The 97th weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) convened on April 11, in the midst of an increasingly turbulent world. Moderator Anastasia Battle began the meeting by noting that, after 97 weeks, there are regularly over 1,000 live attendees every week from around 55 countries, showing that the coalition truly represents an international process.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the IPC, then spoke. She said the world is experiencing another big shock with the imposition of United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and that this now threatens to collapse the entire economy. However, she noted, the tariffs are not the cause, but merely the trigger for a system which has been bankrupt for a long time, and she pointed to the Schiller Institute’s work over decades in this regard.

A new system is needed, Zepp-LaRouche emphasized, rather than simply putting a bandage over the problems. This includes addressing the underdevelopment of the Global South, something that can be done through directed credit and technology-intensive investment. She called attention to the recent Schiller Institute statement, “What Each and Every Nation Must Do Now: Wall Street Gave Us This Crisis; LaRouche Has the Solution,” and urged people to mobilize energetically and get this out everywhere.

Zepp-LaRouche also discussed the accelerating trade dispute with China, saying it is still an open question whether it will lead to negotiations or all-out trade war. She quoted a top Chinese scholar who said recently that while China has never thought of the United States as an enemy, China does have significant military strength and would no longer be defeated by the U.S.

Considering all the other war hysteria gripping the world—from the West’s actions in Ukraine, to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the danger of war with Iran, to increasing censorship in Europe—it’s clear that a new security and development architecture is needed that considers the interests of all.

Graham Fuller, former U.S. diplomat, CIA official, and Islamic scholar, spoke next. Fuller addressed the ongoing discussion around the threatened war with Iran: Will we have it, or will it end in negotiations? There is currently a massive buildup of U.S. forces in the Indian Ocean, which is more than powerful enough to be devastating, were that decision to be made, but is also convincing for its intimidation power.

Many argue that a U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is likely, citing as reasons that Iran’s allies Hezbollah and Hamas are weakened, that the U.S. Congress is impotent to stop it, and that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has dreamed about this for years and now has Trump wrapped around his finger. But at the same time, it must be acknowledged that the dynamic between Netanyahu and Trump is not so simple, and the fact is, if there were a war with Iran it would collapse the Ukraine negotiations—which Trump doesn’t want.

Will Diplomacy Win?

Fuller concluded by saying that he leans toward thinking that diplomacy will win out over war, and remains hopeful that the factors pushing against war are stronger than those pushing toward it.

Geoffrey Roberts, emeritus professor of history at University College Cork in Ireland and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, discussed the overall strategic basis for a relationship between the great powers today. This is the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Yalta conference of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, he began, adding that many people consider this crucial summit to have been dominated by the great powers asserting their “spheres of influence”—which helped to shape the Cold War. However, Yalta was more about great power unity, Roberts argued, and the intent was actually to create a new international security architecture that would lead to durable peace. The powers also expected all nations to benefit from it, though that potential collapsed when the Cold War began.

Roberts continued by saying that the important ingredient is political will: If the great powers intend to foster a durable peace, it can work. If they don’t, it will fail. The same is true today, he noted, and Trump’s recent efforts at détente with Russia show that such a unity is again possible. A durable peace today must be based on great power collaboration. This is why it’s so important that the Ukraine war come to an end and the Southwest Asia crisis be restrained, and why U.S.-Chinese differences must not turn into war—there is something more at stake than any of the individual conflicts. What’s at stake is the potential for a peaceful, stable world.

Next was a video statement from Daisuke Kotegawa, the former executive director for Japan of the International Monetary Fund. As a financial expert, Kotegawa stressed that today’s global economic instability stems from both the mismanagement of the financial system by Western authorities and the repeated use of double standards. He highlighted the attack on Japan following events in the 1980s, where certain “solutions” were imposed on Japan in the name of saving the financial system, even though these caused immense suffering in the real economy.

