Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief govt officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co speaks on September 25,2019 in New York, US.
Misha Friedman | Getty Images News | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is requested routinely the place he sees the best threats to the worldwide financial system — and to mankind usually. Speaking on a panel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the veteran financier pressured the gravity of the unfold of nuclear weapons, which he positioned forward of local weather change and different widely-referenced threats.
“I hear folks speaking about ESG on a regular basis,” Dimon mentioned Tuesday, referring to the environmental, social and governance issues and mandates for governments and firms.
“I simply would put in your desk the most serious thing facing mankind is nuclear proliferation. If we’re not sitting right here 100 years from now, it is going to be nuclear proliferation. It’s not our local weather.”
International our bodies and proliferation specialists warn that the hazard of nuclear weapons use is larger than it has been in many years, amid wars involving nuclear powers like Russia and the weakening of adherence to worldwide nuclear treaties.
“The danger of a nuclear weapon getting used is presently larger than at any time for the reason that depths of the Cold War,” the United Nations wrote in a statement in March 2023.
It mentioned that the Russia-Ukraine battle represents “the most acute instance of that danger,” and that “the absence of dialogue and the erosion of the disarmament and arms management structure, mixed with harmful rhetoric and veiled threats, are key drivers of this probably existential danger.”
Russia in the meantime is revoking its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace calls “one of many most consequential worldwide agreements for international safety.”
The CTBT, which was opened for signatures in 1996, prohibits “any nuclear weapon check explosion or some other nuclear explosion” anyplace on this planet. It was signed by 187 nations and ratified by 178, however can not formally come into pressure till 44 particular nations ratify it, together with China, the United States, North Korea, India, Israel and Iran. Still, no nation has carried out nuclear testing for the reason that CTBT opened for signatures, besides North Korea.
Iran, in the meantime, has for the previous few years ramped up its uranium enrichment to what the International Atomic Energy Agency says is an “alarming” degree, and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has vowed to develop nuclear weapons for his nation if Iran does, sparking fears of a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race.
Earlier in October, Dimon said in a statement that got here with JPMorgan’s earnings launch that “this can be the most harmful time the world has seen in many years.”
In addition to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Dimon cited — as he did once more in Riyadh — the surging nationwide debt and “the biggest peacetime fiscal deficits ever.”
“I’ve been usually an optimist,” Dimon mentioned on the panel, however added: “I feel you would be silly not to have a look at a few of these issues going down in the present day in Ukraine, the Middle East – clearly my coronary heart goes out for Ukraine, but in addition it is affecting oil, meals, meals costs, fuel costs, migration, potential hunger – it is most likely the most serious thing we have confronted.”