From 2015 to 2025, Beijing’s most significant macroeconomic achievement was to break free from its long-standing reliance on the property market. Instead, policymakers turned to poverty alleviation, rural revitalisation, and export expansion in order to deflate the real estate bubble that had been building since 2005. This bubble was partly caused by an RMB 4 trillion stimulus in 2008 that sent housing prices sharply higher, creating a market where demand and supply reinforced one another in a self-perpetuating boom and developers thrived.
Evergrande epitomised this; between 2009 and 2017, its market value rose eightfold, far outpacing the broader market — even though it became the world’s most indebted developer. After collecting more than RMB 970 billion in presales, Evergrande diverted cash into side ventures and rolled over liabilities at interest rates as high as 15 per cent, rather than finishing homes. When credit tightened in 2021, the model collapsed. Liabilities reached RMB 2.4 trillion, including approximately RMB 1 trillion tied up in unfinished projects, and profits had been overstated by RMB 92 billion. A Hong Kong court has ordered liquidation, leaving creditors nursing losses on approximately $45 billion of offshore debt — a stark illustration of how leverage and weak oversight can transform a boom into a systemic disaster. (Source)
Evergrande offers an uncomfortable parallel for US economic policy. According to IMF data, between 2015 and 2025, US GDP expanded by $12.3 trillion, while the total value of the US stock market increased by $43.9 trillion. (Source) Over the same period, federal debt increased by $19.6 trillion. Asset prices have outpaced underlying output by a wide margin, while public borrowing has grown faster than the economy itself. Federal debt is currently rising at a rate of almost $2 trillion a year, compared with average annual GDP growth of just over $1 trillion over the past decade.
One solution for the US would be to rely on European support to manage its mounting debt. Even if Europe transferred all of its $10.4 trillion growth from 2015 to 2025, this would barely cover the US deficit, let alone the interest and principal. Eurozone debt has risen from €9.3 trillion to €13.3 trillion over the past decade, consuming roughly half of its economic growth. (Source) Combined with US interest payments projected at $1–2 trillion by 2026, maintaining past stock market gains would result in significant currency devaluation and sustained annual inflation of over 10% in Western societies and economies over the next decade.
The alternative is unprecedented domestic growth. In order to close the gap, the US economy would require annual GDP growth of $4tn — over 10% each year. However, 44% of the S&P 500’s gains came from seven tech giants which are unlikely to grow at the required rate. (Source)
In the first week of February 2026, the share prices of major US technology companies plummeted after they announced plans to invest $660 billion (£560 billion) in artificial intelligence (AI) this year. Investors are concerned that the “breathtaking” capital expenditure is outpacing the earnings potential of the new technology, and big tech stocks sold off heavily after the companies unveiled plans to spend $660 billion (€560 billion) on artificial intelligence (AI) this year. Given that these tech giants are trading at price-to-earnings ratios of up to 30 times, these investments would only need to generate $22 billion in annual profits. This equates to an average annual sales revenue increase relative to GDP (corresponding to a gross margin exceeding 50%) of around $50 billion — far from sufficient to generate the trillion-dollar real economic benefits required to justify such valuations. In other words, the stock market bubble has allowed these leading US high-tech companies to treat money as disposable, chasing trends without hesitation. They no longer needed to be overly cautious or frugal when investing in risky, unsustainable projects with limited incremental growth for the real economy. (Source)
With the US government and its military-political apparatus dominating the European and American economies, achieving the level of aggregate growth and real output needed to support the federal debt and sustain stock market bubbles is virtually impossible. This leaves the US with only two options if it wishes to stabilise both public finances and asset valuations.
The first option involves encouraging nations like Japan to embrace militarism, in keeping with American foreign policy since before WWII. By stoking tensions between China and Japan over historical and emerging disputes, the aim would be to extract Asia’s wealth, similar to WW2 strategies used to exploit wealth from Britain and other European powers. Success, however, depends on two unpredictable factors: whether Beijing would actually attack Tokyo, and whether the U.S. could remain neutral in and stay out of such a potential nuclear conflict. For President Trump, facing midterm elections, this strategy is highly unlikely and offers no immediate fiscal relief.
This makes the second option even more attractive: securing access to additional natural resources for the US at minimal fiscal, economic, and military cost. Greenland, Venezuela and even Canada are all rich in natural resources. Greenland, in particular, is estimated to hold around 1.5 million tonnes of rare earth reserves, ranking eighth globally. It hosts major deposits at Kvanefjeld and Tanbreez. Prices for unprocessed rare earth ore are around $30,000 (£23,000) per tonne, while refined products can average $300,000 (£230,000) per tonne. Greenland’s untapped rare earth ore reserves are valued at an astonishing $4.5 trillion. Once mined and processed into finished goods, they could have an average market value of up to $45 trillion. This potential revenue stream would more than suffice in the short to medium term to alleviate the US government’s pressing debt crisis and stock market bubble, while offsetting its current annual deficit increase of $1–$2 trillion. (Source) It would also serve as a major boon for the midterm elections.
From 2015 to 2025, the US stock market increased in value by around $44 trillion, which is roughly equivalent to the $41 trillion increase in global GDP over the same period. Over the past four decades, Wall Street has been a key driver of globalisation, including China’s growth. According to IMF data, Beijing has almost doubled its per capita output, from $7,781 in 2014 to $13,303 in 2024. During this period, it has also deflated its real estate bubble and doubled its export surplus, from $562 billion in 2015 to $1.2 trillion in 2025. (Source) Beijing is well placed to continue leveraging domestic demand and export competitiveness to manage debt and real estate risks.
However, if Wall Street fails to prevent U.S.-China decoupling over the next decade, the dollar could depreciate by around 10% annually, even with financial exploitation from Europe or Japan. In order to safeguard dollar dominance and maintain Western economic leadership, integrating Greenland into the US economic sphere and developing its mineral resources — especially rare earths — has become a strategic imperative.