Later, when the 2008 financial collapse occurred, these same authorities broke their own rules and bailed out the system, speculators and all—the complete opposite of what was demanded of Japan. “Quantitative easing” (QE) began shortly thereafter, which was a method that Western institutions used to try to hide their insolvency. However, this didn’t work because the West had no manufacturing left, so the QE only inflated stock prices, with no boost to the real economy. Companies like BlackRock used this liquidity to increase acquisitions. Financial gambling also increased, causing a bigger discrepancy between rich and poor.

The Role of Youth on the Stage of History

Daniel Burke, a Schiller Institute activist, then gave a report on the Schiller Institute’s extensive youth outreach efforts in New York state and beyond. Their team has been on six or seven college campuses over the recent weeks in a push toward the May 25-26 Schiller Institute conference. Burke said their intention is to bring youth onto the stage of history: “We’re at a crucial stage of global transition. What will you do about it? Will you work to bring about an age of reason?”

Burke said they are posing fundamental questions to the students they are talking to, such as: “Is it the nature of man to live in harmony, or be in perpetual warfare?” Once you get people to consider questions at that level, then you can bring in the Schiller Institute’s concept of the World Land-Bridge, and how a new era would be possible if the Western world were to collaborate with the BRICS nations for mutual economic development around the world. Burke said the movement is committed to creating a vanguard of youth who can help to activate this potential in the country and change the dynamic today. Now is the time to contact everyone you know who is younger to get involved with us now, Burke added.

Zepp-LaRouche then spoke again, thanking the various participants for their contributions. She honed in on the remarks by Professor Roberts on the new security architecture and said that she thinks the world needs something better than Yalta or the Treaty of Vienna (which he had also referenced), which left the world still with various forms of oligarchical systems. We must consider what principles such a new architecture should be based on, including at the metaphysical level which establishes a basis in universal lawfulness—not merely someone’s opinion. Zepp-LaRouche referenced her Ten Principles in this regard. Professor Roberts agreed, adding that we need to create an institutional basis for this.

Co-moderator Dennis Small then spoke up and brought the discussion back to the pending financial crisis. He referenced a recent article in The Economist which admitted that the system had been on the brink of blowing out on Tuesday, April 8, as a result of Trump’s tariff-shock. If it had, the magazine wrote, then the Federal Reserve would have stepped in to issue billions of dollars or perhaps more in bailouts. This is precisely what the British want to do in inflating military budgets today.

So, we are on the edge, Small said, and any small triggers could bring the system down. Not because of Trump, but because the financial system is a tinderbox waiting to blow. This is exactly what LaRouche had forecast and warned of, he said, and exactly what Zepp-LaRouche’s Ten Principles addresses. The only solution is to put this system through bankruptcy reorganization and launch a physical economic recovery that includes large projects—particularly with an emphasis on increasing the physical productivity of nations around the world. This can also be the basis for new relations among nations.

Productivity vs. Militarization

During the discussion period, there was a question about whether Trump’s tariff policy is similar to the American System policies of Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, and if they will increase the productivity of the U.S. Small answered first, saying resolutely that tariffs are one element of the Hamiltonian American System, but only as part of an overriding intention to develop and encourage the increase in the productive powers of labor, while allowing the population to participate in the benefits of the increase of man’s power over nature. This also implies directed national credit for such a purpose. In addition, if Trump doesn’t address the $2 quadrillion bubble of financial derivatives that are dominating the system, then all the moves taken on the chessboard will be off.

Zepp-LaRouche also responded to this question by noting that although there is in fact a large amount of credit, it is going into an unprecedented military buildup. Trump is now pushing for a $1 trillion defense budget and a Space Force that will dominate space, but all this is completely unproductive and has nothing to do with Hamiltonian economics.

After some more discussion and questions from participants, Zepp-LaRouche concluded the meeting by encouraging participants to mobilize with the recent Schiller Institute statement and to get it to all levels of leadership. This can have a real impact if you act decisively, she said. If there are Easter peace marches where you are, these are important events to intersect. We are at a point where the hopes of humanity are hanging on the courage of individuals who step out of their ordinary lives and take responsibility for the future. That’s what the IPC is all about and what I’m asking you to do, Zepp-LaRouche said. We have to intervene into this situation with the knowledge that we do know what to do, which gives us a tremendous responsibility.