ...