Jamie Dimon Wants a New Western Economic Alliance. He’s Calling for a ‘Big, Beautiful’ Deal With Europe.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is proposing an ambitious reset of the Western economic alliance, calling on the United States to offer Europe a sweeping free-trade agreement in exchange for major economic and military reforms.

"I never want to read a book with the title '2050: How the West Was Lost,'" Dimon wrote in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal. Instead, the JPMorgan chief laid out a broad blueprint for strengthening the Western alliance, beginning at home with faster U.S. economic growth and extending across the Atlantic with major European economic and defense reforms.

Dimon identified "three pillars" underpinning American global leadership: "maintaining the world's pre-eminent military," "remaining the world's pre-eminent economy," and "reinvigorating the American dream and American values." "If any one of them fails, it could doom the whole enterprise," he wrote.

The JPMorgan CEO also argued that the U.S. should "strive to grow 3% a year. If we had done this over the past 20 years or so, our gross domestic product per person would be $20,000 higher."

But much of his warning centered on Europe, describing the continent as "declining economically and militarily for decades," despite remaining America's largest trading and investment partner.

"But Europe relies on exports for nearly 60% of its energy, has a disjointed defense industrial base, faces a manufacturing threat from China, and has a tangle of rules that hamstring capital formation and technology innovation. If this continues, Europe will be in the dire position of failing to meet its military and social needs," Dimon wrote.

He called on European governments to accelerate reforms outlined in the 2024 reports led by former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta. Dimon said, "fewer than 16% of the reforms have been implemented, tipping Europe into the 'slow agony' of decline Mr. Draghi warned about."

Among the changes Dimon wants is completing the European Union's Capital Markets Union and Banking Union, which he said could "unlock investment for strategic industries, enhance stability and reduce fragmentation costs."

Dimon suggested the pact could eventually expand beyond Europe to include Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines, effectively creating a vast economic bloc of U.S.-aligned democracies.

Such an agreement, he argued, would be an economic and geopolitical "game changer," giving participating countries greater influence over global trade rules while binding Western allies more closely together in the face of pressure from authoritarian powers.

Dimon acknowledged that his proposal is a "long shot." Similar ambitions have failed before. He called for reviving both the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the U.S. abandoned in 2017, and the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between Washington and the European Union.

Underlying the proposal is a larger argument about America's relationship with its allies. Dimon said the traditional transatlantic bargain, in which the U.S. provided much of Europe's security while Europe broadly accepted American leadership, is being renegotiated.

Europe's weaknesses have fueled resentment in Washington, he argued, while tariffs and other U.S. policies have fueled hostility toward America in Europe, creating what he called a "vicious circle."

Breaking that cycle, Dimon said, could determine the West's economic and geopolitical position for generations. "A renewed commitment to American values and alliances coupled with bold reforms by Europe would be a geopolitical and economic home run," he wrote, "guaranteeing the Western world's strength for the next 250 years."