After the Bell: Apocalypse Now – Trump 2.0, surging religious extremism, and the geopolitical and investment risks

23 Jan 2025

Fund managers don’t often consider religion when making investment decisions, even if they can sometimes seem like the product of a wing and a prayer. But they are missing a very visible hand that has been shaking global markets throughout the 21st century, and the worst is yet to come.

Donald Trump’s triumphant return to the White House – with the enthusiastic support of white Christian nationalists whose stated goal is the elimination of America’s secular state – should place religious extremism firmly on their radars as a major geopolitical and investment risk.

I cannot think of any period in history since the 17th-century wars of religion in Europe in the wake of the Reformation when fanatical faith presented risk on such a grand and terrifying scale.

If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: the nuclear codes of the world’s leading superpower are now in the hands of a vengeful man who claims God saved him from an assassin’s bullet to “Make America Great Again” – and his most devoted followers believe that.

What was once called the “Religious Right” – a movement I extensively covered when I was a Dallas-based journalist for Reuters from 2006 to 2011 – has morphed into a charismatic political crusade known as the “New Apostolic Reformation”, which seeks to transform America into a theocracy.

And America’s far-right Christians are not the only religious warriors heating up the political climate.

Militant Islamists remain on the march from Mozambique to Afghanistan and beyond; Hindu nationalism is rising as a political force in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi; and then there’s the warrant of arrest issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza committed in the name of a nationalism rooted in the oldest Abrahamic faith.

The vile crimes of Hamas have also been religiously motivated. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church in Russia strongly backs Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, regarding it literally as “God’s Will” in a war with the West.

This all calls to mind the late Samuel P Huntington’s concept of a “Clash of Civilisations”, which holds that people’s religion and culture will be the main powder kegs for conflict in the post-Cold War era.

So, what does this have to do with markets?

Well, the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 by Islamist extremists were certainly “market moving” – the New York Stock Exchange was closed for the rest of that tumultuous week while US airspace was shut for two days.

One recent estimate by the Carnegie Corporation of the costs to the US of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – including future obligations to veterans – is about $8-trillion. That is equal to more than 25% of America’s GDP.

Trust me, the bond markets have taken due note. And all because of attacks carried out in the name of a violent version of Islam at a time when a right-wing evangelical was president of the US.

The 21st century has witnessed a growing global backlash of the sacred against the secular, and if you believe God is on your side, then compromise is a pathway to Hell.

Trump’s political resurrection will literally throw fuel on these flames.

WEF’s risk outlook

Take, for example, the World Economic Forum’s most recent risk outlook.

Based on a “global risks perception survey” of 900 experts worldwide, it provides a risk ranking.

At the top are state armed conflict, extreme weather events, geoeconomic confrontation, misinformation/disinformation and societal polarisation.

The list has more than 30 categories, and religious extremism is not one of them. But it should be there, and at the top.

Just look at the “Big Five”. Is religion in a fundamentalist form a possible trigger for state armed conflict?

Nuclear-armed Islamic Pakistan and Hindu nationalist-ruled India glare at each over one of the most militarised borders on Earth. And a view of American history that it is a Christian – indeed Protestant – nation with a mission blessed by God is feeding Trump’s messianic vision of imperial conquest regarding the Panama Canal and Greenland.

Extreme weather will also be made worse in the name of God, even while the faithful see it as His work rather than that of humanity.

Trump’s denial of the climate crisis is a reflection of the views of his evangelical, white nationalist political base. The Anthropocene and fossil fuels are satanically inspired fictions if you believe – as tens of millions of Trump’s most ardent supporters do – that the age of the Earth is only about 6,000 years.

And Trump’s demolition of regulations to address the climate crisis and his promise to “drill, baby, drill” are major setbacks to the global drive to reduce CO2 emissions since the US is the world’s second-biggest emitter. But Trump clearly wants to overtake China on that podium.

“Misinformation/disinformation?” Well, the denial of science is pretty dangerous, and much of it stems from radical and literal interpretations of faith. And this is all a supercharged catalyst for “societal polarisation”.

“Geo-economic” confrontation is also a given if you think God’s people are being ripped off by trade treaties and the ditching of the gold standard.

That brings us back to the subject of markets and investment, which have exposure to risks rising from religion. America seems on its way to becoming the “Gilead” of Margaret Atwood’s chilling 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale.

If you are a big global company and want to set up shop in Texas or any other red state with draconian anti-abortion laws in the aftermath of the overturning of “Roe v Wade”, would you think twice? Would you have difficulty, say, attracting talented and highly educated female staff? Or gay or black staff for that matter in some states in the current political climate?

One of the reasons so many US evangelical Christians regard Trump as a literal godsend was his appointment in his first term of three justices to the US Supreme Court, giving it a hefty ultra-conservative majority to overturn “Roe”, which held that the US Constitution protected abortion rights.

For decades, this was the political Holy Grail of the Religious Right and this has emboldened God’s army under the diabolical phrase “Your body, my choice”.

This will have far-reaching economic consequences – theocracy is costly.

In the Showmax TV series based on Atwood’s novel, there is a commander in charge of economic policy who is frustrated by his inability to get the economy back on its feet. Perhaps because half of the potential labour force is forbidden from reading and no foreign investor wants to go near the place.

This may all come across as divorced from reality – but Trump’s current reality show is real.

Trump’s pardoning of those convicted of the violent attempt to steal the election on his behalf on 6 January 2021 has made extreme right-wing political violence – by many who see the former reality TV star as a warrior for God – acceptable if it is done to further Trump and his agenda.

This has white Christian nationalism written all over it, and the threat of right-wing violence to enforce the will of Trump and the Lord surely raises the political and economic risk profile of the US.

I hasten to add that I do not mean to denigrate all religion and people of faith. South Africa stands as a prime example of how faith can be a force for good and evil.

Apartheid’s apologists and enforcers claimed to have a stern Calvinist God on their side, while Desmond Tutu drew courage and moral clarity from his reading of the Bible in response.

And who does more good deeds in this country than Dr Imtiaz Sooliman and his Gift of the Givers (their compassion springing from a deep and generous well of Islamic faith)?

But when readings of sacred texts lead to intolerance, bigotry, misogyny and the dismissal of science at a time when the planet is in grave ecological danger and the political temperature is rising faster than the climate’s, a lot of risks are about to be unleashed.

And they will evoke a biblical plague. DM

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WEF’s risk outlook