Our Financial 9/11 Was Prophesied!

He was right that a U.S. financial collapse would lead to European unity

Herbert W. Armstrong warned that a massive financial crisis centered in America would ripple across the whole world—and would spark the rise of the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire.

In light of recent events, that forecast truly is impressive and an undeniable testament to Mr. Armstrong’s matchless grasp of biblical prophecy.

The Proof

In 1968, Mr. Armstrong wrote a letter discussing the catastrophic economic conditions that would plague the United States and Britain in the end time. “If the dollar is devalued, inflation will almost surely result,” he wrote, “and eventual economic collapse for the United States” (co-worker letter, March 26, 1968; emphasis added throughout).

Referring to prophecies such as those in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, he continued: “Those of you who truly believe the prophecies of your Bible know such economic collapse is prophesied to happen! … We have shown how God prophesied a virtual trade war will get under way against the United States and Britain—and how our national [economies] will falter and then collapse!”

Over the next 16 years, Mr. Armstrong’s forecast became even more specific. In 1984, he wrote that a massive banking crisis in America “could suddenly result in triggering European nations to unite as a new world power larger than either the Soviet Union or the U.S. That, in turn, could bring on the Great Tribulation suddenly. And that will lead quickly into the Second Coming of Christ and end of this world as we know it” (co-worker letter, July 22, 1984).

In August of that year, he expounded on what would precipitate the nuclear catastrophe described in Matthew 24. “Now we’re hearing in the news of a soon-coming nuclear winter,” he wrote. “Nuclear explosions will produce an Earth-covering cloud that will give us a nuclear night. The sun will not get through. Crops will not grow. Billions will be killed by the nuclear blasts. Those remaining will starve. … [T]his is no wolf-wolf cry! It is prophesied in your Bible! It is real! And … economic crisis threatens to bring this about …” (co-worker letter, Aug. 23, 1984).

In autumn 2008, the first shock waves of that economic crisis struck.

America’s Financial 9/11

The days surrounding September 11, 2008, are now infamous. The image of many of America’s most prestigious financial institutions rapidly collapsing has been etched into the minds of the American populace. That disastrous week represented a turning point in U.S. financial power.

What remains is a gaping crater in the nation’s now-discredited economic core. America’s economy will never fully recover.

Subprime mortgage loans touched off a major recession in America that quickly went global. Millions of jobs were lost. Between 2008 and 2013, 460 banks failed in the U.S. alone. (Contrast that with the five years prior to 2008, during which only 10 banks failed). The U.S. government injected trillions of dollars into rescue packages and bailouts, further burdening an already debt-saturated economy.

In 2011, for the first time since World War ii, U.S. debt exceeded its gross domestic product. By October 2013, the country’s national debt surged past $17 trillion.

Note this accurate forecast from the September 1983 Plain Truth. After a G-7 summit, the author noted “how important confidence in America is to the stability of the entire Western world.” A crisis of confidence in America was bound to have dramatic global ramifications, it said—a forecast that has proved frightfully true. That article then made this additional, more specific point: “The lack of confidence in American leadership must ultimately lead to a parting of the ways between the United States and Western Europe ….”

The inevitability of this trans-Atlantic split is clear in biblical prophecy. Still, the insight to know that it would be precipitated by convulsions within the U.S. that would shatter global confidence is remarkable. The September 2008 economic calamity moved events toward the fulfillment of this prediction. It rocked America’s reputation, while in Europe it led to a very different series of events. It acted as a catalyst for Europe to unite itself and to begin stepping into the vacuum created by America’s crumbling financial system.

Europe Rises

Within 14 months of the events of September 2008, all 27 European Union members had ratified the Lisbon Treaty. By December 2009, the EU constitution had taken effect, moving the EU toward becoming an imperial power.

As you read earlier, this was exactly what Mr. Armstrong forecast would happen!

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück summed up European sentiment in October 2008 when he stated that “the origin and the center of gravity of the problem is clearly in the U.S.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed, both making it clear that they believed the global financial crisis was America’s fault. Pope Benedict xvi threw his voice behind the Europeans too. In a July 2009 encyclical, he joined the chorus calling for a new world financial order independent of the U.S.

Soon, Europe’s demands for tighter control over global finance gave rise to tangible actions. At the G-20 summit in November 2008, the world’s most powerful economies discussed the creation of international bodies for regulating global finance. Europe, which dominates the G-20, quickly emerged at the forefront of the movement to reform the world’s financial system.

A “new balance of power” is being worked out in Europe, reported independent news organization EurActiv. “France and Germany are openly challenging the rule of the City of London as Europe’s main financial hub, and are keen to see Paris or Frankfurt as powerful financial centers in a new, more regulated global system” (July 31, 2009).

