New Shocks, Old Vulnerabilities
Fecha: Mayo 2026
Funcas Intelligence, Mayo 2026
Sumario
The Iran war has shifted the early-2026 macro-financial debate from disinflation and rate cuts toward energy security, inflation risk and financial resilience. The Fed and the ECB have both responded with caution, keeping rates broadly unchanged, while markets absorb higher oil prices, disrupted energy flows and uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz.
Early loan failures (“cockroaches”) are likely signals of broader hidden stress in private credit, where high leverage—rather than the asset class itself— combined with opaque valuations and weak underwriting amplifies underlying vulnerabilities. The most likely outcome is not a systemic crisis but a gradual credit squeeze, as these risks surface slowly and constrain lending, weighing on growth over time, particularly in Europe.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump is unlikely to pull the United States out of NATO, as the war with Iran has underscored the limits of unilateral action, highlighting the continued importance of allied support. Paradoxically, the same conflict has materially increased the likelihood of retaliation, as segments of Trump’s support base that once defended NATO have grown more critical—particularly in response to European allies restricting U.S. access to military bases.
Europe’s move toward software-driven defense systems has raised long-term costs and deepened reliance on U.S. technology. Europe’s challenge is no longer the size of its defense budget, but in building domestic digital capacity and institutional structures that can turn software investment into tangible military power.
A surge in defense demand following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine collided with limited industrial capacity, driving inflation and preventing increased spending from translating into proportional gains in deployable power. Supply constraints, coupled with increased armament costs, have turned financial efforts into diminishing returns.
Europe has built one of the world’s most advanced regulatory frameworks for tokenized finance, but the real obstacles lie in entrenched financial infrastructures and the hidden systemic risks of digital liquidity. Tokenization could strengthen Europe’s capital markets, or trigger instability, depending on whether policymakers address fragmentation, information asymmetries, and the dangers of rapid adoption in illiquid asset classes.