Europe is efficient at starting deep-tech, quantum, and defence companies, but it struggles when these firms need to scale up. The reliance on US funds has become systemic.
Iran’s blockade of Hormuz revealed a subtler chokepoint than the strait itself: the compliance architecture – insurance, clearing, sanctions exposure – that decides who can afford to move. For governments and shipowners alike, permission has replaced possession as the currency of maritime power.
The dollar still dominates global finance, but its once-assumed neutrality is beginning to erode as geopolitics reshapes access to the world’s financial infrastructure. Rather than abandoning the dollar, states are building safeguards against overdependence.