By 2009, a sovereign debt crisis was emerging in Europe. Unlike the U.S. debt woes, the EU crisis seems to have been deliberately engineered within Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (emu). As Bernard Connolly explains in The Rotten Heart of Europe, the emu is a construct of German elites designed to benefit Germany’s export economy at the expense of the rest.

By 2011, Germany, the undisputed leader of the EU, had taken charge of managing the euro crisis. The Jesuit-educated son of Rome, Mario Draghi, assumed control of the world’s largest central bank, the European Central Bank (ecb), on November 1 of that year. By December 8, he had submitted to all EU leaders a fiscal pact for EU nations demanding that the ecb be handed full control of the mechanisms by which it would be implemented: the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the European Financial Stability Facility. EU leaders, except those in Britain, agreed to these demands.

The eurozone debt crisis is the catalyst dividing Europe into a “two-speed” Europe. The fiscal pact formalizes it, consolidating a minority of EU nations—the eurozone—into a fiscal union. Ultimately, the strongest Roman Catholic economies within the EU will break away from the rest, demanding that they yield to the power of the Rome-Berlin axis or be cut off from vital resources (Revelation 16-17). This is the next step toward refining the rising “United States of Europe” into a 10-nation imperial bloc as Herbert Armstrong prophesied in 1952: “But there will be a United States of Europe—a union of 10 nations” (Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast?).

Trade War

In the years between America’s financial 9/11 and the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, America’s national debt increased by more than $26 trillion, pushing its debt-to-gdp ratio up to 124 percent.

After President Trump announced tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners on April 2, 2025, investors began selling off longer-maturity U.S. treasuries in large quantities, sending yields higher and forcing President Trump to put a 90-day pause on many of his reciprocal tariffs. Soon after this happened, Silvia Merler, an Italian citizen who is the head of esg (Environmental, Social and Governance) and Policy Research at Algebris Investments, published a paper calling on the EU to “think strategically and seize the opportunity to fill the void created by Trump” (Bruegel, April 11, 2025).

“The abrupt U.S. turn to protectionism offers a chance to strengthen the international role of the euro as a global reserve currency and of euro assets as an appealing haven,” she wrote. “Europe has the motive, means and opportunity to do it. The question is if it also has the will. … Taken together, the strong equity sell-off coupled with the rise in U.S. treasury yields and the weakening of the dollar point to a previously unfathomable possibility that the unchallenged status enjoyed by U.S. risk-free assets within the global financial system might start to be questioned. In this scenario, the rest of the world may value diversification in safe assets.”

In short, Merler wants eurobonds to replace U.S. treasury bonds and is hoping that President Trump’s trade war will convince Germany to underwrite EU debt. So far Germany has refused to do this, but it may soon have little choice. As America’s debt grows larger and larger, Germany will take charge of defending Europe. Eurobonds may be the only way to raise enough money to remilitarize overnight.

America’s national debt has made the dollar a dangerous investment, so Europeans are now plotting to seize the global reserve currency for the euro. In time, this economic clash will lead to a hot war.

“Either we start raising high tariff barriers against other countries, starting a trade war which in time will trigger the nuclear war that will destroy us—or American workers are going to have to meet the competition of the workers in other countries, by lowering living standards,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in March 1971. “Obviously American workers are not going to choose to do the latter” (Plain Truth).

Americans are indeed raising high tariff barriers, but their national debt is too great for them to remain the world’s dominant economy for much longer. The balance of power is shifting to Europe.

How Could He Have Known?

Go back and reread the forecasts made by Mr. Armstrong about the unification of Europe, the rise of a European superpower, and the event that would set it all in motion. Remember: He made those statements when the Soviet empire dominated Eastern Europe and Germany was still cut in two. The European Union didn’t even exist until almost a decade later. Yet Mr. Armstrong clearly forecast the future of Europe, even explaining that financial crises would contribute to its rise as a superpower.

How could he have known?

Mr. Armstrong relied on what the Apostle Peter called the “more sure word of prophecy” (2 Peter 1:19). He had 100 percent faith in the Bible as God’s Word and that it was God’s mind in print. For more than 60 years he studied, meditated on and declared it as the definite Word of God. How was he so well informed about Europe specifically? He studied the prophecies such as those recorded in Daniel 2 and 7 and Revelation 13 and 17, which forecast these events.

Then, thankfully, Mr. Armstrong wrote down the truths God had revealed. For decades, he recorded them in articles and booklets, and he discussed them before tens of millions on his World Tomorrow television broadcast. He wanted to share the insight God gave him with the largest audience possible.

To learn more about the future of the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire, and what it means specifically for Britain, keep reading!